Day 3  Koorete Word Collection Nov 12 - details

The word-collection groups at the workshop are continuing to make good progress, although there is some question about the quality of the work being done, so there might be a short meeting with the group leaders tomorrow morning to remind them of the importance of some of the principles we discussed during the training session that some have apparently either forgotten or did not completely understand. At the end of today’s workday, the word count was around 5500, with some words that were collected still uncounted due to the “accounting” method that we use. Some words collected today are in folders that the groups have not completed, so their work for today won’t be tallied until tomorrow.

On the typing end of things, we’re continuing to experience some challenges. To start things off this morning, one of the computers we had been using Monday and Tuesday refused to start up, so we won’t be able to use it any more. Fortunately, Lydia had asked me to begin preparing a spare computer in case we would need it. It was almost operational when we realized that it would be needed to replace the one that had quit. So we soon had all of the typists equipped with a working machine.

Then in the afternoon, one of the computers developed a problem where its data could not be synchronized with everyone else’s and data that had taken an hour or more to type suddenly disappeared and was unrecoverable. I had never experienced that problem before, but when the same thing happened again on the same computer a short while later, inspired by a divine flash of insight, I was able to quickly provide a solution so that the problem would be unlikely to present itself again. I shared the nature of the problem and the solution I had found with the four trainees so that, should they ever encounter the same problem, they would already know how to handle it.

Everyone is busily working, whether collecting words, providing Amharic glosses, or typing data into the computer. At the same time, everyone is getting tired. This is a rather grueling exercise and everyone is ready for a weekend, but there are still two days of work that stand between us and that time of rejuvenation.  Below is a photo of group #4:

Electricity was on most of the day today, but is off again in the evening, so I have to type up my blog entry by candlelight in my hotel room. (Actually, if you saw my room, you might hesitate to call it a ‘hotel room,’ since that term conjures up so much more in the American context than the reality delivers here!)

I’m doing well, though, having worked through much of the culture shock that I experienced when I first arrived in Amaaro. I’m also done with the flu that I had, with just a bit of “housecleaning” remaining that causes me to cough from time to time.

Kevin Warfel