Preparing to Learn
Why?
I’ve considered my motivations for this carefully, and there are more than one, so let me state them:
- It’s been too long since I’ve taken myself into the amazing land of language acquisition. I studied German and Spanish in university, I learned Swahili (both formally and informally), and before that I was learning French and Lingala (neither of which I had any particular mastery of). But I haven’t put any real effort into any language since 3rd year of university – and that was *cough* quite a while ago.
- Maasai isn’t related to any language I currently speak, and it intrigues me. It always has.
- I can honestly say I’m learning from scratch. As of today, the start of this project, I know my numbers (1-100), I know the word for a donkey and a cow (well, one of the words for a cow, anyway), I can say hello to men and women, I know the word for God, holy, and good, I can say, with moderate success “I’m going home” and “I’m going to the office” and “I don’t know”. I know the imperative for “stand up” and “sit down”… and that’s it. I think that counts as learning from scratch.
- There’s not a lot of information on the language. There’s far more than none – I just accessed a grammar from 1900 that USC has – but there’s also far less than I’m used to. For an English speaker who has always studied well documented languages with 1000-page textbooks before (or at least a very handy reference in the case of Lingala), this should be an adventure.
- There are a lot of Maasai speakers around here. I can easily find people to practice on, and I’m only hours away from immersion. There are even a few foreigners who have learned it through immersion, and I’m counting on them to be able to answer some of the
- We’re doing quite a bit of work in partnership with the Maasai. Last fall I was on tour with The En-kata Choir, and constantly laughed at the fact that they had to speak a second language in order for me to understand and translate into English. It would be very practical in many ways to bypass Swahili and go straight from Maasai to English in the future. Also, as we proceed with this amazing idea of creating a Maasai opera, a working grasp of the Maasai language should be a priority.
So that’s it – I have personal, practical, and professional reasons. Here goes.
Quite an Entry, My Son!
Well Ben, you sure know how to make an entry!
Yesterday (Monday) morning around 3:30am, Christine started having contractions. She kindly let me sleep until almost 7, and then woke me up to have me start cancelling my scheduled day. I was supposed to be in Burlington for a whole day of meetings – looks like I need to reschedule those!
Christine and labour go very quickly, so we bundled the kids off, gave them kisses, and I drove them up to hang out with friends for the day. Apparently we were in a hurry – we didn’t even tell them why they were going to be at Nick & Monica’s all day. They made up their own stories, but none were as good as the truth!
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Ready for the Road Trip
It seems like Christine and I have a thing for road trips – we’ll be back in Canada until the end of May, and while there, we’re going to be doing a LOT of driving. Christine flew back with Paul a couple of weeks ago to make sure she was safely back before the airlines say she’s too pregnant to fly, and since getting back she’s been looking for a vehicle, a phone, and all the rest of the things we’ll need for 3 months on the road.
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Google Again
I’m astounded over and over again at the internet treasures that Google manages to dredge up! They really are doing some cool stuff, privacy and other concerns aside. Here’s the latest one I’ve found – the Google Books Ngram Viewer.
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Miracles and Training
Acts 8:26-31 tells the story of Philip on the road to Samaria. It’s quite the story – Phillip is told by God to go to a particular road, and to just be there. While he’s there, an eunuch from the court of Queen Candace rides by, reading in his chariot. He’s reading the prophet Isaiah, and Philip, running alongside him, overhears this and asks him if he understands what he’s reading. He doesn’t, and invites Philip to sit with him and explain it to him.
Philip was used miraculously by God in this story – he’s given clear instructions by the Holy Spirit on who to engage and how, and later on he simply vanishes and reappears elsewhere – it’s pretty intense stuff! But there’s one thing that happens entirely analytically, and that’s the core of the event
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Missions and the Art of Carburator Maintenance
There’s a dark side to the saying, “neccesity is the mother of invention.” Here in Tanzania, and elsewhere in Africa as well, you can get anything repaired… but most often, not quite right.
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What Were You Expecting?
This is the text of my message at the Arusha Vineyard on Dec 19th, 2010 as part of the Christmas family service which featured an incredible time of singing with the Sowers Group. The message was entitled, “What Were You Expecting”. It has also been reposted on the Pamoja Ministries site at http://pamojaministries.or.tz/key-articles/life/what-were-you-expecting:
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The sick kid wave
One of my friends recently retweeted a good line. The tweet said, “Non-parents, you have no idea. Period.”
I laughed. Tonight, though, when the princess is lying in bed writhing and getting ready for what very well may turn out to be an eventual puke session, I’m reminded of that line. You see, we expected this. We knew it was coming. It’s called the sick kid wave. In this case it was number 1 who picked it up (probably at school). Now the princess has it. It will probably continue.
At least this one seems to last 1 day only.
Parents, I know you understand.
Vama – The Restaurant
Jesse and Davin decided that the four of us should go out for supper. We roped Uncle Jacob and Auntie Kim into watching kids, convinced Christine that eating out was a good idea, and made reservations at a place that none of us had ever been to. Once Jesse was ready to go (the other three of us were out sitting on the lawn) we climbed into the Safari, braved the evening Arusha traffic made far worse by Ramadhan, and drove to the Shoprite plaza to “Vama – The Restaurant.”
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Trying to Have a Website
It seems to be rather a challenge for me to keep my own website running. Personal versus corporate… The corporate has been winning recently. I can tweet @jerdf, I can stay on top of Facebook (http://facebook.com/jfeser) but I do not seem to be able to blog with any regularity.
I’d really like to do it, and perhaps I will. I’ve just installed the WordPress app for my BlackBerry, so now I can theoretically update you on the go. We’ll see. I’ll try.