Horsing around in Zanaki

Michelle, age 10, in the backyard on Fling

Last Thursday (Aug. 30, 2013, if you really care), the two Zanaki translators and I FINALLY FINALLY finished reading the ENTIRE book of Genesis aloud, doing some major spelling changes as we went.  There are 50 chapters in Genesis.  It's long.  You probably don't particularly care about that right now and it doesn't even matter in this story, anyway, except that the story below took place when we got to Genesis 49:17.

Genesis 49 is the chapter in which Jacob/Israel blesses/curses his sons.  Some of them are most definitely better blessings than others, and poor Dan got a bad one.  I guess being the son of a concubine takes one's blessing down a rung or two (or like 15, if you compare his "blessing" with what Judah or Joseph got).  Genesis 49:17 says: "Dan will be like a snake beside the road, a poisonous viper along the path that bites the horse's hooves so its rider is thrown off."

The Zanaki translators hadn't quite understood the verse, so had switched it around a bit.  The English translation of their draft was something like this: "Dan will be like a poisonous snake that bites the horse's hooves so the horse and rider fall beside the road."  All the right words were there, so it took me a minute to figure out what exactly was wrong.  Then it took much longer than a minute to convince the translators that it was wrong!

Usually, if the issue in the translation draft is one of actually being wrong, it's straightforward enough to have them read the Swahili and English translations, look at their own again, and then they themselves notice the issue and we work out a correction together.  This time, though, they argued and argued with me.  I was like, "What is the big deal about moving the phrase about 'beside the road' to being about the snake instead of the place where they fall, and making it just the rider who falls, and not also the horse?!"

More arguing ensued.  I still didn't get why it was so tricky.  I mean, seriously, this wasn't theology, just some sentence structure issues in poor Dan's blessing/curse!  Finally, a light went on when one of the translators said, "If the snake bites the horse, the horse will fall down.  If there is a person on the horse, then I guess they fall, too, but the horse has to fall."

I asked, "Has either of you ever ridden a horse?"  I didn't include "or ever seen one," but I wondered about that.

They both looked at me like that was a pretty dumb question and said, "No."  They could have added, "Dude, this is Tanzania.  We're kind of short on horses around here, duh," but they kept their answer short.

I said, "Look, y'all, I have.  And when horses get scared or hurt, they rear up, or buck, or run, or freak out, but they don't actually fall down very often.  But if somebody is sitting on that horse when it does some of the aforementioned (ha - like I really said "aforementioned" in Swahili!) antics, chances are, they are going to end up in the dirt.  So just trust me and change the verse."

They looked at me dubiously.  One of them asked, "So you've really ridden a horse, and you're sure?"

I assured them I had been on plenty of horses, although it didn't actually matter if I had or not, because the Hebrew says that the rider falls, not the horse, and we were supposed to stick to the biblical facts.  They shrugged, and one of them typed (i.e. pecked it out with two fingers) in the changes.

Usually, Zanaki culture is a lot closer to ancient Hebrew culture than modern American culture is, so they translators usually understand the context of Genesis better than I do (i.e. the importance of having sons, killing animals in religious ceremonies, marrying multiple wives, living in a dry place, etc.), but for once I had the advantage.  Who knew that my riding lessons at age 10 would come in so handy?!