Eyes to See, Ears to Hear

Archive for the ‘Kinga’ Category

Yesterday, I mentioned the desire of the Kinga folks to have a new woman do the part of Ruth in it’s entirety.  They said the first woman sounded as though she was reading (she was) and that needed to be changed.  Below are samples of the same text of the first Ruth, then the new one.  Do you think it was a wise change?

One week ago today, we loaded up the project’s new LandCruiser (the thing is SWEEEET) and headed to Makete to test Ruth, Jonah and Mark in the Kinga language.  My hope was to return the next afternoon with all three books approved and ready for distribution.  None made the cut.

First to get tested Monday afternoon was Jonah.  All of it went great with the exception of Jonah’s announcement to the Ninevites in the beginning of chapter three.  The talent used a normal voice instead of a loud one so they want that to be changed.
Next, after lunch was Ruth.  All great…. except one problem.  In the translated book, a set of closing quotation marks were inserted too early.  Instead of being after “vibena”…

… they should’ve been after “mumwene”.  So, that one sentence needed to be recorded again by the original Ruth speaker.  But, throughout the book, the Kinga translators feel she used ‘reading’ Kinga instead of the desired ‘conversational’ Kinga.  Then, they decided to have all of Ruth’s words recorded again and had a particular woman in mind.  Unfortunately, we had to have the LandCruiser back in Mbeya Tuesday evening in order for a colleague to use on Wednesday to travel to the Sangu language area.  That only left enough time to test Mark for the remainder of the day Monday and the first part of Tuesday.

We finished the introduction and the first six chapters Monday afternoon and even though we didn’t start testing until shortly before 10am Tuesday morning, we still were able to finish up by lunchtime.  The only thing Mark needed was some added space between each heading and the actual scripture text.  That was an easy fix so Mark is completely ready for distribution now!

The highlight of the trip was having Dana and Asher with me.  That was REALLY nice.

The book of Mark in the Kinga language

Early Monday morning, I left on a solo trip up to one of our favorite places in the area: Makete. (mah-KAY-tay)  The drive up was fun as I had plenty of opportunities to play in the mud.  I can vouch for the 4WD on the car that it works VERY well!

Recording went very well.  I had a room reserved until Friday just in case it took that long to get all the parts done.  But at the end of Tuesday, I knew progress was great as we only had 4 people left to record on Wednesday.  I finished those 4 up at noon, ate lunch, packed up the car and headed home.

It was a great trip!

I can say that right now is probably the most exciting time work-wise since I started in the language project well over a year ago.  I’ve got nine completely recorded audio books of the Bible, not counting the two books already released in the Sangu language.  NINE!!!  Wow.  Ruth and Jonah make up eight of them in the following four languages: Kinga, Nyakyusa, Malila and Vwanji.  Nyakyusa will be distributed on Sept 17.  Malila will be community tested with a group of pastors on Sept 18.  Kinga may be tested next month.  Vwanji will be distributed next month.

The ninth book has been and is remaining the biggest task… The Gospel of Mark in the Vwanji language.  It is the first language to get this gospel and a big celebration/dedication is planned for the end of October up in a Vwanji village.  I’m taking the generator and the big speakers to play the gospel to the Vwanji people in the language they understand the best… their own.  Most Excited.  Me.

If you recall this post last week, I had to plan a day trip up to Makete for 58 words which were missing out of my Kinga Jonah recording.  The trip was successful and I want to show you how it was.

While preparing for the trip, I had to plan where I was to record upon arriving in Makete.  Last year, I borrowed some mattresses and set up a sound booth… more like a cave…

That setup took me about an hour and a half to set up.  I really didn’t have or want to take up that much time.  Then an idea struck me.  The car is already well insulated… why don’t I add to that and use it to record?  YES!  So, I took two moving blankets (same as in the above photo) and had my plan.

We arrived in Makete but my speaker had yet to arrive to the SIL office.  That’s okay.  I needed time to clothespin the blankets up in the car anyway.  I was finishing up when Mzee Jamson arrived.  I put Mbogela, Kinga translation team leader, in the driver seat…

opened up the back door…

and had Mzee Jamson enter the ‘sound booth’…

With Asher’s seat in the back and the mic stand in the front passenger seat, no room was left for me inside.  So, I just ran the wires out of the car and stood there while they covered my needed words.  We probably recorded a total of 10 minutes tops.

I used a very minimal setup as well.  Shure Beta 58A mic w/a 3 ft. XLR-to-3.5mm cable into a Church Audio 9-volt-powered preamp.  That has a 3.5mm output which I ran straight into Dana’s Cowon A2 personal media player.  The player has A/V input and can record at 192 kbps.  If you look at the photo of Mbogela, you can see the little pink thing at the bottom of the shot.  That’s Dana’s cute little player.  It served well.  And I got my 58 words…

In two days, I take a day trip up to Makete in the Kinga language area. Literally ‘up’ because I have to climb to nearly 10,000ft before dropping back down into Makete at 7,500ft.

It’s about a 3-hour trip one-way, with 2.5 hours being on rough dirt roads.

The reason I need to go is because of what’s in red:


58 words were left out of the script when we first recorded Jonah last year. 6 hours roundtrip for 58 words to be recorded. That’s less than 10 words per needed hour of traveling. I have to admit, it is a hassle but I still haven’t perfected the accuracy checking process of my scripting. These mishaps aren’t being detected until I’m in the editing phase. Grrrrrr.
The wife and baby are going with me so it will be a nice trip. She plans to take candy to give out to the kids along the road in the mountains. Plus, the landscape is BEAUTIFUL up there. We’ll have pictures.

No matter what you call it, I have finished seven of them. The radio station is scheduled to cycle through the set playing one at 7am and one at 7pm everyday for a month starting today. Here’s a summary of what you can hear in the ads posted below:
1-6 sec : Language specific translation of Jonah 2:2
7-29 sec : Swahili describing our need for full-time scripture use & literacy workers to be based in each respective language area.
30-35 sec : List of nine languages in which we’re hiring folks; these names are all said in their respective languages: Ishinyiha, Ishimalila, Kivwanji, Shisango, Ishisafwa, Kikinga, Kinyakyusa, Hibena, Ichindali.
36-60 sec : Swahili describing applicant qualifications, where to get an application and the last date to submit an application.

Vwanji Advertisement (click to play)

Sangu Ad

Safwa Ad

Nyakyusa Ad

Ndali Ad

Malila Ad

Kinga Ad

And here are some pictures of the recording happening in my studio:

I started editing RUTH and JONAH before we left for Nairobi last month. Since, I’ve only had a chance to work on it here and there especially with T’giving and this house problem of ours. But, I have finished JONAH and am almost half way done with RUTH. Next after that is pretesting a group of Kinga speakers. Problem is… rainy season. It rains more up in Makete (yes, we’re over a mile high and it is above us) than it does in Mbeya with dirt/mud roads for three out of the three and a half hours it takes to get there. So, if I end up traveling there to test, I’ll need to take the seven hour, better road route.

Some good news about the Sangu RUTH and JONAH cassette tapes. The Scripture Use Coordinator held a seminar out in the Sangu language area so I sent some more cassettes with her. She sold 20 of the 25 I sent with her. Might seem small beans but that is huge!

Here is Asher exploring our room with Mommy:

Makete is becoming my favorite place here.  You can see why…

Recording is going absolutely wonderful.  As a matter of fact, I’m sitting here about to finish the last three songs.  RUTH was finished yesterday and JONAH the day before.  Six days of work has only taken three and a half!  I’ll give you some Kinga samples later.

Kinga Audio Books

My hoped-for 3-hour drive up here ended up being 6 hours.  Oh, how we did some four-wheelin’!!!!  I even got some good ol mud splashes up on the hood and windshield.  I’m very happy with our vehicle purchase.  It serves us very well.

Well, we’re up here to record RUTH and JONAH in the Kinga language.  I’ve got four days scheduled for that.  Also, I hope to get two days in of recording songs in their mother tongue as well.

The guest house we’re staying in is nice.  Very well built but unfortunately the voltage here is low so the widow-maker (on-shower head electric water heater) doesn’t have enough juice to operate.  That means we get our hot water in a 5-gallon bucket when we need it.  Asher got the first bath of all of us.  He was a dirty baby after our long journey.

Online by my cell phone via bluetooth but the network is must be very old cause the speed is creepy crawly.  But, I’ll keep posting as much as I can while here so you know how the recording is going.