verb me a verb!

If you are learning English, getting the hang of the verb “get” will get you (aha!) a long way. It is, however, difficult to grasp all the different nuances of meaning it can carry, especially when used with different prepositions as a compound verb. “Get on”, “get off”, “get with”, “get at” and so on. When I was in France, some fellow doctorate students asked me to proof-read an article they'd written about several uses of “get”. I had to disagree with them when they said that “to get through” a bad experience was the same thing as “to get over” it. (To me, “getting through” something simply means surviving it, whereas “getting over” it implies that it no longer bothers you. You could say about someone, “he got through the war, but he never got over it”.)

In Monkolé, we've noticed two verbs which have a wider meaning than their literal translation in French or English. The first literally means “to find” and the second literally means “to leave”. So they would be used in sentences such as “I've found a friend” or “I left the house this morning”. But “to find” is also used in sentences which would literally be translated as “I've found years thirty-three” (ie. I'm thirty-three years old) or when haggling over prices “francs one hundred won't find” (ie. I won't go down as far as one hundred francs). “To leave” can be used in an expression which literally means “why it left”, meaning “because”.

Abraham used another expression containing this verb which appealed to me a lot. He and I were having our recurring, good-natured argument about whether it's true that “people say various things, but what's in the dictionary is the real Monkolé”. (He says it is, I say that what's in the dictionary is an arbitrary standard form.) Anyway, he was saying something (in French), and I was interrupting him (also in French) because I was sure I'd heard him say the same things many times before, and he said, “jom a chucku titan”. It means “first let me fall [before you rush to pick me up]!”

Still on the subject of language, it is interesting to see the way that Simon's linguistic competence is developing. When we arrived in Benin he spoke more English than French (though he understood French as well as English) after having spent 18 months in England with only his Papa speaking French to him. Nowadays, though, he spends more time speaking French than English, and it is quite obvious that his French has overtaken his English (at least in production, probably not in comprehension). A lot of the time he is speaking French with the Beninese, and we have already noticed a Beninese accent creeping in on certain words (his nasal vowels are rising, to be technical!). He also knows greetings in Baatonu and Monkolé, and we are quite sure that after a few months in the village his Monkolé will have outstripped ours!

Benjy is babbling away, and rather than him learning our language from us, Simon seems to be learning Benjy's language from him. At mealtimes Benjy will say something like “da-da-da” and Simon will repeat “da-da-da”, then Benjy will say “gung-gung-gung” and once again Simon will repeat it!

verb me a verb!

If you are learning English, getting the hang of the verb “get” will get you (aha!) a long way. It is, however, difficult to grasp all the different nuances of meaning it can carry, especially when used with different prepositions as a compound verb. “Get on”, “get off”, “get with”, “get at” and so on. When I was in France, some fellow doctorate students asked me to proof-read an article they'd written about several uses of “get”. I had to disagree with them when they said that “to get through” a bad experience was the same thing as “to get over” it. (To me, “getting through” something simply means surviving it, whereas “getting over” it implies that it no longer bothers you. You could say about someone, “he got through the war, but he never got over it”.)

In Monkolé, we've noticed two verbs which have a wider meaning than their literal translation in French or English. The first literally means “to find” and the second literally means “to leave”. So they would be used in sentences such as “I've found a friend” or “I left the house this morning”. But “to find” is also used in sentences which would literally be translated as “I've found years thirty-three” (ie. I'm thirty-three years old) or when haggling over prices “francs one hundred won't find” (ie. I won't go down as far as one hundred francs). “To leave” can be used in an expression which literally means “why it left”, meaning “because”.

Abraham used another expression containing this verb which appealed to me a lot. He and I were having our recurring, good-natured argument about whether it's true that “people say various things, but what's in the dictionary is the real Monkolé”. (He says it is, I say that what's in the dictionary is an arbitrary standard form.) Anyway, he was saying something (in French), and I was interrupting him (also in French) because I was sure I'd heard him say the same things many times before, and he said, “jom a chucku titan”. It means “first let me fall [before you rush to pick me up]!”

Still on the subject of language, it is interesting to see the way that Simon's linguistic competence is developing. When we arrived in Benin he spoke more English than French (though he understood French as well as English) after having spent 18 months in England with only his Papa speaking French to him. Nowadays, though, he spends more time speaking French than English, and it is quite obvious that his French has overtaken his English (at least in production, probably not in comprehension). A lot of the time he is speaking French with the Beninese, and we have already noticed a Beninese accent creeping in on certain words (his nasal vowels are rising, to be technical!). He also knows greetings in Baatonu and Monkolé, and we are quite sure that after a few months in the village his Monkolé will have outstripped ours!

Benjy is babbling away, and rather than him learning our language from us, Simon seems to be learning Benjy's language from him. At mealtimes Benjy will say something like “da-da-da” and Simon will repeat “da-da-da”, then Benjy will say “gung-gung-gung” and once again Simon will repeat it!

communication problems

One thing which is very different about life here compared to Europe is communication. On the surface, things look similar – we have post, internet and mobile phones. But letters can take between a week and a month to arrive, parcels take longer and sometimes don't arrive (so far 6 of the 8 parcels we know have been sent have got here safely), internet is unreliable and – when it does work – extremely slow, and calling with a mobile phone is expensive. (Though strangely, it doesn't seem to cost any more to phone Europe than it does to phone someone with a mobile phone on another network within Benin!)

This can get frustrating. You think you're getting used to it, and then you realise another parcel has gone astray, or a letter has taken 3 months to arrive, or you can't access your emails for a few days … and suddenly you feel cut off from those you love. And afraid that they won't realise it isn't your fault you're out of touch, and will think you just can't be bothered to reply.

So if you've written to me, or left comments on facebook (ah yes, I do vaguely remember my facebooking days), or are wondering why I'm posting less frequently on my blog … bear with me!

confused in translation

When I was teaching English in a business school in French, my students often had to produce a kind of project as part of their final evaluation. One term, a student who had come to fewer than half my classes handed in a piece of work which immediately looked suspect. It consisted of 4 or 5 sheets of printed paper, with very long sentences and no pictures or diagrams.

As soon as I began to read, I burst out laughing, amused but not at all impressed. It was clear that the student in question had gone to a French website on his chosen subject, swiped the text, and fed it through an online translation machine to get an English "equivalent". The translation was so literal that I had no trouble back-translating the first line, googling it, and turning up the original website.

The student of course got zero for his piece of work, and I did have to wonder whether he really thought he'd get away with it, or whether he just couldn't have cared less. It would show an utter lack of understanding of language to think that a computer could successfully “translate” an entire text in a way that would fool a native speaker into thinking it had originally been written in the target language. (Or perhaps he thought I wanted to spend as little time marking it as he wanted to spend producing it, and so would just put a random grade on it!)

I tell this story because learning Monkolé has reminded me of how difficult translation can be. Concepts which exist and are easily described in one language may be impossible to render in another. In Monkolé, for example, there are no such words as “brother”, “sister” or “sibling”. Instead, one speaks of “opposite-sex sibling”, “younger same-sex sibling” and “older same-sex sibling”. Which means that I use the same word to speak of my younger sisters as Marc does to speak of his younger brothers. So how do you translate “X the brother of Y” in the Bible, if you don't know which of them was the elder?

In a similar way, you can't say “son” or “daughter”, you have to say “boy-child” or “girl-child”. Which might sound unproblematic, until you realise that if you say to a Monkolé speaker, “Jesus is the boy-child of God” (you can't say “God's boy-child), it sounds to them as if God also has a girl-child! (The decision of the translators of the New Testament was to simply say “the child of God”, since a “perfect” translation isn't possible.)

Although this creates some frustrations when learning a new language, it is also fascinating, and gives a glimpse into some of the ways in which we think so differently from people from another culture.

There are of course lots of other difficulties which are encountered when translating, and I'm sure I will be writing more about them in the future!

turn turn turn

One of my dad's favourite sayings is: “Constant change is here to stay!” and that is particularly true of missionary life. On our wedding anniversary in August I said to Marc, “Wow – 5 years, 3 countries and 2 boys – not bad!” But I am hoping it won't be 10 years, 6 countries and 4 boys (and don't even get me started on 15 years, 9 countries and 6 boys!!!).

We have moved about so much in the past 2 years that I don't know any more what would really count as a “proper” move and what was just visiting! And that isn't about to end – we have another two moves planned in the next year … and by then it will be less than a year until our first Home Assignment! But we are used to it, and by the grace of God the boys seem to be coping well.

We parents had a class on transition in our Pastoral Studies course at All Nations. We looked at the cycle of transition (belonging, disengaging, leaving, entering, belonging) and the feelings and behaviours often associated with the different stages. It certainly helps to realise that your way of reacting to things is completely normal!

I suppose the danger for us is that we are so used to moving that we never really reach the belonging stage where we feel settled … but I hope that once we are living in Pèdè we will get there at some point!

This subject was on my mind last week because of changes which Simon has been experiencing. As I said, he has always taken change in his stride, and until now, as long as he had Papa and Mummy everything was fine. During the months of August and September, however, he got used to (yet) a(nother) new routine during our morning language lessons. He had a girl called Rachel looking after him, and 3 Beninese kids (aged 1, 4 and 6) who came to play with him while their mum worked for our neighbours. We often didn't see Simon all morning as they would go out onto our (large) compound to play, sing and dance!

Now Rachel has had to go back to school, as term started last Monday. Our neighbour has moved away, which means that Simon's little friends are no longer on the compound. This big change in routine hit Simon hard. Esther, our home help, was happy to keep an eye on Simon while she works, but he no longer had an adult at his disposal or friends his age to play with. Later in the week Esther brought her sister's daughter with her, and that cheered Simon up a lot. I did feel sorry for him on Tuesday morning though, as he sat sadly in our living room looking at Abraham, Marc and myself working on Monkolé (I took pity on him and read a book with him until Esther arrived).

He is too young to understand that as a missionary kid he is going to have to get used to big changes happening fairly regularly. I am just grateful that although he doesn't necessarily like changes to his routine, he does enjoy meeting and getting to know new people. And Benjy seems to be the same!

Extra note: This post has taken a while to be posted because of problems with the internet. We have probably found someone new to look after the boys – and she is even a Monkolé speaker! We thought there weren't any others in town!! She will start with us on Monday.

oop North

Ten days ago we went “up North” for the weekend. A bit of background might help to explain where we were and what we were doing.

In 2002 I first came to Benin with a short-term mission team from France. We stayed in a town called Kandi, hosted by the local pastor and his wife. We visited churches in villages around Kandi and put on open-air events with the double objective of advertising the lending library set up by the Kandi church and sharing the good news of Jesus. During the trip I began to wonder whether God might be showing me that the next step for me after I finished my linguistics doctorate in France would be to return to Benin to work in translation work.

So in 2003 I came back to Benin on my own to spend 3 weeks with Grace Birnie, in Pèdè, a village near Kandi. Grace is a Canadian missionary who has been working with the Monkolé language for many years. She worked with Monkolé informants to analyse and write down the language, before beginning the translation of the Bible. The time I spent with her and her team made me fairly sure that God was calling me to work in Benin. At that point I assumed I'd be coming here on my own, but God had different plans!

In 2004 Marc and I got married, and in 2006 Marc came to Benin with a short-term team. He was working in the South of the country, but did visit Parakou, where our mission (SIM) has its headquarters, to talk with missionaries about possibilities for us to work here as a couple. He met a missionary who had worked on the type-setting of the Monkolé New Testament (published that year) and she told him that with Grace soon to retire, there was an opportunity for me to take her place on the translation team, and for him to work in discipleship and leadership training in the Monkolé churches.

This idea was approved by both SIM France (our sending office) and SIM Benin-Togo. Later, SIM Benin-Togo decided to keep us in Parakou for our first months, so that we could get to know other SIM missionaries better and meet the leadership of the Union of Evangelical Churches. They also felt that life in Parakou, a large town, would make the transition easier for us. So we have been living in a mission house in Parakou since we arrived here in May. God has provided Abraham, a student from Pèdè who has been studying in Parakou, to help us begin learning Monkolé. (Here in Parakou the main language is Baatonu, and hardly anyone speaks Monkolé.)

Our trip up North was therefore Marc and our boys' first opportunity to see the village of Pèdè and to meet the pastor and church there. It was also the first time they would see Grace's house, which we will eventually live in after her retirement in June next year.

The journey was wearisome, as we had to travel over a lot of what I call “Swiss cheese road”, with pot-holes sometimes 30cm or so deep, and capable of damaging your car badly if you accidentally drop into them. What took 3 hours back in 2003 when the road was newer, now took us nearly 5 hours (including a short break to feed Benjy).

Our first night there didn't exactly give us our much-needed rest. The four of us were sharing Grace's bedroom (she was in the small guestroom) and Benjy woke three times and I had to feed him to get him back to sleep (these days he is usually on just one feed a night). Then a cock started crowing outside our bedroom window at 2.30am and carried on for the rest of the night! Since the windows here never shut entirely, it was as if the cock was in the room with us, and we found it impossible to sleep!

Still, the rest of the weekend was well worth it. It was great to see Pastor Samuel again and to spend a lot of time talking with him and with Grace about our future move to Pèdè. At church on Sunday Marc introduced us in Monkolé, which earned us a very warm welcome! We were encouraged to find that we could understand some of the things people said – obviously our hard language learning work is paying off!

The plan now is that (all being well) we will move up there in January, and we will spend the months until Grace's retirement in a small house next door to her. Our lifestyle will change as much, if not more, as it did in the move from Europe to Benin. There is no mains electricity or running water in the village, so Grace has a solar power system which powers her fridge, lights and well pump. The small house has a kerosene fridge and its solar system just supplies enough power for 12V lights for the evening and small 12V fans for the night (apparently very necessary in dry season).

The biggest logistical question at the moment is whether Grace's solar power system can supply the amount of electricity needed to pump enough well water for us and her without her fridge shutting down! There may be another solution though, as a mission-owned petrol-powered pump has become available. We would welcome prayer that everything would fall into place for a January move, as we would like to have a few months' overlap with Grace.