Eyes to See, Ears to Hear

Posts Tagged ‘Kinga’

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.

A whole lotta flip-flopping was going on this past weekend.  Kinda felt like I stood a baseball bat on end, touched my forehead to it, ran myself around in 100 circles, and stood up in an attempt to race to the other end of a football field.  Here’s the scoop…

For months now, our 10-language project here in Mbeya has been gearing up for our annual ‘Prayer Day’.  This is an event in which most of the team travel out to different language areas in order to visit Tanzanian churches.  While there, we share (in Swahili) about the work of Bible translation happening in their language and how they can contribute to their fellow Tanzanians who are translators with us.  My plan was to visit the church I visited last year way up in Makete, but my plans didn’t pan out.  So, our partnership coordinator took it upon himself to schedule me to visit a church in town.  Sure, why not.  Oh yeah, Jonathan, there are two services, 7AM and 10:30am.  Hhmmmm.  If I go to the early one, Dana and Asher wouldn’t be able to because of how early it is for him.  So, I got out of… I mean, it was unfortunate that I didn’t have to get up with the sun.

Okay, so show me where the church is.  We drove into town on Thursday to see.  Piece of cake.  I’m good with directions.

Friday comes.

In the afternoon, one of our friends calls me to let me know he’s bringing a package to the office for us from the post office.  ALRIGHT!  We love packages.  So, I scoot on down there to snatch it up right quick like.  The prayer coordinator sees me and says, “Oh, by the way, they’re expecting you to preach on Sunday.”  Come again.  I think he said… yes, he did.  He said preach on Sunday.  Jonathan, he no preach.  He no good at preaching.  He good at missionarying but no good at preaching.  WHAT SHALL I DO?????

Ding, ding, ding, ding… idea.  I’ve got audio (not past the final check but far enough to allow a congregation to listen to) of Jonah in Nyakyusa and Kinga, two of the three prominent language groups in Mbeya town.  For the other, Safwa, I’ve got some Bible-based songs I can play.  Yeah, that’s it!

I took a few hours cutting this, pasting that so I could have a nice little playlist for my “sermon” on Sunday.

We get there a tad late, no biggie, they’re already singing… and dancing… and shouting.  We take our seats of honor in the front row and after a few minutes, the pastor leans over to ask me how much time I need.  Interesting.  Westerners have watches. Africans have time.  Or, so the saying goes.  So, why is there some kind of time restriction, especially when they ain’t scared to preach into Monday?  Couple of sentences later, I find out that indeed I’m not preaching.  I’ve got 15 minutes to tell about the work of SIL.

So, I cram in as much as I can and play a little bit of those 3 languages.  They seemed to like it.  I then gifted them with a couple of copies of Hapo Mwanzo, stories from Genesis translated into Swahili along with audio cassettes of the recorded stories to accompany them.  They were very appreciative.

Then came more singing.  Then came some kind of dedication service for what I understood to be for someone in the congregation who has decided to go into the ministry.  Then came the sermon.  Then came more singing… and screaming… in tongues that definitely weren’t Tanzanian.  That final part only brought one passage to my mind:

“So then, tongues are a sign not for believers but for unbelievers. Prophecy, however, is not for unbelievers but for believers. So if the whole church comes together and all speak in tongues, and unbelievers or uninformed people enter, will they not say that you have lost your minds?” 1 Corinthians 14:22-23

I guess being from a non-Charismatic background, tongues are kinda freaky to me.  Especially when there was no one even attempting to interpret.  Earlier in 1 Corinthians 14:5b, Paul wrote, “The one who prophesies is greater than the one who speaks in tongues, unless he interprets so that the church may be strengthened.“  Unfortunately, the church wasn’t strengthened yesterday.

Moving on, the service carried on until a little before 2pm.  Of course, being honored visitors, we were then ushered into the pastor’s office for some chai, maandazi and chapati. That finished off our 4 hour church experience.

I praise God for that church’s giving heart.  Between the two services, they gave more than Tsh. 112,000 (~USD$85) which is an enormous amount over here.  This money goes directly toward helping further Bible translation in the Mbeya-Iringa Cluster Project.

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 spent most of the morning and afternoon practicing parts with three Nyakyusa speakers.  We practiced all the parts of: (From Ruth) Naomi, Ruth, Boaz, & Town Women; (From Jonah) God.  This is a different approach from how I did the Sangu and Kinga recordings.  There was no practice with them, just give me my speakers, get ‘em recorded, give me the next one.  My dramatized recordings have lacked… drama.  So, with the help of two Nyakyusa pastors who work with us in the office, we had a good dramatic practice.

Since Nykyusa is a very large population with many, many in Mbeya, I’ll be recording here in my new studio behind the house.  I’m still waiting on the carpenter to finish building my two-pane window, desk, chairs and bench.  He said he’ll finish them tomorrow and we’ll begin the in-studio construction then.  We have a goal of starting the Nyakyusa recording one week from today.

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!