One Verse at a Time

"How can you make that sentence a bit shorter and less confusing?" "Who is Abijah and how do we make that clear in your translation?" "What does it mean to return someone to God?" These are just a few examples of the many questions I asked the Ikoma translators as we began checking their translation draft of Luke 1 last Friday.

Before we began working together, I had looked at their translation and compared it to various Swahili and English versions and of course the original Greek as well. As I compared their translation, I wrote down any questions or issues that I saw, from sentences that weren't very clear to words that seemed to mean something different from the Greek. Since I am not fluent in Ikoma, the translators had translated Luke 1 back into Swahili, word for word so I could understand the Ikoma translation.

Then we sat down together and went over my questions, verse by verse, coming up with ways to solve the issues. Sometimes it meant changing a sentence around, or using a different word in the sentence. Sometimes it meant deciding to add a picture of the temple into the translation when it's published or adding another phrase to explain that Abijah was a person, not a place.

The work was slow and I thought it might be tedious but in truth it was one of the most fun times I've had at work! I loved helping make God's word more clear, more accurate and hopefully easier for people to understand. There was a sense of satisfaction when we wrestled through an issue. For example, how we can we translate the metaphor 'throne of David' in a language and culture that has no idea of what a throne is or what it represents? There weren't always easy solutions and we'll definitely be looking at some of these issues again, but it was so rewarding to know we had made a verse more clear and accurate.

God's hand was definitely on us that day. It wasn't my insight or wisdom or that of the translator's that caused us to see these issues and how to solve them, but it was God's. I know, because I was sick and tired and was not bursting with ideas. But as we got underway the ideas came, the Swahili words I needed were there and my energy level increased. The only explanation is God.

This is just one step of many to come before we will publish Luke 1 & 2 but it has been a very encouraging and fun step to be a part of.

Missionaries Don't Wear High Heels

I had a funny moment at work last week caused by my shoes. I was wearing a pair of white shoes that have a bit of a heel on them, maybe a couple of inches. I was walking past one of the translators and he stopped me to ask a question. "Are you going to fall?" he questioned me curiously. I just looked at him blankly, completely confused. He must have understood my look because he went on to explain that I was wearing heels and since westerners don't wear heels, only Tanzanians do, I must not know how to walk in heels. The logical conclusion was that I would probably fall since I couldn't walk in heels.

Of course this just made me even more confused, having no idea where his conclusions came from. I asked him why he thought Westerners didn't wear heels. He looked around at all the other Westerners in the room and said that he never saw them wearing heels, only sandals. Therefore it seemed obvious to him that Westerners in general don't wear high heels.

Suddenly it all made sense. His experience with Westerners has been mostly missionaries who often prefer to wear sandals due to the heat and dirt. It is a little more tricky to wear heels when walking on dirt roads and so we often gravitate towards sandals. However Tanzanian women love shoes with high heels and wear them quite often. I laughed and tried to explain to him that back home where I come from, lots of people wear high heels. He looked slightly skeptical and I'm not sure if he believed me.

As amusing at this incident was, it made me think about how easy it is to judge people based on only a little bit of information. From the example of a few missionaries this Tanzanian made some sweeping judgments about millions of people in the Western world. Yet I know I am guilty of doing this same thing. It's easy to see two or three people do something and then judge every Tanzanian to be the same way. Not all assumptions are bad or wrong, but too often they can hurt relationships or stop us from really getting to know people because we've already labeled them.

I was labeled as being unable to walk in high heels and although it was funny, it also wasn't exactly flattering to be considered incompetent in this area. I won't forget this example and I hope it will always remind me to be careful in my judgments and assumptions.

Stories, Stories and More Stories

Currently I'm in my second week of what we are calling a discourse workshop. Basically for each of the nine languages, we had people who speak those languages tell stories, record them, write them down and then we charted them. So for the language I'm working with, which is called Ngoreme, I studied these stories and then divided up them up into sections such as subject, object, verb etc. These stories also are translated into Swahili, word for word so that I can understand them as I don't speak Ngoreme.

Now because I have put specific parts of speech in specific columns in the chart, I can look at one column and see all the verbs or all the objects and this is helpful in many ways. For example, we wanted to see what type of verbs come before the climax of the story. We looked at the verb column and found that sometimes the same verb is repeated leading up to the climax of the story. Later we will take these things that we've learned and apply them to our translations.

It has been interesting to learn how Ngoreme stories work and what makes an Ngoreme story good. However beyond that, it has been really fun just to read these stories and see all the differences between them and some of the folk tales that I know.

One difference that really confused me was the relationship between girls and gourds. Gourds are the dried shell of a vegetable, similar to a squash that can be used for many different purposes, a common one being to hold water or another liquid (see the picture above for an example). In Ngoreme folk tales and some folk tales from other languages, girls often go in and out of gourds and hide in gourds when they are running away from someone. I just didn't understand this at all so one day I asked one of the translators to explain this to me. His answer was very enlightening. He said that the narrow spout of the gourd allowed the girl to get in and then she could sit in the fat part of the gourd. But her pursuers could not get her out, much the same way you can drop a stick in the gourd but then if the stick turned sideways, you could not retrieve it again. He also said she would be stuck in the gourd. Explained that way, the whole gourd phenomena made sense to me, especially since gourds are very common around here.

Orientation Week Again

My life seems to involve a never ending series of orientations. I was orientated to living cross-culturally, I was oriented to life in Tanzania, I was orientated to the cluster project here in Musoma and this week has been one more orientation. However this orientation is not for me but for the Tanzanian translators who were recently hired. It is their introduction to working with the cluster project as part of an international team.

Today was the fourth day of the orientation and it was my dream come true! We spent all day talking about our personalities! I absolutely love analyzing my own personality and those of everyone around me. We began yesterday by having the translators fill out the Keirsey Temperament test (similar to Myers-Briggs) and then spent today looking at the different personalities.

There were some challenges because the test and the results are in English so everything had to be translated into Swahili. And Swahili doesn't have all the same adjectives with all the different nuances so that proved to be quite difficult at times. However at the end of the day the translators had a pretty decent idea of what personality they and their teammates are.

Not only was it great fun to see what types of personalities emerged but it was helpful to know the personalities of the translators I will be working with. Fortunately two of them (who will be doing the Ngoreme translation) are exactly like me so at least I can know a little bit where they are coming from.

Although this week has been a new experience for all of us leading or helping with the orientation, it has gone well and been a good first step in building an international translation team.

A Little Privacy Please

I love living in my community with Tanzanian neighbors who are friendly and very helpful. It's nice not to feel unnoticed or isolated in this community orientated culture. However there are days like today when I wouldn't mind being a little less noticeable in the community.

I was sitting in my living room this room writing emails and letters, trying to catch up on everything, when suddenly I heard "hodi hodi mzungu!" and the sound of a bunch of kids laughing outside of my gate. They were basically saying "knock, knock white person" and asking to come in. Since there is an elementary school nearby I wasn't entirely shocked to hear kids but usually they only yell at me when they see me outside. Seeing as how I hadn't left my house yet I was a bit surprised that they were yelling. I ignored them and figured they would leave but I was wrong.

A couple minutes later I heard a loud commotion, a mix of kids yelling and laughing and the gate clanging. Suddenly I could hear them running right outside my window down the side of the house, which means they were inside the gate. Now I was frustrated. I'm trying to have a quiet morning and get some work done but I can't concentrate. Fortunately I have great neighbours and they chased the kids off. It doesn't help for me to try to do anything because seeing me only encourages them.

Unfortunately this isn't an isolated incident. Another day a while ago I was in my bathroom washing my hands when a neighbour girl heard me. There is maybe 3 feet between the wall of our bathroom and the wall of the neighbour's house. On top of that, the water from the sink runs outside instead of into a sewer system. This girl was standing outside and she heard the water so she started yelling "I love you mzungu!". She couldn't see me because I was quite a bit higher and the curtains were closed. But she knew that white people lived in that house and that someone was in the bathroom so she started yelling. It was slightly disconcerting to realize that I didn't even have complete privacy in my own bathroom.

So although there are days when I do wish for a bit more privacy, I like my house and my neighbours and am thankful God brought me here.

What Is Going On????

Every once in a while I find myself in the middle of a unique cultural situation where I wonder what in the world is going on. This last Saturday I landed in one of those.

I had gone over the Bible school where I taught a class last semester. I wanted to say hi to some friends who I hadn't seen since before Christmas. When I got out of the car I heard drums and wondered what was happening. Normally it is pretty quiet around the school and drums signaled something unusual. I had arrived with Hazel and Johnny (friends and colleagues) who also wanted to do some visiting so the three of us headed over to find out what was going on.

As we got closer we saw a group of students standing in front of their dorm and behind the dorm was a long line of people dancing and playing the drums. They were coming up the road through the Bible school. I asked someone what was going on and they said there was going to be a circumcision so the crowd was chasing the boy as part of the ritual. I could see now that the man leading the crowd had something tied around his head and the whole upper half of his body was painted in various colours. The group was moving fairly quickly although they were still a distance away.

I turned to talk to a friend and before I knew it, the group was heading in our direction. They had seen the white people which was an immediate attraction. I began to feel a bit uneasy, wondering what they were going do. I had never seen anything like this before and had no idea what would happen.

Suddenly I was surrounding by the crowd, my friends who I was talking to being forced into the background. The drums were loud, the crowd, mostly men around me, were dancing and the guy who was painted was directly in my face. I stood there, taking it all in, waiting for some cue to let me know what they expected from me. Sure enough it wasn't long in coming, "One thousand shillings will be good" they told me (about $1 CAD). Then I saw the money attached to the forehead of the painted man so I pulled out my wallet and handed over the money which they promptly added to the collection on his forehead. He was wearing some type of headband which they pinned the money to.

Having gotten what they wanted, the crowd took off in another direction. A bit dazed I turned to ask my friends (Tanzanian friends) what had just happened. They said this is a normal part of the circumcision ceremony. The crowd will go around collecting money from friends and neighbours in the morning and then will perform the circumcision in the afternoon. They said it is a bit different in each tribe and that this one is more aggressive than some of theirs that allow people to contribute as they want instead of demanding it.

We had an interesting discussion on circumcision after that and I enjoyed having another glimpse into the Tanzanian culture and seeing one of their traditions.

Christmas is Coming!

Spending Christmas in Tanzania this year, I thought I wouldn’t be tempted to listen to Christmas music so early or to put up Christmas decoratations since they aren’t available in any of the shops here. However I underestimated my internal clock and right around mid-October, the urge to listen to Christmas music kicked in like it does every year. And by mid-November I had pulled out the few Christmas decorations I brought with me. Thankfully my parents brought some more decorations when they came to visit, including a little Christmas tree!

Being away from all the trappings, the commercial side of Christmas and yet still being drawn to it has really caused me to think about what Christmas is to me. What part of Christmas don’t I have here in Tanzania? Well I don’t have the advertisements, malls that are decorated, anything remotely related to Santa and his reindeer, Christmas movies, snow, cold, Christmas cards, Christmas banquets, parties, Christmas concerts, pagents, or even turkey. Do I miss them? To some extent, yes I do. Many of those things bring to mind good memories with friends and family and were also reminders that Christmas was on its way. Perhaps they even became Christmas for me in some ways. Therefore now there are moments when it’s tempting to think that Christmas isn’t coming to Tanzania this year.

So what do I have left of Christmas? The best part, the birth of Christ. Without the stress of braving the crammed malls, going to many different Christmas parties and everything else that kept me busy, I can see Christ so much more clearly. When I pull my eyes away from everything I think I’m missing to what I have, the birth of Christ looms clearly. We are celebrating him. He is the reason I am in Tanzania and now I get the chance to celebrate his birth. Everything else begins to pale in comparison.

I can still have some of my fun traditions and ways of celebrating. I have some decorations and Christmas music. I can bake Christmas cookies and give gifts. I have a great group of friends I will be celebrating with. But this year those things won’t rule my Christmas. This year they will be on the sideline as my focus remains firmly fixed on Jesus Christ.