Images

Think of the words "stable" and "manger." What comes to your
mind? A softly lit, golden scene with clean straw, quiet animals
and a holy hush? A Christmas card image? The ceramic creche
that sits on your mantelpiece?

Not for the Oroko. The phrase used in the new translation to
explain 'manger' and 'stable' was this: 'uma wa balisekele melo
ote libembe.' In other words: 'place where they feed sheep
inside an animal pen.' This brought incredulous responses when
it was read aloud in the Christmas Eve and Christmas morning
services.

"Why was Jesus born there? Was he a goat or a man?"

"Why would Jesus be born in such a dirty place? How could that
happen?"

"I like the fact that Jesus was born in a goat house. It means
we don't have to be ashamed to live in thatch houses."

Point being... they get it better than I do. A stable is no
place for a king to be born. A dirty goat house, in a tiny
insignificant village, in a weak territory conquered by Rome, in
the middle of the hubbub and chaos of a forced census. The
Chosen One, the Messiah King, the Son of God to be born there?
Preposterous! How insulting! That's, well, almost vulgar.

Yes. It is. It should shock us. But even that is still only a
picture and a reminder of the real shocker: that God should
choose to become man... that the Creator should become the
created... that the Word should be made flesh and dwell among us.
"Veiled in flesh the Godhead see..."

Merry seventh day of Christmas!

Ah... Christmas memories...

In honour of those who remember and will laugh with me:

I am rather thankful that this Christmas season, I am not having
the additional experience of finals week. I prefer to spread my
stress like I spread my peanut butter: perhaps a little too thick
at times, but at least evenly. Or, perhaps, leave it off
altogether. Finals just before Christmas means that everyone in
one's immediate vicinity goes temporarily and gleefully insane.

It also means that both Christmas decorations and Christmas
presents may consist largely of red, white, and green underwear.

Or that a single lime, accompanied by screeches of hysterical
laughter, may become a flying air freshener for an hour or so.

Or that a poem about a dead kitty may become a sacred tradition
held in the highest hilarity.

Or that one may choose to spend a night wide awake in flowing
costume and red plush seats, leaving only one hour of sleep
before a final in physics.

...on second thought... I kinda miss it.

Merry sixth day of Christmas!

When Christmas baking...

"Rule no. 29 for cooking in Cameroon: Always include some kind
of small, black, crunchy spice to camouflage the weevils."

-Lisa

Merry fifth day of Christmas!

A sonnet for Christmas

Christmas

George Herbert

All after pleasures as I rid one day
My horse and I, both tir'd, bodie and minde,
With full crie of affections, quite astray,
I took up in the next inne I could finde.

There when I came, whom found I but my deare,
My dearest Lord, expecting till the grief
Of pleasures brought me to Him, readie there
To be all passengers' most sweet relief.

O Thou, Whose glorious yet contracted light,
Wrapt in Night's mantle, stole into a manger,
Since my dark soul and brutish, is Thy right,
To man, of all beasts, be not Thou a stranger;

Furnish and deck my soul, that Thou mayst have
A better lodging than a rack or grave.

Merry fourth day of Christmas!

The smoke from your ears gets in my eyes.

In honour of Jessica, with fond memories of dignified
conversations about 'pepe.' (For the uninitiated: that's 'hot
pepper' in pidgin. One of the most, um, noticeable things about
Oroko food.)

I owe the title of this post to a brilliant burst of inspiration
during one of said conversations. I think I'll save it for a
truly dizzying comeback, if anyone ever asks me why there are
tears running down my face as I eat.

Don't you think pepe juice would make a great Christmas present?
First of all, it's red. Very seasonal. Secondly, one always
wants to give memorable gifts. What could be more memorable than
a dose of pepe on your scrambled eggs Christmas morning? The
kids would have fond memories of your enthusiastic response for
the rest of their lives. Thirdly, you would feel like a
Christmas candle. Not only could you get smoke to come out your
ears... your whole head could feel like it was on fire. And of
course we are all supposed to want to be like a beautiful
Christmas candle.

Merry third day of Christmas!

I'm dreaming of... Connecticut

Oh, somewhere in this wide, wide world the snow is falling light,
Sleds are flying somewhere, and somewhere roofs are white.
And somewhere frost is patterned, and noses red with cold;
But there is no snow in Bekondo-- mighty Winter has no hold.

Merry second day of Christmas!

Merry Christmas!

A Christmas Carol

In the bleak mid-winter
Frosty wind made moan,
Earth stood hard as iron,
Water like a stone;
Snow had fallen, snow on snow,
Snow on snow,
In the bleak mid-winter
Long ago.

Our God, Heaven cannot hold Him,
Nor earth sustain;
Heaven and earth shall flee away
When He comes to reign:
In the bleak mid-winter
A stable-place sufficed
The Lord God Almighty
Jesus Christ.

Enough for Him, whom cherubim
Worship night and day,
A breastful of milk
And a mangerful of hay;
Enough for Him, whom angels
Fall down before,
The ox and ass and camel
Which adore.

Angels and archangels
May have gathered there,
Cherubim and seraphim
Thronged the air;
But only His mother
In her maiden bliss
Worshipped the Beloved
With a kiss.

What can I give Him,
Poor as I am?
If I were a shepherd
I would bring a lamb,
If I were a Wise Man
I would do my part, -
Yet what I can I give Him,
Give my heart.

-Christina Rossetti

Merry first day of Christmas!

(If you're noticing a lot of Christina Rossetti's poetry on my
blog recently-- you're observant. :-) I missed that semester of
Torrey and so I am just now discovering this treasure-trove.
Enjoy!)

an Announcement

This January promises to be very hot... and methinks I have
caught the Benedick.

We may chance have some odd quirks and remnants of wit
broken on us, because we railed so long against it... but shall
quips and sentences and these paper bullets of the brain awe us
from the career of our humour?

No! The world must be peopled!

On December 13, not two hours before my twenty-fourth birthday...
under the light of the almost-full equatorial moon, waxing to its
brightest in 18 years... on the seashore of the west coast of
Africa, watching the moonlight reflect off the whitecaps... my
Benedick and my beloved asked me to be his wife, and I said yes!

Now, for those of you who are hankering for a story. --Some
details, of course, are classified information and will not be
divulged; mais c'est la vie, n'est pas? We'll try and tell this
together...

Sharon: I was utterly and totally convinced that Jim could not
possibly propose during his month in Cameroon. I had several
perfectly sound reasons, which I kept repeating to myself over
and over to squelch hope (all of which turned out to be
irrelevant, of course)... the best comment I received on this
process was "Wow. So you reasoned yourself into an illogical
belief. That's funny, Sharon. You usually don't err on the side
of practicality."

The rest of the world was equally convinced that it would be the
most natural thing in the world for Jim to propose this December,
at which tendency I was exceedingly vexed.

Jim: Well, of course this is something I've been praying about
for three years now... but more intently in the past six or seven
months. So I made sure to check with my parents and my spiritual
counselors to make sure I wasn't completely off my rocker.
(Note: Sharon's reasons were all the ones I thought of too!)

So I finally checked with her father, the night before I left on
the plane to Cameroon. (Note: I was sick as a dog the whole week
before, or I would have asked sooner! Really!) I was planning
on proposing at Christmas; however, it just seemed like we found
our moment...

Sharon: Jim arrived in Cameroon on December 12, and by the next
day we were back at the seashore in Kribi where Dan, Lisa,
Rachel, and I were just finishing up our vacation. That evening
I mentioned the brightness of the moon, and Jim offered to
"steal" me for a while so we could take a walk on the beach. We
wandered along the shore and found a seat on an old driftwood
log, bleached almost white, and talked and talked and talked.
(Even when you have email, there are many, many things to be said
after a six-months' absence...)

Jim: "Talked and talked and talked"? I felt like I couldn't get
a word out, I was so nervous! But that was okay, because Sharon
picked up the slack. So I sat there, and prayed and prayed and
prayed in my head till I finally thought to myself, "When are you
going to get a better chance than now?"

Sharon: I was sitting on the sand by his knee when he suddenly
burst out with the declaration, "I spoke with your father before
I left." I'm sure my eyes were as round as dinner plates, and
quite as large! It sure sounded like the beginning of a
proposal... but that wasn't even supposed to be a possibility...

Jim: Her eyes WERE quite as round as dinner plates, and almost
as large! Of course, now I had to think about how to get down on
one knee, because she was already sitting on the ground. In a
split second I decided it would spoil the moment, so I stayed
seated rather than attempt engagement gymnastics... I was a
little worried, though, because it didn't look like she was
breathing.

Sharon: I don't remember whether I breathed or not... but I did
manage to say yes, so I must have had at least a little bit of
breath...!

For those of you who would really like answers to the practical
questions (practicality? what's that?): :-) we are looking at
the possibility of a September 2006 wedding, but haven't set a
date yet. There are a lot of factors involved, so that's still
pretty tentative (but we'd love an autumn wedding, God willing!).
I will return to the States in late May, and Jim will graduate
with his MA around the same time, so we'll be able to make more
concrete plans around then.

Rejoice with us!

P.S. I hope that I managed to email all the people I needed to
email before I posted this. If I accidentally left you out,
please forgive me... and chalk it up to the fact that I am
totally and completely twitterpated, not to mention an ocean and
a continent away...

Vacation

We are going on vacation. We are going to the beach. We are not
checking or sending email.

I think this will be restful. (After I get over the withdrawal
symptoms.) :-)

Farewell for ten days or so... but by the time I return to my
blog, I will be able to say something Exciting.

December 14

I found this singularly appropriate... (pretend with me that it's
on the correct day... internet access is tricky right now)

A Birthday

Christina Rossetti

My heart is like a singing bird
Whose nest is in a watered shoot;
My heart is like an apple-tree
Whose boughs are bent with thickset fruit;
My heart is like a rainbow shell
That paddles in a halcyon sea;
My heart is gladder than all these
Because my love is come to me.

Raise me a dais of silk and down;
Hang it with vair and purple dyes;
Carve it in doves and pomegranates,
And peacocks with a hundred eyes;
Work it in gold and silver grapes,
In leaves and silver fleurs-de-lys;
Because the birthday of my life
Is come, my love is come to me.

Sound effects

Is it bad if you turn on the computer and it emits a loud beep,
followed by a louder frying noise and then gentle chirps like
birdsong?

At least this is "Rachel's computer" (an old, discarded laptop
that hasn't quite died yet) rather than the dictionary
computer...

Generational gap

Dan was doing a puzzle with Rachel from her kids' devotional
book. The puzzle was about synonyms for "victor."

Trying to help her think of the word "champion," Dan crooned a
few notes. "We are the..."

Rachel looked up with great interest. "Pirates who don't do
anything!!"

Friends in high places

Remember a while back, when I was royally frustrated because
someone had been telling the Bekondo youth that it was
"uncivilised" to sing in "country talk" [see "A Rare
Parrot-Teacher," c. 17 Oct.]?

Well, since then, not much has been happening with the youth
choir. The Friesens and I have been travelling quite a bit, so I
haven't been attending the meetings, and one of the leaders
(Hans) got a job helping with the national census, so he hasn't
been around either. The thrice-a-week meetings just kind of
petered out, as cocoa harvest season came into full swing and
everyone got busy.

However, I suspect the discouragement of their peers had a good
deal to do with their lack of motivation, as well.

But Dan and Lisa returned this weekend from the Oroko Language
Development Committee meeting, and the Kumba Field Bible
Conference, with two pieces of encouraging news.

The first is that the chief of Ekondo Titi, a city southwest of
us, leads a vernacular choir that has made several recordings.
This is no mean status for a choir to have (!), and no one can
accuse Chief Esoh of being anywhere near uncivilised.

The second is that Rev. Njongi, who is the "field pastor" for
Kumba and the surrounding area, was decrying the lack of Oroko
choirs at the Bible Conference. He noted that the people who
have moved to Kumba from the North West Province still sing in
their own language-- but the Oroko people were all singing in
English. So at a Bible Conference in a primarily Oroko area, all
of the vernacular singing was in Kom! He urged the Oroko
churches to start singing in their own vernacular.

So, if Chief Esoh thinks it's a good idea... and Rev. Njongi
thinks it's a good idea... then the word from people with Status
(and yes, that word should be capitalised in Africa) is that
singing in "country talk" is quite civilised. Thanks be to God
for this move towards understanding in worship!

Spread the word... but not at McDonalds

Several months ago, Lisa and I were sitting in a restaurant in
Kumba with three members of the Review Committee. It's about
average in Cameroon for the food to take an hour or an hour and a
half in coming. So, as we were sitting and waiting, we very
naturally turned to the nearest source of amusement.

Our place mats.

I can't remember what was on those particular place mats,
actually, except something about a picture of a tomato. Perhaps
we discussed the differences between British and American English
as a result. However, the subsequent conversation that ensued
between Lisa and me was more memorable. It went something like
this.

"People really spend a lot of time staring at their place mats--
or other things in the restaurants-- here. I wonder, what if we
printed our own place mats and donated them to restaurants in
Kumba..."

"Cool! Like with the Oroko alphabet on them?"

"Yeah. Maybe the alphabet around the edge or something, and then
a story-- or even better, a verse from the translation-- for them
to practice reading, in the middle."

"Talk about a captive audience!"

So...

This Friday, Dan and Lisa are presenting our hare-brained idea,
born out of a chance conversation that never would have happened
in a fast-food restaurant, to the Literacy Committee. They will
also have a possible design printed out for them to peruse. And
within the next month, we are expecting to have one or two
hundred printed and laminated.

This just goes to show that unavoidable delay is the mother of
effective advertising.

P.S. It's now Monday, and Dan and Lisa have returned from the
meeting. Everyone was VERY excited about the place mat idea, and
it looks like they will not only be distributed in Kumba, but
also in Ekondo Titi and Mundemba!

Waiting for the Coming

Advent

Earth grown old, yet still so green,
Deep beneath her crust of cold
Nurses fire unfelt, unseen:
Earth grown old.

We who live are quickly told:
Millions more lie hid between
Inner swathings of her fold.

When will fire break up her screen?
When will life burst through her mould?
Earth, earth, earth, thy cold is keen,
Earth grown old.

-Christina Rossetti

Showers of blessings

Of course, while Dan and Lisa were away this weekend, the water
went out. We filled up three buckets with very dirty water from
the pump before it died, and then tried to make that last for
three days. It's dry season, so we can't count on rainwater at
all.

Well, last night the water in our filter was starting to run out.
We have filtered water stored for cases like this, so no fear of
dehydration, but the water for washing hands, washing dishes,
flushing the toilet, etc., was also getting very low.

So this morning I woke up to wind and dark, lowering clouds. It
rained for almost an hour, giving us a window of time to fill up
our buckets, and then stopped in time to let the roads dry out
for Dan and Lisa to travel home today.

Then Manfred came by the house (on Sunday morning, when he
doesn't need to be here!) with a bucket of stream water, cleaned
our filter for us, and refilled the entire five-gallon bucket so
it could start filtering our drinking water again.

We are so blessed!

Perspectives III

An anonymous muser:

"In the U.S., you don't have rafters in the middle of the room to
hang kids from. You have to hang them in doorways where they
clutter up the space."

Nope, you have to figure out your own context. It's more fun
that way.

Disclaimer: No children, goats, rafters, or doorways were harmed
in the making of this blog post.

Perspectives II

We went grocery shopping in Douala, on our way back to the
village, at a "Western-style" store called Leader Price.

Most of our shopping is done either at our local market or in
Kumba (the closest town to Bekondo). This particular trip was
mainly to get things that we can't get anywhere else. Some
American junk food for vacation... things like that.

Leader Price was huge. For one thing, the shelves were higher
than my head. For another, they had about five kinds of
everything. And there were actually about seven aisles, at
least. I was slightly bewildered.

Oh. Wait...

Perspectives I

I must say, learning another language has taught me how to be
more positive.

Unfortunately, this doesn't necessarily refer to my attitude
about events. Only to my questions.

Let me illustrate. If you asked the following question and got
the following answer, what would you assume?

"You aren't going to church today?"
"Yes."

In Oroko, this answer means, "Yes, you are correct." (The person
isn't going to church.) In American English, the same meaning
would be conveyed by a simple "No"-- i.e. "No, I'm not going."

When "yes" and "no" can mean the same thing, I think the study of
language is at its most confusing. Maybe the safest thing is not
to allow those pesky inherent assumptions to hide in my questions
anymore.

Christina Rossetti, on goodbyes

Parting after parting,
Sore loss and gnawing pain:
Meeting grows half a sorrow
Because of parting again.
When shall the day break
That these things shall not be?
When shall new earth be ours
Without a sea,
And time that is not time
But eternity?
To meet, worth living for,
Worth dying for, to meet;
To meet, worth parting for,
Bitter forgot in sweet:
To meet, worth parting before,
Never to part more.

Syncretism

Libations are poured to the ancestors and spirits at the
dedication of a new church building.

A Christian family goes to a diviner to find out who put a curse
on them and how to get rid of it, and then praises God for
revealing the information.

The elites at a cultural gathering pray to God to guide the cola
nuts as they are thrown to ask the ancestors' advice.

Syncretism is rampant here, and it's so obvious to those of us
who are cultural 'outsiders.' But I highly doubt whether it's
obvious to people within the culture. Which makes me wonder what
syncretism looks like in my own culture, and where I am guilty of
it.

Syncretism, I think, could be boiled down to something like this:
an acceptance of Christian facts and terminology, without a basic
change in worldview. God as Creator, the historical facts of
Jesus' life, and the plan of salvation may all be acknowledged,
but the basic patterns of dealing with life's problems don't
change. When push comes to shove, trust is still placed in the
old ways-- "just to make sure."

So what happens, in this equation, if you replace animistic
belief with scientific naturalism or materialism? Where do we,
as Westerners and North Americans, trust our cultural beliefs
more than we trust God?

I guess maybe what I'm getting at is this: as exciting as it is
to find "cultural bridges" and "redemptive analogies," which
prove that the gospel is relevant and alive for every culture...
there are, also, always elements of the gospel which will be
radically counter-cultural. A view of the gospel which ignores
those will be syncretism.

Michael Card puts it expressively:

Along the path of life there lies a stubborn Scandalon,
And all who come this way must be offended.
To some he is the barrier; to others he's the way,
For all should know the scandal of believing.

Surreal

While studying my Hebrew textbook yesterday, I came across a
to-do list from three years ago.

Apparently I was stressed during Hebrew class, and thought that
writing down all the things I needed to do would help me
concentrate better.

Finding to-do lists from a vanished phase of one's life has
something of a time-warp feel about it... I feel like I should
tiptoe around and see if the ghosts from the past recognise me.

A prayer for Scripture Use

The collect for this past week struck me as especially
appropriate. May it be the prayer of my heart... for myself and
those around me, for the Oroko, and for the people I don't even
know yet, whom God will allow me to serve in the future.

Blessed Lord, who caused all holy Scriptures to be written for
our learning: Grant us so to hear them, read, mark, learn, and
inwardly digest them, that we may embrace and ever hold fast the
blessed hope of everlasting life, which you have given us in our
Savior Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy
Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Equatorial moonlight

Last night, the moon was full. I could see individual blades of
grass by moonlight. It was brighter, if possible, than early
morning light, though without the touches of rose or gold. Only
a silent silver light, outlined in black; steady, but with a
transparence that makes it look as if it might flicker any
moment.

Pardon my taking Much Ado out of context... but I can't help
thinking that African moonlight makes LA moonlight look "pale...
with anger, with sickness, or with hunger, my lord, but not with
love."

The next full moon is on my birthday. I think I know why that
is.

Words that are fun to say

[In honour of Nat, Elisheva, and Peter, and their spectacular
performance at the Fine Arts Faire. I wish I could have seen
it!!]

Every language needs a list like this. Something like "plethora,
hullabaloo, macadamia, gazebo, Eskimo."

So here's the beginning of my Oroko list.

likpekuluku 'Adam's apple'

ikolokolo 'butterfly'

lisekuseku 'hiccoughs'

bokekeboke 'woodpecker'

ofokondimbisekele 'you will cause it to be returned to me'

Guest author

Hi, my name is Brendan. I like to laugh. Have you ever noticed
how funny everything is? Fingers are funny. Plastic frogs are
funny. Kitties are funny. Bouncing is funny. Tongues are
really, really funny. People who smile at me are the funniest of
all. Sharon is funny. Sometimes I'm not sure whether she makes
faces to amuse herself or amuse me, but I just think it's
hilarious. She has an especially funny tongue. It just keeps
getting longer and longer and longer, and then I just have to
laugh. She thinks it's funny when I laugh, and then I laugh when
she laughs, because it's funny to see people laugh.

If everything is this funny when I've only been in the world for
six months, I can't wait to find out how funny it is when you're
grown up.

Africa and Beowulf

[Content warning: this is one of those "you're a weird linguist
who finds the oddest things amusing" post. It's aimed mostly at
those who also find linguistic oddities amusing...]

I've been reading Tolkien with Rachel lately, and savouring his
rich, rolling alliterative poetry.

Then something occurred to me.

Alliterative poetry would be a lot easier to write in a Bantu
language.

Consider these examples: (I've discovered that the Oroko font
doesn't work on my blog, so this is using the English alphabet)

bana babe bani ba baloli balaka
'these two good children are eating'

meleka mebe meni ma meloli melaka
'these two good youths are eating'

lokolokolo lobe loni la lololi lolaka
'these two good butterflies are eating'

I knew noun classes had to be useful for something. If only
Tolkien had studied in Africa...

Analysis

Boggle is an utterly different game when played with linguists.

You hear things like the following:

"Well, '-er' is a productive morpheme. Of course that word won't
be in the dictionary."

"That may once have been an abbreviation, but now it's a frozen
form that's been lexicalised."

"Do ______ words count?" [insert French, Hebrew, Italian, Latin,
Greek, Russian, or Oroko]

"I know too many languages. I can't remember how to spell my
own. I'm sure I did know how to spell that word once upon a
time..."

"If this were an Oroko game, you'd need lots more vowels."

And the following:

"Hey... I wonder what the relative frequency of each letter is."
"No! No more analysis! It's eleven o'clock!!"
"Let's see... one C... one J..."
"Good night, Dan."
"I'll let you know the results before you go to bed so you won't
lose any sleep over it."
"Um... thanks."

Scholarly objection

As a student of historical linguistics, I would like to cordially
express frustration with elementary language arts textbooks which
teach modern English punctuation rules and then expect students
to apply them to King James English.

Thank you.

Creative ways around roadblocks

When you're trying to communicate, and you don't know all the
words you want to use, there are often detours available. Less
efficient, certainly, but much more effective than saying
nothing.

Lisa laughed at me the other day during Rachel's Mbonge lesson,
when I couldn't remember the Mbonge word for 'shoe,' so I said
'thing of foot.' But-- she did understand me.

However, my second attempt that day didn't work so well. The
verb 'dig' was eluding me, so I said (I thought) 'He is causing
the dirt to move.' Lisa gave me an odd look.

"Well," I said in English, "he is causing the dirt to move, isn't
he?"

"Yes," she replied, "but he isn't causing it to WALK!"

Oops.

Deep thoughts

"Life's life. It'll take care of itself." -Dan

"I'm not a kiddo. I'm a lizard." -Rachel

"Context is the only thing that matters." -Dan
"Can I quote you on that, out of context?" -me

Amazing

I want to be like Auntie Grace.

I met her at the missionaries' Friday night Bible study in
Bamenda. A tiny, frail-looking woman, perhaps in her seventies
or eighties, with trembling hands, a slightly quavering voice,
and an incredible story.

As a child, she dreamed of caring for orphans. Instead of
"house," she and her sisters played "orphanage." As a young
single woman, she went into one of the only professions open to
her: teaching. But she never stopped wanting to care for the
helpless. She shared her home with a mentally handicapped friend
who had previously been sent to a nursing home, and later, with
her mother who needed full-time care.

When her mother died, she sold her home and moved to Africa. She
was in Central African Republic for four years, and has been in
Cameroon for four more. She is finally realising her dream of
opening an orphanage and widows' home. She has an orphaned
Cameroonian "son" who not only shares her home, but also helps to
care for her. And she is ambivalent about her chances of
returning to North America.

"I have nothing left there. That house provided the money for my
orphans and widows to have a house. I tell people that my travel
plans for returning to North America are all made. But I'm
leaving them in the hands of the best travel agent in the world,
and He hasn't chosen to tell me whether I'm returning vertically
or horizontally.

"But I can tell you"-- and here her voice gains just a little bit
of volume-- "I would so much rather be here than watching TV in a
nursing home!!"

A story of Grace... in so many ways.

November 1

In honour of All Saints' Day.

"Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of
witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight
that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily hinders our
progress. And let us run with endurance the race that God has
set before us. We do this by keeping our eyes on Jesus, on whom
our faith depends from start to finish." (Hebrews 12:1-2, NLT)

"Almighty God, you have knit together your elect in one communion
and fellowship in the mystical body of your Son Christ our Lord:
Give us grace so to follow your blessed saints in all virtuous
and godly living, that we may come to those ineffable joys that
you have prepared for those who truly love you; through Jesus
Christ our Lord, who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and
reigns, one God, in glory everlasting. Amen."
(Book of Common Prayer)

"I sing a song of the saints of God,
Patient and brave and true,
Who toiled and fought and lived and died
For the Lord they loved and knew.
And one was a doctor, and one was a queen,
And one was a shepherdess on the green:
They were all of them saints of God - and I mean,
God helping, to be one too.

"They loved their Lord so dear, so dear,
And his love made them strong;
And they followed the right, for Jesus' sake,
The whole of their good lives long.
And one was a soldier, and one was a priest,
And one was slain by a fierce wild beast:
And there's not any reason - no, not the least -
Why I shouldn't be one too.

"They lived not only in ages past,
There are hundreds of thousands still,
The world is bright with the joyous saints
Who love to do Jesus' will.
You can meet them in school, or in lanes, or at sea,
In church, or in trains, or in shops, or at tea;
For the saints of God are just folk like me,
And I mean to be one too."
(Lesbia Scott, 1929)

This was not Alcott

I read a book in Bamenda. I'm not going to reveal its name,
because I very much doubt whether anyone else will be able to
find it in print, and I also doubt whether my description of it
will make anyone else want to read it.

It's not always advisable to pick up library books just because
they look like old and quaint novels of the Louisa May Alcott
variety, and are losing their binding.

But it can certainly be amusing. I plowed through pages of
flowery description, dramatic statements of concealed emotion,
cumbersome similes, stereotyped characters (the newspaper-woman
who wears heavy man's shoes and tires her eyes out, the
boardinghouse cook who can't, the prying and curious but
well-meaning servant who reads yellow novels, the white-haired
old lady with "the face of perpetual youth," etc...), drawn-out
hints about mysterious candles in windows and trunks in attics
and yellowed, crumbling letters tied up with ribbon...

And then: the conclusion of the book was that it is better to
live and die in a beautiful fantasy than to know the painful
truth.

This does make me wonder. In a hundred years... what will the
"fluff" novel of today (even the "Christian fluff novel") look
like to our descendants? What will be the distinguishing
characteristics of prose at the turn of the 20th century?
Without the elements that make great literature, what "flavour"
will be left of our books? What will make people laugh and say,
"Oh, this is SO late 20th century (early 21st century)! Just
listen to this passage!"?

Any ideas?

Taxi-bumper philosophy

Taxis here have personality. Not only are they all dilapidated
in very distinctive and individual ways, they almost all have
slogans painted on the back bumper. I have seen everything from
"The Truth shall set you Free" to "Don't blame the man" to
"Paternoster" to "Smokey" (the latter being quite obviously
appropriate).

Yesterday I found a new gem: "Life is Expensive. Don't
Complicate."

Is this a deep philosophical statement about the value of human
life and the wisdom of guarding it? Or does it mean that the
driver charges more for his services and expects his passengers
not to complain?

I guess I'll never know.

Burned

I have an alkaline burn on my chin.

No, Rachel and I have not been performing dangerous chemistry
experiments. Nor have I been attempting medical procedures far
beyond my skill. Nor am I moonlighting in a chemical plant.

No, I was merely (and innocently) sleeping. I didn't even wake
up when (presumably) the red-and-black striped insect wandered
from my blanket onto my chin, although the evidence suggests that
I brushed him off (and perhaps smeared him in the process).

However, I did notice the raw, red trail and the small blister
the next morning. I didn't even know creechie bugs existed. Now
I do.

I want my mosquito net back.

How to eat water fufu

This post is in the great moose nose tradition, in honour of
Steve and Betsy.

Most of the time, I love Cameroonian food. Occasionally the pepe
makes my eyes water and my nose run and my mouth burn, but it
almost always tastes great. Water fufu is just about the only
Cameroonian food I find difficult to stomach.

It is made from fermented cassava (manioc), pounded into a
rubbery, sticky, stretchy sort of playdough-like substance. The
fermentation gives it a bitter-vinegary taste which Americans
tend to find unpalatable, especially when cold. Stuck to the
inside of your teeth, it's even worse.

But there is a secret to eating it. It's called okra soup. The
slippery texture of okra, cooked with various other ingredients
but mainly oil, makes it quite easy to slide small balls of the
water fufu down your throat without ever tasting it or letting it
stick to your teeth. It is even possible to look pleasant while
doing so.

Now I feel like I have something to say if someone ever asks me
to give facetious advice to graduating Intercultural Studies
majors.

More on stories

Where do we first learn that hard work pays off and you should
plan ahead? From "how-to" books? No! From the Three Little
Pigs! Where do we learn that property is private? From
political philosophers? Try the Three Bears. How about the fact
that virtue is worth more than money and social status? The
Brothers Grimm and their (fur, glass, or gold) slipper, long
before Aristotle or Boethius.

And we remember these things, not in our heads, but in that
visceral place where we often can't even put it into words.

Furthermore, you tell me. Is it preferable to hear someone read
these folktales, or to hear someone tell them?

I grew up with an expert in Chronological Bible Storying, though
I didn't know it. The fact that Bible stories ought to be told,
not merely read, is almost pre-logical for me... my father told
us Bible stories, from Genesis onward, every night until I was
about eleven. We must have gone through the Bible three or four
times. I remember my mother once asking me what was different
when my dad taught Sunday School rather than other adults. I
looked up at her. "He spends the whole time telling stories!"
We loved it. I still remember the bitter taste of the day when
my older sister and I were told that "Bible story" would
primarily be for the younger kids now, and that (due to schedule
constraints) it wouldn't necessarily be a priority for us to hear
it every night.

Despite my tears that day, however-- by that time, the stories
were part of us. And they have remained part of us. This is why
I am convinced that storytelling will never be a completely lost
art, even in a "superliterate" culture. There is something in
orality that cannot be entirely replaced.

Someday, I hope, my kids will reap the "oral" harvest that my
parents sowed. May my great-great-grandchildren reap it, too.

Dragonflies and toads

Having internet access in Bamenda for two weeks is wonderful. So
wonderful, in fact, that last night I was still up when the
dragonflies attacked.

There had been one or two fluttering around the fluorescent light
ever since it had gotten dark. It started raining, but since I
was under a sheltered porch area, I didn't pay much attention.

All of a sudden, there were about forty dragonflies. They
dive-bombed my keyboard, inspected my hair thoroughly, fluttered
around the hem of my skirt, and invaded my personal space in no
uncertain terms. This was THEIR lighted area away from the rain,
and they were there to stay. Any and all furniture (including
me) was now fair game.

That's when I saw the small, dark, businesslike figure hopping
leisurely toward the light. And another. They proceeded slowly
but surely to begin what looked like an inexhaustible feast.

However, I can't say the toads demolished the steadily-growing
mob of dragonflies. I can't even say they curtailed its growth.
Even my scientific curiosity about how many dragonflies two toads
can eat was eclipsed by the convenient recollection that I really
ought to be going to bed.

CBS

As Westerners and North Americans, we live in an
ultra-super-literate culture. Those intensifiers may not mean
much to you, unless you've lived in a culture where literacy is
just not a skill needed for everyday functioning... but take my
word for it.

So in the absence of the printed word, how do cultural values and
important truths get transmitted?

Through oral storytelling.

This is one reason that some printed translations have been less
than effective-- despite the years of dedicated work that went
into them. In a predominantly "oral" culture-- even one where
people have been taught how to read their language-- it may be a
completely foreign concept to simply read a story to yourself.
(Even St. Augustine of Hippo struggled to understand why his
teacher would want to read silently-- and Augustine was VERY
educated in reading and writing, in more than one language!)

This is why I am so excited about the two-week conference that
the Friesens are attending. Chronological Bible Storying (or
CBS) is an approach to Scripture through oral culture-- using
"storytellers" who memorise the key points of Bible stories,
understand the links that hold them together chronologically, and
retell them in a culturally appropriate forum in their own
language, teaching others who can then also pass the stories on.

This isn't a replacement for translation. But it is a way to
introduce the stories of the Bible-- and thus a Biblical
worldview-- in a fashion that actually communicates. And it
reproduces itself within the structure of the culture.

Five songs

What can you do when you've been tagged by, not one, but TWO good
friends? :-)

Instructions: List five songs that you are currently enjoying. It
doesn't matter what genre they are from, whether they have words,
or even if they're any good, but they must be songs you're really
enjoying right now.

Post these instructions, the artist and the song in your blog
along with your five songs. Then tag five other people to see
what they're listening to.

1) "Song of Beren and Luthien" - the Tolkien Ensemble, from the
album "An Evening in Rivendell"

A wistful, lyrical setting of Tolkien's lay. This whole album is
one of my all-time favourite CDs-- a group of top-notch Danish
musicians setting Tolkien's poetry to music. The music on their
four albums ranges from rustic, rousing hobbit-tunes to ethereal
elven music to layered choral settings of the Rohirrim's
alliterative verse.

2) "Worthy Is the Lamb" - George Frederick Handel

Actually, I'm enjoying the whole Messiah. But the finale-- and
especially the fugal "amens" at the end-- are sublime. I
remember Sandy telling us in choir that the fugue is the musical
form best suited to represent eternity...

3) "So Many Books..." - Michael Card, from his "best of" album
"Joy in the Journey"

I'm discovering that I really like Michael Card's music. He
combines earnest, thoughtful lyrics-- sometimes even poetry, as
opposed to just rhyming lines-- with varied and often haunting
melodies. This song is one that often reminds me why it is that
I'm really here, even if I'm 'only' entering ANOTHER twenty words
into the dictionary.

4) "Goober Peas" - folk song of the Civil War

This is for Rachel's history curriculum, and it's a fun song. I
like a history curriculum that includes learning popular songs of
the era. (And "goober peas" is just plain fun to say.)

5) "Yesu Ijo Bo Besusu"

Does it count if the song you're listening to is not recorded?
:-) I think this is my favourite Mbonge translated hymn so far:
"Jesus Knows It All." (I just discovered that when I tried
earlier to post it on my site, the font was less than
satisfactory, but maybe I'll find a way to remedy that.)

I'm going to tag gypsy_child and loriella_of_lonteiriel, because
I'm sure they need a break about now. I'm also going to tag
assylem_reject_2, theres_a_raven_above_my_door, and zandrabeano,
because I haven't heard from them in a while. (They'll have to
copy and paste their posts to me, though, because Xanga doesn't
send nice text-messages like blogspot.) :-)

A rare parrot-teacher

When you copy a language you are only partially familiar with,
over and over, there are bound to be copying errors. Consider
the following fragments from hymns:

"It pays to serve Jesus, I speak from my heart
He'll always be with us if we do our parks
There is nothing this wide world can pleasure afar
There's peace and contentment in serving the Lord.
I love him far better than in days of woe,
I'll serve him more truly than ever before..."

"Sometimes the shadows gather, admit obscure the way..."

"Sometimes the way is dreamy, we seem to walk alone,
Forgetting that the Father keeps watch above His own,
How many needless souls the faithless have to bear,
That he still loves His children and will answer prayer."

It's only natural to replace unknown words with words you know,
even if the resulting line is nonsensical. And because singing
without understanding is normal here, and learning by rote is
general practice, the mistakes just get passed on and increased
from person to person as each one copies the song from his
neighbour and teaches it to someone else.

As a native English speaker, and one conversant with the style
and vocabulary of 19th century hymns, I can often make a fairly
good guess at the original words. But even these corrections do
very little good, except to make the result easier on my own
native-language sensibilities. The word was unfamiliar in the
first place, which was why it got mistaken for something else.
And you can only explain so many unfamiliar words before people
get impatient. After all, the goal of singing English hymns is
to be civilised, not to understand the words. Even the national
anthem of Cameroon is written in archaic English.

Add to that the fact that apparently someone has been telling the
youth here that if you only sing church songs in "country talk,"
you're uncivilised. Great. So understanding is uncouth and
backwards, while rote parroting is prestigious and "developed."

As a side note, I have heard homeschoolers in the 'States decry
the lack of memorisation in American schools today. But
memorisation can be used as an impediment to understanding as
well as an aid.

Universals

I watched as one of the young men casually leaped up to slap his
palms against the rafters of the church on his way out.

It looked oddly familiar. I've seen exactly the same careless
gesture in various youth groups from Kentucky to California.
Door frames, rafters, stairwell ceilings, anything solid enough
to be whacked and low enough to be within jumping distance.

It's somehow comforting to think that high-school- and
college-age guys all over the world jump up to slap their palms
against things.

Snapshots

Distinct flavours of places... impressions... the keepers of
memory...

the scent of orange blossoms
endless geometrical patterns in the grapevines
glimpses of snow-capped Sierras, rare enough to be treasured
sunrises and sunsets, with the whole horizon visible
jacaranda trees, ornamental cherry trees, and oleanders
Christmas lights through a tule fog
oranges, peaches, plums, nectarines, apricots, strawberries

the extravagance of everything green
intensity of the sunlight and an entire spectrum of rich colours
the pungent smell of drying cocoa
moonlight that turns the whole world silver
trees with that peculiar inside-out umbrella shape
the clockbird's melody
thunderous rain on a tin roof
fresh mangoes

On youths, bored

No, that just wasn't a course they even thought about offering at
Biola. "How To Refuse Marriage Proposals Politely But Firmly."

I stopped counting a while back, at about thirteen or fourteen.
I can't say I've ever received one in church before, though...
not to mention by proxy.

The business meeting was several hours long and felt longer on
the hard, backless wooden benches. The youth were apparently a
little restless. Eugene leaned over to me, grinning with
suppressed merriment, and half-whispered, "My brother wants to
marry with you. You like it?" The guy on the other side of him
leaned forward eagerly to see if the mokala would do something
interesting in response.

I briefly considered my options. There is the "my father
requires seven hundred cows" option. There is the "you can come
and talk with Brother Dan about this later" option. There is the
"my boyfriend in America wouldn't be happy" option.

However, since this was church, I felt perfectly justified in
saying simply "You are disturbing. Stop disturbing!" [that's
the Cameroon English equivalent of "Stop making noise in
church!"]

I only hope I said it with a straight face.

et HMMMM ology

"Dictionaries are arbitrary classifications of a living organism." -Dan

Just when you think something's related...

There is a verb "�it���." One dialect says it means "to pound." Another dialect says it means "to be little." We could come up with all sorts of possible semantic connections for this one, especially if it happens to be after 10pm. Do you get any littler if I pound you?

There is another verb "�iny�ng�." One of the definitions for it is "to disappear." Some other verbs we have, however, appear to be derivatives of a mysterious verb of the same form that would mean "to slip." The mud around here is certainly rather slippery... and occasionally it does get deep enough to cover the headlights of the truck...

Folk etymologies are at least as fun as the real thing. :-)

...and all places are alike to me

Someone knocked on the door today. While I was trying to figure
out who he was and whether I could help him in Dan and Lisa's
absence, the cats demolished my lunch-in-process.

According to Kipling, cats are scheming opportunists: but they
can't help it; it's hereditary.

Wow. That sounded a lot like my dad. :-)

Zebra rain

It's raining in stripes. Burst. Stop. Burst. Stop. Burst.
Stop.

It's raining in stripes. Our tin roof is crimped into the shape
of a sine wave, and the rain rolls off in very evenly spaced
drips.

It's raining in stripes. The paths are large muddy rivers
between drenched green banks.

--But thankfully, this time none of the stripes are inside the
house. I prefer my striped rain outside.

Restless until...

Our God, to whom we turn
When weary with illusion,
Whose stars serenely burn
Above this earth's confusion,
Thine is the mighty plan,
The steadfast order sure
In which the world began,
Endures, and shall endure.

Thou art thyself the truth;
Though we who fain would find thee,
Have tried, with thoughts uncouth,
In feeble words to bind thee,
It is because thou art
We're driven to the quest;
Till truth from falsehood part,
Our souls can find no rest.

All beauty speaks of thee:
The mountains and the rivers,
The line of lifted sea,
Where spreading moonlight quivers,
The deep-toned organ blast
That rolls through arches dim
Hints of the music vast
Of thy eternal hymn.

Wherever goodness lurks
We catch thy tones appealing;
Where man for justice works
Thou art thyself revealing;
The blood of man, for man
On friendship's altar spilt,
Betrays the mystic plan
On which thy house is built.

Thou hidden fount of love,
Of peace, and truth, and beauty,
Inspire us from above
With joy and strength for duty.
May thy fresh light arise
Within each clouded heart,
And give us open eyes
To see thee as thou art.

~Edward Grubb, 1925

the 'mokala' speaks

I love watching how people respond when they see us speaking
Oroko for the first time.

Some laugh like it's the best joke they've ever heard.

Some persist in speaking pidgin or English, assuming they must
have heard wrong.

Some repeat our words incredulously to anyone else they can find
in the room, three or four times, to validate the evidence of
their own ears.

And some get this huge grin and shake our hands right off (or, in
the case of a grandma, give us a big hug!).

Email again!

Ahhhh... email again after five days without...

What can I say? It's an addictive substance.

Frustration

I could be a good ICS major and say that being a person who grew
up in a status-achieved culture and is living in a status-ascribed culture causes internal tension.

Or I could be a good American and say that it's absolutely
ridiculous that the colour of my skin alone makes me one of the
ten most important people in the room.

I guess what I'm struggling with is that I am a perpetual
outsider, with no hope of ever being an insider that I can see.
I am always conspicuous. I get overt respect and covert
contempt. But there's no way for me to blend in, no way for me
to belong. I am a 'mokala.'

Things I learned from Bikoki

Well, I'm back. I hiked roughly twenty miles through rainforest
this weekend, mostly through slippery mud, in sun and rain,
fording eight streams and a waist-deep river, climbing up and
then back down a volcanic cone, stepping over trails of army
ants, and generally feeling rather exotic and uncomfortable.

It was rather a surprise when, after making my weary way back to
the haven of the Friesens' house, I dumped out the "water" that
had been sloshing around in my boot-- and stood staring at a lake
of my own blood on the cement. (Lesson no. 41: Socks are quite
effective at preventing blisters, until they get holes.) --Reassuring note, because my mother is reading this: However dramatic that may have been, the raw places were neither deep nor large, and hardly stung the next day. I suspect that what looked like a lake of blood was actually mostly water from our frequent stream crossings.

All in all, as a weak 'mokala,' I felt that I had reason to be
pleased with my accomplishment, or at least with the fact that I
kept going and didn't complain when it hurt. Unfortunately, most
of my companions didn't agree.

I think I learned on this trip how utterly helpless I am in this
culture. I can't eat, drink, talk, or sometimes even walk
without some kind of help. My mouth burns when I eat the food...
I slip and fall in the mud... I can't drink the water and have to
filter it... I have to ask people to repeat themselves-- slowly--
almost every time they say something to me... I get tired and
have to rest when hiking uphill... I don't get the jokes everyone
else is laughing at (and often I'm convinced, whether it's
actually true or not, that the joke is somehow on me).

I also learned that it's very easy to tell the difference between
someone who feels like they are "on duty" to take care of a
clumsy, slow, stupid 'mokala' and someone who really looks at me
as a person.

I wish I knew how to communicate that I really do want to get to
know these people; I'm not just out to cause them inconvenience
and slow them down. I thought that hiking twenty miles with them
would communicate that. But I don't think it did. I feel like
I'm missing something important here...

Nigh

"I love thee, Lord Jesus; look down from the sky,
And stay by my cradle till morning is nigh."

A little girl with red curls snuggled deeper under the covers.
"What does 'nigh' mean, Daddy?" she asked for perhaps the
fifteenth time.

" 'Nigh' means 'near.' "

"Okay." She reached out sleepily for a good-night hug.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

"Don't stop praying; the Lord is nigh;
Don't stop praying; He'll hear your cry."

"That word, 'nigh.' What is that one?" Hans leaned forward on
the rough wooden benches. Nadesh, in front of him, didn't know.

The only native English speaker in the room, a red-headed
missionary intern, smiled. "It means 'near.' "

"Okay. We'll say 'Obase abedi o fesi' [lit. 'God is at side']."

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

We have an amazing God. He can be by my side when I am safe and
secure after singing a bedtime Christmas carol at my home in my
own language with my daddy...

or he can be by my side when I am in a new culture, communicating
in a new language, sticking out like a sore thumb, with my family
thousands of miles away.

Truly he is Imma-nu-El... With-us-God.

Shoe woe

(Doesn't that look like it should rhyme? Crazy English.)

I attended a "combined youth service" last Sunday in Massaka, the
next village over. Several days later, my memory is mostly of my
feet.

If I had known we were going to trek two hours through the
rainforest, instead of going by the road, and then hike back on
the road after torrential rain had made it a sea of glue, I would
have worn different shoes.

On the way there, we waded through waist-deep ferns... took the
wrong fork of the trail and backtracked... fished my shoe out of
the mud puddle where it came off... and crossed no less than six
streams, fording three and a half. (How do you ford half a
stream? Well, the stream in question had a log bridge starting
several feet into the stream and ending before the other bank...)

I learned that the statement "very soon we will be in Massaka"
means that in about half an hour more trekking, we will cross the
boundary line between Big Bekondo cocoa farms and Massaka cocoa
farms. It has no relation to when we will actually reach the
village of Massaka.

Also, have you ever noticed (I think slowlane, at least, will
agree with me here!) that it is a great comfort in uncomfortable
circumstances to be able to think "how will I write this up on my
blog?"

On the way back, after the blisters on my feet had already been
popped and rubbed raw, I learned that my shoes had other faults
besides rubbing in the wrong places. They were positive mud
magnets. Have you ever tried to favour blisters while lifting
shoes that are three times their original weight?

I think, by the time I was limping pitifully and most of the
group had gone on ahead, Santana figured that weak white-men
shouldn't try to trek eight miles in a day. She advised me
kindly about halfway back that "there is a youth conference in
Bikoki next weekend. But I don't think you will be able to walk
there. Maybe sanga Rachel [that's Dan-- "father of Rachel"] can
drive you part of the way."

However, once she realised that the problem was mostly my shoes,
she not only lent me the pair she was carrying-- she also
insisted on taking both pairs and washing them for me once we got
back to the house.

And, believe it or not, I really am headed up to Bikoki-- which
happens to be six or eight miles, the last four of which are all
uphill-- tomorrow.

I'm wearing different shoes.

"What is this dream that you have had?"

I've heard missionaries say several times that the Old Testament
makes more and more sense the longer they live in Africa. Some
of the OT stories that strike Americans as grotesquely bizarre
just sound like part of normal life to an African-- whether it
has to do with dreams, visions and signs, or with status wars
between siblings, or with marriage, or revenge, or jealousy...
It seems like the Hebrews had a worldview very similar to an
African worldview.

What I never expected to find, however, is how uncannily similar
the languages themselves are. As I compare the Hebrew, Oroko,
and English translations of the Joseph story, doing my best to
"check" the Oroko, English is always the odd one out. Time and
time again, the Oroko sides with the Hebrew-- in grammatical
construction, vocabulary, even discourse (how the story flows on
a "paragraph" level).

An example. I was reading the Oroko backtranslation of Gen.
37:10, where the English says that Jacob "rebuked" Joseph for
saying that his family would bow down to him. Our backtranslator
had written "His father shouted at him." I cocked my head in
thought. "I never pictured Jacob shouting at him. I guess he
could have. That just wasn't the picture I had in my head of
'rebuke'... but certainly that's what they do here to rebuke
someone!" So I looked up the Hebrew word. Lo and behold! the
list of meanings was as follows: "to address harshly, to cry at,
scold, rebuke, threaten." Well, that refines my mental image a
bit. Suddenly Jacob takes on a new life in my understanding: as
an African "big man" and patriarch, as well as an American-style
father.

I love reading the Bible through other peoples' lenses.

Water!

We have water again, after an outage of nearly a week (Dan's take
on the situation was: "It only takes these guys about two hours
to go up and fix all the leaks. However, the ones who are
responsible for fixing the leaks are not the same ones who are
having to carry water from the stream. They can get kids to do
it for them. So, it doesn't cost them anything to wait a week
before they do the repairs.").

Whatever the reason, however, it's WONDERFUL to be able to turn
on the tap again and have water come out. It's WONDERFUL to be
able to take a real shower and get rid of that grimy feeling
(splash-baths just don't quite make it go away). It's WONDERFUL
to wash your hands with water that hasn't already rinsed soap off
sixteen pairs of hands. God bless whoever invented running
water.

(God bless my hostess this summer, too, who remembered enough of
her own culture shock to joke, my first night back in the
'States: "You do know you can drink the tap water here, right?"
:-) --It really is a significant adjustment when you return to
having taps that actually work 99.9% of the time, and that
consistently spout not only clear water, but drinkable water.
Wow.)

Language learning

"If you keep on speaking nicely like that, you won't go back to
the 'bakala.' We will just steal you and take you off to our
houses," joked one of the translators at lunch this week.

Language learning isn't a steady process. It goes in fits and
spurts and plateaus. But lately, it feels like I've "leaped"
again. I find myself staying in language longer, instead of
panicking and switching back to English as soon as I can't figure
out how to put the right endings on my verbs. It's becoming a
more common thing for me to have entire conversations in Mbonge--
simple ones, of course, but significantly more than the scripted
"Good morning"-"Good morning"-"How are you?"-"I'm fine, how are
you?" sort of thing... ones that are actually communicative of
information. And there are just lots more things that I can talk
about as my vocabulary grows (although, with this language at
least, it seems that vocabulary is the easy part-- it's learning
how to add all the right things to the word roots and make them
all agree with each other that can be daunting!!).

I love language learning. I think it has to be my favourite part
of being here. I've always loved figuring out how to say
something "in code" or with a different set of rules-- when I was
eleven, I spent hours practicing my Pig Latin until I was fluent
:-) -- but the whole fun of it is having someone to understand
your code. In language learning, you not only have "someone"
that understands-- you usually have a whole village or town or
city or country of them, and they're experts!

Still out of water

Out of water. Out of flour. Out of rice. Out of milk (powder).
Out of brown sugar. Apparently we didn't plan for our long stay
in the village well enough. :-)

This is not to say that we are short on food-- or water, for that
matter. We just have to be a bit... creative. And take
advantage of every time it rains...

Meanwhile, if you have any ideas for meals that use cheese
without any flour or milk (besides omelettes), let me know.

For those who like to laugh at things linguistic

Quotations from today's (rather messy) data entry:

"Parts of speech are things that linguists try to use to pin down
living language."

"It's running away and laughing at me!!!"

"We have verbs that are adjectives, why not adverbs that are
conjunctions?"

Subtle subliminal messages

81"Certainly... if I myself were to be writing... I would choose
to write so that my words would sound out with whatever diverse
truth in these matters each reader was able to grasp, rather than
to give a quite explicit statement of a single true view..."81

~St. Augustine of Hippo, slightly out of context

Water, water everywhere...

but not a drop out of the tap.

It's common, when we have torrential downpours like this, for the
village water system to be damaged. This is not surprising... it
is a 3-4-mile-long, above-ground pipe that carries water through
the jungle from our water source, repaired every so often with
plastic bags, strips of tire, forked sticks, whatever is handy.
The water outage is inconvenient, but it usually doesn't last
more than a couple days (and it's fairly easy to collect
rainwater!).

So, right now, we have several gallons a second pouring down onto
our tin roof... several drips a minute plip-plopping into buckets
and pots... and nothing but air coming out of our taps.

More notes on the rain

Biscuits and hot soup are a perfect lunch for today.

Rachel says it's "freezing." She's going to have a rather
startling adjustment when her family returns to South Dakota on
home assignment next year...

Because it is raining, our cook has not yet returned from market.
Therefore, he has not yet washed the dishes. Therefore, there
are no clean large pots to catch the drips from the roof.
Therefore, the bowl with remnants of biscuit-dough is sitting in
the middle of the kitchen floor, slowly filling up with
rainwater. (The cat tried drinking it and gave me the most
disgusted look I've ever seen.)

Lisa found an Earthworm outside today. This was a capital-E
Earthworm. It was almost two feet long and so large she thought
it might be a snake. So she chopped it in a few places, just in
case. If it was a snake, it is dead. If it was an Earthworm,
now there are three.

Rachel is getting out of her math lesson for the moment, to
clamber up in the space between the rafters and the tin roof and
position containers to catch leaks BEFORE they get to the
ceiling. "We don't have snow days here," Dan says. "We have
rain days."

Wet

I presume that Dan is rather moist at the moment.

He went to a cocoa-breaking this morning. The farm, we were
told, was about an hour and a half away. That's a bit too far
for Rachel to walk, and I need to be with Rachel to do
schoolwork, and Lisa's back was a bit painful-- so Dan was the
only one who went off with the group at about 8am.

It's about 11:30am as I write this, and it's raining. Moreover,
this is not rainy-season rain, this is transition-season rain...
the kind that thunders on the tin roof and turns our front yard
into a lake and the path into a river.

Ashia, Dan...

What colour is money?

"Forty thousand dollars." Lisa stopped reading Rachel's history
book for a minute to make sure Rachel understood. "That was a
lot of money back when Harriet Tubman lived. That might be as
much as a million dollars now."

Rachel squinted at her. "How much is that in Cameroonian money,
Mom?"

Dessert with a kick

We had crepes Saturday morning. Crepes are exceptionally good
with vanilla pudding, and Rachel thoroughly enjoyed her chance to
make pudding for breakfast.

There was a small bit of leftover pudding, which we decided to
divide up after supper the same day. I took a bite, and my
tongue tingled.

Thinking the fault must be with my mouth, and not the pudding, I
tried again. It tasted like normal vanilla pudding... but there
was still that strange tingling sensation. My suspicions were
confirmed when Dan commented on the same thing.

The mystery was solved when we discovered a small crack in the
lid of the plastic container... and a bag of hot peppers that had
been set on top of the container in the fridge.

Pepe pudding, anyone?

Miss Wormwood, my brain is full

Consider the single syllable [lo].

In Mbonge, this means "because."

In Hebrew, it's "to him."

In French, it means "the water."

And in English, it means "close to the ground."

Then add the fact that none of these are spelled "L-O." And add
the further fact that I may deal with any or all of these forms
on any given day.

Is it any wonder that sometimes I can't remember where I put my
whatchamacallit?

Sniffle snuff sneeze drip ugh

That about sums it up. I wish I could figure out what I am
allergic to.

But it could be worse, as Rachel pointed out the other day: I
could be allergic to Kleenex.

Our wonderful, wacky language... with a twist

English is full of homophones.

You know, homophones... those words that they make you practice
spelling over and over in elementary school... the ones that
sound the same but are spelled differently.

Those confusing words like...

"leave" and "live"
"sheep" and "ship"

and most especially...

"hat" and "heart"

Man in Store with Cup, Elf No. 57, or Footman no. 6?

"You can be the fairy godmother, Mommy." Rachel was handing out
parts (for no apparent reason) as she helped fold clothes. "And
Daddy, you're the prince. And Sharon-- who's Sharon? Oh, she
has to be Cinderella."

"Wait a minute," I interrupted from where I was grading a math
lesson. "If your daddy is the prince, then your mommy has to be
Cinderella."

"Oh." Rachel wasn't much fazed. "Ok. Then Sharon can be the
fairy godmother."

"Who are you going to be, Rachel?" Lisa finished folding the
clothes and stacked them neatly on the couch. Rachel thought for
a minute, then decided that the romantic parts could go to all
these silly adults. She wanted a part with some fun in it.

"I'll be the guy who gets to ride on the back of the carriage!!"

Blitz!

Anyone who has ever had the good fortune to play Dutch Blitz with
me knows how easy it was to win and leave me in the dust. :-)
Dutch Blitz, while quite enjoyable, is just not my card game...
it requires keeping track of too many things at once.

Dan Friesen, on the other hand, is the fastest Dutch Blitz player
I have ever seen, with the possible exception of my mother.
Since we play "vone such game that ain't gonna be no bore" almost
every Friday night without fail, this necessitates some coping
strategies on my part.

So I have taken to announcing my score in unorthodox (usually
mathematical or linguistic) ways after every round.

Unfortunately, about half the time my score ends up including "i
squared"... and rarely rises above "vingt."

Playing mommy cat

"Good kitty. Mmmmmm, good. Cockroach good. Yummy. See it? I
killed it just for you. Yes, eat it. Good kitty. Now catch one
for yourself."

I certainly don't see cockroaches as any gourmet delicacies, but
if the kitten's tastes are different-- this is the sort of thing
that should definitely be encouraged.

Who says you can't train a cat?

Culture shock

I'm feeling bicultural.

This is quite aside from the fact that I'm in Africa, actually.
I have successfully adapted from living at the Scotts' house to
living at the Friesens'.

There are different methods of stacking dirty dishes here. There
are different methods of feeding the animals. There are
different rules for children and different bedtimes (for all
concerned). Laundry is handled differently, and time has a
different level of importance. There are different ways of
dealing with our constant window-spectators, different
philosophies of work, and a different level of tolerance for the
constant interruptions that are part of life in Africa. And
here, Dutch Blitz is the card game of choice.

Has anyone ever written an ethnography of missionary households?
Maybe this is my chance for a masters' thesis...

Eph. 1:21-22

The noise next door started in the middle of the night. I
sleepily wondered why there was so much noise coming in my
window, and rolled over.

The next morning, when I was rational enough to realise that
noise in the middle of the night was unusual, I found out the
reason. Our neighbour's relative, who lived in a different
village, had died, and his corpse had been brought to the village
last night for his "die" or "death celebration."

The drums and chanting and jostling and drinking and crowds
continued all day. A death celebration normally lasts four or
five days, including one or two all-nighters. I couldn't shake a
tension and heaviness that gripped me. I didn't know the
deceased, and I didn't even know his relatives very well. It
wasn't just the constant drums coming in through all our windows,
either. I have never felt the spiritual darkness here so
keenly...

Whether I felt it because I knew it was there, or because of some
intuitive awareness of it near our house, I don't know. It
doesn't really matter. I know that people here are in bondage to
the spirits. I know that fear holds them all-- including the
Christians-- in an endless cycle of appeasement, feuds, and
accusations. Christianity provides hope mainly for the
afterlife; God is distant and can't be expected to provide for
daily needs in this life; therefore we have to be dependent upon
keeping the capricious spirits happy. So the reasoning goes.

"Lord, protect us by the blood of your Son Jesus Christ. We are
his." The reality of the spiritual power next to our house came
home to me.

"Lord, show yourself stronger than the spirits!..."

Comments!

Thanks to a tip from another missionary on the Cameroon field,
blogspot is now automatically forwarding comments to me! So in
direct contradiction of my earlier post, please feel free to
comment away. ;-)

Hymnological thoughts

Two thoughts occurred to me at youth meeting today, while singing
the hymn I just posted.

One was that I am getting a chance to see how church music
develops in an oral culture... and very probably I am looking at
a similar phenomenon to mediaeval chants. Is that cool or
what?!? As we were practising today, I was daydreaming about
someday helping Hans and others publish an Oroko church songbook,
with choruses and hymns and hopefully Oroko-composed music. I
realised, however, that the hymn we were singing, if printed,
would require some kind of hints as to where the musical accents
fell... the Oroko have an amazing faculty for fitting just about
any number of syllables into a given number of notes, but you
have to have someone teach you the song (orally!) in order to
know which syllables to glide over and which to drag out. :-)
No rhyming, metred hymns here... you just say the meaning, and
somehow make it fit the tune. --Then something began niggling at
the back of my brain about old liturgical hymnals... singing
Compline chants with Micah and Jenn... and little marks over the
words to tell you where to put the musical accents. Hmmm...

The other was simply that the mere act of translating hymns can't
change hearts. Putting the words they are singing into their own
language can help them understand in their heads... but still,
only God can bring heart-understanding. As we sang "Yesu adingi
mba wa atombi ema te" ("Jesus loves me, beyond anything") I
realised how much I am still only beginning to understand that...
I pray that they will not only sing the words, not only
understand their meaning intellectually, but begin to really
understand that this God in heaven, whom their whole culture sees
as distant and uninterested, really, actually loves them. Beyond
any love they, or I, have ever, ever, ever known.

Yesu 'ijo bo besusu (Jesus knows it all)

I am posting this, not because I think you will be in any way enlightened as to the meaning of the words, but because I love looking at it and I thought you might enjoy getting a glimpse of "real Oroko." :-) This is the latest hymn translated by Hans, and we are singing it Sunday morning. If you are looking for the original English to compare with it, the hymn begins, "He knows my thoughts, my ways, my deeds/ My Jesus knows it all."

'Ijo bem��i na bebo���i iba,
Yesu 'ijo b� besusu.
Ema t� ya ak�m� o nyo�o eya,
Yesu 'ijo b� besusu.
'Ijo b� besusu,
Na mo�ema i�a,
Eke ema esas�mi na Yesu,
'Ijo, 'ijo b� besusu.

Eke o bu�u na o w�s�,
Yesu 'ijo b� besusu.
Eke ose t�t� o�a,
'Ijo, 'ijo b� besusu.
Ema t� ya mbo�ak�,
Na etafo t� ya nj�s�k�,
'Ijo ma amati o mo�ema i�e,
Ya nj�s�k�, ya mbo�ak�.

Atambo�� bebo���i iba,
M� ande�ke�.
Ete ya bi�a, ete ya �eny�,
'Ijo, 'ijo b� besusu.
Atambo���� mba,
Na mak�nj� ime,
Yesu ande�ke� ema t�,
Yesu 'ijo b� besusu.

Yesu m� 'ijo �ong� i�a �ose,
M� any�ng� mba nginya.
Nga mba mati ndabo eya ya muny���,
Yesu akomb� f�k� o�a.
Yesu a�ingi mba,
Wa atombi ema t�,
Mba mb��i �ana wa Yesu,
Anding�n�, mba n'ijo.

Elle est sans beyala

Being an MK has some distinct advantages. Rachel, as a fourth
grader, is taking not one, but two foreign languages in school:
Oroko, and French. (Meanwhile, I, as her tutor, have the chance
to become a student for half an hour every day as Lisa teaches.)

This does present some interesting situations, though. On
Tuesday we reviewed the Oroko numbers by playing Go Fish in
Oroko. Today, we played Go Fish in French. If you have ever
tried to play the same game in two different "second" languages,
at two times not very far removed from each other, you will
understand the difficulty.

We were utterly unable to stay in French. All three of us mixed
the two languages indeterminately, consciously attempting to
speak French, but inserting Oroko words without thinking. Rachel
grew increasingly frustrated with her inability to remember the
French, until, at the end of the game, she suddenly exclaimed,
"I'm SPEECHLESS!"

But Lisa simply sat back and smiled. "Finally! It took eight
years-- and French!"

As you wish

I was reading Rachel's history/geography book with her yesterday.
She's reading about the geography of South America, and in the
chapter on Argentina, we came across a description of Patagonia.
The name sounded familiar, as more than just a place name. "What
does Patagonia remind me of...?"

This morning, I remembered. "The real Dread Pirate Roberts has
been retired fifteen years and living like a king in Patagonia."

Sigh. Some linguist ought to do a survey of the dialectal impact
of that one film on the population of the United States.

On linguists and marriage

Dan is Canadian. Lisa is from the States. The differences in their English dialects have amused (or annoyed?) them over and over. Silverware and cutlery... napkins and serviettes... g��QdZ and g��AZ... livǨ and lEvǨ... d�Qm� and d�ama...

However, after 13 years of marriage, Dan is forgetting which words are Canadian English and which are Standard American English.

Now that's commitment.

Contentment

Those moments are precious. I mean the ones where you suddenly
sit back and say, "Why would I want to be anywhere else in the
world just now?" So often in a strange country, where I am
constantly an outsider, I do find myself wishing to be someplace
else... even when I know God wants me here.

But tonight, as I sat crouched over the Mosongos' coffee table
next to Hans, poring over my little notebook and trying to make
the Oroko words fit the English tune... asking "which sounds
better, this word first or that one?"... scratching a line out
and rewriting it... realising that Oroko just has more syllables
per word, on average, than English does!... drawing what almost
amounted to a crowd (Lucy, Simon, two younger cousins, all
singing with us and trying to see the same little notebook)...
hearing Hans' bass and an occasional alto...

There just was no place on earth I would rather have been.

Self-incrimination

"Sharon, were you this scatterbrained as a kid?" Dan asked.

I was slightly miffed. After all, I hadn't done anything
spectacular today. Only the normal things like forgetting what
time it was and where I'd put my pencil. But I answered lightly.
"No, actually, I've gotten lots better."

He gave me a funny look. "No, I meant were you as scatterbrained
as Rachel?"

Mesoko na Oroko

I am encouraged.

Last time I went to youth choir practice/youth meeting at our
village church (before our trip to Bamenda), I came home
thoroughly frustrated with the fact that people here don't seem
to care whether they understand what they sing.

I don't mean "understand" in a deep sense. I mean understand the
words and the sentence structure and have a general idea of the
basic meaning. But "church" here, for so long, has meant that
you go and you do foreign things and sing foreign music and
listen to a sermon in a foreign language. It's sort of become
normal to sing "church songs" that you don't understand-- in
archaic English, for example-- just because that's what you do at
church. Even if someone brings a song to church in, say,
Swahili, people may sing it with gusto because they like the
tune-- and never worry about finding out what the words mean.

I almost didn't go to the youth meeting yesterday. I was so
tired, and Rachel still had homework to finish. But when I did
go, I discovered that while we were gone, Hans had taken the
initiative to translate an entire English hymn into Mbonge and
begin teaching it to the other youth!

On the way home, he commented, "People really like hearing Mbonge
in the songs. They can understand fine." I couldn't have said
it better. While I still dream of hearing the Oroko compose
their own songs with their own music... it is immensely
encouraging to see them interested in understanding the words
they sing, and helping others understand them too. Thank you,
Lord.

(Note: Oroko = language group; Mbonge = one of ten dialects.)

Lost in traduction

Forget learning other languages for the moment. I'm having
trouble even telling what the English words mean. I had to use
my French lexicon to help in the data entry for our Oroko-English
dictionary today.

Really, it helped.

Have you ever noticed how many English words there are that can
be either noun or verb? Fly. Drink. Circle. Sand. Bark.
Herd. Plant. (And that's not even considering whether the two
words are related or unrelated...)

And then there are those pesky verbs that can be either
transitive or intransitive. Fry. (Are you frying the fish, or
is the fish frying?) Split. Hatch. Et cetera.

And then there are those few words which have both problems at
once. The difficulty, of course, is that in almost any other
language, it is very likely that the different meanings will be
translated by different words. That's certainly true in Oroko.

I came across the English word "boil" today, on the list of
English-Oroko equivalents we are entering into the dictionary.
There was, of course, no context given. I had three choices:
"boil" as in "I have a boil on my arm," as in "The water is
boiling," or as in "I boiled the soup too long." I had no
context to help me choose, and therefore, no precise definition
for these three Oroko words from different dialects.

Until I realised that, because we are in Cameroon, we have the
same list of words in both English and French. So I simply went
to the French word list, looked up the word I was unsure of, and
then looked up that French word in my French lexicon to get the
English equivalent. Easy, right?

Now I know what the English word means. Unfortunately, I have
reason to suspect that the Oroko people who filled out these
lists for us had the same problem I did. It appears that, of the
three words they gave us... one may be a noun, one an
intransitive verb, and one a transitive verb. Of course, until I
ask someone, I can't be sure.

I think I'll leave this one for Dan to enter.

Sigh.

Sometimes I find myself thinking that I'm beginning to understand
how
African culture works.

Sometimes I realise that no matter how long I'm here, I will
never
understand it very well.

And sometimes it hits me full in the face that even if I
accomplish
the unlikely goal of understanding it theoretically... it will
take a
lot more than that to make me comfortable with it.

tidbits

"Also, to my surprise, I have discovered that I have led a very
interesting life." -Laura Ingalls Wilder, on writing her famous
"Little House" books

"And then you can snuggle with a lion without getting dead." -a
nine-year-old MK, on the millennium

"barbing saloon" - the Cameroonian name for a barbershop

Sticky labels

' "If you mean 'libel,' I'd say so, and not talk about 'labels,'
as if papa was a pickle-bottle," advised Jo, laughing.' -Louisa
May Alcott, "Little Women"

I have discovered that there are four categories of people at our
start-of-the-school-year conference (according to someone who
made an announcement recently). There are:

Moms,

Dads,

Kids, and

Sharon.

Sigh. I thought I didn't like being labelled and stuck in a
category. However, I find that it's also not entirely pleasant
to have one's category all to oneself.

"I have set my bow in the sky..."

Bamenda is situated in a bowl-shaped depression, surrounded by
the green grassland and forested hills of Cameroon's Northwest
Province. As a fine, mist-like rain began to fall today, there
was suddenly a brilliant flood of sunshine from the west. From
up on the hill behind the rest house, we could see half of a low
rainbow, arching down into the center of the city and ending just
at the top of the hills to the southeast. It really looked like
the rainbow disappeared over the top of the bluffs and behind.

If I were a little younger and a lot wiser, I would have crossed
the street, hailed a taxi, and gone looking for the Golden Key
that George MacDonald says may be found where the colours touch
the ground...

Thank you, Lord, for rainbows.

Public transportation

We took a taxi to the SIL compound in Bamenda this morning.

This has vastly different connotations in America and Africa. In America, "taxi" suggests expense, luxury, or perhaps unusual circumstances. In Africa (and, I suspect, in much of the developing world), it is a common and anything-but-luxurious method of transportation.

But, as O. Henry says, wait till I tell you.

If you are to catch a taxi in the city, you must first stand along the side of the road closest to the taxis going the direction you wish to go. Inevitably, this involves crossing the street in front of oncoming traffic (several motorcycles, a honking taxi, a few street vendors and a crowd of children playing football, for example).

Once you are on the correct side of the street to hail a taxi, you proceed to look very interested in taxis. This is an art. It involves little movements of the feet and subtle expressions of the face, I believe. Since about two out of three vehicles on the road are dilapidated yellow Toyota Corollas with pithy slogans painted on the bumper, your chances of getting noticed are fairly good.

If a taxi driver has room and decides you are a customer worthy of notice, he will slow down ever-so-slightly and give one short honk. This is your signal to bellow your destination in his passenger-side window as he passes. If your destination is unacceptable, he indicates this by speeding up again and vanishing out of sight. If the destination is acceptable, he indicates this by stopping long enough for you to climb inside, and almost long enough for you to shut the door.

Once you are inside the taxi, you do one of two things. If you are in any way enamoured of American ideals of driving, you clutch at the nearest object that looks securely attached to the vehicle and shut your eyes tightly. If, on the other hand, you are expecting something of an adventure, you watch as the driver creates his own lane, pulls out in front of oncoming traffic, honks his way through intersections, jounces over the ubiquitous potholes, and weaves around other taxis that stop in front of him. (The patterns of African driving have been elsewhere analysed... suffice it to say that though they are systematic and sensible, the overall effect looks like perilous and gleeful chaos in the eyes of an American.)

Finally, after picking up several other passengers-- a "full" Toyota Corolla is one with four in the front seat and four in the back seat, not counting children-- the driver will stop at your requested destination long enough for you to clamber out and almost long enough for you to close the door securely. (You have, of course, already deposited your 300 francs-- exact change please-- in the driver's right hand, as he takes it off the steering wheel and cups it toward you.)

Then, of course, you usually have to cross the street again.

Dan and I crossed the street to the SIL compound for our dictionary appointment. We entered a different world as we passed through the double gates... which Dan aptly illustrated by immediately glancing at his watch and remarking, "Oops. We're two minutes late."