Jack of No Trades

We learned early on of one major cultural mismatch between us and the Gmz people. At first I was confused by some of the strange requests the Gmz people would bring to our door. It seemed anything mechanical, anything electrical, anything medical, and practically anything anything was for some reason brought to me with the expectation that had all the answers. I forget exactly, but likely it was a more-experienced co-worker who pointed out to me that Gmz society, unlike our own, is not fractured into fields of specialization. In other words, the base of common knowledge is quite large and specialized knowledge is quite small. And since everyone knows everything within the Gmz culture, why would I not be expected to know about everything that comes from my cuture? That’s why I've been asked to wear many unexpected hats over these last three years: Bicycle mechanic, electrician, computer hacker, radio repairman, cell phone diagnose/repair, and on and on.

It is not that Gmz are ignorant people, not at all. If you test any Gmz man, woman or child on naming the individual names for every tree, every plant and every variety of grass, they will ace your test and put any non-horticulturalist to shame. Or, if you dare, move onto species of birds! Some of the longest discussions in the translation office are over things like, "exactly what type of bird the Holy Spirit resembled when he descended upon Jesus at his baptism?"

If you look closely you can see our friend Wene laughing hysterically in the background.

Earlier this summer, when Matthew (our summer intern) and I went out to the peanut field to "help" with plowing, it soon became clear that we fish out of water. The Gmz men, on the other hand, young and old, knew exactly what needed to be done, where and how. This was proved to me even more when we stopped for lunch, and one of the young boys picked up the whip and plow and started driving the huge bulls just as the bigger guys had. When dry season comes and the wells are out of commission, you can ask any little girl and they can tell you just how to locate a spot, dig a hole and wait for it to fill with water. The wealth of Gmz knowledge is HUGE with regard to that which is important in their lives, and all of it is considered common knowledge.

In this way, I wish I was more Gmz. I wish I held a workable knowledge of a large variety of things found in our culture – someone we might call a "Jack of All Trades." Instead, it seems, with most areas, I have a tiny bit of knowledge, which, when combined with common sense and trial-and-error can barely scrape by on most jobs. Take last Saturday for example. I am not a plumber, or a roofer, or a mechanic, or an electrician, but projects in all of these areas made it onto my must-do list. It made me think of a conversation I had with Matthew this summer. Reflecting on how narrow the field of linguistics is and how job opportunities outside of Bible translation are quite slim pickin's, we brainstormed what trades we might want to put in our back-pockets to broaden our knowledge base and open up potential opportunities down the road. Well, for Matthew, it was clear all summer long that he was quite sharp with computers and so could see himself going into programming of some sort. As for me, choosing a field/trade wasn’t so easy. I'd love to shadow a plumber for a time, or better yet an electrician. Then again, there is a whole lot I could learn about mechanics and even shadowing through a major construction project. It all sounded like a lot of fun, with HUGE practical implications for life right in the meantime. When it comes to these skills, I feel like a thirsty sponge searching for knowledge to soak up.

This topic brushes on another topic that has been on my mind a lot lately, the kind of question that sets me up for a grand mid-life crisis in a few years. It goes something like this: "So Travis, if you want to find yourself at 50 having "mastered" some trade, some skill, some field of study, some anything, what are you doing at 33 to sharpen yourself and move yourself one step closer toward that?" If right now I am a Jack of No Trades, becoming a Jack of One begins with selecting and narrowing my focus onto that one field. I have some ideas…