Down to the river

Growing up close to the Mississippi, rivers have always been special to me. So it is nice to once again live in a city on a river -- this time, the Oubangui River (henceforth to be referred to as "the river," in the same way a true Minnesotan would talk about "the lake.")

Last Sunday, we took an afternoon outing and found a beautiful little playground overlooking the river. Here are a couple photos...John with the river behind him...and a couple men traveling down the river by boat...

Cat, Fish and Giant Bug

We have definitely come across some interesting little animals since being here. Today, walking through the doorway into the center, I realized the ground was alive with tiny little hopping things! They were miniature frogs, about the size of crickets.

The other day, we found this large bug on the porch. He was moving along quite slowly and so we were able to take some pictures of him.

Our neighbor's cat has basically taken up residence with us since our neighbor is out of town for a couple of weeks. "Lucythecat," as John calls her, has taken quite a liking to us and I think it is mutual. John learned the important lesson of letting the cat smell your hand to know that you are okay before you try petting her.

A less lively animal I got to experience last Friday was a large carp. Our Sango teacher Marie-Claire brought over two fresh (but dead) fish: another fun cooking lesson experience she wanted me to have! So, following her example, I did my first whole fish preparation, including scale removal. It was actually interesting and kind of fun, to my surprise. I would have expected to be really grossed out by the whole thing, but I decided to just overcome my gag reflex and enjoy learning. I now feel more confident that if someone handed me a whole fish, I could make something tastey out of it.

You Know You're A Nerd When...

Maybe the thousands of dollars used towards paying tuition on an advanced degree in linguistics was not a complete waste. J

 

The linguistic discovery itself is not the indicator of the nerdy-ness…just the unparalleled joy of the discovery.

So…here it is

 

A nominalization morpheme in Sango!

 

Now, I most certainly did not “discover” it in some “no-linguist-has-ever-noticed-this-before-kind-of-thing” discovery.  But it was the kind of discovery that would be that kind if I was working here several decades before and it was done through principles that I learned in school!  Yeah!

 

Well, anyways…here it be…

 

You take a verb in Sango like ga which means “to come”

And

You add the morpheme “ngo” at the end of it and it makes the verb a noun so gango is translated something like “the coming”.

That is not too interesting as in English we use “the coming”  like “The coming of Jesus is at hand. Etc.”

 

But they also do this with the verb te meaning “to eat” so tengo means something like “the eating”

So, Tengo ayeke nzoni  is literally translated “The eating was good.”

But in English we do not say it that way.  Although “The eating was good.” Kind of makes sense, it sounds more like a caveman talking.  The translation just is not natural.  The word-for-word translation just does not work. You must translate meaning-for-meaning.  We would say something like, “It was a pleasant dining experience.” or something like that.

 

So I went through every verb I knew and added the ngo morpheme to see whether or not this was used on these particular verbs and each time our language helper said,  “Yes, we use that a lot.”  And many times the verbs are like the example above of “the eating” where it would be impossible to translate it from Sango into English word-for-word. 

 

Neat, huh?

four good hours

Tomorrow is Tuesday, and I am looking forward to it, especially because we get to have a lesson with our Sango teacher!

For four wonderful hours each week*, one hour each on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, we get to learn Sango with Marie-Claire. She is truly a blessing to Adam and me. We look forward to her arrival these weekday mornings. We know that the time we spend doing our "Sango language sessions" with her will be started off with prayer, and filled with heart-felt conversations, discussions of culture, explorations of language, and like-minded fellowship.

We couldn't ask for more in a language helper. Here is Marie-Claire holding a picture of her family; this particular day, she taught me how to talk about family in Sango:


And here is "Ata" (the Sango word for Grandparent, which she likes John and Sam to think of her as) with Sam. He has warmed up to her over the weeks, and now, when he sees her walking towards the house, he gets very excited!

* We each have our lessons separately, one hour per day for each of us, so that one of us can watch John and Sam while the other is learning Sango.

Why We Do What We Do.

Sango language learning is fun.

I have never learned an African language before and there are little things in the language that are much different than Latin based languages like French or English.

One of the most interesting little features of Sango to me so far is the “heart” phrases.  It seems that any description of any emotion is embedded in a phrase saying something like “My heart is happy” Be ti mbi anzere” or as we say in English “I am happy”.  Although it is technically possible to say “I am happy” (Mbi yeke anzere) it is just not the way people say it.  You say “My heart is happy.” Your heart is always this or that depending on your present emotional state.  You get the point.

 

So, today I was looking up a word in our little Sango/English/French dictionary and I came upon the word for fire (wa).  It had a subentry under the verb saying that “be it lo za wa” literally translated “[his] heart shines/burns like a fire” which means in English “He is furious”.  “My heart is burning” in Sango means “I am red-faced furious.”  So, I immediately stored that somewhere in the recesses of the (ever filling) foreign language section of my grey matter to later retrieve when needed. 

 

But I immediately thought of the passage in Luke 24 when after Jesus appeared to two of his disciples on their way to Emmaus after His resurrection.  Those disciples were sad and discouraged thinking that Jesus was the Messiah and would triumphantly set up his kingdom in Jerusalem and reign.  But they were very disappointed when Jesus was crucified.  Jesus began explaining to them from the Old Testament no doubt that the triumphant Son/King/Messiah of Psalm 2 would also be the suffering Servant of Isaiah 53 whose body would not see corruption and be raised from the dead.  At this time they did not recognize Jesus but at the end of their day Jesus sat down at with them broke bread and gave thanks.  At that very moment they finally realized that it was Jesus and then Jesus disappeared. 

After these incredible events the two disciples said to themselves, “Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened to us the Scriptures?” That is to say in Greek our hearts were happy.  A burning heart in Greek means a happy heart, a burning heart in Sango…well….

 

I immediately laughed and thought, I wonder how the older Bible translation of Sango translated this verse.  Hopefully, they didn’t do a literal/word-for-word translation of that passage!

You see, although there are more than 62 languages here, Sango is a trade language and was the first language in CAR to have the Bible translated in it.  There are two translations of Sango here in CAR.  One is the old version that doesn’t have the best reputation (at least among certain folk) for being a quality translation.  However, it has been around for a long time and churches here seem to exalt this translation in the same way like some people exalt the KJV in the states.  In the sort of way that is like, “It doesn’t matter if I don’t understand a lot of the old language or phrases in my King James, it is the way God has preserved his word in English and I’m going to read it whether or not I need a dictionary to understand basic words in the text.” CAVEAT:  Of course, the KJV was done very well, and I know that many people who hold an “only KJV” view have much more sophisticated arguments than that.  But, of course, I have met many people whose KJV arguments are basically summed up in the previous quote. END OF CAVEAT

 

And there is a new translation in modern Sango where the translators where trained in exegesis and translation principles by (ahem ahem) a Wycliffe translation consultant (the very one who actually will be my mentor who I will be apprenticed under when he arrives from Switzerland next month.)

 

I compared the two translations of Luke 24:32 that says “Didn’t our hearts burn within us when he explained the scriptures?” and the two translations were very different.

 

The Old translated “Word-for-Word”

Lo yeke fa na ani tene ti Mbeti ti Nzapa. Be ti ani ayeke tonga na wa pepe?

[Literally translated]  [when] he showed to us the Scriptures, Weren’t our hearts like a fire?  (but the word translated to the English ‘our’ is also archaic and is only used in churchy language. The word that means ‘our’ or ‘we’ is ‘e’ in modern Sango)

[A good English translation]  “Weren’t we furious when He was explaining the Scriptures to us?”

 

The New translated “Meaning-for-Meaning”

Lo yeke fa nga na e nda ti tene ti Mbeti ti Nzapa so, Be ti e anzere fade mingi pepe?

[Literally translated] [when] he showed us the meaning of the Scriptures. Weren’t our hearts very happy?

[A good English translation]  “Weren’t we glad when He was explaining the Scriptures to us?”

 

So,  the old translation communicates something very different than the new translation.  By the way, the new got the original meaning from the Greek right, the old got it wrong.

With laughter and sadness I’m imagining 50 years of pastors trying to explain why these disciples were angry when Jesus was explaining the Scriptures to them in their sermons on this text.  Can you imagine how they would apply those verses to the congregations everyday lives?

 

Anyways, this is why we are here.  We are here to train mother tongue translators how to first correctly understand the meaning of the Biblical text (exegesis) so that they can translate the meaning from the original languages in a way that has the same meaning in their language (translation principles).

 

What a great and wonderful thing when the Bible is translated well, and what a sad and sometimes confusing, and sometimes dangerous thing it is when it is done wrong. 

Lord help us all in this glad and sober work.

Pure Pineapple Proof

More Providential evidence that Ruth and I were meant to be. We found out yesterday that Ruth didn't like the cake in pineapple upside-down cake but liked the pineapple, and I always liked the cake and not the pineapple. So after discovering this, Ruth spontaneously composed this brief verse in the tradition of Jack Sprat.

Adam could eat no pineapple.

Ruth could eat no cake.

And so betwixt the both of them,

What a great couple they make.

Making Cottage Cheese

You are not going to believe how easy it is to make cottage cheese, unless you've already tried it before. I continue to be amazed at the wonders of powdered milk and the things you can make from it. The Wycliffe cookbook (my respect for which is growing all the time) told me I could make cottage cheese from powdered milk, and since I haven't made a lasagna since getting to Africa, I decided it was time to try (note: I have made lasagna without cottage cheese before, but it is not the same).

John, my usual designated stirrer, whisked together the powdered milk and water. I brought it to simmering on the stovetop, then added a little bit of vinegar and stirred. I was so amazed when the milk suddenly transformed into chunks of cottage cheese! The recipe said it would work like that, but still, I was so surprised at how well it worked.


I finished it off by pouring it over a tea towel to drain it, and then stirring in a little yogurt and salt to make it creamy. It looks and tastes just like cottage cheese should. Maybe even a little better!

I guess if you can just buy cottage cheese at the store, there may be no reason to go to this trouble. But in case you are ever stuck at home during a blizzard, and have all the ingredients for lasagna other than cottage cheese (and if you have some powdered milk on hand), then you can look up this recipe and can still make lasagna without having to leave your house.


Here is the recipe...

Cottage Cheese (yields 2 cups)

Ingredients:
~ 3 cups milk powder
~ 6 cups water
~ vinegar (or lemon or lime juice)
~ salt (optional)
~ yogurt (optional)

Instructions: Whisk together milk powder and water and bring to a simmer. Pour in a little bit of vinegar and stir; the milk should curdle. Remove from heat. Pour the cottage cheese over a colander lined with a tea towel or cheese cloth, and drain. Stir a little yogurt and salt into the cottage cheese to reach desired consistency.