The training phase in now completed. I am very pleased with the level of interest and enthusiasm displayed by those who attended this time of preparation. Monday, we will begin the actual word-collection phase, with numerous new arrivals who will help us as expert speakers of the Kaansa language. The sole expectation that we have of them is that they will provide Kaansa words for each of the 1,792 semantic domains that are part of the workshop. These new arrivals will be the primary source of information; almost all of those who attended the training phase will have a leadership role during this next phase, ensuring that the process of collecting Kaansa words goes as smoothly as possible, and helping the new arrivals to know how to best bring their expertise in the language to bear on the task and goal: a minimum of 10,000 Kaansa words by the end of the day on Friday, January 31st.

I tried to post this earlier 12 hours ago, but there was no internet connection.

The first two days of training have gone well, I think, although they’ve gone differently than I had envisioned. The biggest difference between this workshop and the one in Lotud in Malaysia is that everything I’m teaching has to be interpreted into Kaansa, so it takes twice as long to get through the necessary material. We had concluded after the Lotud workshop that two days of training might be sufficient, but that is definitely not the case when translation is necessary.

I’m not sure what the plan is yet for the word-collection phase of the workshop, but for the training phase, we’ve adopted an 8:00-2:00 schedule with two 30-minute coffee breaks. Lunch is served at 2:00, and then everyone is free to return home. This means that we have only 5 hours of class time each day, which together with the fact that everything is being translated, makes it a challenge to squeeze everything in. Nevertheless, I am happy with the progress we’ve made the first two days, and I think we will be able to cover the most essential elements by the end of the day today. (I do expect that the typists and record-keeper will need to stay on after lunch for their specific training, but everything else should be covered by the time lunch is served at 2:00 this afternoon.)

We began on Wednesday with the analogy of the family tree and how that relates to words, showing that words can also be grouped into families, some being related to each other very closely, and others more distantly. Then I introduced the workflow, explaining what happened after one of the word-collection groups had finished their part of the process. That was to give everyone the big picture. We concluded the day by looking at the structure of the human body, as well as discussing the parts that make up a house, showing how the words that are used in these contexts can be grouped into “families,” both nuclear and extended.

The second day (Thursday), we did an actual word-collection exercise, focusing on the body parts of a mammal. I found it interesting that, at the end of that exercise, two of the participants were wondering if we were ever going to collect any verbs or adjectives, since everything to that point had been oriented around nouns. I assured them that on the third day we would move on to a couple of semantic domains that would be a bit more challenging, and which would target categories other than tangible objects.

This second day, I also began the training for the specific roles that each of those present would be performing. I had originally planned to give the training for each role only to those slated to function in that capacity, but I then faced a dilemma—what should I have those do who were not involved in the current training session? Anita suggested that, rather than dismissing them, we keep everyone in the room, but address the training to those concerned, while the other listen in. That’s what we did, and I think it was the right approach, especially in this situation, where at least several of the people involved have the potential to swap roles throughout the workshop—functioning one day as a typist, another day as a glosser, and another day as a group leader, perhaps to address a situation where we discover that someone assigned to a particular role is not well suited to that role, maybe just to change things up and provide variety for those with skills in multiple areas. I was able to train the group leaders and the glossers, as well as explain to the whole group the role of the coordinator before it was time for the second coffee break.

The third session of the day was spent discussing some important topics, such as what form to use when writing down nouns and verbs, and how to translate the French at the top of the sheets where words are to be recorded, for those scribes who don’t understand French well. Stuart led that session. (A side note here: On the first day, when I presented the workflow, including the use of the “answer sheet” where words are to be written down, one of the scribes drew our attention to the fact that it would be helpful for him to have the labels at the top of the sheet in Kaansa, since his French was rather weak. These are details like “Names of those in the word-collection group,” “Date,” “Semantic domain name,” etc. I have made note of this for future workshops, as it will likely be useful to have this information in the local language, rather than in the language of wider communication, which is French, in this case.)

I am very encouraged—and even impressed—by the questions that those attending this workshop are asking. They show me that the people are interested in what is being taught, and that they are understanding my instruction enough to recognize where I’ve left something out, so they ask for clarification. It’s always energizing for me to teach people who want to learn. Yesterday, I discovered that one of the young men taking a very active part in this training phase was not even invited by those who lined up the participants. He simply heard the announcements on the radio and showed up because he saw it as an opportunity to learn something new and be part of something significant. How exciting is that?! So, prior to the role training that I began yesterday and will continue today, he had to be assigned to a particular role. He listened attentively to the training I gave to the group leaders and glossers yesterday, and today will receive specific training for his role as a scribe. Having more than the requisite number of people for each role means that they can spell each other off, and so keep their fatigue to a minimum. 

Translating from my English notes into French on the fly is working quite well. There’ve been a few times where I felt handicapped by the fact that I had not translated my materials ahead of time, but for the most part the presentation in French has gone smoothly.

I tried unsuccessfully to post this entry yesterday:

Monday we made the trek from Ouagadougou to Obiré. Aside from a few minor delays, the 8-hour trip was uneventful, which is just what we wanted. Stuart knew that part of the route they usually take was in a bad state of disrepair, so decided to take a more circuitous route where the roads would hopefully be better. It paid off, and we made good time on roads that were not too bad, and for some stretches quite good. While we were en route, the Kaan members of the Kaansa language project were busy getting the word out to the rest of the Kaan community about the upcoming workshop. Announcements were made in both Kaansa and French on each of the two radio stations that broadcast in this part of the country. The one in Kaansa was accompanied by specially recorded music, involving a “talking drum” which communicated the message.

During our trip down here, however, I learned something that caught me by surprise. Since I suspected that we might not have access to the internet in Obiré, and since I knew that the only source of electricity here would be solar panels or a generator, I was expecting a pretty rustic experience. I did not expect to be able to show the presentation on my computer screen to everyone there during my time of teaching. Instead, I wondered whether my presentation medium would be a blackboard, a whiteboard, or large pieces of paper? I was therefore extremely surprised to learn that a portable projector would be available for me to use!

Tuesday we made plans for the training phase of the workshop which began today. As we were testing the portable projector with my computer, and I was running through my presentation, I suddenly realized that one part of it was not language-neutral, and needed to be translated from English into French before I used it today. It took me most of the rest of the day to do that, but I certainly am glad that the need had come to my attention prior to the actual presentation!

Internet access here has proven to be quite slow, though new technology has made it several times faster than it had been previously. All that to say that, while I will do my best to update this blog on a regular basis, I cannot guarantee that I will be able to follow through on that intention while I am here.

We arrived safely Friday evening (about noon in the Eastern time zone of the US) in Burkina Faso. Our flights went mostly as planned; the first two flights were delayed, but we had a long enough layover at each of our destinations that it did not affect us significantly. The biggest blessing of all in some respects was the fact that all of our luggage arrived with us.

We've spent the past two days reconnecting with friends, and now we're preparing to leave the capital city (Ouagadougou) in a few hours. Our destination is the village of Obiré (OH-bee-ray), a bit west of the city of Gaoua (GAH-wuh), where the Rapid Word Collection workshop in Kaansa is slated to begin day after tomorrow (Wednesday). Stuart & Cathie Showalter, SIL linguists who've been working among the Kaan people for many years, will be taking us in their SUV. I'm looking forward to spending most of the next four weeks in Obiré with them and their many Kaan friends.

Anita and I plan to leave tomorrow morning on our next step in this great RWC adventure journey—a Rapid Word Collection workshop among the Kaan people of Burkina Faso. Stuart and Cathie Showalter, friends and colleagues whom we've known since we first arrived in Burkina Faso in 1990, have worked with speakers of the Kaansa language for many, many years and are now in the final mile of their marathon toward the goal of delivering a published New Testament of the Bible to this people group in their mother tongue. However, since Christians represent only a small fraction of the Kaan community and the Showalters want to continue to demonstrate that their work is for the benefit of all Kaan people, they intend to hold a double celebration. Not only do they intend to unveil and dedicate the published New Testament, but they also intend to present to the Kaan community a bilingual Kaansa-French dictionary. It is to this end that I will be leading them in a RWC workshop, with the goal of enlarging their database of the raw materials (words) for that dictionary. Then a team of individuals will focus on preparing the data for publication in time for the ceremony (date still to be decided).

It is an extremely ambitious goal to attempt to produce a printed dictionary so soon after the data collection, so I am very interested in hearing how that goes. I expect to learn a lot through their experience. My present focus, however, is to help the Kaansa team collect data as cleanly as possible, to avoid having to spend unnecessary time correcting mistakes in the information after the workshop. The training I have prepared for them focuses on two things: how to use the RWC word-collection method, and ways to ensure that the data collected are error-free.

This will be my first time to provide the RWC training in French. All my notes are in English, so I'll be reading silently in English, translating in my head and then speaking in French. Should be interesting! I'll let you know how it goes. (Eventually, I want to work from French notes, but my materials are not yet at that point.)

Travel plans: 

Wednesday, January 8: drive from home to the Showalters' home near Washington, DC, where we'll spend the night

Thursday, January 9: fly from Dulles International airport to New York (JFK), and then on to Brussels (Belgium).

Friday, January 10: fly from Brussels to Ouagadougou (Burkina Faso), then settle into our rooms at the SIL center there.

Saturday, January 11: shopping in the Ouagadougou markets, visiting with friends we haven't seen for a while

Sunday, January 12: more visiting with friends

Monday, January 13: travel by road from Ouagadougou to Obiré (8-hour trip, I think), where the workshop will be held

Tuesday, January 14: make last-minute preparations for the workshop

Wednesday-Friday, January 15-17: training phase of the workshop, training the key players regarding their individual roles

Saturday-Sunday, January 18-19: down time; also, making adjustments to the plans for the workshop, as necessary

Monday-Friday, January 20-24: first week of the word-collection phase of the workshop

Saturday-Sunday, January 25-26: down time

Monday-Friday, January 27-31: second week of the word-collection phase of the workshop

Saturday-Sunday, February 1-2: down time

Monday-Friday, February 3-7: clean-up phase of the workshop, checking data for accuracy and fixing mistakes that are found

Saturday-Sunday, February 8-9: return to Ouagadougou somewhere in this time frame

Monday-Sunday, February 10-16: visiting with friends in Ouagadougou; also make a trip to Bonzan, the village where we lived and worked for 8 years, to see friends there whom we haven't seen for a long time.

Monday, February 17: leave Ouagadougou on the first leg of our return flight, arriving in Brussels the next morning

Tuesday, February 18: fly from Brussels to Washington, DC (Dulles); stay overnight at the Showalters' house

Wednesday, February 19: drive home from the Showalters'

I learned yesterday that the Lotud people I trained in Malaysia last September are now two days into phase 2 of their word-collection efforts. They are continuing where we left off back in September, and if they don't finish everything during the time allotted this month, they'll schedule a third session later on. After being privileged to play a significant role in training these individuals, it's encouraging to me to see them successfully applying—in my absence—what they learned!