Nov 26  Gwama - Day 1 of Training for upcoming Rapid Word Collection Workshop in Asosa, Ethiopia

It’ll be Thanksgiving Day by the time this gets posted to my blog, so I’d like to mention a few things that I’m thankful for.

First of all, I am in good health. This is in stark contrast to the beginning of the first workshop I led here in Ethiopia three weeks ago. I am very thankful for good health!

The six Gwama speakers who were present yesterday morning were very enthusiastic about the analogy that I have been using to illustrate what semantic domains are. I begin by introducing everyone to a part of my family tree, then I use that as a springboard for illustrating how words and ideas can also be grouped into a network of relationships, some close and some more distant. This group seemed to really appreciate that illustration.

In the afternoon, a seventh participant arrived, and my understanding is that there is at least one more who is due to arrive on Thursday.

Since Anne-Christie Hellenthal has already been through a complete workshop (for Koorete in Amaaro), I am allowing her to lead the training for as much of the material as she would like to do. She is able to communicate directly with the participants in Amharic, whereas I teach in English and someone else has to translate into Amharic for me. So all Wednesday afternoon I sat in the audience, giving Anne-Christie help when she needed it, but allowing her to simply teach the material herself for the most part. She has a good understanding of how this type of workshop is conducted and has the ability to communicate the concepts to the participants.

Happy Thanksgiving to all of my friends in the USA. I have become more appreciative of things like ready availability of a wide variety of ingredients for meal preparation, a reliable source of electricity, and good health, not wanting to take any of these things for granted.

Kevin Warfel