Found in Translation: 2011

8.29.2011

Trip to Ikizu-land

Since moving to Musoma I have had the opportunity of going on three village trips.

One of the projects we are working on in the Literacy department is a calendar for the language communities that we are currently working with. These calendars have the days of the week, month names in both the Swahili and the local language. These calendars also have a scripture verse as well as captions to pictures in the local language. For some of the languages it was quite difficult to find the original names for months and weekdays, but we have them now.

For one of the languages, while preparing the calendars for 2011 the names couldn't be found, so that calendar was not done. After the calendars were printed and being distributed, a man from that language community arrived at the office, upset that his language didn't have a calendar. He proceeded to provide the month names and weekdays in his language to ensure that the next year, they too would have a calendar...and this year, thanks to him, they do. We are now in the process of printing calendars in 9 of the local languages we are working in.

Each of the calendars features pictures taken in the area where that particular language is spoken. The pictures were chosen by speakers of that language, with the idea of representing their culture and/or their land. For three of the calendars, I got to play photographer! The first trip I took was to Zanaki-land and many of their pictures were featured in my post I am in Musoma! The pictures featured today, are from Ikizu-land.


One of the very cool experiences I had there was that I got to witness half a day of a workshop for the Scripture Use department. This was the classroom, before about 20 local pastors and language committee members arrived.

One of the Ikizu translators, Rukia, gave a little sermon in Ikizu, then in Ikizu taught several local pastors and language committee members to read Ikizu. An interesting observation was that while Rukia was speaking Ikizu, the students, not accustomed to hearing their mother tongue in a school setting kept responding in Swahili. Through the course of the day they slowly became a little more comfortable with it, and started responding in Ikizu as well.

Small books were then passed out and each of the students got to read some scripture in their mother tongue. It was thrilling hearing a language I couldn't understand being read out loud. For most, if not all this was their first experience in reading their mother tongue.

Each person had the opportunity of reading in Ikizu, starting with a transition primer, aimed at bridging the gap between Swahili and Ikizu. After studying the primer, they got to read scripture and then another short story in Ikizu. Rukia, and one other person at the workshop had experience with reading or writing Ikizu. The one other person was a young man who had been to the Musoma office a couple times to help the Literacy department develop literature in the local language. After listening to all the new readers finish their portion, the young man with some experience stood up and finished the story. It was amazing hearing him read. His reading ability was quite high, considering that less than a year before he had never read in Ikizu. It was encouraging to the others that if they continue to read and learn, it can become easier for them as well to read Ikizu.


This was the road we took into Ikizu-land for the workshop. I don't know if this picture was used in the calendar, but I like pictures of roads. I thought I would put this up to show a bit of the beauty of the Ikizu region.

So, tune in next time for some pictures of my other trips to villages!!

6.20.2011

I AM IN MUSOMA!!!

I have now been in Musoma for one week. Today is my fifth day in the office...and my first day helping in a literacy workshop. Writers from the language groups Kiikoma and Kiikizu have arrived. The writers are working on writing stories in their languages, and I get to help teach them! On Wednesday, I am leading a section of the workshop on sentence length and paragraph breaks...in Swahili. This may be an example of “those who can’t do...teach”, but I am praying that God will help me through that lesson, both to loosen my tongue to speak Swahili well, and to help me be a good teacher.

One of the purposes of this workshop is to help develop literature in the cluster languages, this week being Kiikoma and Kiikizu. Considering how difficult it is to read and understand the Bible, even in your native tongue, it is highly important to have some simpler literature that can act as stepping stones to reading the Bible, hence these workshops.

In other work, I am reading about the linguistic features of the cluster languages so that I am aware of potential difficulties I may come across. I am also going to start reading about the language Kikwaya because, that is the first language that I will be working with!! We are trying to finalize the orthography (alphabet) for the Kikwaya language, and problems have been encountered. My job will be to help develop a working orthography for the Wakwaya (speakers of Kikwaya). As time goes on and I become more at home here, other languages will likely be added to my plate.

I am going to try and be more informative about my life here in Musoma and will try and post more short blog entries, with more pictures! Here are a couple from a trip I took last week to the land of the Wazanaki. We are helping put together calendars with the months, and days of the weeks written in the indigenous languages of the area. This way these words are preserved and speakers of these languages can see their language written, and get used to reading it, instead of having to wait for the entire New Testament to be finished. Here are some of the pictures we took...