Summary of July 11-13 Training Phase of the workshop

These three days of training were extremely busy for me and the workshop coordinator. Some of the time was spent determining what needed to be printed and distributed to those being trained and making sure that we had all the supplies we needed including chalkboards or chart paper on which to write.

The participants have been learning well, demonstrating a good grasp of the concepts I’ve been teaching. There is a lot of enthusiasm leading up to tomorrow’s official start to the word-collection phase of the workshop.

The training has taken place in the regional capital, at the headquarters of a national organization in charge of developing the local languages in this region. The word collection will take place in a village closer to the heart of the area where the language is spoken. We’ll continue to live at the SIL center in the regional capital, so we’ll be commuting 40 minutes in each direction each day. I expect to be here until the end of next week, then those who are based here will finish the last days of the workshop without me, having been adequately trained and having gained sufficient experience to carry on in my absence.

In this country, it’s important to have one’s presence officially recognized by someone in authority in the locality. So on Monday we made our first attempt to meet with the regional governor in order to inform him of our presence and explain our reason for being here. We were told that he was in a meeting, as were all of his workers. Tuesday, we went to the office of a local official, but he was also in a meeting. At that point, those taking me to meet an official decided it would be a good idea to set up an appointment, so today we were finally able to meet with the governor. He signed and dated our travel documents, giving us the official recognition that we may or may not need at some point to justify our presence in this location where some of us at least do not normally work.

Meals these three days have been “interesting.” Monday we were served a dish very similar to the “toh” that I am familiar with from Burkina Faso. I have never been able to eat more than a few bites of toh (millet porridge), but to my great surprise and relief (out of concern that my hosts not be shamed or embarrassed), I was able to eat what I considered a respectable amount of what I was served. Tuesday’s lunch consisted of “crêpes” similar to what I had in Ethiopia. In Ethiopia I had not succeeded in keeping more than a few mouthfuls down, so again I was surprised and relieved to find that I could eat a reasonable amount of this dish here. Wednesday I was expecting rice and sauce/gravy, as that is what I had been told was on the menu. However, we got another variety of the toh-like dish. I was able to eat even more of it today than I was able to eat on Monday. Thus, I’m doing okay on the food front at this workshop. We’ll see what the next week brings, as we begin working in the village location.

Kevin Warfel

Additional remarks from Anita:
This final day of training may have included important concepts in lexicography, such as which form of the words are entered in the dictionary.  Verbs, for example, change form depending on tense or aspect.  One of the verb forms will be designated as the headword, which may be the present tense or an infinitive form.

Some words may have more than one meaning; each of those meanings will fit under a certain category.  There are nine main semantic categories. The first one is nature.  This includes plants and animals and the earth and sky.  Under each of those categories are subcategories.  Under plants will be trees, bushes, and smaller plants like grains. For most cultures, the plant category is vast and takes time to complete.

Prayer:

Kevin is currently in a time zone about 7 hours ahead of us, so it might be helpful to give you a glimpse of the following day, in order to pray for him.  He said he will be traveling about 40 minutes each way to from the regional capital to the village for the word collection, so we can pray for the vehicle to hold up and for safety.

An opening ceremony will most likely begin the first day of the word-collection workshop.  Dignitaries and many others who are interested in the development of the language will be present.  Those asked to speak may give reasons for creating dictionaries and doing other language development work. We are praying that the speeches at the ceremony will generate motivation for language development.

The word-collection will hopefully start immediately after the ceremony.  Members of the language group who have a deep understanding of the language and culture are formally invited to join one of the six groups.  The group leaders will choose categories of interest from the list, one after the other, for their group to focus on during the rest of the day's session.  We pray for clear understanding of word-collection concepts for each participant.

Anita Warfel