Bird Watching

In the previous blog post, I explained the importance of friendship upon which trust is built – a trust that oils the wheels of creativity and grace much needed in the office. This friendship is built out of many different blocks, some of which are merely the hours upon hours we spend with each other in our work-related activities. Even in our most serious days, rarely does an hour go by without something happening or something being said that makes us all laugh. These last few months, we've discovered a new game for us to enjoy together – bird watching.

 

The sun beats down pretty hard on Gilgel Beles, and unfortunately, the city's location on the gentle slope down toward Sudan, doesn't afford it much of a breeze. Stale heat, as we have come to learn, has very little to speak well of and when the three translators and I crowd around one laptop screen for a team check, our collective body heat cranks the degree of uncomfortability up another few notches (not to mention an unfriendly aroma surpassed only by that of a Friday night locker room). Oh well, I guess it's all a matter of perspective, as many of our Scandinavian colleagues would say that our "sauna" office is lacking several degrees of heat, a whole lot of humidity and definitely the freedom of self-exposure! In other words…it could be a whole lot worse!

 

Early in the project we requested and received a "ventilator" for the office - that is, a fan. And so, on days where there is electricity, it is not uncommon for us to set the fan on oscillate and circulate our stench around the room for all to enjoy. Believe me, the dry mouth and itchy eyes that follow an afternoon drinking in the breeze are well worth the exchange.

 

However, it doesn't take living over here long, before one learns that electricity is not something to take for granted. A day without at least one power outage would be news-worthy around the dinner table. A week without at least one powerless day is a true blessing from heaven. All that to say, we've learned to appreciate the "ventilation" when we have it. For when it is gone, the best we can do is leave our doors and windows wide open and pray for a  low pressure system to blow through.

 

Working with our doors and windows open, however, has recently added a new dimension to our work. You see, when we first moved to Gilgel Beles in May, Micah was desperately wanting a pet. He had a tortoise for a couple days until one day it bolted into the tall grass and disappeared. He had a tree frog for some time, but without finding what it wanted to eat, and with its evening croaks getting quieter and quieter, we decided to let it go to live the happy, free life. He has captured plenty of snails, but they haven't turned out to be very exciting pets.

 

Then one day, as the Gmz translators, Eric and I were hard at work in the translation office, we had an unexpected visitor – a tiny little bird flew in through our open door and instead of choosing the straight shot out the window on the other side of the room, he decided to take a pit stop on the curtain rod. Ah yes, Micah would love to have a bird, I thought as our work quickly took a backseat. The translators and I got up and quietly closed the windows and door. Then, after a short chase and with the help of the window curtain, we trapped that little bird live and boxed him up for the short trip home that evening.

 

Needless to say, Micah was thrilled to have a tiny little bird all of his own. We carefully took him out of the box and for all of about 2 minutes Micah was in pet-owner heaven. But as I searched for a suitable box we could turn into a permanent cage, a sudden gasp caught my attention and I turned just in time to see the bird shoot out the window and up into the sky. One very happy bird made for one very sad boy.

 

The next day at the office, the translators asked about Micah and his new friend. They laughed to hear how happy Micah was to doddle over his new pet, but they laughed even harder to hear how the bird escaped his grasp and darted straight out the window. But, when their laughter subsided, they returned to seriousness, saying, “Just you wait, the next bird that flies in here…we'll get him for Micah. Just you wait!”

 

And, ever since then, we have been on a mission. And so, once a month or so when a bird happens to visit us in the office, all mayhem breaks loose as all of us spontaneously jump off our chairs, and scramble toward the doors and windows with all-out shouts of excitement. Thus far, we've yet to get all the windows closed before our frazzled and panicky visitors find an open one, but that doesn't dampen our enthusiasm and anticipation of the next one. I never knew bird watching could be this fun, for whatever reason, I always thought it was people just walking around looking at birds from afar. Boy was I wrong. I love having fun with the Gmz translators. I love the memories, the inside jokes that come out of things like this. They are the glue of friendship. Now if we can just find a way to tame that birding excitement after each hunt, so as to concentrate again on our other mission, Bible translation…

Investing in Relationship

One thing we learned early on in life here in Ethiopia is that everything in life is built on the foundation of relationships. A forgotten greeting in the office can cause a major disturbance in that day's work. Written contracts provide no security over a good relationship with our landlords. Even shopping for fruits and vegetables, the relationship between vendor and patron is very important. So also, in the translation office, the first several months of translation were very difficult. Why? Because I quickly learned that without the relationship nurtured outside the office, it was nearly impossible to build an attitude of mutual trust. And without trust, especially given the ecumenical diversity in our project, the work cannot move forward!

 For this reason, I am always on the lookout for ways to invest in the personal lives of the Gumuz translators. Early on, we found every excuse to share a meal at a local restaurant. We made a point of inviting them over to our house whenever we were together in Addis Ababa. During breaks in the normal work day, I'd often find a way to pass the time together, sometimes playing simple games like "Let's see who can throw the fewest number of rocks before hitting that tree!" and "Nah, you got lucky, I bet you can't do it again!"

The most recent investment into our relationship as a translation team was the biggest by far: a "guys only" trip to the famous rock-hewn Orthodox churches of Lalibela. Andrea and I had seen them before, BC (before children ), but when our summer intern, Eric, expressed interest in visiting them, I birthed the idea of a translator's retreat, not too much unlike the team-building retreats that I enjoyed back in my youth ministry days.

The churches - they truly are something to behold. Full size churches, 900 years old, chipped out of rock, some cut straight down into the earth. Many of them are monolithic structures, literally meaning "one rock", these places of worship were chiseled out of a single section of bedrock. Much to the disappointment of all you amateur geologists out there, I don't remember the name of the type of rock, but I do remember the guide saying that it is a volcanic rock which gets stronger the deeper one digs into it. And I suppose that makes sense as these pillars have been holding the incredible weight of a rock roof for many centuries.

For Thomas, the Gmz translator from the Orthodox church, this trip was somewhat of a pilgrimage as Lalibela is very much a holy site in Orthodox Christianity. 

For the rest of us, we couldn't help but be awestruck at the magnitude of such a project. One church, St. George's, is the crown jewel of the collection. According to the records, it took more than 30,000 professional stone-cutting craftsmen a full 23 years to complete!

St. George's from above

St. George's from below

And that is just one church among the 11 rock-hewn churches made on that hillside. Why were they made? King Lalibela was both a king and a devout priest. He made a trip to Jerusalem to visit the holy sites, which turned out to be an incredibly moving experience for him. Many Ethiopian Christians of that day attempted such a pilgrimage, but unfortunately, unrest between Christians and Muslims put these pilgrims in great danger along the way, some of whom never returned. King Lalibela wanted to make a holy site on Ethiopian soil, thus naming some of the buildings after holy sites in Israel – Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Golgotha, etc.

Having taken the cheapest and roughest public transportation to get to Lalibela, we were way under my initial budget thoughts, and not looking forward to another 10+ hour day of bus travel in leaving Lalibela, 

Cramped quarters inside public transportation

I poked my head into the Ethiopian airlines office just off the main drag in Lalibela town. I had always heard that Ethiopian citizens and legal residents in Ethiopia receive discounted prices on domestic plane tickets, but I didn't know just how discounted. It turned out, we could exchange that long exhausting day in a series of buses for a 25 minute plane trip for a whopping $30 a person. 

Plus, taking the plane would allow us to see another famous site in Ethiopia – the king's palace compound in Gondar (not quite the Lord of the Rings, but still pretty cool).

All in all, our 5-day excursion proved to be an unforgettable experience for all of us. Eric really enjoyed seeing the country and some of its historical sites, and of course getting to know the Gmz translators a bit better. Micah loved being with the "big boys" and having a whole lot of daddy time.

With the hum of an engine, Micah can sleep almost anywhere.

Of course, he was happy to see Mom and his sisters when we returned, but that didn't stop him from expressing his true feeling, "Mom, I wish I wasn't home yet. I wish we were still on our trip." I and the Gmz translators were happy to be home, but thankful for the experience of travelling together. You see, we've learned that our mutual trust and cooperation inside the translation office is directly correlated with the strength of our friendship in our everyday lives. 

It is my prayer that the shared memories and new inside jokes we've captured will cover over a multitude of heated translation discussions in the coming months. If not, there are always more trees at which we can throw rocks.

Enjoy the lovely Ethiopian birds right here!

The King of Gmz

Monday morning, after about an hour and a half of asking around, we finally landed in a classroom at the regional Teacher’s Training College here in Gilgel Beles. In filed the 40 Gmz students who had been called to this unique training, joined by a few interested professors at the college. After all, it isn’t very often that a foreigner shows up on campus to teach, especially not on a subject like the Gmz language.

A bit intimidated by the sea of unfamiliar faces, all with wide eyes fixed on me, I had managed to suffer the morning delay by staying close to my friends, the Gmz Bible translators I had invited to come along to help me. You see, these guys have survived 3+ years of working with me, and together we had “trial-and-error”-ed our way through many of the Gmz spelling rules that were the topic of this two-week training. Knowing the dynamic of multiple dialects of Gmz represented in the classroom, I knew that I would need to lean heavily on these friends to help relate whatever new words we encountered into the framework of what I already knew. For it is very difficult to spell in Gmz without knowing the complete meaning of a given word. Together we would give it our best, but not without much fear and trembling.

Our fears only increased when we began the meeting with introductions. Every attendee in turn was asked to stand up and give their name, place and position of work. I tried to listen carefully, but struggled to understand the various dialects being rattled off at natural speed. What I did understand, however, brought very little comfort to my fears. About 30 of the participants were classroom teachers, specifically teaching the subject of Gmz literacy. Others had another role which was seemingly difficult to define, “Hello, my name is…I am the Gmz language expert for the district of…” – “Hello, my name is…I am the leader of the Gmz language for the district of…” and “Hello my name is…I am the judge of the Gmz language for the district of…” Finally toward the end, a tall young man stood up and said with a completely straight face “Hello, my name is…I am the king of the Gmz language for the district of…” Trust me when I tell you, the use of the title “king” in this context was hilarious and the whole room burst into laughter. And so for the rest of the two-week workshop, this young man was known only by the name “King of the Gmz language.” No matter how they tried to express the role of expert, leader, judge, or king, these guys are the ones that the education bureau has officially appointed to be the final authority of developing the Gmz language in each of the 11 districts (or counties) where the Gmz people live. It turned out all 11 “experts” had been invited and all had now taken their seats in my classroom! What was I in for?

After all, here I was: a foreigner, an obvious outsider, a mere student of the language, now asked to be the teacher. My tongue still refuses to make some of the sounds correctly, my mouth cares nothing of speaking in correct tones, and my mind can’t keep up with producing sentence after sentence in spoken speech, what gives me the right to stand up in front of this group of real language experts? “Well, I’m not alone,” I comforted myself with the thought, “I have the three Gmz translators here with me in the front row.” But, really who are they? In a culture that looks at degrees and positions as much more important than experience, these three are the very bottom of the food chain assembled in this room. I can waive my linguistics degrees in their faces, but that will never make me Gmz, able to speak with authority into every issue in every dialect. I would need to approach my teaching primarily as a student. Likewise, the translators; they can waive their three years experience learning along with me, but that doesn’t make them anywhere equal to the officially appointed experts now sitting before us. They would need to approach their role with humility, but also with gentle confidence resting on the reason behind each rule.

One evening, Eric, our summer intern asked me a question that set my mind to thinking, he said, “How does it feel to be looked at as the expert in the Gmz language?” In some ways, he is right, I am seen as the expert. I’ve studied the language as an outsider, asking ridiculous questions that no insider would even think to ask, and thus coming to know the “stomach” (ie. inside) of the language better than most mother-tongue speakers. But, in other ways, I am very much still the student, needing the humility to let their mother-tongue gut feelings lead us to our conclusions unless I can give ample and convincing reasons to do otherwise.

And so we led the two-week spelling rule and writer’s workshop, full of discussion, arguments, and Q&A. I came away learning a ton about the various dialects of Gmz and even more convinced that our spelling rules are sound and applicable across the board. The teachers and district experts walked away with much deeper understanding of the stomach of their language and hopefully a clear way forward in writing it. The Gmz translators, caught somewhere in the middle of student and teacher, walked away with a unique perspective, having glimpsed just a bit of the magnitude of what we are a part of. Their Gmz language is being written and thus shaped in a way that it never has been. Workshops and trainings like this are moving the language along toward the standardization needed for the unity that they all want.

Though this is not our primary role here in Ethiopia, we definitely see helping and encouraging high quality literacy efforts among the Gmz as an essential counterpart to meeting our ultimate goal of providing Gmz people with access to God’s Word. These classroom teachers and bureau officials are important partners with us, for they are training the first generation of literates who will very soon read Gmz Scripture for all to hear.