customer loyalty

Many shops in Europe have loyalty schemes ... or at least they did when I was last there! Things work a little differently here! In the market, for example, I always buy my tomatoes from the same person, my onions from the same person, my peanut butter from the same person ... and in return I am often given a "gift" of a few more tomatoes etc., showing me that I am a valued customer. Other vendors give you a reduced price if they know you.

I think the classic example was when my onion seller once said to me, "Four onions for 250F, but for you 200F" ... and then gave me two free onions as a gift on top of the four I'd paid my 200F for!

On Saturday I was accosted in the street as I bought some flipflops for Simon by a young Nigerian woman who likes to speak English to me, and who wanted to ask me, "Why you not buy flour from me any more? I'm not happy!" This is a long story involving my flour seller who stopped selling flour for a while, but since I park in front of his place I would still go and greet him and he would tell me where to go to buy my flour - often just next door where this woman sells flour. My flour seller is now selling flour again, so like the loyal customer I am, I am buying my flour there again.

I racked my brains as to how to placate this young woman, and then remembered that she sells sugar, and that although I'd forgotten to put it on my shopping list, I actually really needed some. So I said, "Oh! I need sugar! Three kilos, please!" ... and she sent me to get it from an older lady who works with her who I always speak to in Monkolé since she doesn't speak French (or presumably English!). I should point out that she isn't Monkolé either, but is very pleased to have found a common language which we can use to communicate!

I am always a little stumped to know what to do when my usual vendor of something is absent, as I know that if I buy it elsewhere they will expect to see me back again. Sometimes I go to part of the market I don't usually go to, so that they won't see me again the next week, but this doesn't work for things like tomatoes, which are all sold in the same part of the market. Mind you, these days if my usual tomato seller is absent her neighbouring tomato seller recognises me and grabs me. She is deaf, so communication is reduced to pointing and showing money, but we manage!

 
My tomato seller and me last year when my parents were visiting. The new market hadn't been opened yet, and all the stands were temporarily out in the street (for four years!).

near and far

So far this has been a month for both close-up shots and skyscapes! Just a few examples:

a jealous God?

In Numbers 25:11 we come across the idea, as in other places in the Old Testament, of God as a “jealous” God. Even in English, jealousy has negative connotations. We usually imagine it as an ugly, uncontrolled reaction rather than a valid emotion.

Numbers 25 begins with the people of Israel being enticed away from worshipping their God and turning to the idol worship of their Madianite neighbours.

A fairly literal translation of the Hebrew of Numbers 25:11 says, “Phinehas the son of Eleazar, son of Aaron the priest, has turned back my wrath from the people of Israel, in that he was jealous with my jealousy among them, so that I did not consume the people of Israel in my jealousy.” (If you want to know exactly what he did then you can go and read the whole story in Numbers 25!)

The draft Monkolé translation said, “Fineɛzi woo weeu, amai Eleazaa, tɔkui Arɔ̃ɔ woo weeu, í sinda idɔɔkɔ̃m hai si inɛi Izirɛli ŋau domi himmam í naa siɛ si anini nŋa. Ŋɔi í jɔ̀ si idɔɔkɔ̃m nɔu n kù kpa inɛi Izirɛli ŋau fei má.”

A literal translation of this would be “Phinehas the priest, son of Eleazar, son of Aaron the priest, turned my anger from the people of Israel for my zeal came upon him among them. He made that in my anger I didn't kill all the people of Israel.”

One of the Monkolé translators said that “zeal” didn't seem right to him in this example. We therefore discussed the concept of jealousy, which I thought was “igu” in Monkolé, but the translators said no, only women experience “igu”, for men it is called something different. Both words, however, have negative connotations in the same way that jealousy does in English.

So we looked at the way various versions treated it. Few modern translations in English or French use “jealousy”, so we looked at what they had done and ended up saying “he refused to accept that they turn from me to worship idols instead”. We do lose something in the translation, because with the word “jealousy” comes an implicit image of God as a husband and Israel as an unfaithful wife (a recurring image throughout the Old Testament). But unless we made the image entirely explicit by adding things which weren't in the original, we would be running the risk of making it very difficult to understand if not misleading.

These sorts of decisions are always difficult to make, and I'm not always sure if we have made the right one. That's when I am glad we work in a team, and that our work is always checked by a translation consultant. It also encourages me to continue to pray for discernment and wisdom!

little office in the garden

I have been waiting to launch my new blog but have been thwarted by a period of extremely bad internet connection. However, today it seems to be working well enough, and I thought I would kick things off with a photo of the translation office, standing in the middle of the pastor's wife's okra garden (on the SIM property).