Check out Rachel’s post on Cameroonian use of car horns.
In other horn news: For those of you on the Israel trip, Roberta finally got her Shofar. She didn’t feel right about buying one in Israel, but someone at a Bible study back home offered her one out of the blue, much nicer than theo ones she saw over there. Now she can sit outside and play away.
Here at local churches, there is a saying: “Offering time is blessing time”. In Bamenda last week the entire class was so excited about the new translation and checking tools, that we couldn’t easily get them to leave the classroom for coffee break, lunch, or dinner. You know I’m not a coffee-drinker, but I tried to convince them that they’d have more energy and refreshment if they would take a little break. Thus: “Coffee time is blessing time”.
We worked with 6 teams at the Bamenda Regional Office:
Aghem, Awing, Babanki, Bum (It’s pronounced boom, stop laughing), Mbembe, and Pinyin.
The teams were all at different points in the translation of the Bible into their languages…from nearly an entire New Testament to just a few books.
We introduced a battery of new tools for checking the consistency of their typing and translation. One of the tools is a statistical spell-checker that does the Word-style red squiggly lines, and even offers suggestions. As they spell-checked their language they could see the consistency climb. For example, I worked with one team for about 20 minutes and we corrected well over 1000 minor errors in the text.
It was only my second course here taught in English, and while it is easier, I think Cameroonians generally understand my French better than my English. Camerooninan English is it’s own dialect, similar to Ebonics (or as Megan would correct me, African American Vernacular English). It’s not hard to understand, but I don’t spend enough time in the English-speaking area to work on speaking it. To make matters more complex, there is a regional language used throughout a large portion of Cameroon called Cameroonian Pidgin, which is a combination of English and Portuguese, and is often miked with French and the local language. It’s like Gullah and Old English in the way that if you sound it out, one can usually follow it even if the turn of phrase is unusual.
Here’s an excerpt from the Pidgin New Testament, which is called “Gud News fo Ol Pipul” (which means all people, not just old people.) Take a crack at reading it.
| Jesus e giv chop fo plenti-plenti pipul. (Mark 6:41-44) | chop: food |
| 41 Den Jesus e teik de faif bred an de tu fish an e luk fo heven, an he tank god. E bruk de bred an e giv-am fo yi lanboi dem fo divaid-am fo de pipul. Den e divid de fish tuu fo ol de pipul. | pipul: people |
| 42 Ol dem bin chop an dem fulop. | fulop: fill up |
| 43 Den de lanboi dem pik de haf haf chop weh e bin remein fo de bred an de fish, dem fulop-am fo twef basket dem. | lanboi: followers |
| 44 De man pikin dem weh dem bin chop da bred dem bi faif tasen. | chop: eat tasen: thousand |
Our class: Bamenda Paratext 2011
I opened Google today, and it told me happy first day of summer, then a little while later, it was telling me happy first day of winter. Turns out I was accessing Google through the USA at first, then through Africa. Of course, the only season here now is wet. So…happy summer/winter solstice or for those of us around the equator, Happy Squishy day!
Since my arrival in Bamenda, we’ve had very little time at the guest house with water, power, or internet. Yesterday, we were excited by the appearance of water and power. Water + power = hot shower goodness and we were fighting for the opportunity to partake.
Now, there are 3 of us sitting here on the couches of the guest house enjoying the flicker of Internet, and we didn’t even realize that the water has gone out.
In other news, I know I’m dense, but did any of you ever pay enough attention to know that “The Sign” by Ace of Base was a breakup song? I’m guilty of listening to songs without processing the lyrics, and I never thought about what the sign was.
I, I got a new life.
You would hardly recognize me I’m so glad
How could a person like me care for you?
(Why?) Why do I bother
When you’re not the one for me
Ooooo, is enough, enough?
I saw the sign and it opened up my mind!
And I am happy now living without you
I’ve left you, oh-oh-OH!
I saw the sign and it opened up my eyes I saw the sign
No one’s gonna drag you up to get into the light where you belong
On that note, so is “Don’t Turn Around”, but not nearly as optimistic.
Kevin and I are prepping for a Paratext course in Bamenda next week. This will be my second course to lead at the Bamenda office, but I will be glad to have Kevin along this time. This course will be a week long, and should have about twice as many participants as the last. It will be in English, so will be easier than last time we taught this material, though maybe not quite as much fun since I always enjoy challenging myself in French. Maybe I’ll get to have some adventures with Chris’s family again.
I’m sure there are tons of things you want to hear about, so I’m working on a long-overdue newsletter.
