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."

fixed

Today, since the internet was actually working here in Bamenda, I went and fixed all my "email posts." Hopefully they are easier to read now. :-) I will try and fix my Outlook Express settings so it doesn't do that anymore...

And I read all the comments I hadn't had a chance to read from Bekondo... apparently I have lots more than two readers now! Yay!!!

On kids, influential

I've never had a babysitting introduction quite like it before... at
least not when I was present and listening...

"Now, kiddos, Mommy and I are going out to dinner tonight for our
anniversary, along with Uncle Dennis and Aunt Nancy. Auntie Sharon has been kind enough to agree to stay with you while you go to bed tonight. So what do I want you to do?"

The four kids seated on the floor chorused in unison, "Be a blessing."

Lance nodded. "And what does that mean?"

"Be good," Lee volunteered. "Obey," Ahava said. Ben, with
six-year-old sagacity, just grinned.

"And why do I want you to be a blessing to Auntie Sharon?"

"So that she'll want to come back." Lee, at nine, knew the answers.

"That's right. And also for another reason. You know that Auntie
Sharon doesn't have kids of her own yet. You guys could be a crucial
deciding factor in whether she decides to lead a celibate life, or
whether she ever gets married. So, what do I want you to do again?
Hava?"

"Be a blessing."

"Ben?"

"Be a blessing!"

"Asher?"

He looked up from the blocks, and recited with his toddler lisp, "Be a
bwessing."

"Lee?"

"Be a blessing, Daddy."

"Okay. I'll see you tomorrow morning."

"Aha!" moment

I am currently in the middle of "African Friends and Money Matters" by David Maranz. It's full of excellent cultural information, and very helpful in understanding why Africans and Westerners generally drive each other batty when it comes to anything financial (as long as you can get past a little bit of rough writing and the fact that the book needed to be proof-read one more time).

One of Maranz's statements recently brought me up short. He stated: "Africans find security in ambiguous arrangements, plans, and speech... Westerners find security in clearly defined relationships, arrangements, plans, and speech."

Wow. Talk about misunderstanding each other. Does that ever open the door wide for major miscommunication!

This explains a lot to me about my reactions to African culture... and my reactions to my home culture. I don't think it had ever hit me before that a Western emphasis on planning and clarifying could cause as much anxiety to our African friends as the ubiquitous ambiguity in Africa causes for us. (Isn't "ubiquitous ambiguity" fun to say?)

And yet... I've also been doing a lot of thinking lately about why long-term planning is so hard for me. I've always been a bit more tolerant of ambiguity (at least in some areas) than the prevailing Western mindset-- just ask my mom the most common way I frustrate her! :-) -- and even though I'm VERY Western compared to my African friends, it makes a lot of sense to me that I might also find security in some level of ambiguity.

Lots of rambling thoughts... no conclusions yet. I guess it just makes a lot of sense to me to connect the issue of ambiguity with that of security. Anyone else have thoughts on this?

Trip to Bamenda

Highlights of our trip to Bamenda:

~arriving with ALL FOUR TIRES intact! Yay!!! :-) (If you haven't heard the story of our last trip up to Bamenda, ask me.)

~the irony of the fact that while the road out of Bekondo was "fixed" last dry season (i.e. smoothed with a grader) and the huge holes and ruts and duck ponds are gone... it is now SO slippery that many trucks slide off the middle of the road into the ditches. The attempt to pass a vehicle going the other direction is fraught with, um, suspense on all counts. This does make the trip less than boring.

~watching Dan navigate through a rain gate that I was sure the Hilux wouldn't fit through. We made it-- although Lisa had to fold in the passenger-side mirror to make the truck narrow enough. :-)

~the fact that our white Hilux was half brown by the time we arrived... hurrah for rainy season. :-)

~the gendarme who stopped us, leaned in the window, and asked for... our vehicle registration? a toll fee? a bribe? No! --a free tract. (Since World Team came in under the organisational structure of the Cameroon Baptist Convention, we have the CBC logo on the side of the car.)

~listening to hours and hours of Adventures in Odyssey tapes, and remembering how big a part of my life Odyssey-- and the people in Odyssey-- were for a long time. Donna and Jimmy Barkley, arguing like, well, siblings... Erica always going to extremes... Edwin Blackgaard and the Harlequin Theatre... Harlow Doyle, Puh-rivate Eye... Eugene and Katrina... Connie... and of course, Whit. Oh, and my junior-high "sort-of crush" on Eugene suddenly made more sense...

~Rachel: "No, Mommy, caffeine won't bother me. I promise. I'll go right to sleep. Pleeeeeeease can I have Coke in the car?" "Fog? You mean we're going through a cloud, Daddy? Can I put my head out the window and feel what it feels like to be in a cloud? WOW!!!"

And we're here safely for FES. :-) Praise God for safe travel!

You know it's humid when...

~ you can still see last night's wet footprints on this morning's cement floor.

~ the clothes that were perfectly dry when you put them on the shelf now smell musty.

~ the pages of your books expand into an "S" shape on the shelf.

~ salt no longer comes out of the saltshaker (forget the rice trick... it works for three days).

~ it takes three or four days of hanging the clean clothes on the line before they get dry.

~ mold grows on things you didn't even know mold COULD grow on (ever seen mold on maple syrup?).

~ your towel (let alone your washcloth) doesn't dry between showers.

~ the M&Ms that were brought over from the States not only melt in your mouth... the colours melt inside the bag inside the refrigerator (don't worry... they're still quite edible...).

DIE, Evil Weevil of Death!!

(Wow, that sounds like something the Flinters would say...)

Making Popcorn

Heat oil in pot.
Open plastic bag of popcorn.
Drop plastic bag of popcorn on counter and step back.
Turn off stove.
Dump entire bag of popcorn onto counter and watch weevils scatter.
Kill weevils.
Sort popcorn from dead bodies of weevils.
Turn stove back on.
Pour clean popcorn into pot.
Pop popcorn.

Worthwhile

The most worthwhile part of my day was not the six hours I spent on data entry, despite my neat little row of check marks to show for it. It was the two hours spent... sitting. All I have to show for those two hours are a few handfuls of shelled egusi seeds.

But that's where my heart is. I want to sit with people. I want to sit long enough, without an agenda, without a time frame, to begin to see them, learn from them, enter their lives. I want to sit long enough that I can listen even when they aren't talking.

Sometimes I'm too busy to do that. Sometimes I'm too tired, and I talk myself out of it. Sometimes I don't go looking for opportunities, because I'm just plain scared.

But the days when I actually find the courage to just sit with people are the days when it feels worthwhile to be here, inside a village in Cameroon, instead of in an office in the States doing data entry.

Even when I'm not so good at shelling egusi.

Sun, glorious sun...

for four hours yesterday... and so far about half an hour this morning, in fits and spurts...

A Rachel's-eye view

Rachel and I have taken on a summer project since I came back: reading The Lord of the Rings together. For me, it's perhaps the seventh? eighth? time through... for Rachel, it's the first. She is convinced, with the wisdom of an eight-year-old, that Gandalf cannot possibly be dead. Her face positively contorts every time she says Gollum's name. She wants to know if Sauron has a body, or just an eye. And she was delighted beyond measure when it turned out that the elfstone Galadriel gave Aragorn was really from Arwen.

But even so, I didn't quite realise how much she was really living in Tolkien's world until we made no-bake cookies today. She was stirring the candy mixture, watching the margarine melt in whitish pools on top of the chocolate syrupy stuff... and murmuring to herself, "The shadow is spreading everywhere... but in Rivendell there is white." [then stirring again] "And the Dark Lord is spreading his shadow." [lifting the still-unmelted lump of margarine out with the spoon] "But the darkness can't stick to Rivendell. It's always white again."

Maybe she gets it better than I do sometimes.

Logistical problem

There are four people (Dan, Lisa, Sharon and Rachel) who are using four computers (a Pentium 120, a Pentium 233, an AMD 366, and a Pentium 4), which belong to four different people (Sharon, Becky, Rachel, and Lisa), for four different purposes (entering dictionary words, writing photography lessons, playing computer games, and writing email) with different degrees of urgency (not urgent, semi-urgent, due next week, due tomorrow). Given the following clues, match the correct person with their computer, the owner of their computer, their task, and the urgency of their task. Do this in sixty seconds or less and I will congratulate you personally.

1. The person who is entering dictionary words is not Lisa.
2. The Pentium 4 is being used by its owner.
3. Rachel is the only one with time to play computer games.
4. The most urgent project is (unfortunately) not email.
5. The slowest computer has the least urgent task, and the fastest computer has the most urgent task.
6. Dan is using Lisa's computer.
7. Neither Sharon nor Dan is working on the task that is due next week.
8. Since this is real life, you can assume what the least urgent task is.
9. Becky's computer, which is not an AMD 366, is being used for the photography lessons.

(oh, wait, was that supposed to be "logic problem"? Sorry, Freudian slip of the keyboard there. The logistical problem comes in when you consider that Dan's computer is out for repairs... two people need to switch off doing dictionary entry... the translators are using a computer... Lisa needs to install Microsoft Publisher on a different computer than the one she's using... etc... etc... the joys of having lots of technology available, and using it to the fullest capacity.) :-)

Mud

Motambi motumbene.*

I've never been in Bekondo in August before. During my summer internship, I flew back to the States July 31. And when I arrived in Cameroon mid-August last year, we spent the first two weeks at a conference in the Northwest Province and arrived in the village just before September.

August is truly rainy season. Which means that we are past the dramatic thunderstorms, past the alternation between torrential downpour and serene sun, past the fitful beginnings of the rains.

August means a steady, soaking, unhurried rain that lasts for days on end. It can fall to no more than the softest of mists at times, but it almost never stops. Instead of thundering, our tin roof whispers. And all night long, the eaves drip. Our solar power has dropped to almost nothing... and our hot water is nonexistent. And everyone here says it is "very cold." (It must be at least down to, oh, 72 degrees.)

Njea enyoloko.**

Oh, and the mud is ubiquitous. Our soil has so much clay in it that the mud forms a two- or three-inch layer over the top, approximately the consistency of instant pudding and just as slippery. My boots are covered in mud. The bottom four inches of my skirt are caked with it. My legs up to my knees are splattered. Considering that I took probably five or six round trips between the Friesens' and the Scotts' today, I'm doing pretty good. :-)

(Did I mention that those trips absolutely have to be made without an umbrella? Why ever would I intentionally keep the mist off my face?)

* "The mud is very much."
** "The road is slippery."

Argh.

If this week is typical, I am looking ahead at a whole year of data entry. Likely six to eight hours a day.

That is, if I don't go stark raving mad first.

I think I need to vent. Where is my roommate when I need her?! (Jessica, come back!)

Itsy Bitsy Spider... and Ants

"Sharon, um... you have floaties in your glass." This as I was raising it innocently to my mouth for a much-needed drink of water. I set it back on the table and peered down into it, expecting small specks that I would need to fish out.

The "floaties," however, turned out to be a bit of spiderweb. This spiderweb was, in fact, trailing behind a small spider, who was ice-skating on the surface tension of my water.

There are very few times I would dump out an entire glass of filtered water. However...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This morning, Lisa was making pancakes. She filled the one-cup measure from our filter, then held it out with one hand to Dan and said, "Would you mind removing the ant?" --Perhaps we should open a water park for ants. Free rides down the spout into whatever body of water happens to be handy...

Itsy bitsy antsies climb up the water spout.
Down comes the filtered-water to wash the antsies out.
(Out come the clouds and pour down all the rain)
And the itsy bitsy antsies climb up the spout again.

Five loaves and two fish

"But Jesus said, 'You feed them.' " (Mk. 6:37)

I stopped reading. I know that feeling of bewildered inadequacy and panic. Someone expects me to do something. So, obviously, because it's expected, I must somehow be able to do it, and the fact that I simply don't know how and don't think I can must be my fault.

So, you might say, that could equally well come from unreasonable expectations? Well, I don't tend to assume that. Maybe I should sometimes. --But, in this case, it was Jesus asking. Jesus doesn't have unreasonable expectations of his disciples... does he? Of course not-- he only tells them to feed a vast crowd with five loaves of bread and two fish.

Except... they brought the bread and fish to Jesus. And it fed the whole five thousand or more.

I wonder if my panic about other people's expectations of me comes from a fear that God will expect more of me than I can possibly do... and I will fail. But... other people's expectations aside... God's expectations of me ARE unreasonable, if you only take me into account. And that's not "my fault." What he asks of me looks patently ridiculous (or else scary-beyond-panic). Until I bring my meager bread and fish to him.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
I had all these thoughts about bread and fish running through my head last night. So, this morning at breakfast, Dan said:

"Sharon, I was wondering if you'd be willing to go over the Hebrew of the passage the translation team just translated, and let me know if there are any places in the text we need to note. There just aren't many translation helps for the OT... and you have more Hebrew than anybody on the team."

I panicked-- but then I remembered. I guess my 3 semesters of beginning Hebrew are about as meager as the bread and fish, huh? So... Lord... here they are. I don't know what you'll do with them, but I guess that's not for me to decide.