Wanpela de wanpela liklik meri i wokabaut long rot. Em i pilai wantaim muli na tromoi i go antap, i kam daun na wokabaut i go. Long rot i gat wanpela bikpela hap i gat tais. Em i abrus na muli i pundaun i go long tais we em i no inap lukim. Em wari tru na em i krai, na wanpela rokrok i kam na askim em, “Yu krai long wanem?” Em i tok, “Mi krai long muli bilong mi i pundaun insait long tais.” “Ai,” rokrok i tok, “Noken wari, bai mi kalap i go insait long painim ol.” Na rokrok i kalap i go insait long tais na kisim muli bilong em i kam. Na liklik meri tok, “Tenkyu, poro bilong mi.”This, my friends, is the kind of stuff I have been working with for the last week and a half. As valuable as the ministry of Bible translation is, it is completely useless if the people group for whom you are translating can’t read. That’s why the intern team, a few PNG missionaries, and 13 nationals representing five different language groups are working together every day from 8:30-4:30 to develop literacy materials, including a year’s worth of curriculum and (up to) 66 children’s books (including the one that opened up this blog post).
I wondered how I would be useful doing literacy work for languages I don’t know, but it’s amazing how far a high school diploma and computer skills can take you outside of the United States. Although we dove into this course with little confidence in our ability to provide any help, we have been working hard and developing relationships with the nationals in order to help them accomplish their goals for the 3-week course. As is usually the case with internships no matter where you’re working or whom you’re working for, this internship has given me lots of work for which I am probably overqualified (tracing over hand-drawn illustrations with a marker so that they can be scanned into books) and some for which I am definitely under-qualified (helping my language group decide how the word “cat” is going to be spelled in their language…that is, the way it will be spelled forever). Mainly, my role is to connect the dots to make sure that everything gets accomplished in good quality.
For the most part, my time is split between working on curriculum and books. My particular language group is very fortunate because our curriculum was almost completed before the course started, thanks to the hard work of one individual. We’ve mostly been polishing the current draft, checking on comprehension questions and insuring that all of the books used in the curriculum actually exist (some of them don’t, but they will!). Other interns haven’t been so fortunate – one group was basically starting from scratch.
Working on books, however, has been a different story. Let me explain: the curriculum we’re working on is for “Elementary Prep,” the equivalent of kindergarten (it teaches shape recognition, the alphabet, basic math skills, etc.). The books for this curriculum were all developed last year by the PBT interns in a similar literacy course. This year, the books we’re developing are for “Elementary 1,” the equivalent of first grade. A “shell book” is a simple book with pictures and text that can be easily translated and printed into any language. Our goal is to translate 66 different books, which would be all of the books that would be used in “Elementary 1.” Since I have no business translating from Melanesian Pidgin into various vernaculars, my role in the shell book process is to handle typing and formatting as the nationals do all of the hard stuff. It’s really interesting to see the cultural differences expressed in these books – how the subject matter concerns pigs stealing your food or paddling a canoe, for example.
In case these paragraphs have made the work sound tedious or boring, let me assure you that is not the case. I’ve had a lot of fun getting to know the three guys with whom I’m working as well as all of the other nationals in the course. Another goal of the course is to help the nationals who will be teaching this curriculum learn how to use it. That means teaching them how to teach skills like writing and reading, but it also means teaching them how to sing songs like “Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes” in Pidgin. If you can imagine a room full of full-grown Papua New Guinean bush men singing “10 Liklik Kumul” to the tune of “10 Little Indians,” complete with hand motions, you can understand why the course has also included lots of laughter (both from us and the nationals). Just the other morning, I was trying to sneak up and steal a jar of peanut butter from behind one guy in a game called “Pik Stelim Kaikai,” or “Pig Steals Food.”
I must confess that I didn’t have the best attitude coming into the literacy course. PBT is made up of missionaries doing translation, literacy, church planting, and all kinds of other roles, but I am most interested in translation. So, while I was still excited to still be in PNG interacting with nationals in Pidgin, I wasn’t completely thrilled to be finishing the summer with busy literacy work. However, God has really been working on me – especially through my time reading Acts – to show me how very desperately he wants his good news to reach all people. If that means we need to translate the Bible, then we should translate it. But if that means we need to take the time to teach people how to read first, then we should teach them to read. And to be honest, this work is still giving me valuable experience for translation – working with nationals, translating children’s stories, understanding more about the culture, etc.
Continued prayers would be greatly appreciated by everyone here. We’ve had a good first half of the course, but with a week and a half left, we still have a lot to do. I’m seeing more and more how important this work is, and I’m eager to produce as much material as possible before I have to get on the plane.
And speaking of the plane, it’s hard to believe that in twelve days (more or less, with the time difference), I’ll be getting off a plane in Dallas. I hope to make the best of my remaining time!
For those who are curious, here is my best effort to translate the story that opened this blog post, followed by a few pictures:
One day, a little girl was walking down the road. She was playing with oranges, throwing them up and down while she was walking. The road had a big mud puddle. Accidentally, she dropped her oranges into the mud where she couldn’t see them. She was very worried and started to cry when a frog came and asked her, “Why are you crying?” She said, “I’m crying because my oranges fell down into the mud puddle.” “Oh,” said the frog, “Don’t worry, I’ll jump in and find them.” The frog jumped into the puddle and got her oranges back. The girl said, “Thank you, my friend.”
Hard at work translating a story with two of my teammates
This afternoon, as we were shopping in the market, we saw a group of dancers in full tribal attire putting on an exhibition to honor traditional PNG values
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