Translating accurately

A slightly-ridiculous picture of Stephen being stoned

Making sure a translation is accurate is tricky work.  Does "accurate" mean following the words of the Greek New Testament and using those same words, except in a different language?  Or does "accurate" mean trying to ensure that readers of the translated New Testaments understand the same thing that original readers of the Greek NT understood?  It's quite complicated!

One recent example of this comes from the Ikoma language translation of Acts.  On a recent village trip to test their translation draft, the Ikoma translators realized something was amiss.  In Acts 22:20, the NIV reads, "And when the blood of your martyr Stephen was shed, I stood there giving my approval and guarding the clothes of those who were killing him."  The Ikoma people listening to the translators read were confused if Stephen actually died or not while Paul was looking on.  They thought it sounded like people were trying to kill Stephen and he was wounded somehow so he lost some blood.  It just didn't make sense.

So was this translation accurate?  The draft translation was similar to how it is in the NIV, and it didn't add or subtract anything from the Greek.  All the right words were there, and the sentence structure was correct in Ikoma.

As you might have already guessed, we decided that if the translation is not communicating the right message, it is not accurate.  The Ikoma translators are in the process of changing this right now so that it is clear that Saul was standing there while Stephen was stoned to death.  To DEATH.

Maulid Day

Will this be a three-day weekend?  Should I (Misha) plan for the translators I supervise to take a trip to the village next week or will a holiday mess up that schedule?  Do I need to wash my dishes on Sunday or not?

Thanks to Maulid Day, the above are some of the questions I was asking myself last week and over the weekend.  Maulid Day is the celebration of Muhammad's birth and is a national holiday in Tanzania, a country which is very fair in celebrating both Christian and Muslim holidays (which means we have a LOT of holidays to celebrate!).  The problem with Muslim holidays is that the dates are not known until the evening before the holiday since they are according to the Islamic calendar, which is based on the moon.  If the moon is sighted, then the next day is the holiday.  If it's still dark in the sky and no moon is visible, then there's no holiday the next day.  So we usually know within a three-day range or so when a holiday might be happening, but it's impossible to know until the night before when it's actually going to happen.

There is not really a proper system in place for announcing if the head Muslim guy for the country saw the moon or not, unfortunately.  After making plans and if-there-is-a-holiday-on-Monday-or-Tuesday back up plans for the translators going out to villages, I settled into my weekend wondering whether or not it would be a long weekend.  There is a woman who comes to do some housework for me on Mondays, but she doesn't come on holidays.  So on Sunday, having no news of any holiday, I set about washing lots of dishes.  It took a good portion of my day, but I couldn't let them keep piling up!  Then in the evening, it was about 8:00pm when Andrew and I realized that if there was a moon, it should be up by then, and we should have some news about whether or not Monday was a holiday.  We tried online searches, we tried calling people, but to not much avail.  We finally heard that some people thought it had been that day (Sunday).  Well!  All those dishes washed for naught!  Nothing like hearing on Monday morning that Sunday had been a holiday and I hadn't even known.  Well, so be it.  At least it didn't end up messing up any village trips!

Road Transportation

 I considered calling this post "The Mighty African Bicycle", because let me tell you, Tanzanians (and people from other countries around here seem equally able) can really pack things on their bikes!  But it's not just bicycles that can carry amazing amounts of things, it's also motorcycles and vehicles, so really this post is a tribute to Tanzanians who can balance large loads for transport!  I did not take these pictures myself; I have co-workers to thank for snapping these on their cameras.

Firewood for cooking at home

Live chickens being taken to the market

A new mattress being taken home (it's folded in half)

All sorts of things being taken somewhere!

People.  Lots and lots of people... there is ALWAYS room for one more!

And sometimes there is room for 20 more!

Biblical Swahili

This morning at church I (Misha) was asked to read the Old Testament reading. Half of a chapter of Zephaniah in tricky biblical Swahili in front of an audience?  Gulp!  I agreed to do it, but quickly opened my Swahili Bible to read through the passage on my own first.

I didn't recognize one of the words, so asked the man sitting next to me what it meant.  He was a recently-retired economist, and I had already determined while talking with him before the service that he, without a doubt, was one of the most educated Tanzanians I've met.  He studied the word and the verse, but in the end shrugged and said he didn't know.  He told me, "The Swahili of the Bible is very difficult," in an effort to reassure me it was okay that I didn't know it and to explain why he didn't, either.  While I was slightly comforted that my Swahili wasn't too bad, I was also saddened.  If this well-educated man had no idea what a word in Zephaniah meant, what hope did all the other people attempting to read the Swahili Bible have?  I was once again reminded of the great need for Bible translation.

I managed to get through the whole thing without a major stumble.  When I finished, I was so relieved that practically bolted back to my seat.  The next person to stand up at the front then said, "This is the Word of the Lord," and everyone responded, "Thanks be to God."  Oops.  I guess I forgot that little closing line from the liturgy...  In my defense, the only time in my life when I regularly attended a church which used liturgy of any sort was when I was at Hope College and went to Hope Church, which is in the Reformed Church in America denomination.  Since they used English at Hope Church, not Swahili, my liturgical experience for four years doesn't always come in very handy here for remembering what I'm supposed to say!

Church Plant

The Anglican church is one of the larger denominations in Musoma and they recently (like, three weeks ago) launched a small church plant in our area of town.  I (Misha) am quite supportive of their efforts, since I think there is a definite need for another church here.  They are meeting under a little group of trees at a crossroads near the market, so people are constantly passing by and can't help but hear a bit of the service.  Most listen for a minute and then move on, but some the kids hang out for a while longer to see if there is anything interesting happening.

I once heard a statistic that said something like half the population of Tanzania is under age 16.  There are kids everywhere!  This morning the Compassion Children's Choir came and sang at our service, so that was about 20 kids.  (Yes, that is Compassion as in Compassion International - all the kids in the choir live in particularly difficult circumstances and are sponsored by people overseas.)  The people attending the service brought their kids with them, so that added about 6.  Several groups of neighborhood kids congregated nearby to listen to the children's choir, which made about 10 more.  One group of siblings was bold enough to come sit under the trees during the service, which added 5 more.  So for the 9 adults at the service today, there were about 41 kids!  There was no Sunday School, no chairs for the kids, no memory verse game, no Bible story pictures to color, no children's message, just a straightforward Anglican church service aimed at adults.

I am not personally interested in starting up a major children's evangelism project, but it seems like the perfect opportunity to reach out to the kids in that area of town.  A few kids stayed to watch and listen, but most kept on walking.  If there were some sort of fun kid's program that welcomed all and any to join, there could be over a hundred kids there each week, I have no doubt.  I hope the Tanzanians in the church plant see this opportunity and do something about it!  Or perhaps one of you reading this might be interested...

Food!

I once heard a missionary who had lived in East Africa for years say, "When you get to the point where over 80% of your conversations are about food, it is time for a trip to your home country."  Well, Andrew and I are nearing the point of going back for a few months (we'll be in the States from July 2012 to January 2013), and I think we're also very close to that 80% mark!  Because we're starting to find it difficult to think about much else, this blog post is dedicated to the foods we miss the most and just cannot wait to eat when we get back to North America!

Pad Thai

 We both LOVE Thai food.  Want me to say that again?  We LOVE LOVE LOVE Thai food!

Steak

 Andrew in particular is really craving some good steak.  We both miss quality meats, but Misha might be more inclined to miss things like plump boneless skinless chicken breasts.  We can get beef here, but it's not exactly the quality of the cut in the picture above!

Salmon

Good seafood comes next on the list. Salmon, halibut, and all sorts of great fish that aren't available here are another thing we miss and can't wait to get our teeth into.  We can get great tilapia here, but we're lacking in the ocean-going sorts of fish and seafood.

Spinach salad

 Fresh vegetables of a greater variety are high on our list, too.  Baby spinach in a salad... yummy!  It's not like we don't have vegetables here, but the variety is minimal and most of them do better cooked than raw.

Strawberries!

And last but very, very far from least, BERRIES!  Blackberries, marionberries (especially in cobbler...), strawberries, raspberries, blueberries...  We love other kinds of fruits we can't get here, too, like peaches and big Washington apples.

I think I need to stop now before I start thinking about yogurt, cereal, ice cream...  It's too late!  I don't think I can stop!

Good stories

After completing the initial draft of the book of Ruth, Mussa, one of the Ikoma translators, went out to a village to read it aloud to see what the community thought it.  He had called ahead and asked a man he knew who lived in that village to prepare a group of ten people to be ready to listen and provide feedback on the translation.  But when he arrived, a significantly larger group, comprised of some Christians and some non-Christians, was waiting, curious and eager to take part!

After reading two chapters of Ruth, several of the non-Christians in the group spoke up.  They said, "This is such a good story!  We didn't know the Bible had good stories in it!"

Mussa answered that the Bible had many excellent stories in it, and that someday many of the stories will be translated into the Ikoma language, so they can read them all they like in their mother tongue.  He had not planned on doing evangelism when he went out to the village to test the Ruth translation, but perhaps a few small seeds of interest were planted that day.