Ikoma and Kabwa New Testament Celebrations!

In March 2023 we were overjoyed to travel to Tanzania to celebrate not one but two published New Testaments which our team had helped with. The initial survey work with these language groups began in about 2005, followed by initial linguistics research, with translation starting properly in 2009. So that’s 12-13 years to translate the New Testament!

First was the Ikoma celebration on the 10th March.

There was a lot of singing and dancing. The songs were in both Swahili and Ikoma, as well as Isenye (a dialect closely related to Ikoma – our team are currently working to create an Isenye adaptation from the Ikoma New Testament).

Including some traditional dancers:

There were lots of speeches:

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“When you read a chapter of the New Testament in Ikoma you will want to read another and another, because it draws you in. You want to read more because it is in YOUR language.”

Partway through they decided to add another marquee to add more shaded seating because there were so many people (about 1200!)

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The first public reading from the printed Ikoma New Testament and a short sermon (both translated into Swahili and English):

People were very keen to get themselves a copy (for 5,000 Tanzanian shillings, less than £2):

People queuing up to be the first to buy a copy.

Crowding around the boxes of books.

My copy!

Roman with Pastor Muya, one of the two men who worked for many years to translated the New Testament into their own language, Ikoma. Roman worked with the Ikoma translation team for a short while near the end of the translation process and typesetting.

Roman with Pastor Muya, one of the men who translated the Ikoma New Testament.

Muya said, “I’m rejoicing. It is from God! We hoped and we hoped and eventually it happened. We have the desire for the Old Testament too. We don’t know quite how it will happen but we ask God and we have hope. We have the desire. Let’s pray that God will make it happen.”

Neema, an Ikoma young woman, said, “I’m really happy. God has given us the New Testament in Ikoma. I can read it with my children, we can read it together. It’s the work of God! God is good.”

Even with so many people, food was provided for everyone.

Here are some video clips that I put together from the day: singing, dancing, reading Scripture, and even a short drama sketch from the children (given in Ikoma; I think it was about drunkenness and the power of the Bible to transform lives!).

A few days later, on 14th March, we gathered to celebrate the Kabwa New Testament!

Again, there was a lot of singing and dancing:

There were also some traditional dancers.

There were lots of speeches:

One colleague, who has worked for many years with the Kabwa team as a translation advisor, gave a speech he had prepared in Kabwa! Everyone was so engaged – the amazement and enjoyment on their faces were evident!

Masige, in the red shirt, one of the Kabwa translators, applauds his colleague!

The first public reading from the printed Kabwa New Testament:

The presentation of the box of books and official opening by the guest of honour. People queued up to receive the first copies.

More boxes were brought up. The organising committee had done an excellent job of going around all the churches and groups in advance. Many groups had ordered and pre-paid for their copies of the New Testament! Then they called up the different groups to come and collect their requested copies.

People were so delighted to receive their copies!

Most copies were paid for (5,000 Tanzanian chillings, less than £2). But a few free copies were given out, to the oldest in the room (two gentlemen in their 80s) and to the youngest in the room (two babies of a few months old)!

This is John Masige (left) and John Miriro (right), two of the Kabwa translators. This was such a day of celebration for them of so many years of hard work! I (Rebekah) have enjoyed working with them since I arrived in Tanzania in 2015, and worked with them to research Kabwa linguistics, to develop the Kabwa writing system, and to check this whole New Testament.

Since these celebrations we have heard from Dickson (centre, below), a Kabwa speaker who is working with us to develop a Kabwa dictionary. He said that on the Sunday following the celebration, in his church the gospel reading was read from the Kabwa New Testament, and the preacher then proceeded to give his sermon in Kabwa! Everyone loved it!

(It is much easier for preachers to preach in a local language if they are helped with the relevant vocabulary by having the Bible passage in that language.)

Please pray with us that many Ikoma and Kabwa people would continue to read these new New Testaments, that they would understand and soak in what they read, that they would come closer to God, and that God would bring about wonderful transformation in these communities.

Here is an excellent video of the Kabwa celebration produced by a colleague:

Training in Tanzania

In April we enjoyed a short (2 week) trip back to Tanzania.

We drove from Rwanda with a colleague (well, our colleague drove and we supplied conversation and snacks and an extra set of eyes especially for overtaking when driving a left-hand drive car or the left side of the road…)

It was a long drive over two days, meaning we had plenty of time to enjoy the view.

The wide open plains in the Mara region of Tanzania are quite a contrast to the constant hills in Rwanda.

It was our first time on a car ferry on Lake Victoria (not crossing the whole lake, but just one of the inlets, which saved some time compared to driving further inland to a bridge).

We visited the gate to the Serengeti (a convenient toilet stop!), saw some wildebeest and plenty of birds.

Testing a new coffee shop at the Serengeti gate.

Where we stayed also had some great views. Near the guest house we could climb a hill and some rocks which gave some incredible views of Lake Victoria. We do miss living right by the lake.

The cows were far more nimble than us, clambering up the rocks

The main objective of the trip was for Rebekah and our colleague to provide training for some new translators.

It was really fun to meet them and get to know them. They were all fairly young, in their 20s and early 30s, and fresh and enthusiastic for the work. We were pleased to establish a good working rapport, with them asking questions if they didn’t understand and some good group discussions. These relationships will set us up well for working remotely from Rwanda.

Rebekah with the two Isenye translators and their supervisor.

Rebekah was teaching about some basic linguistic topics, building up to some more complicated questions related to spelling issues.

A simple exercise of sorting words with short and long vowels.

Cutting up verbs to learn to discuss linguistically what the different parts do.

A much more complicated task, adding various endings onto verbs. If you look closely you can see that some are very similar or even identical, but each form here has a different meaning.

Both languages have tone (a high-low note melody over the words), which can be very important for meaning. Particularly in verbs, it can be tone alone that distinguishes between certain tenses.

For example, in Ngoreme with verb roots ending in r, some different forms can be written very similarly or even identically (as shown in the photo above). For example:
1. a + hor + er + e → ahorre ‘he should recover (for the sake of someone else)’
2. a + hor + ire → :ahorre ‘he has recovered’
The second is written with : at the beginning to symbolise the tone pattern of that tense form, to distinguish it from the first form which is identical apart from a different tone pattern.

We wrote out a massive table on the board looking at many different combinations, checking for ambiguity. It was great to see the translators really getting into this and understanding it, and understanding the importance of being careful with spelling in order to avoid confusion.

Isaya helping to complete the table for Isenye.

While Rebekah was busy teaching linguistics, Roman was working through a mound of IT issues, from minor issues of helping people access their email, to replacing drives in laptops, as well as trying to solve internet connectivity issues. He also did some rationalisation of the equipment stored in the IT office, removing metres of redundant cable left over from an old server. He was unable to solve the internet issues, which remains a challenge for the Tanzania staff especially when they need to have meetings with remote advisors.

When not working, we enjoyed visiting some friends and favourite places in Musoma:

Roman met up with his friend Makaranga.

We enjoyed catching up with old friends who have now returned to Australia but were back for a short visit.

We visited our former home and caught up with some of our former neighbours: one of the nuns and the cat 🙂

Roman made some new furry friends too.

We attended the church of our colleague Mussa.
(We were glad to be seated at the back. Mussa had kindly turned down the sound for us … it was still rather loud, even with earplugs!)

Overall, it was a very full-on and busy but encouraging time. Musoma holds a very special place in our hearts, not only because of the natural beauty and nature and our memories of living there, but also the fond friendships that we still have with colleagues there. It was fun to be able to chat and joke easily in Swahili – a relief and joy after our struggling though the basic greetings in Kinyarwanda. It was such a joy to renew friendships with colleagues there and we were blessed by invitations to attend church and share meals in their homes.  The work and cross-cultural relationships are not always easy, but there is a deep richness to them as well.

Simbiti New Testament Celebration!

On the 31st August, there was great cause for joy in Nyanchabhakenye, a village in Tanzania – the Simbiti people celebrated receiving the whole New Testament in their language!!

Having been involved myself in helping to check the spelling and grammar, seeing the photos and videos shared by colleagues who were there brought tears to my eyes! This has been a labour of love, being worked on by Simbiti translators for 15 or so years.

As you enjoy looking at the photos below, pray with us that not only would many Simbiti people read and hear God’s word in their heart language, but also that it would speak deeply to their hearts and that lives would be transformed.

(Thanks to Andrew Olson for the photos.)

Simbiti musicians led the parade to the church.
The wrapped gift is a box of the New Testaments to be presented and then ceremonially opened.

The procession led into the church, and the wrapped box was placed in front of the whole assembly.

There were of course a lot of speeches, from pastors and bishops, local government officials, as well as members of the language community and the translation team.

One colleague spoke about how sweet the Word of God is: “Not sweet like Fanta or Pepsi, but as true honey.” This was met with a round of applause!

The wrapped box of New Testaments was ceremonially opened. All glory to God!
Do we truly comprehend what a gift it is to have God’s word in our mother tongue?

The first words to be read aloud were from Matthew 28:19:
“Go and make disciples of all the nations.” – AMEN!

There were a total of 250 boxes, each containing 40 copies – that’s 10,000 copies of the Simbiti New Testament!

People were so excited to purchase their copy.
One local bishop purchased 450 copies to give away!

For our team in Musoma, this is the first New Testament to be published. Everyone was very excited to attend and celebrate with the Simbiti.

Below you can see Pastor Robert Mago and Pastor Albinus Waynse, who worked together for about 15 years to translate the New Testament (as well as some Old Testament portions) into their heart language, Simbiti. Truly this has been a labour of love: love for their language, love for God, and love for their fellow Simbiti people.

Do you own a copy of the Bible in your mother tongue? Or maybe I should even ask how many copies, or how many versions? Have you ever stopped to think about how precious it is? What a gift?!

How sweet it must be to read or hear God’s word in your heart language for the first time!

Oh, for the day when people from every nation, tribe, people and language will praise God together!

“After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. And they cried out in a loud voice: ‘Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb.’

Revelation 7:9-10 (New International Version)

What do you eat?

We get asked this question quite often about life in Tanzania. So we thought we’d give you a taster (unfortunately not a real taster!) of some of what we ate in January.

Breakfast for me (Rebekah) is usually this: oats, milk, yoghurt, maybe chia seeds and raisins if we have them, and fruit (here banana and passion fruit). Roman is extremely “creative” with his breakfast bowl … we can include that another time! (The yoghurt we make at home, from milk that we pasteurise ourselves – see this post from my old blog.)

Lunch for me is often bread with eggs and vegetables:

When I bake bread, I usually make a few loaves at a time:

When Roman is working at the office, he sometimes has something like this for lunch: meat (or fish) with rice, and side dishes (here beans and greens). This day had the exciting addition of lemonade!

Our evening meals vary, depending on time and energy! A few from January are: vegetable pasta bake; bean and vegetable filled wraps (then baked in the oven); wraps with falafel, veg and salsa; and chickpea curry.

I realise that I didn’t photograph any of the meals that Roman cooked … that will have to wait until next time!

What are some of your go-to meals?

Why checking spelling matters.

The past year or so, a large part of my (Rebekah’s) job has involved checking the spelling of the New Testament in the Simbiti and Kabwa languages before it is printed.

We do this because we want these New Testaments to be the best they possibly can be! We want them to glorify God and to help others to glorify God. We want the books to be a reliable example of how these languages are written.

But crucially, we want people to understand what is written in them. Sometimes spelling mistakes would cause misunderstandings – these might be minor, or they might be major.

It’s my job to find and correct as many of these mistakes as possible. I thought I would share with you some of the mistakes I have found, to show you the types of mistakes and also the types of misunderstandings these can cause in the Kabwa language.

Changing the central meaning:

Sometimes a short vowel instead of a long vowel, or a misplaced apostrophe, can change the central meaning of a verb.

1) arang’arirwa ‘he is loved’ corrected to araangarirwa ‘he is being guarded’.

For example, Acts 25:4 Fesito akabhakyukya ega, “Pauro araangarirwa Kaisaria erya, na oni omwene ndahunjuka-yo bhwangu hanu.
‘Festus answered, ‘Paul is being guarded at Caesarea, and I myself am going there soon.’ ’

2) bharaakutumire ‘they will send to you’ corrected to bharaakutuumire ‘they will lift you up’

For example, Luke 4:11 Kweki ega, ‘Bharaakutuumire kwa amabhoko gaabho, otaaja okwikuujura kwigina, onyahaarike amaguru gaaho.’
‘Then he said, ‘They will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’ ’

3) bharakura ‘digging’ corrected to bharakuura ‘weeping’

For example, Acts 9:39: Hanú yaahika Yoopa, bhakamuhira mukinyumba kirya. Eyo abhasino abhaaru bhakamwinaara bhonsego, bhakabha bharakura.
‘When he arrived at Joppa, they took him into the room. All the widows stood around him, they were weeping.’

4) bharitwa ‘they will pick fruit’ corrected to bhariitwa ‘they will be killed’.

For example, Matthew 26:32: Nawe, Yeesu akamukeerya ega, “Hunjukya omuhyu gwaho mukyubhu, kwa okubha abhantu bhonsego bhanú bhareeta abhantu kwa omuhyu, bhonse bhariitwa kwa omuhyu!”
‘But Jesus answered him, “Return your sword to its place, for all who kill people by the sword, they themselves will be killed by the sword.”’

Changing the tense (when or if something happens):

5) yakaamuruuji ‘he would see’ corrected to yaakamuruuji ‘he has already/ever seen’.

For example, John 1:18: Atariho omuntu unú yaakamuruuji Waryubha. Nawe, nu-Mwana waaye omumwemwe omwenego…
‘No-one has ever seen God. Except the one and only son…’

Changing who does an action:

6) nanyankiri ‘he has suffered’ (with emphasis) corrected to naanyankiri ‘I have suffered’

For example, Matthew 27:19: “Otaaja omukorere eringʼana eribhiibhi ryoryonse omuntu uyo ataana obhusarya, kwa okubha naanyankiri bhukongʼu obhutiku mukirooto kurusumo rwaye.”
‘You shouldn’t have anything to do with that innocent man, for I have suffered a great deal today in a dream because of him.’

Sometimes, of course, the context might make it clear which of the similar forms it could be. And, of course, there are certain nuances of meaning that I can’t explain here.
But if we can spell something correctly, and make the meaning of God’s word as clear as possible, surely that’s an important task?!

As an aside, there have historically been some (now famous) typographical errors in Bibles. Have you heard of the “Wicked Bible”, containing the phrase “Thou shalt commit adultery”? Or the “Murderer’s Bible”, which in Mark 7:27 read, “Let the children first be killed” ?!

(Copyright: Bonhams/BNPS)

While you have fun looking up famous errors, please pray for us that we avoid making similar mistakes!

Nezvyčajné videorozhovory

Aj po našom návrate do Anglicka pokračujeme v práci s našimi tanzánskymi kolegami. Pracujeme na diaľku, cez internet, používame rôzne prekladateľské nástroje a máme veľa videorozhovorov a telefonátov.

Predpokladáme, že ani vy ste sa mnohým videorozhovorom nevyhli. Teda cez internet sa stretávame s rôznymi členmi našich rodín, s ostatnými ľuďmi v cirkvi na štúdiu Biblie, na bohoslužbách, pracovných stretnutiach, atď.

Rozhovory s našimi kolegami však majú ešte ďalší rozmer. Tu je hneď niekoľko príkladov z našich nedávnych rozhovorov.

Na projekte prekladu do jazyka ikoma pracujem ja (Roman) spolu s ďalším kolegom z Anglicka. Jeden z prekladateľov nemá doma zavedenú elektrinu. Aby mohol pracovať z domu, má dve batérie do notebooku; môže si ich nabiť inde, a potom môže mať doma dlhšie zapnutý počítač. Druhý prekladateľ má zavedenú eletrinu, a tak môže pracovať dlhšie (s výnimkou, keď elektrina vypadne).

Pripojenie k internetu nie je samozrejmosťou ani pre jedného z dvojice mojich prekladateľov. Raz musel jeden z prekladateľov počas hovoru hľadať, kde v jeho dome bude mať najlepší signál. Nakoniec skončil na prahu svojho domu, čo nie je zrovna najlepšie miesto na kanceláriu. Neskôr dostal z kancelárie bezdrôtový modem a môže sedieť na omnoho lepšom mieste.

Takto vyzerá bežný dom v Musome.

Niektorí kolegovia si zase museli požičať pracovný stôl z kancelárie, keďže doma bol jediným miestom na sedenie gauč, a v ňom sa veľmi pohodlne nepracovalo.

Rebekah pracovala s tímom jazyka kabwa. Jeden kolega musel raz počas rozhovoru sedieť na schodoch do jeho domu, aby mal dostatočný signál a ani to nebolo dokonalé. Keďže býva v dedine, má horší signál a oproti druhému prekladateľovi do jeho jazyka je v nevýhode. Dúfame, že v budúcnosti budeme mať kvalitnejšie spojenie.

Ďalší kolega mal doma dosť dobrý internet. Počas práce Rebeku zoznámil so svojimi deťmi, ktoré sem-tam vykúkali na obrazovku. Zjavne bolo celkom vtipné vidieť tam bieleho človeka rozprávať v svahilčine a v jazyku kabwa.

Jeden kolega telefonoval pod stromom spred svojho domu. To tiež znamenalo, že počas rozhovoru musel pozdraviť okoloidúcich. Na jednej strane nás toto trochu rušilo, no na druhej sa ich tiež mohol spýtať rôzne otázky ohľadne jazyka kabwa. Toto je obzvlášť užitočné, keď sa práve rozprávate o tom, ako správne zapísať rôzne slová v jeho jazyku. Raz, keď si nebol istý jedným slovom, zbadal skupinu starších ľudí, a tak šiel a opýtal sa ich na ich názor. Je super, keď môžete do bežných diskusií o jazyku zapojiť svojich súkmeňovcov.

Asi o hodinu neskôr mu však došla baterka na počítači, tak sa prešiel k sesternici, ktorá mala elektrinu. Rozhovor celý čas pokračoval, čo znamenalo, že počas tohto rozhovoru mohla Rebekah vidieť aj jeho dedinu a typickú scenériu z oblasti, kde pôsobíme.

Po tom, ako prišiel k sesternici, sadol si u nich na gauč, kde pokračoval v práci. Počas zvyšku rozhovoru sedela jeho sesternica a jej deti pri ňom. Bolo pre nich veľkou zábavou počúvať, ako sa Rebekah snaží vysloviť rôzne slová v jazyku kabwa.

Všetky tieto veci sa udiali počas jedného jeden a pol hodinového rozhovoru. Dokončiť všetku prácu bude chvíľu trvať. Tieto rozhovory niekedy zahŕňajú aj 4 ľudí pripojených cez internet, je to náročné a navyše sa k tomu pridáva ešte to, že rozhovory sú v svahilčine. Napriek tomu všetkému sme vďační, že môžeme pokračovať v práci aj naďalej.

A čo zvláštne ste vy zažili počas videorozhovorov?

Video calls with a difference.

While we are back in the UK, we are still working remotely with our Tanzanian colleagues. This involves using some excellent linguistic and translation software, lots of emails and instant messaging, and also now some regular video calling.

These days, I’m sure most people are video calling a lot! We certainly have our fair share: family catch-ups, Bible studies, church, staff meetings, etc.

But the calls with our Tanzanian colleagues are a little different. Here are some things that have happened in recent work calls.

Roman has been working with the Ikoma translators, together with another colleague elsewhere in the UK. One of the Ikoma translators doesn’t have electricity, so he has two laptop batteries available. He can charge them both elsewhere and then he can use his computer for longer when he’s home. The other translator has electricity most of the time, but when he doesn’t his working hours are also limited.

The internet connection is quite challenging for both translators. At one point one of the translators was walking around his house while calling, to test where the internet connection was good enough. The best connection was in the doorway to the house which was fairly inconvenient. Later on he got a WiFi modem, so he doesn’t need to sit in the doorway.

A typical house near Musoma.

Some of our colleagues have had to arrange to borrow a desk from the office. Otherwise, their only space for working at home was sat on the sofa, which would not have been comfortable for a prolonged period.

I (Rebekah) have been working with the Kabwa translators. In a call last week, one colleague had to sit on his front step to get enough data signal for the call. Even so he still kept dropping in and out of the call. His village home is a bit more remote than the others in the Kabwa team; we hope that his connection is better for future calls…

Another colleague was sat inside his home, and introduced me to some of his children who poked their heads into view. I think they thought it was quite funny to see a white person (‘mzungu’ in Swahili) talking Swahili and Kabwa!

Another colleague started the call under a tree outside his house (this may have been to have enough space, or for signal, or for fresh air). This meant that he was almost constantly greeting his neighbours as they walked by on the path! This was a little disrupting, BUT he could also ask them questions. This came in useful when we were discussing the spelling of certain words in the Kabwa language. At one point when we were struggling with a particular word, my colleague spotted a group of elders talking nearby, and so he went over to ask their opinions. It’s great to be able to involve more of the Kabwa community in these everyday discussions.

However, after about an hour, his laptop battery started to run low. So he walked a few minutes down the road to his cousin’s house, who had electricity. All the while he stayed on the call, which meant I got a lovely tour of his village! It made me feel nostalgic for the beautiful, rough landscape of the Mara region (some pictures of the typical Mara landscape below).

Once he arrived at his cousin’s house, he sat down on their sofa. And then for the rest of the work call, his cousin and her children sat on the sofa next to him, avidly listening in and laughing at my attempts to pronounce Kabwa words!

All of this was in a single one and a half hour video call! It’s going to take us a while to get through all of the work that we need to, and I find it very tiring talking Swahili and trying to steer a 4-way call. But I am also very thankful that we can continue the work at all.

What have been your funny experiences with video calls? Any unexpected blessings and bonuses?

New Growth.

Since the end of March we’ve been unexpectedly back in the UK. I am sad to have had to leave our home and friends in Tanzania at such short notice (but we hope/plan to return when we are able!).

But, one of the things I’ve loved about being in the UK is SPRING!

Spring is my favourite season. Every day there are fresh new buds on the trees, more flowers poking their way up through the dead leaves, more blossom bursting forth. It’s a time of such obvious new life and hope!

Also, my brother and I are attempting to grow some rocket salad. I love visiting the seedlings every day and seeing how much they’ve grown. This morning I was excited to see the bigger ones now have four little leaves instead of just two!

Back in Tanzania I was enjoying signs of new life too. I often enjoy gardening just for the sake of it, seeing the progress and growth, not necessarily for the end product. So in my kitchen I had an avocado stone (with a lot of lovely long new roots), as well as a few small pineapple heads shooting off roots and new leaves too. (I didn’t really expect to get an avocado tree or pineapple fruits from these, but I enjoyed seeing them grow nonetheless!)

Just look at the small one – can you see that fresh green growth in the centre, just about to burst forth?! This gave me such joy when I first saw it!

It makes me wonder – is this how God might feel when he looks into our hearts and sees signs of new growth? It might not be visible external fruit, but even just those little shoots of new green growth, maybe they give him as much (or even more) joy as I have on seeing new leaves on my pineapple plant or rocket.

This therefore challenges me. During this time, when so much seems to be on hold, waiting … will God be able to see signs of new growth in my heart during this time? I might not manage to be very productive, or very obviously externally fruitful, but even just some new seedlings I’m sure would bring God so much joy.

What new growth would you like to see in your life during this time?

P.S. This Easter, our family decorated a cross with lots of decorated eggs (no new ones this year, just lots we made as kids over the years, or collected somehow). We then noticed that a little plant was growing out of the soil that my dad had dug up in order to hold the wooden cross! New life at the foot of the cross!!

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Ikoma Checking Trip

In the second half of January we were checking the books of Hebrews, 2 Corinthians and the Jesus Messiah comic book with local Ikoma people. Our task was to find out if the translation is understandable, but mostly if it is accurate and acceptable by different community representatives, who function as our reviewers – people like pastors and church leaders, and teachers and other community leaders. In the case of the Jesus Messiah comic book, we were testing if children could understand it well, and how it could be used, such as in Sunday school teaching.

These checks all happened in a town called Mugumu and nearby villages. Mugumu is about four hours away from Musoma, where we live and where the main translation office is situated. Mugumu is in the vicinity of the Serengeti National park. We had two major challenges during this trip. There was a lot of rain and many people were not able to attend the meeting. The other problem was lions! There were lions in the vicinity of some villages and our reviewers didn’t want to risk encountering them, for example, on the way to one of the villages. We therefore had to change one of the places for meeting.

A local church, where we did some of the checking.

I (Roman) had the opportunity to travel to Mugumu for two days, but the Ikoma translators were there for two weeks. There were no problems travelling to Mugumu, it was a nice sunny day. But after the four hours in the bus, in the evening I found out that I was quite sunburnt!

On the following day after my arrival, we started checking second Corinthians. The reviewers had had the translation already available before the meeting; they all had read it and had their notes available. We started by dividing into smaller groups, and the reviewers compared their observations and talked about the problems they encountered. I saw how they were flicking through their notes and many of them were also comparing the translated texts with a literal Swahili translation. When there were differences between the translations, they discussed it with the Ikoma translators afterwards.

A small group discussion.

The discussion about these challenges was especially difficult for me; the translators and local reviewers were discussing in the Ikoma language! I am working with the translators of this language, but when we discuss things, we discuss it in Swahili, and I understand that language pretty well. But here I saw how much local people favoured their mother-tongue. They can solve problems much more efficiently, and they understand it so much better. When I was there, one of the translators, Mussa, was trying to lead the discussion in Swahili so that I would understand what they were talking about. Often it only took a minute until the discussion was again in Ikoma.

Mussa, one of the Ikoma translators, leading a discussion with the reviewers.

After this meeting, I started my unusual travel back to Musoma by bus. This time it was quite wet and there had been a lot of rain overnight. After about an hour’s bus journey, we arrived at a part of the road that was flooded by a river. Because the water was very deep (almost up to my trouser pockets!), the bus driver told us that he couldn’t cross. He also told us that, on the other side, there will be a bus from the same company, and we can continue our journey there. The only problem was to cross the river, which was about 70 metres wide. There wasn’t any other option, so I just put my phone in a zip-lock bag, and off I went!

After crossing the river, we were waiting for what would happen next. But it didn’t look like there was any agreement between the bus drivers. Finally, after about two hours of waiting, the bus driver decided to cross the river, which had probably lowered a little by that time. After they crossed to the other side, we could clearly see that the underneath luggage compartment was flooded. After this adventure we boarded the bus and continued our travel to Musoma, with no further complications. I returned home after dusk, at 9.30pm.

A bus crossing the river.

Timber!

We’ve had quite the rainy season here in Musoma, including some heavy storms at night. This includes thunder and lightning, wind and pouring rain.

A couple of weeks ago I (Rebekah) got up in the morning to find that a tree, which had already been growing too close to the electricity wires, was now even closer, with a half broken branch resting on the wires … not good!

The electricity wires are trapped under those branches resting on the roof.

Not only that, the weight of the branches resting on the wires had caused the wires to pull on the pole which connects the wires to the house. This pole is secured to the house by two bolts going into the house wall, and the bottom bolt had been pulled loose, pulling with it a big chunk of the wall of the house … oh! We thankfully still had power in the house, but I was concerned that another heavy rain storm would cause further damage.

Doesn’t look too good …

I immediately contacted the principal of the school on whose compound we live, and he contacted the electricity people to come and have a look. They did come, and there were lots of looks, and humming and ha-ing, and “kazi kubwa…” (big job!). They said they couldn’t work on it then, it being 4pm nearing the end of the normal working day, but they’d return “kesho” (“tomorrow…”).

9 days later they did return, in full force, with 19 men suddenly appearing in our front yard! Fortunately I was home, as well as a local gardener friend who had come to cut the grass. After 30 minutes of the boss men assessing the damage and forming a plan (with everyone else sitting watching, enjoying eating lemons from the tree), there was a flurry of activity, with wires and trees being cut left, right and centre!

Assessing the damage.

The man who climbed the pole to cut the wires had some very interesting shoe attachments.

Taking a break under the lemon tree.

In less than two hours of having arrived, they were gone! I was impressed with the efficiency of the work, but not so with the destruction left in their wake – branches and general mess everywhere (including the largest branch totally blocking our kitchen window…!).

An interesting view from the kitchen…

Thankfully, the gardener had been trying to clean up while they were working. And then a few men who work for the compound soon turned up, “pole”-ing me (poh-leh – offering sympathy) for the mess, and working hard to get things tidied up a bit, including removing the huge branch from the roof/kitchen window. They even turned up again the next morning (a Saturday!) to keep working here and next door to get the mess cleaned up.

I also enjoyed spending most of Saturday in the garden, repairing the fence (upon which the huge branch had also landed), and using the cut branches and leafy bits to repair holes in another stretch of fence.

Repairing the fence that the branch landed on. Our dog is quite the escape artist, so hopeful this will withstand the test!

The wires redirected nicely away from the trees, with the trees below “trimmed”.

On Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, the gardener came to clean up some more, and now things are looking lovely. There are still plenty of piles of branches and leaves scattered around, but at least they’re more organised.

Still a hole in the house, as you can see in the background, but at least the pole is straight now!

Anyone need some firewood?!

I’m thankful for electricity and for plenty of new fence posts!