Belel

I forgot to mention that dinner Sunday evening was in a local “restaurant”—four plastic chairs at a wooden table upwind from a cooking fire. We had ox tail in broth with foo foo (sticky starch ball). The ox tail and broth was really quite delicious once you sifted out all the bone chips. I thought about supper because Monday morning began with 3-egg omelets at the same restaurant. Hot, good, and filling!

Due to a slight delay in the breakfast delivery, we started back to work a bit later than planned but still before 8am. First priority was to attach the two solar panels to the structure and finish the wiring to the batteries and charger. That all went quite smoothly, with lots of help from willing Pana hands. Next, I started teaching Lazar and Emmanuel, the local Bible translators, how to use the satellite modem. This went remarkably well considering that neither has ever used a computer. Of course, the modem is nothing like a computer, but it is also nothing like anything they’ve used before. Fortunately, it is simple to learn, and they learned quickly. Ndokobai translated my instructions into French. I supplemented these with frequent hand signals and Haitian Creole. Judging from the crowd’s response, I was fairly entertaining. Judging from the students' response I seemed to get the message across. By 10am, my team mate, Bob, began teaching them how to use the netbook. That’s when the learning really started to slow down. It is hard to describe what it is like to teach someone to use a computer, mouse, and software programs when they have never used these before. They are naturally hesitant to do everything because they are afraid they might hurt it. As we try to get past this, they are just lost in the maze of QWERTY keyboards, pop-up windows, mouse navigation, and double-clicking. Opening the email program, teaching them to write an email, demonstrating how to make attachments (for Bible translation files), and then to send and receive mail is a HUGE challenge! Bob did a great job walking them through these steps. In the meantime I “tested” the satellite modem by checking my own email and separating the gear that needed to stay from the gear that needed to travel with us to our next destination. Several attempts, both unsuccessful and successful, culminated in a graduation photo very close to 12 noon. Load the pickup. Handshakes all around, and a quick lunch of chicken and noodles at our favorite Belel restaurant, and we were back on the dusty road a few minutes after 1pm.

I’ll pass on the return trip details in order to describe the Pana people a bit. Best I can gather from our conversations, mostly with Ndokobai, there are around 90,000 Pana speakers within Cameroon, Chad, and the Central African Republic. They are a mostly Christian people surrounded by mostly Muslim neighbors. The Pana are mostly subsistence farmers. The Cameroon Association for Bible Translation and Literacy started working with the Pana people about 2 years ago with what they call a “mobilization” strategy. The basic idea is to begin building awareness within the Pana communities and churches that the Bible can be translated into their language. At the same time initial linguistic research is done, an alphabet is produced, and an introductory translation booklet including both French and Pana is produced so that the people can begin to see what their own language looks like. The goal of the mobilization stage is to create an inter-church committee to oversee and “own” the translation work. Just a few months ago, the Pana inter-church committee selected the people to become the translators. These candidates will be attending initial translator training with CABTAL in Yaounde during Feb/Mar, then they will begin the actual translation process under the counsel and supervision of a language consultant. So our visit is at a very strategic time for them. From a training perspective, it is actually a bit early, since they have no experience using the translation software. But from a strategic perspective, our training will get them started with all the tools they need to be both efficient and effective in their work. The goal is to have a New Testament in Pana within 6-8 years! That may not sound fast to some, but it is about 1/3 the time this translation required until recently. The acceleration is primarily due to the inside knowledge the national translators have of their own language and culture. The computers and satellite modems may reduce the time required by up to 2 years as well.

I need to close this out and hit “send.” I have a short night tonight. Our bus from Ngaounderre to Maroua departs around 5:30am tomorrow (Tue).

Thanks for your interest and prayers!