Attention to Detail

Thursday morning, December 26^th, I woke up before my 6:45am alarm clock and gathered my stuff with an efficiency that betrayed the waking-up wooze that swirled around in my brain. Shortly after 7am, Work'u arrived and together we jumped on the motorbike to drive the fifty kilometers up to our translation office, where Janey and Thomas would be waiting. Arriving a bit after 8am, we exchanged greetings and poured ourselves right into the text. At quitting time (5pm), I switched gears to catch up on email, did a little bit of leisure reading, and watched an episode of LOST before crashing in the guestroom bed offered to me by the Catholic missionaries on whose compound we work. The next morning, 8am, we picked up where we left off (Acts 5, Ananias and Sapphira). Again quitting right at 5pm, I switched my sandals into steel-toed boots, threw on my motorcycle jacket and helmet and revved it up. I was tired and already transitioning my mind toward home. It had only been a 1-night stay away (usually I stay two), but with it being the first time since before our five-week stay in Addis Ababa, I was anxious to get home to Andrea, Micah and Grace. Besides, Andrea usually makes an extra nice meal on our Friday movie nights, and my meager "ramen noodle" lunch wasn't sticking.

 

Waiting a bit for the engine to warm, I took it off choke, only to have it immediately die on me. Starting again, I waited even longer, drove it down the road a bit, only to have it stall as soon as I tried to idle off of choke. Grr…I walked the bike back to the Catholic compound, not wanting to further inspect the bike in front of the gathering crowd of spectators. Safe inside the Catholic Father's garage, I cleaned the air filter, cleaned and checked the spark plug and emptied the sediment bowl in the fuel line. Trying it again, I saw no improvement. By now, Brother Robe, a quiet Italian guy who has faithfully served the Catholic ministry to the Gmz for many years, had come out to lend a much-appreciated hand. After exhausting all of these quick fixes, my hopes of reaching home that night were sinking along with the sun. I called a motorcycle-guru friend in Addis Ababa. "Hmmm…" he said, "based on what you told me, I think your problem is that you have a clogged pilot fuel thinger (ok, he didn't say thinger, but rather used the technical name that I have since forgotten). Unfortunately, I think the process in cleaning it out involves going deeper into the carburetor than you are wanting to go yourself." Up for the challenge, I gave him the green light to go ahead, "Hey, try me, if I'm not getting home tonight anyway, I gonna need something to do. And besides, I'd like to learn the inside of the carburetor." After receiving careful instructions from Addis, Brother Robe and I, with the help of their compound guard holding a utility light, set out in search of this pilot fuel thinger. After completely removing and disassembling the carburetor, we located and removed the clogged thinger. Basically, everything in there was quite dirty (a testament to the quality of fuel we get out of barrels at the local station) and so after giving every piece a thorough clean, we put it back together and wrestled it back onto the bike.

 

Just after 8pm, with the sun long gone, I mounted the bike for a test run, only to quickly discover that it was worse off than before – now it couldn't even idle with the choke on! Grr again…Brother Robe, pointed to the Catholic mission's truck, "Take it home for the weekend and then on Monday you can take the bike into a mechanic." Frustrated at our failure, and yet blessed by his offer to use their truck, I accepted his generosity without much fight and we began putting our tools away in disappointed silence. Suddenly the silence was broken by the compound guard over by the tool bench. "Eh, eh, yichi restenal!" (meaning: "Hey, we forgot this little guy.") You guessed it, there, pinched between his forefinger and thumb was the pilot fuel thinger. Brother Robe and I locked eyes before simultaneously dropping our heads with shame-filled smirks. "Take the truck and go home to your family," said Robe after a moment. "Sounds good, and I'll schedule another appointment with Mr. Carburetor Monday night." 

 

And so, as many of you blog readers are just beginning your workday (Monday morning, 8am CST), we will be ending ours (5pm) and I'll be rolling my sleeves up for round 2: Man versus Motorbike!  And believe me, this time I'll have my attention-to-detail levels turned up to the maximum threshold, which is where it seems to ride most days in the translation office. For just as forgetting the tiniest thinger has the power to change a nice motorbike into a useless collection of metal, plastic and rubber, so also we have seen many examples where one mistranslated word, one word order mistake and in some cases a simple spelling error can change truth into heresy. I pray that all of us on the translation team are more careful than Robe and I were last Friday night.