Cotton

Every year, from about the month of November, we see heaps of harvested cotton in the fields here.



This cotton is collected by lorries and transported to the factories which treat it. This season it has taken longer to collect the cotton, as the hangars for stocking cotton at the factories are no longer in use, and so the lorries have to wait to unload it directly into the factory.

When we went down to Parakou a couple of months ago we saw lots of lorries waiting outside one of the factories.





We also saw these men working to stuff pillows and mattresses with the spare cotton. Whether it is just the cotton that falls from the lorries or whether it is cotton which the factory has rejected, we're not sure.



At any rate, I've felt one of these pillows in the market, and they are harder than anything I'd like to rest my head on at night!

Words words words

One of the helpful tools in the Paratext software we use for translation is the Word List. This gives all the words in a project - in our case all the words in one book of the Bible - in alphabetical order. I pride myself on being pretty good at proof-reading, even in Monkolé, but sometimes my brain is my worst enemy. When we read, our brains deliberately don't look at every detail, they make sense of what they see. So after proof-reading I always use the word list for another check. And I may see something like this:



There are 28 instances of the word "inaabo", which means female (usually found in "ama inaabo", "daughter"), and - oops - two instances of "inaaabo", a spelling mistake! One of our team doesn't touch-type, which makes this kind of typo easier to make, and when re-reading, our brains very easily slide over an extra "a" when there are already two in the word!

In case you're wondering, "inaaboi" is "female" with a possessif marker, ie. "female of", usually found in "ama inaaboi", "daughter of". And then "[ama] inaabou" is "the daughter" and "[ama] inaaboɛ" is his/her/your daughter", depending on the context.

Anyway, thanks to the word list I removed the extra "a" from the two instances of "inaaabo", and was able to correct many other such similar errors.

If you can read the bottom line in my photo, you might be interested to know that "woo ce alisi inaabo" means "sorceress"!

New baby and weaving

Yesterday we went out to visit a local pastor's family. They had had a new baby last month, and we wanted to congratulate them and give them some gifts. Here are the mother and baby:



And the mother teaches girls to weave traditional cloth. Here are some of her apprentices:



And in this photo you can see the looms better:

Disguise?

Nothing to do with translation, but this is how I can get Eve to eat brown bread...

January

A few January photos. First of all, our front gate (seen as I walk home from working in the office):



Some of the lemons and other small citrus fruit which grow in our compound:



The kids in their hideout under the lemon tree:



Our rabbit friends:

Sunday School

I have been taking Eve to Sunday School since the beginning of the year. Simon and Benjy have never wanted to go. It is all in Monkolé, which they don't understand, and despite being assured that their friends could translate for them, they are on the shy side and don't want to stand out. So they stay for the sermon in church, which they can at least understand since there is an interpreter translating into French.

Eve, however, understands a bit more Monkolé than them, and is incapable of sitting through a sermon without distracting me so much that I can't concentrate on it. She won't go to Sunday School on her own, but if I go with her then she will.

I just sit at the side and watch, and Eve will now go and sit with the other children. The Sunday School desperately needs help - there is just one leader for the 40-50 children between the ages of 2 and 10 ... but that is precisely what puts me off! At the moment I find the idea of trying to teach that many children (or even half of that) in Monkolé with no materials very daunting!

It seems that traditionally it has been the youth who teach the kids - except for the church elder who heads up the work - and that no one has thought that parents could also get stuck in. Maybe with time I'll feel I could offer some suggestions and help out, but at the moment I just observe (and have taught them one action song in English for fun).

It's hard to take photos, as it is so dark inside the room where they meet in contrast to the sunlight outside, but here is one:



Please do pray for these children, and for their Sunday School teachers.

Context

I remember writing about how in language learning context can make
things difficult. Sometimes you feel you understand all the individual
words, but the meaning still eludes you. (If I were an organised blogger
I would be able to give you a link back to that post...)

Context can also be our friend. Last Saturday I was at a shop in Kandi
with Eve. The usual shopkeeper, who I know, wasn't there, and she had
left a young woman and a teenager looking after the shop. The young
woman said something to Eve in French, and as usual when Eve is tired of
attention, she ignored her. The teenager said something to the young
woman with the word "anglais" (English) in it, and I replied in French,
"No, she understands French too, her father is French."

The young woman looked at me and said, also in French, "It sounds like
you understand Dendi perfectly!" so I admitted that I had just guessed
what she'd said based on the word "anglais". It hadn't exactly been too
difficult!

But I know from experience that when you don't know a language, or are
struggling to learn it, it can be tempting to shut down your ears and
eyes, and just resign yourself to not understanding. It is always worth
making the effort!

One shouldn't go too far the other way, though, and just assume one is
understanding things. Then you get the phenomenon of the foreigner who
just smiles and says "yes" to whatever is said to them! Highly risky!
Better to always check your understanding and admit when you don't
understand. (Swallow your pride - pride doesn't get you anywhere in
language learning!)