It's all about the cows... yet again.

Today I started working with the speakers of the language that I'm working with for these few weeks.  Turns out, they're cattle folk, as well, and they steal the cows from some of the groups that we're doing translation and literacy projects with back in Jb!  So maybe my coming to help them with a primer here will bring some cross-border peace :)  It is interesting, though, to hear about some of the customs and culture in this group, as there are so many similarities with what I'm used to on the other side of the border.  Makes things a bit easier, as I've never met these guys before, and suddenly I'm thrown into a 2 week workshop as their consultant, to make a primer with them.  Primer making is pretty hard work, and it's much easier if you know the folks that you're working before you have to roll up your sleeves and dive in.  So I was a bit nervous about how today was going to go.  But I think it went pretty well.  The guys, being a fierce sort of cattle-keeping culture, are pretty up front about what they're thinking and what they want.  So I know they're not going to just "tell me what they think I want to hear", which is good!

Want to see some of what we did today?  Can you see how it's all about the cows?  These are a few of the pages from the pre-primer, which is mostly teaching tones and vowels.

Fun in the Sun

I had such a wonderful day today - got up a bit later than usual (7:45am instead of 6:45 am, which is still not exactly my idea of a 'lie-in', was offered some nice cheese to put inside my crepe for breakfast, washed down by some deliciously sweet mango, enjoyed a nice long cup of coffee with some new friends, and then spent some time swimming (from which I now have a very pink face!). 

After getting a bit of exercize in the pool before the masses of people came for the afternoon swimming time, I joined with a few other workshop participants and we listened to a John Piper sermon on Ps. 100.  What a good sermon it was!  It was called something like "Education and Exaltation", and was basically talking about the fact that if we want to really glorify and exalt God, we need to KNOW him, and find out who He is and what He has done for us.  If we don't know Him, how can we exalt him?  It was really encouraging, because, well, education is very close to my little heart.  And the reason I'm so keen on helping people get a bit of education is for that very reason - if people have a chance to learn more about the world, and to be able to learn how things work and about how the universe was designed, they can get a glimpse of who God is.  They can start to understand how He made us, and how much He loves us and what His plan has been from the beginning for our salvation.  And knowing all that can lead us to exalt and glorify him. It was a really good sermon, as usual, from John Piper, and it's also really nice to get together with other people and listen and then discuss and talk and pray after.  Very refreshing and encouraging.

Then came lunch (with more delicious mangoes for dessert!), and a bit of a nap and reading of a book.  Then came afternoon coffee time.  Sh and I made some delicious Java House coffee and sat on our little "verandah" and watched the world go by.  Ok, so there wasn't THAT much world to watch going by in our quiet little conference center here.  But we did chat with Ali and C for a few hours with our coffee in hand.  I must say, I have REALLY enjoying having some other women around (and Ali and Sh are even MY age!) who are single and fun and like to talk about "girly" things.  We have talked for hours about everything from the Food Network and cooking, to gardening, to nail polish, to shoes to our weight.  I know, on the surface, it might all sound completely superficial to some of you, but in the middle of that, we talk about all sorts of other things, too.  And it is SO refreshing to have some women around to talk to about all these crazy things.  I've really been missing that lately, so it really is nice to have some like-minded folks around to connect with like this. 

So, all in all, this workshop is turning out to be quite a good time, even though I really hated to leave my cute little house in Jb!  This week, though, might be a bit tough. Starting from tomorrow, I'll be consulting and making Primers with a couple of guys that I have never in my entire life met before.  If you think of it, could you pray that we understand each other and that we communicate well and that we work well together?  I'm also here to learn about how to make these primers and how to use the computer program, so I'm learning, and they're learning and yet we still hope to get a useable product done in a very short time-frame! 

London, 2012

I was called something today for the first time ever in my life:  a "professional" swimmer!


Yup, that's right, watch out London, I'll see you in the pool!

I almost hate to admit it, but the Conference Centre where this workshop is being held actually has a swimming pool!  So, I can swim anytime I want... well, that is, any time I'm not sitting in the classroom and the pool is open.  That basically means from 5-6pm!  Which isn't too bad, actually, as it's just time enough to go to the pool and get a bit of much needed exercize!  Today a few of my Kenyan co-participants joined me in the pool.  We had a ton of fun!  But, you see, many folks in East Africa have never really learned how to swim.  Either they grew up near a river or a lake, and they just sorta grew up floating and doggy paddling around in the water, or, in the case of one of my friends here who grew up near a river, there were too many crocodiles in the river to be able to get anywhere near it to learn how to swim.  Very few people have actually taken swimming lessons (though that's changing now in the cities as school children often have lessons at a local hotel pool as part of their phys ed classes).

Anyway, it means quite a few adults really don't know how to swim very well, though they're pretty brave in jumping in the water in pretty much any sort of attire, and trying to paddle around!  After I had swum a few lengths (thanks to my few swimming lessons as a child!), I became the "coach" today.  I wowed and amazed my class with my ability to tread water.  I was called a "professional" because I could breast-stroke and do a basic front crawl without drowning.  I was the talk of the pool because I could kick without displacing the water 10 feet out of the pool...  I had some really good students today, and we had a lot of fun!  One of the joys of being a teacher (even if it is teaching something that I'm truly as talent-less at as swimming) is seeing the joy and pride on learner's faces when they "get it"!  Fatuma's grin as she swam towards me without sinking was so priceless!

So, at least I had an hour of good fun in the midst of a LOT of work!  This pre-primer is turning out to be a LOT work... and I don't even know if I'm really on the right track with the tone stuff, because I don't have any mother tongue speakers to ask about it!  Hopefully the two guys will arrive on Sunday and will stay for 2 weeks here with us so we can start working on it together!