Kenzie in Kenya

My mom visited East Africa again (to teach a class at a seminary) and this time she brought my niece Kenzie with her! Kenzie's grandfather (on her dad's side) is one of the co-founders of the seminary. So, we had a mini (and oddly assembled) family reunion in Kitale, Kenya.

I don't know how normal it is for an 11-year-old, from America, who had never been out of the country, to do so well in a foreign country. But, I was very impressed with Kenzie's ability to jump into the local community. She was confident and independent. She got to ride on motorcycle taxis, quickly made lots of friends from the neighborhood, and she could engage with the many adults to whom she was introduced. 

After spending a couple of weeks at a seminary Kenzie was rewarded with a couple of fun days in Nairobi!

This included kissing a giraffe:

Successfully convincing me to kiss a giraffe:

And hanging out with orphaned elephants:

I am so grateful to God that he opened the doors and enabled Kenzie to have such an amazing and unique experience!

Keeping it Fun

I needed to meet with the Kwaya language committee to ask one question; whether or not they approve of the Kwaya orthography. Since that would be simple enough, I decided to add in some fun games and discussions that would use written Kwaya.

The committee members read a couple of passages from Acts. They then discussed those passages using some prompts such as "summarize what you just read outloud", "what was interesting to you in this passage?" and others.


The local languages here have so many traditional proverbs, so we also played a Pictionary type game with these. In teams of 2 they pulled a proverb out of a hat then they drew it.






The rest of the group then guessed which proverb they had drawn.





It was such fun seeing all the committee members enjoying their written language so much. AND, they gave me their approval for the orthography!

World Indoor Rowing Sprints

Long ago in a place, very different from the one in which I currently live, I used to row crew. It was a brief but truly enjoyable time during my university days.

This past weekend, I took part in the 2016 World Rowing Indoor Sprints...alongside a number of Tanzanians, who probably had never seen an erg before, but we happened to be a spectacle in the middle of THE field, near the center of Musoma, so why not join in?

My friend Mitchell brought his erg out to this field to see how many locals he could get to participate in the challenge. More than 20 people rowed 1000 meters over the course of the weekend!

Mitchell took the time to explain the technique for each person and showed them pictures of the type of rowing that this machine simulates.

I rowed 1000 meters in 4:27, which I felt was quite respectable considering how long it has been since I last rowed.

Is it hard to develop an orthography?

My primary focus at the office is to develop the orthography (writing system) of three different languages. That doesn't sound too difficult, right? You just write it the way it sounds.

I had no idea what I was getting into.

I had no idea that I would debate whether or not hyphens should be used in certain contexts. Or, how to word a rule that covers a theoretical situation for which we have no real world examples. Or, whether 'r' should be used rather than 'l'.

What causes these debates?

One of the major factors is speakers' perceptions. One person thinks that they are pronouncing an 'l' while another thinks that it is an 'r'... and it's the same word. So, do you write 'l' or 'r'? Thankfully that question is resolved for all the languages I work with!

The question I've been looking at recently in one language is whether two non-identical vowels can occur next to each other. For instance; is 'ei' ok or should it be written 'eyi', is 'ou' ok or is it 'owu'? Some speakers clearly hear a 'y' or a 'w' between two non-identical vowels, while others don't think that they are necessarily there.

If we are going to standardize an orthography for this language we must write a rule that clearly tells all speakers of this language how to write, regardless of personal perceptions.

Ok, I don't like to post without a picture...but, what picture can I really post to go with this? So, completely randomly, here is a picture of me with a koala!