Habari za Mark October 2005

I’m back to the warm and very dry climes of Dodoma in central Tanzania, after a few months which took me to the top of Africa, Kenya, Mara Region of northern Tanzania and Thailand…

In June I was joined by a couple of friends as we attempted to reach the highest point in the whole world. Well, Africa anyway… After four and a half days of walking up, up and up again we finally reached Uhuru peak, where we were greeted by… a big wooden board and the prospect of another day and a half walking back down! It was an incredible experience, made even more memorable by the snow, glaciers, altitude sickness, exhaustion and freeeeezing cold! I don’t know how many times I complained to Richard that his country is supposed to be hot…!

Me standing (ok… sitting) on top of Africa 

Mara Survey

After a week on the Kenyan coast for our Uganda-Tanzania Branch conference, the Tanzania Language Assessment Team left to survey the languages of Mara Region in northern Tanzania. The first week involved meeting with bishops and church leaders to discuss their vision for Bible translation, and then for the next four weeks we worked in 30 villages across the region, researching 14 different speech varieties. We had lots of adventures along the way, including almost getting blown up by dynamite, and even more scarily – sitting in an internet café as England just about won the crucial second cricket test match against Australia on their way to winning the series for the first time in 18 years…! Sorry, I had to mention that somewhere!

A few Ngoreme men try to read a New Testament recently published in a neighbouring language

On arriving back in Dodoma we produced a preliminary report (in both Swahili and English) for the church leaders who met together at the beginning of October to decide which languages should be involved in the initial Bible translation project. Please continue to pray for these church leaders as they make decisions for the project, and for us as we advise them.

International Language Assessment Conference

In September a group of four of us flew to Thailand for two weeks of meetings about language assessment. I really enjoyed the meetings and learnt a lot, although I think the highlight for me was just being able to meet so many other people from all around the world who are doing the same job as me, often in very different circumstances. It was very exciting to see how language assessment is done in other parts of the world, and to discuss the challenges we face and other issues relevant to the way we work.

Looking Ahead...

In November, Richard (our Tanzanian colleague on the language assessment team) and I will be travelling to the town of Kondoa to assist one of our language teams who are carrying out a dialect survey of the Rangi people they are working with.

The language team have already been in the area for some years and have done much linguistic analysis and recently begun the task of Bible translation. Our job will be to survey the various Rangi dialects to see which variety should be used as a reference dialect for the translation, and also to see if the trial orthography (basically the alphabet) is suitable for all the Rangi people.

Christmas fun!

Well, I’m really really (really) looking forward to this Christmas when my family will be coming out to visit me here in Tanzania! It will be the first time I’ve seen them in almost two years, so I’m really excited about that! We’re hoping to spend a few days in Dodoma and then see a little bit of some other parts of the country too.

Future Plans…

In January and February we will be carrying out a further survey of Mara Region, attempting to resolve some unanswered questions from the initial trip. This trip will probably last for around three weeks, and will be focussed on a few specific speech varieties in the region.

On 17^th February I’m hoping to fly back to the UK for about 5 months. During that time I’ll be mainly doing partnership development, which involves talking to as many people as want to listen about the work that is going on here in Tanzania and what they can do to support it. I hope to see many of you who are in the UK then, and hopefully catch up on what’s been happening in the last couple of years!

I’m also planning to take a month-long course on Anthropology (the study of peoples and their cultures) and Sociolinguistics (the study of languages and the social factors that affect them) when I’m back in the UK. I’m really looking forward to getting a bit more training, and processing some of the things that I’ve learnt in the last two years!

Then I plan to return to Tanzania in July 2006 to carry on the work of language assessment here, although I will be moving to the city of Dar es Salaam on the coast where our main office will be located by then.

Stuff to pray for…

• Thank God for health and safety as we have travelled thousands of km by air and land over the past few months

• Praise God for the Mara survey, and for the preliminary reports that we were able to produce for the Bishops in the region

• Pray for the Bishops and other church leaders as they make decisions concerning the Bible translation project in Mara Region

• Thank God for the Language Assessment Conference last month, and for the encouragement of being able to meet with others doing the same work in different areas

• Pray for the upcoming Rangi dialect survey, especially for me as I’ll be advising on the survey side of things. Pray for wisdom for all of us as we try to understand the dialect situation and the implications for the translation project

• Fun and relaxation with family and friends at Christmas!! Yay!!!

• Pray for the second Mara survey in January, that we’d be able to resolve the unanswered questions from the first survey, and provide the church leaders with useful information

• Pray for me as I return to the UK in February – for a good time meeting up again with friends and family. Please also pray for a heatwave in England in February so I won’t freeze to death!