no hair and no earrings!

The two things which are most commented on in the village as regards Eve are her lack of hair and earrings. Her lack of hair is sometimes put down to us having shaved it off - something which people here do if their baby has a lot of hair - but they are slightly doubtful whether we'd do that at the coolest time of year. I explain that no, all three of our babies were born with very little hair, and they shouldn't expect to see Eve with much hair for quite some time!

People also ask me why we didn't get her ears pierced. I explain that at home it is quite rare to pierce babies' ears, and that she'll probably get them pierced when she's older. When I said I was fourteen years old when I had mine done, I got a puzzled look and an attempt to correct me with, "Four months?" "No no, fourteen years!" Someone else present exclaimed, "Then how do you tell boys and girls apart?" and I explained that hairstyle or clothes usually indicate it.

Blue for boys and pink for girls isn't a custom here. Another missionary friend was asked whether her baby was a boy or a girl, and when she answered "a boy", was presented with a little pink and white sparkly pyjama outfit.

One thing I do appreciate about people in our village is that they may exclaim over differences, but generally they don't tell me I'm doing things wrong. Another example is that I've been told that if I were Beninese I would wrap Eve up a lot warmer (ie. woolly jumpers and hats even in 25°C heat) but they seem to accept that that's not what we do, and that she doesn't seem to be suffering for it. I do put a little cotton hat on her if we're going out in the mornings, as I don't want to shock people too much by seeing her little hairless head exposed when they are feeling cold! And I did put several layers on her to go to church, but ended up having to peel some of them off as she was getting hot and sweaty and was squeaking in protest!

People are also interested by my sling, since babies are carried on women's backs here. But again, if I explain that this way she can hear my heart beating and I can see her, they understand. I have started to carry her on my back occasionally, but I'm slightly nervous of the process of getting her onto my back, since it involves her starting off lying on my back with nothing holding her there!

In the sling:

Photos of Eve's first Sunday at church

 

These photos were taken by the church photographer on the day we "presented" Eve to the church. The pastor here is Pastor Samuel with whom I work in the translation team.

new arrival meets the village

While maternity leave means that I am not directly doing translation work at the moment, having a new baby has made us feel part of the community in new ways. First of all, we have had visits from people who want to congratulate us and meet the new arrival.

Secondly, we welcomed Eve into the church family last Sunday. Traditionally among the Monkolé people, a new mother stays in her house for 8 days with her baby. When she comes out, there is a ceremony called « ama ku fita », which means « bringing the child out ». There are various rites to be carried out as a way of bringing the child into the community. The church use the name « ama ku nyisi », meaning « showing the child », and now Christians present their baby to the church, thank God publicly for the gift of their child, and the church prays for the child and parents. We were happy to be able to do this for Eve, and felt loved and encouraged by our Monkolé brothers and sisters as we did so.

We also needed to start Eve's vaccinations. The first one is the BCG, and Marc and I went to the local hospital in Kandi last week, where at the entrance we bumped into two women from our church. It turned out that one of them, Marie, had given birth a week after me (also to her third), and she had come to the hospital for the same reason as us, only to be told that since there was a meningitis vaccination campaign going on, the BCG wouldn't be given until the next week.

So in the end Marie and I took our babies down to the hospital together this week. I always get a bit frustrated at the medical system here, as it is difficult to understand how things work, so going with someone who worked at the hospital was definitely a bonus! We had to wait for an hour, while things got set up and some pregnant women were given the injection, and then we were seen first. To be fair, we had been among the first to arrive, but we did also have the double advantage of Marie being an insider and me being white. We should be able to have the following vaccinations done in the village, by a team who come out once a week from a health centre.

I was glad to have someone to wait with, too, and it was good to chat in Monkolé to someone who I don't know so well. And I don't generally have all that much contact with other women my age in the village. So we were able to talk about our children, our birth experiences, Marie's work as a nurse and so on.

Next vaccinations around December 20th ("Happy Christmas, Eve!")

Welcome to the world, Eve!

Eve's birth went very well, and I was very glad that we had chosen to stay in Benin and to go to Bembéréké (a hospital started by the mission over 50 years ago). The Beninese midwife we had - the wife of the hospital director - has delivered missionary babies before, and isn't shocked by our idea that the husband should accompany his wife. She is also very experienced and very calm and reassuring.

We went to a private room in the maternity wing at 3pm, and things went fast from then on, as I gave birth at 5.10pm, only about ten minutes after arriving in the delivery room. The midwife was saying, "Oh, please! At least let me get my gloves on!" as Eve suddenly decided she was coming in a rush!

Here is the house we stayed in:

Me and Eve a couple of hours after her birth:

Marc and Eve two days later:

All three children after we got home:

Birth!

Eve Sofia was born on November 8th, at 5.10pm, weighing 3.020kg (about 6 and a half pounds, I think!). More details and photos to come when we get home to a (hopefully) better internet connection next week!

Written November 5th ...

... only posted now due to terrible internet connection!

Sorry for my silence over the last month! The month went extremely quickly – our annual SIM Benin-Togo conference took place from October 14^th to 18^th, and since I was involved with the organisation that took up quite a lot of my thinking time! I am grateful to God for a smooth and non-stressful conference, with thought-provoking Bible messages and some lovely times of fellowship with other missionaries.

Then I just had one week at home to get myself sorted to come to the mission hospital, since it had wisely been suggested that I move on-site at 38 weeks. I didn't at all expect to give birth so early (having given birth at 39+6 and 41+3 in the past) but I would have found it a bit stressful to be at home at that stage. Travelling is not recommended at night (due to bandits and badly-lit fast-moving other trafic) and trying to get the whole family in the car in a rush in the middle of the night did not appeal!

Last week I was here on my own, as Marc and the boys brought me down, stayed a night and then went back home for the rest of the week. That way our short-termer Matthieu could teach Simon for another week and Marc could get work done which he can do more easily at home … plus oversee the installation of a new water tank. But since Saturday they have been here with me – Marc is teaching Simon again and getting with other work in the afternoons. I'm glad, as I didn't really want to give birth without Marc being here!

We have a very comfortable house to stay in, and it is quite a luxury to have reliable power and water, not to mention people who come on-site to sell vegetables and chickens. It is quite a novelty to have a man turn up with chickens tied to his bicycle, to choose the one I want and have it killed, plucked and cleaned outside the house. It ends up in the fridge looking as if I bought it at the supermarket … but of course fresher!!

There are several other missionaries working in the hospital or on-site at the moment, and they looked after me very well last week, inviting me over for meals so that I wouldn't miss my family too much!

So now we are playing the waiting game, though since I'm not 40 weeks until Friday, I don't want to think of it as waiting until then!! If this one is as late as Benjy was, I still have another two weeks to go … and as I said, it's very nice being here, and I'm able to get on well with translation work, so what's the rush? I suppose I could be impatient to see my baby, but I remember last time thinking that babies are far less work on the inside than the outside, so perhaps I should just enjoy the (relative) peace and quiet while I can!

of gods and chance

We came up against two interesting translation challenges while working on I Samuel recently. The first is a problem we have frequently, and this was just a new variation. For the Monkolé people, and indeed most people groups in this part of West Africa, there is one supreme God, but there are also spirits who are worshipped and sacrificed to through idols (often represented by a tree or a rock or another natural object). This makes it difficult to translate when the Bible talks of « other gods » … not that the Bible is not mono-theistic, but it recognizes that other peoples worship their own idea of a god (or gods). It is not possible, grammatically speaking, to put « god » in plural in Monkolé, or to talk of « their God », because that supposes the existence of others. So when it comes to saying « the God of the Israelites », we tend to translate it with « God, the Lord of the Israelites ».

In I Samuel 4, the Israelites are fighting against the Philistines, and are losing. So they send for the ark of the LORD. When the Philistines hear that the ark has come into the Israelite camp, they say something along the lines of, “God has come into their camp … who shall rescue us from these powerful gods?” (In the Hebrew “god” is first singular then plural.) For people like the Monkolé, who believe in one supreme God, this makes it sound as if the Philistines are saying that this one supreme God is on the side of their enemies (and “gods” must be translated as a singular “God”).

In chapter 5, the Philistines have captured the ark of the LORD in battle, and taken it back to their own country where they place it in the temple of their god Dagon. The first night it is there, the statue of Dagon falls on the floor in front of the ark. The second night not only does it fall, but its head and hands fall off. Then the people of the city are plagued with tumours, and they realise that keeping the ark in their city is perhaps not such a good idea. So they say, “The God of Israel did this. He is the one causing trouble for us and for our god Dagon.” Even when the translators choose (as they do in many English versions) to write the first occurrence of “God” with a capital “G” and the second with a lowercase “g”, it seems clear that for the Philistines these two gods were beings of the same nature … which didn't seem at all the case in our Monkolé translation which said “God, the Lord of the Israelites, did this. He is the one causing trouble for us and for our idol Dagon.”

We discussed this as a team, but couldn't find a satisfactory solution. However, when I talked with a missionary colleague who is a translator in another Beninese language, she asked whether it wasn't possible to use the word for “Lord” for both. So instead of “God, the Lord of the Israelites”, simply “the Lord of the Israelites”, and then instead of “our idol Dagon”, “our Lord Dagon”. I went back with this proposition to my translators, to find out whether that was acceptable in Monkolé, and as we looked through the different passages we were able to work it in. Of course, we'll have to wait and see what our translation consultant thinks of it, but I think we may have found a fairly good way to translate so that we remain true to the mindset of the original readers while expressing it in a reasonable natural form of the Monkolé language.

The second question I had when looking at the text before working with the team, was in I Samuel 6:9. Here the Philistines say that if a certain thing happens they'll know that it is the God (or Lord!) of the Israelites who is sending the plague upon them, but that if it doesn't happen they'll know that the plague has come upon them by chance. Chance is not something which exists in the Monkolé worldview. There must always be a reason for everything, so I wondered how this would be translated. Looking at the translation, I found that it said, « otherwise we will know that this has come upon us from somewhere [else] », a translation supported by a translators' manual which is on my computer. My translators said that anyway, Christians don't believe in chance ... yet I don't feel that Western Christians see things quite the same way as Monkolé Christians ...