Continuing the nomadic lifestyle

I have moved house again. I like the new house, I have a big bedroom and my own office area, plus there is a microwave, which I had in the last house too, but it is always a bonus to have a microwave.

Here's a photo of the house. It is actually attached to another house, so I guess it is really a unit.

The house is located at an outer part of the Centre, but it is not too isolated. There are lots of houses behind mine, but not many in front, so I have a great view of the hills as you can see in this photo below.

I never really felt interested in ministering to nomadic peoples, the lifestyle didn't really appeal to me, but it's funny how although I'm not going to be working with nomads, I have been living a very nomadic lifestyle this year. I was in three houses in Ukarumpa from January to May, and then in May and June I stayed in three houses in the Sepik. Back to Ukarumpa for a month after that and then the following locations: Goroka, Kokopo, Buka, Port Moresby, Melbourne, Kyneton, Melbourne, Brisbane, Port Moresby, Alotau and then back to Ukarumpa. I went back to the house I have been in since February, but then moved out this weekend to the new house.

Overall, the number of times I have moved from one place to another this year is: 38!! That includes every move, including overnight stopovers. I have gone to sleep in 25 different beds this year. I'm glad that I can sleep okay in beds that I am not used to!

I don’t think that even traditional nomads move 38 times in a year.

Kamano Grammar Update

In February I wrote on my blog that I was working on the Kamano Grammar Sketch, tidying it up for web publication. Well, the Kamano Grammar Sketch is now online and you can see it here: http://www.sil.org/pacific/png/pubs/51803/Kamano_Grammar.pdf If you're not a linguist, most of it won't mean much to you though!

Canoe Festival

On my last weekend in Alotau, there was a canoe festival. I didn't spend a lot of time at it, but there was canoe races, cultural dances and lots of little stalls selling or promoting things. Here are some pictures…

Back translation

We did a lot of "back translation" during this translation workshop. It is a translation back into English of the local language translation and it should reflect how the language worded the sentence, but also make sense in English. It is used by consultants to check the accuracy of the translation and since they don't know every language in PNG, back translations have to be made, so that they can see in English, what the local language version says.

Here's an example from part of Exodus 15:25 in Taupota:

The Taupota version says:
Ma maranai i ahare hopunei au waira yana wairana i vira po umana i ahi.

A word for word, literal version of this is:
And when he throw it-out in water then that-water it became so drink it good.
The version above doesn't make much sense in English, but you can see what it is supposed to say. We want it to make a bit more sense for the consultant, so we write a version that sounds better in English and this is called a back translation.

Here's a back translation for this passage:
And when he threw it out into the water, then that water became so that it was good to drink.

My NIV Bible says: He threw it into the water, and the water became sweet.

Now here's some photos:

Doing some work with Rex from Taupota:

Participants performing a song and dance:

Nice sunset:

Taupota visit

My visit to the Taupota area was good. Nothing spectacular happened, but there was a burial going on, however we missed most of it unfortunately.

It is mango season and again, mangos drop off the tree occasionally and when you hear it snap a start to fall, you worry about the fact that you are sitting under the tree! One time I fetched one that fell and enjoyed eating it, although it was a little bruised.

The frangipanis and hibiscus were in bloom and looking great. There were so many different colours of hibiscus and they were really pretty.

Here are some photos…

Beautiful view:

Mango tree:

Hibiscus:

Another hibiscus:

How do we translate?

I could write an answer to this question that would fill a page, so I'll try to be brief.

There are different stages to translating, some of these are: first draft, advisor check, village check, back translation and consultant check. After each checking session, changes are made to the draft translation, until it is refined and as accurate as it can be. During this workshop I am involved in the first draft, advisor checks and back translation.

You might wonder how I can be involved in the first draft, when I don't know the language. Well, the two Taupota people do the actual translating. I typed for them (not easy when you don't know the language!) and I gave suggestions in English about different ways they could write it. I also explained things to them, such as the meaning of certain words or passages. They told me word for word in English what they had written in Taupota and sometimes I checked the meaning of the words or picked up on something that they hadn't included.

That's the main initial part of the translation process. I will try to write about the other parts another time.

Things that move

At both Alotau and Hagita, I have encountered various things that move. Creepy crawlies isn't quite the right term and I can't think of a general term that covers rats, frogs, ants and crabs.

We saw a rat in the toilet block on our first night at Hagita and screamed because of the sudden movement of it running fast. We haven't seen a rat there since though. Maybe we scared it away too with our scream! Nearly every night, there are frogs there too, but fortunately they have kept out of the toilet stalls and not scared us too much.

We don't have frogs or rats at the Alotau Centre, but I have seen little crabs, very small ones, but I don't like them running around inside. They look a bit like spiders.

I am also fighting an ant war at both places!! There were ants on my toothbrush, inside my toothbrush holder, so now I am keeping it in a zip-lock bag. I had ants among the cereal and milk powder that I left at the Alotau Centre for eating when I am there on the weekends. Ants are always hard to keep on top of everywhere. When I'm in Ukarumpa, I have the occasional ant crawling in and out of my computer, which is a bit of a worry!