This is Willy Futakamaba, a Zanaki translator. Before becoming a Bible translator, he was a pastor in the Anglican church. He's married and has four children of his own and has also raised his sister's two children after she and her husband died. He has studied at the university level in Kenya and South Africa, so he's quite well educated and has traveled outside Tanzania a bit. He's got a great sense of humor and I love it when he laughs so hard he cries and can't talk.
This is Shem Koren, the other Zanaki translator. He's an assistant pastor in the Mennonite church, and was raised on the local Mennonite Bible College campus. Both his parents worked for the college, and he grew up playing with missionary kids, so he's very comfortable around foreigners. Shem is a total extrovert and loves to talk and be with people. Before becoming a translator he was a missionary-church planter working with an unreached people group here in Tanzania. He can sympathize with me having to learn to appreciate strange foods and different living conditions. He's married with four children, and his mother and grandmother also live with him as his dependents. He's looking for a new house nearby his for them, though - he says he can't handle that many women telling him what to do at home!
This is Kitaboka Marara. She's the youngest translator with whom I work at age 26, and she's married and has a little baby girl (see previous blog posts!). Last year she graduated from the local Mennonite Bible College. She's only working part-time because of her baby, but she's a quick worker and gets a lot done in her 5.5 hours each morning. In Tanzanian culture, men have much more authority than women, and older people much more than younger people, so sometimes it's difficult for her to be a young female and still be respected and authoritative. She seems to have found a good balance between being culturally polite and yet standing up for her ideas when necessary. As a side note, I met Kitaboka very soon after coming to Musoma in early 2007. I immediately told a single male Tanzanian I knew that he needed to figure out a way to meet her, because she is young, single, smart, pretty, and godly! Well, what do you know, but that man is now her husband. :-)
This is Rukia Manyori. She's Kitaboka's aunt. Like Kitaboka, she's very tall - both are about 5'10". I think it's great that I work with two very tall women! Rukia is a widow with two teenagers, and she's very comfortable being up front and in charge. She's organized and in control and I can count on her to make things happen. She was born into a Muslim family and married a Muslim man (as his second wife). When he and the first wife both died and she was left alone, still in her twenties and with two toddlers, she quit going to the mosque because she was sick of not being able to understand what they were saying in Arabic. Some women from the local Seventh Day Adventist church started visiting her to comfort and help her. After about ten years of being fairly unreligious, she remembered how kind those Christian women were and which church they were from, so she started going there and became a believer soon after. She loves her language, Ikizu, and is determined that the people of her tribe be able to understand Jesus in their own language.
