Try-lingual in West Africa

who am I anyway?

2012-01-30T15:40:00.002+01:00

It's about time for a post about language. Not translation as such...

The first thing is just something funny that happened last week. Simon (5) and Benjy (3) were playing with a friend, Timothy (5 ½). They don't see him a lot usually, but as we were in Parakou they had played with him on Sunday and Tuesday afternoons and it was now Wednesday. It tends to be Simon and Timothy who play together, and Benjy plays near them or runs after them. Although Benjy talks a lot when he's just with the family, he doesn't say much around other people unless he knows them very well.

Anyway, at some point Benjy came to see me, to ask if they could have their afternoon biscuit. I said yes, and Benjy got up on a bench and started shouting, “Simon, time for a biscuit! Simon, come now! Come and have a biscuit! Come quickly!!” Simon and Timothy both came over to me, and Timothy said to me in a very surprised voice, “I didn't know Benjy could talk!”

I posted once before about the different names I can be known by here. In church yesterday, I was, as usual, hoping not to be asked to pray out loud in front of the whole church, but trying to listen carefully so that I would at least know if someone did ask me to. I was listening out for either “aboi Maaku” (Marc's wife) or “Maman Benja” (Benjamin's mum) or maybe even some version of Hilary. The guy who was leading the service said he wanted several people to pray, and I heard “kpaasi something” and thought “eh? Someone's friend?” (this being one meaning of “kpaasi”). I figured maybe he'd forgotten someone's name and so was saying “the person sitting next to so-and-so”. Then he looked straight at me and said, “Did you understand?” So in front of the whole church I said, “No!” Everyone laughed goodnaturedly, and he launched into a rather long explanation about how not many people had said things they were thankful for and so to express our deep-down thankfulness he wanted Jeannette and Fidèle to pray … and possibly someone else, but once again he didn't actually say my name (or “you”!).

So Jeannette and Fidèle prayed (and I was sitting there thinking, “Um, since I'm not sure I don't think I will pray!”) and after a pause the service leader prayed too.

Anyway, after the service Marc told me that I'd been called “woo kpaasi tia”, which, given the flexibility of the Monkolé language, could mean “translator” or could mean “the person who changes paper” (and possibly other things too!). Ah well, I guess they'll realise that if they want me to pray they need to make it completely clear that it's me they're talking to! Perhaps I should have done things Benjy's way, and not given away that I knew how to talk until it became really important!

getting there!

2012-01-14T11:45:00.008+01:00

After 6 days without internet (technical problems after a big fire in Cotonou) we're back! Fortunately our builders have no need of the internet to get their work done. The wall around our mission property is just about finished now:

(It looks like that mountain might be here to stay, though!)

Our extension is coming on nicely too. Here is our new bedroom with half the roof on and the electrics in progress:

And here it is three days later after the ceiling had been fitted:

The walls were plastered inside yesterday, and the outside's being done today. Then it needs to dry for a week before it can be painted, and then we are away for a week, so things will come to a standstill for a while. Hopefully the painting then fitting of our built-in wardrobes won't take too long after we get back.

Fêtes!

2012-01-03T21:07:00.005+01:00

I feel I shouldn't ignore Christmas and the New Year on my blog, as if they didn't exist just because we're in Africa! They most certainly did! And I found my third Christmas here less difficult than the first two. Now that we're used to it, it doesn't feel so strange to be celebrating in the heat, and this year's Christmas service at church was more joyful and Christmassy than last year's! I enjoyed reading the Christmas story with the boys too, now that they are both old enough to understand at least a bit about what it means.

We also had a friend from Parakou, Esther, staying with us, and having a visitor made it feel more special too. Also another friend we'd known in Parakou, our first language helper, was up in the village for Christmas, so came for tea on Christmas Eve. Here we are with Abraham and Esther:

And here we are on Christmas Day! We have a tradition of doing a one-take family photo on Christmas Day. This year it nearly didn't happen, as Benjy was feeling rebellious, but suddenly he gave in and we snatched the opportunity!! We are wearing the outfits we'd had made specially for Christmas.

We didn't do anything for New Year this year. In fact we couldn't even be bothered to stay up 2 hours past our normal bedtime to see the New Year in ... it isn't as if our boys would have let us sleep in an extra 2 hours in the morning!! But our pastor did give a New Year's message at church on the 1st which almost made me wish I'd got more excited about it!

a bit more building

2011-12-30T19:45:00.004+01:00

Yes, my blog is full of building at the moment, but then we are living in a building site so it's kind of inevitable! Plus I don't even know that much about building in Europe, and seeing how it's done here is interesting!

Here is our (old) bedroom wall before anything was done to it. The thing looking like a door is actually the top of our big desk:

Here is the "after" photo - if you look carefully you can make out some of the butterflies still! Despite looking very different this photo was taken from the same place. A wall has been built to the left, and a doorway now leads into the newly-built room.

Here is the "scaffolding" used to build as the structure got higher:

And here is the finished building ... I say it's our walled garden, but Marc thinks it's a sun room ;o) We are now waiting for the roofer and electrician, who are booked in for next week.

up up up

2011-12-24T10:57:00.001+01:00

The building work has had its ups and downs but is progressing fast. A few photos from the last week. The foundations are laid:

Then they begin to prepare to make the floor:

After the concrete floor had gone down:

The walls are now up:

And the holes for the windows are in place:

And they were nearly in the wrong place! I happened to go out to bring the clothes off the line yesterday afternoon, glanced over at what the workmen were doing, and decided to take a closer look. There had been a misunderstanding, and they were putting them in way down at the end of the room, right next to where our built-in cupboards are going to be, and where we wouldn't get any air circulating over our bed! I ran to ask Marc about it, he went out to speak to them, and fortunately since the mortar was still wet they were able to correct it and put them where we wanted them!

Finally, a photo of the cement being mixed - no cement-mixers here except the human kind!

so far so ...

2011-12-18T13:40:00.006+01:00

Well, our builders have already managed to ... make lots of bricks:

... dig the foundations of our new room:

... and break the pipe which brings the water from our well to our house, several hours after discovering it, and after we'd congratulated them for not doing so! *sigh*

the wise man built his house upon the rock...

2011-12-14T20:57:00.008+01:00

Well, our house is already built, but we are building on an extra bedroom to give us some office/guestroom space, and a wall around more of the misson's property here. This is a bit of a challenge for our skills and courage, as we have never done anything like it before. I'm not quite sure why I'm saying "we", as it is my lovely husband who is taking most of the stress and strain (I'm just back-up!). Not doing the actual building, but at least coordinating the different workers and sorting out the logistics. (And here is his blog post, in French, about it!)

This is the best time of year to build, as there is no rain. But that means that everyone who wants to build is getting ready to do it now, so we needed to get in early to get better prices on the cement ... or even, to get cement at all!

So on Monday we had seventeen and a half tons of cement delivered, in these 50kg sacks ... each carried on someone's head from our gate to our car port. We've hired a night guard to watch over them!

On Tuesday we were supposed to have 7 skip-loads of sand delivered ... but only 2 got here, and today none ... however it seems that this problem is being solved :o) A lorry delivering sand:

Here is the site of our extension before any work:

Here is the beautiful tree we had to have felled today ... I am slightly consoled by thinking that tucked away behind the house no one actually saw it very much.

Here it is on the ground!

And here are bricks for the extension being made by hand:

I got a great video of a brick being made with commentary by Simon ... but if I tried to upload it on this connection you'd be waiting a looooooooong time for it!

flotsam and jetsam

2011-12-04T16:04:00.004+01:00

Just a few of the things that have washed up on West Africa's markets and awakened some nostalgia for my homeland...

... the last one being particularly mysterious! On the back, the packet says "packed in the UK", but I can assure you that they were packed by a girl on a Parakou street ... I don't know if she could even read English!

the power of watt?

2011-11-28T14:34:00.003+01:00

When we were back in Europe people asked us a lot of questions about our living conditions and about our electricity supply. If you're interested in our slightly complicated electricity supply, read on! If not, I won't be offended if you skip this post!

We have solar panels on our house. So far so good. Despite being ten years old they are functioning well. The batteries, however, which are now coming up for four years old, are as good as dead. This means, logically, that if the sun is up and shining, we have solar power. As soon as the sun sets, or on cloudy days, we don't. (Our reasons for not replacing the batteries will be explained below!)

A second source of electricity is our generator. Since it is noisy and guzzles diesel, we generally only use it for an hour or so in the evening to pump our well water, and to have an hour of electric light while we get the washing-up done and the kids washed. Bought when we moved to the village in February 2009 it very quickly developed a problem with one part which needed replacing. Unfortunately we still haven't been able to find this part in Benin (or through some research we've done in Europe) so our local electrician does a botch job from time to time to keep it going. Recently however the generator had been working less and less well so we had it serviced and the specialist discovered that the capacitor (?) had a fault. It turns out that this might be what wore out the other piece in the first place, so although things aren't perfect, we may have fewer problems in the future.

A future source of electricity will be mains electricity, but it is taking its time! The poles arrived in the village in April 2009. They were erected in October 2010. We got home from Europe in July this year to find cables, though we're not sure the work on the cables is quite finished yet:

The other question is where exactly this electricity will be generated. We've heard that it will probably come in from Togo (or even Ghana), which means it has to come a good distance before it reaches us. So although the poles and cables are in place near us, until they have also been installed between the border with Togo and our nearest town, there won't be much power coming through them. And we also need to find out just how much they will try to charge us to get hooked up (in neighbouring countries some organisations have been charged astronomical amounts and we may need to negotiate!).

So anyway, with the promise of mains electricity at some point in the future, we aren't sure it is worth investing £1000 or so in new batteries for our solar power system, and going through all the hassle of finding where we can order them from, getting them shipped/flown in, and trying to pay customs taxes (apparently we oughtn't to have to pay customs taxes because it's for our personal use, but we might have to spend a while arguing our case!).

We do have enough electricity to charge up our computers and phones, run the “knead-and-rise” cycle of our bread machine, keep our fridge going for 7 hours a day (so we don't bother trying to freeze anything), and to put the boys' fan on during their afternoon sleep. We don't have lights in the evening (except battery-powered ones or candles) or fans at night (hard during hot season!) and we do have to be thinking all the time about what to charge up when so that, for example, I have enough battery in my computer for the first couple of hours of work in the morning.

More electricity would make it easier to work in the evenings (your body and brain tend to think it's the middle of the night when you're in the dark, even if your computer's working), would keep us cooler and help us to sleep better at night, and would give us a properly working fridge and freezer. Obviously once mains electricity is here it won't be perfect, but we will always have solar and the generator, and be able to juggle between whatever works best/is cheaper!

This is absolutely not meant to be a post to make anyone sorry for us. You get used to functioning differently, and I am finding the lack of light in the evenings easier to deal with than I was at the beginning of the year. And the only thing we're asking for is prayer that the mains electricity will arrive soon, and that we won't have to pay too much to get connected! Maybe you could put a reminder to pray for us on the light switch you use the most often :o)

team news

2011-11-23T14:44:00.000+01:00

The translation team has not been getting far with Exodus this month, mainly due to me being away for our annual conference, our trip to Cotonou and soon a few more days away to take our friend Judith back to Cotonou and get the car fixed in Parakou. The pastor and Philémon are carrying on with their individual translations, and when I have been here we've been plodding on through the description of the tabernacle.

Sometimes it really does feel hard, when you can't even be sure what the Hebrew means, but I am a stickler for consistency. So even if we aren't 100% sure what an object is, I like us to at least choose a word for it and stick with that. Sometimes it means pulling a sentence apart and then struggling to put it back together again, but it's a good brain-teasing exercise and there is some satisfaction in coming up with something we're all happy with.

Work is also disrupted by things you wouldn't have to contend with in Europe, like snake tracks being found in our compound and a search party being launched (no luck), or cows having got into Philémon's cotton fields (he has had to leave work today to go and sort that out). But of course we don't have other more “northern” problems, like snow making transport difficult!

conference and cotonou

2011-11-17T10:18:00.004+01:00

We have had a busy last ten days. After the “Women's Day” service at church on the 6th we drove down to Parakou. This gave us all day Monday in Parakou before our conference meetings started in the evening, which meant we started the conference fresher than we might have. It had the added, and un-planned, benefit that Simon hung out with the kids' worker as she was setting up her stuff, and came round to the idea of going to the kids' activities!

Conference was good. The teaching on Romans 12 challenged me, in ways that confirmed things God has been teaching me lately about total trust in Him and acceptance of my limits and His infiniteness. Time spent with others was a blessing, and easier now that the boys are a bit older. Simon had a few wobbles but generally got on well at the kids' club, and on the last day of the conference even took his lunch off to eat with the other boys! Benjy decided to stick to me more than usual, but that may be a reaction to our new routine at home involving me leaving him for the mornings – he decided that even if being in our meetings meant being still and quiet, it was worth it to have some “Mummy Time”, and since he was so good I was still able to concentrate.

I do love our church here in the village, but it was a refreshing change to be able to worship in English and French! We were privileged to have a speaker and worship leaders come down from SIM Niger to serve us for the week, and our family also enjoyed getting to know them better over breakfasts in the Guesthouse (the other families were staying elsewhere).

One highlight of this conference for me was a Ladies Afternoon Tea I helped out with. A church in the States had very kindly sent over bookmarks and cards of encouragement, and also presents for us all! We played a game called Chinese Christmas which does involve some rather un-biblical behaviour (it can involve “stealing” someone else's presents – though our conference speaker had encouraged us to “appreciate” other people's gifts … probably not what he was thinking of!). It was fun though, as was the game which ended up with “stacks” of ladies sitting on each other's laps – very close fellowship at this Spiritual Life Conference!! And of course we enjoyed our tea and sweet treats too!

After Conference we didn't have much time to be sad that it was over, as we headed down to Cotonou to pick up a friend, Judith, who is staying for a couple of weeks. We also wanted to collect our residency cards. I managed to, but Marc's wasn't yet ready. At least this means the whole family won't have to travel down again for this reason, he'll go down on his own.

The dry harmattan wind is now blowing from the North here at home, and we haven't seen rain for weeks, so it was a surprise when we approached Cotonou to see this:

By the time we got into the city the rain was pouring down. It had taken people by surprise, and we saw lots of “abandoned” motorbikes by the side of the road, with their riders sheltering under buildings.

The roads are getting better in some places, where work is being done, and deteriorating in others. The long journey back from Cotonou to Parakou seemed endless … and then on our journey from Parakou to the village, the next day, our exhaust pipe dropped off! We were on a temporary road avoiding roadworks, ploughing through very fine sand. We heard a loud bang, the car shook, and Marc hurriedly stopped it. At first I thought maybe we'd lost our back wheels or something, the impact seemed so great … it was a relief when we realised that we could still drive the rest of the way home (albeit very noisily!!). The exhaust pipe was bent in two, so Marc shifted it to the edge of the road and left it there. A mechanic in Kandi is going to convert another exhaust pipe to fit our car, so we should soon be back on the roads a little more quietly!

wildlife of West Africa

2011-11-01T08:48:00.006+01:00

Sorry, no elephants or camels, though elephants were seen just down the road from us last weekend, so maybe we'll get lucky one day! First of all, one of our huge rainy season snails. I was concerned its shell was about to fall off, but it seems this was normal:

Next two photos of frogs/toads (I'm no expert) which are lurking near our back door at the moment:

And finally, a baby bat we found which I assume had fallen from a nest (?) in our roof:

And yes, I am enjoying having a camera which can capture real close-ups!

fighting through a linguistic jungle!

2011-10-26T20:47:00.002+01:00

Sometimes I feel rather overwhelmed by the task we have of rendering the Hebrew Bible in the Monkolé language in a way which is faithful to the original text and yet as far as possible understandable to a Monkolé reader (or listener). Fortunately I am not working alone! I have my Monkolé team mates and some very good resources on my computer.

Just recently, as I was working on Exodus 23:24, I read about the Israelites being instructed to break down the “pillars” or, in another translation, “sacred pillars” of the Canaanite people. This had been translated in Monkolé as “push over the stones they have put in place”. My first question was to know what these “pillars” represented, and here my Logos resources came in extremely helpful. I searched for the term “pillars”, which brought up more than 4,000 examples. I scrolled down, found “The Archaeological Encyclopaedia of the Holy Land”, and opened up the different instances of the word there. It gave me the Hebrew word massebah and an explanation of how these pillars were set up and used by the different Canaanite peoples in their cultic practices. Since it said they were stones (not the highly polished columns I tend to think of when I hear the word “pillars”) I supposed that the word “stones” would be fine in Monkolé, but my second question was to know whether a Monkolé hearing the sentence “push over the stones they have put in place” would realise it had religious overtones, and there I can only rely on my co-workers' mother tongue knowledge! We had quite a lengthy discussion about this, but finally agreed with the youngest member of the team that since the instruction is placed with other prohibitions of idol worship, it should be clear to your average reader that these were no ordinary stones.

I am not translating into English, so this is by the by, but if I were, I wonder if it wouldn't be possible to translate massebah by “standing stones”. The photo in the AEHL looked more like a standing stone, and I would automatically associate “standing stones” with some kind of religious practices, which is not the case with “pillars”.

Another example, which reminded us not to translate on automatic pilot, was Exodus 4:6 which says that Moses' hand became leprous and “like snow”. Where the Bible describes things as being “white like snow”, we translate “white like cotton”. Fortunately the commentary I'm reading pointed out that this verse doesn't say “white”, and that quite probably it means “flaky like snow”. We were able to find a Monkolé word which means “flaky” and have avoided introducing cotton into a context where it wasn't relevant!

oh, for a thousand tongues...

2011-10-24T21:13:00.002+01:00

Most of us Westerners were brought up in mono-lingual families, and we tend to forget that many people in the world grow up being familiar with two or more languages. When the four of us were back in Europe, people were often fascinated by our boys' bilingualism. That didn't bother us at all, except Simon who insisted that he actually spoke three languages, but when we're out here in Benin we're just like everyone else who speaks two or more languages on a day-to-day basis. Esther, who worked for us in Parakou, speaks at least 6 languages relatively fluently, and has even been picking up some Monkolé from us!

As the name of my blog says, I like to think we are at least try-lingual! Our Monkolé is getting better, though we still have bad days where it feels like the language is an express train speeding through the station where we're waiting, and we have no hope of catching onto it!

As a family, we're used to being bilingual by now. Simon never speaks anything but English to me, or French to Marc, except as a joke. Benjy still mixes the two, but is beginning to separate them out and speak more English to me and more French to Marc. If I say to him, “What do you say to Papa?” (when Marc has given him something) he will say, “Merci, Papa!” and vice versa.

We are very OPOL – One Person One Language – which leads to funny conversations sometimes. We parents don't always register which language is being spoken, but Simon is very indignant if one of us answers when he is speaking to the other parent. So the conversation can go:

Simon: Tu peux m'aider, s'il te plaît?
Me: Yes, hold on a moment, I'm just coming!
Simon: I was talking to Papa!!

This also means that it is difficult for Simon to address us both at once, not that this particularly seems to cause him problems. I was amused once in the car when Marc and I had just been singing something, and Simon said, “Tu peux encore le chanter s'il te plaît and you can sing it again, please?” I noticed once recently though, that he started a sentence, “Mummy? Papa?” and then carried on in English when he wanted to say something to us both. He knows we both understand both languages!

That said, I usually speak to Marc in French, and if I say anything to him in English, Simon is likely to ask, “Mummy, why are you speaking to Papa in English?”

For a while I had hoped that Marc and I might be able to speak to each other in Monkolé if we wanted to keep things secret from the boys (who do know some Monkolé, but not as much as we do). For a long time though we found we just didn't understand each other, which was rather discouraging (not to mention a waste of time!). This week I decided to try again. Simon had had a bit of a temperature, had taken some paracetemol and half an hour later got up from the sofa and came to the lunch table to eat some chicken. I asked him if he was feeling better and he said no. Watching him tuck into his chicken I said to Marc in Monkolé, “Despite what he says, he's feeling better!” and Simon replied in English, “No, I'm not feeling better!” … so I guess his Monkolé is improving, and that parental strategy is a dead loss!

We aren't sure how fluent Simon will become in Monkolé, particularly now that he is spending mornings at school in French and therefore has less contact with Monkolé-speakers. His best friend, Benja, has completed a year of school and now only wants to speak to him in French – which does at least mean they can communicate better than before! We'd like Simon to understand Monkolé simply to avoid church being meaningless and boring, but we just don't know to what extent that is going to happen.

People in the village used to laugh at Simon because whenever they tried to speak to him in Monkolé he would just reply “Aawo!” (which means “no!”). However, now he's picked up a bit more, he will reply more sensibly to their questions … and that just makes them laugh even more, to hear a little white boy speaking their language. So it's a bit of a lose-lose situation for him!

Benjy is looked after the pastor's wife while I'm at work in the mornings, and she only speaks to him in Monkolé. I'm a little unsure if this is the best way to do things when it comes to disciplining him, but then it isn't as if he understands French or English when he doesn't want to! At any rate, it does mean that he has more of a chance of ending up fluent in Monkolé, and will probably end up cringing at his parents' accents and messing-up of tones. We'll see...

Well, it is hard to find a photo illustrating bilingualism, so I won't even try! Instead, here I am with my two lovely bilingual boys:

fun with the translation team

2011-10-10T15:07:00.002+01:00

I said I would post about translation work, and I have been so busy with the new work routine that I haven't got round to it yet. Marc and I are both finding it rewarding to at last get our teeth into the work which we came here to do. Yes, language and culture learning is essential, and ours has been an enriching time, but it can be very frustrating and the rewards are not instant or constant! We are also aware that although we aren't doing it full-time any more, we still have a lot of room for improvement. So on Wednesday mornings we are still reserving 2 hours for language work (plus time spent in the village hearing it around us).

Marc is getting on with preparation for Dry Season Bible School in March (a month of Bible teaching), and also some sessions to train the church youth leaders.

And I'm working with the translation team at last! During September that meant just Pastor Samuel and me, and we soon got into a good routine. He is working on a rough translation of Isaiah, working from 3 different French translations, and together we are revising Exodus. So while I'm reading ahead in Exodus, or in the afternoons when I'm not at work, he's been getting on with Isaiah, and then some of the time we've started to read through Exodus together. My task is to look at what the Hebrew says – and while I have learnt some Hebrew I have to admit I am well-aided by software which gives me a grammatical breakdown and thesaurus notes on the Hebrew – and to compare it with the Monkolé. Then we go through with me saying, “Is there any way we could say it more like this in Monkolé?” and either he says, no it isn't possible, or else we manage to find an alternative which is closer to the Hebrew while still sounding like Monkolé. It's a pity we don't have anyone who has good enough Hebrew and Monkolé to go straight from the Hebrew to the Monkolé, but we don't, so we have to work this way.

A big answer to prayer is that we have a new member of the translation team who started this month. His name is Philémon, he's about 27 years old, and he's a farmer. He is one of our church elders and sings in the church choir (he writes songs too). He's active in the church youth group and also serves on the national church youth committee.

Philémon started work last week, and it seems to be going well so far, though I'm not sure it's easy to sit at a desk all day and think hard when you're used to being out in the fields doing very physical work. He is going to re-take his BEPC (primary school certificate) this year, and from next week will have evening classes every weekday night and Saturday mornings too. So he'll have a lot on his plate!

I wasn't feeling entirely confident about Philémon starting work, and needing supervision, when I've only been working with the team for the last month. It didn't help that the pastor had to take the first two days of the week off, so I had to get Philémon started myself, and as I only work on translation in the mornings, he was on his own for his first two afternoons. I left him plenty of work to be getting on with, but still!

As a linguist, it is very interesting to see the kind of questions we run into when translating the Bible into Monkolé. For example, the Monkolé people believe that there is one God who created the earth, but they would pray to local spirits rather than God. So the idea of idols, as presented in the Bible, isn't hard for them to grasp. The idea, however, that there are “other gods” as also mentioned in the Bible, even if they are “false gods” is very difficult. Sometimes it's possible to translate it as “idols”, but sometimes that just doesn't work.

Another difficulty stemming from this, is the fact that the Bible often speaks of God as “the God of Israel” or “your God”. If it isn't possible to have other gods, this seems strange – and in fact isn't grammatically possible. I was trying to think of a parallel in English, and the closest I can come up with is the air. The air is everywhere, and we can't talk about “my air” (except perhaps in a very figurative sense). You couldn't talk about people having “another air”, either (though you might say that the air is very different in Benin compared to Europe – that's where my parallel breaks down!).

I'm sure that as time goes on I'll be able to share other interesting examples of translation challenges!

I have noticed my spoken Monkolé improving simply because I'm having to use it in a situation where I'm not thinking so much about the words as about the overall meaning. It is hard work and sometimes very frustrating, but I haven't had to resort to French too often. My Hebrew reading is improving too, having been rather rusty when I got back to it, but again, using it regularly is polishing it up nicely!

I am thankful for the team we have. It is early days yet, but I think we are going to work well together and find that our strengths complement each other. I am also grateful that Grace, my predecessor, uses email and has been able to answer many of my questions about Monkolé grammar and such matters.

mutilated in translation

2011-09-29T21:44:00.002+01:00

Marc bought something in Kandi last week which had the following label (the only other language on it was Chinese). I think this is supposed to be English ... and can you guess what object it is referring to?!

first corn

2011-09-20T08:59:00.002+01:00

The first corn of the year is ready for eating chez les Deneufs! Everyone welcome!

rainy season sunday

2011-09-19T17:44:00.004+01:00

(written Sept 18th)

Today was a fairly typical rainy season day, at least in terms of weather! Around 7.15am the rain started – I was in our room with no noise, and heard it approaching, a low rustle gradually growing louder as it raced across the field, leapt over our wall and began to rap on our roof. We ate breakfast in a sort of half-light. I hate rainy Sunday mornings, as we never quite know when church will start. There have been times when we've turned up on time to find no one … and then the last time when we waited for the rain to stop and went late … only to find ourselves walking into a packed church! I sit at the front (the only place where I can put my folding chair – better for my back than a backless bench) so it is pretty obvious if I get there late. Since it had stopped by our usual time to go, we went then and found the church as full as it usually is when we arrive … phew!

The service was led by someone who had never led the service before, and he did very well. Discussing the sermon afterwards, however, Marc and I realised we'd had the same problem – we seemed to understand the individual words said, but found it hard to put that together into something that made sense! It didn't help that we'd found the Bible passage hard to understand, and weren't sure the sermon was exactly based on it! But during a time of prayer I was encouraged to hear one of the church elders saying how important it is to pray for our Bible translation, particularly that we won't be slowed down by illness or anything else. Very relevant since the pastor wasn't able to come to work (as a translator) for four days last week because of bronchitis.

We came home after church and were soon joined by three boys who'd come to play with our boys and/or their toys. We sent them home at lunchtime, and others arrived in the afternoon! Sometimes I feel like we're running a day-care centre.

Marc is the one who usually goes to Bible study in the afternoons, but I have been saying I should make the effort to go, and so off I went this afternoon, unsure if it would actually be happening since the pastor had been ill last week. When I saw about fifteen men sitting under the tree outside the church I knew that meant it wasn't on, but since I knew them all I went and greeted and checked that yes indeed it wasn't happening. So I went and took a photo of the corn growing inside the new (unfinished!) church building and then went to my favourite place for sitting with women, under a mango tree near the pump.

The friend I know best wasn't there, but the women who were there greeted me, and I explained why I was there and said I was “wandering about”. That made them laugh in a nice way, because I'd said something the way they would, which they didn't expect me to (if you see what I mean!). They invited me to sit down with them and I ended up staying for a couple of hours. It was a pleasant temperature (30°C-ish in the shade, with a slight breeze some of the time) with sunshine, blue skies and just a few white clouds to make the sky more interesting.

I realised that I have come on from when I first used to go down to the village, where I understood about 10% of what was said, and felt very removed from everything. Now I am far from understanding everything, but when the women talk amongst themselves I can tell more or less what they're talking about (and get some of the details), and if they talk to me I can get by (as long as I'm honest when I don't understand, so that they will repeat it!). We had some good chats about liking okra (or not), what is a good number of children to have, an old injury of one of the women which still hurts, whether my boys understand Monkolé and so on.

I think I do still prefer harmattan (beginning of dry season, before the heat really kicks in) to rainy season, but I do like days like today. Actually, rainy season isn't so bad now that I am better at remembering to put on insect repellent, and now that we don't have nappies to wash – and dry!

The blue blue sky as I walked into the village:

The corn in the new church building – one way to bring in more funds for the church!

Kandi-Fô camp

2011-09-14T20:59:00.005+01:00

Today we visited the Monkolé churches' children's camp. It is being held in a village called Kandi-Fô, about 15 minutes drive from our village. They are holding it in the school there – school doesn't start until October – and we thought it would be good to go over and see how it was going. We had a few blow-up footballs to give them, which we'd been given by a friend in England, and it was nice to come bearing gifts! Just after we arrived they rounded up all the kids:

And then we went into one of the classrooms with one of the groups to hear their lesson:

It was encouraging to realise just how well I could follow the story and questions, and also to feel that we weren't just visiting a camp as we've visited others, but these were our churches (and our language!).

school at home - almost!

2011-09-11T15:24:00.003+01:00

Simon is now old enough to begin school. Actually, according to French law, he wouldn't have to start school until next September, but since we are going to be homeschooling we thought it might be a good idea to get the hang of things in a year where it “doesn't matter”!

We decided a few months ago that it would be Marc who would do the majority of the homeschooling. We had decided a long time ago that we would follow the French school system, mainly because they have a distance learning scheme which goes from Reception class onwards and which is subsidized for French people living abroad. It therefore makes more sense for it to be Marc teaching it, and that fitted in with our idea that our priority is to complete the translation of the Bible into Monkolé.

So since Thursday 1st September we have had a new routine. On Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday mornings at 8.30am, Marc and Simon head off to the small house on our mission property for school. One of the bedrooms has been converted into a classroom … and since it was originally converted from being a translation office it actually still has a blackboard on the wall! (Funny how God provides!) At the same time, Benjy and I go to the (new) translation office, the third building on the property. The pastor meets us there, and all being well not long afterwards his wife turns up to work in our house and takes Benjy with her. (I will be writing another post soon about the translation work!)

At 10.30am we all meet up for our coffee/tea/squash break at our house, and at 11 go back to work. Marc and Simon finish at 11.30 and I continue working with the pastor until 12.30. At that point I go back to the house where I find the meal that has been sent up from the village ready and waiting to be served! A lady down in the village is cooking for us every weekday lunchtime, and so far it has been delicious! The only problem is that the quantities are enormous, and have been sufficient for both midday and evening meals … we will be putting on weight if it goes on like this!

On Wednesdays we follow French tradition and Simon doesn't have school. This gives his parents a chance to have a language learning session with the pastor (I then carry on with translation after break). We realise that we still have progress to make with the language, and need to plan in time to do this.

So far, Simon has been loving school, and is very conscientious about his work. The distance learning scheme hasn't turned up yet, however, either because it is taking an awfully long time to get here (most things are taking about 6 weeks from Europe at the moment) or because it has got lost. We are praying that it won't take too long to arrive. For the moment Marc has plenty to occupy Simon as he has a lot of books which either his family have sent to us, or we've bought in Cotonou, but in years to come we hope we won't be starting the school year a month late just because we haven't received the resources!

As for Benjy, he did seem a little unsettled by the changes the first couple of days, and wanted to stay in the translation office with me instead of going with the pastor's wife. I had brought some toy cars and colouring books to the translation office with us. But then he realised that his friends were playing over in his house without him, and that actually he might have more fun over there!

I'm going to do some English school some afternoons with both boys, but am waiting until we get used to our mornings before structuring our afternoons more. It is going to be a challenge to find some things which will interest them both, and other things where I can supervise them separately at different levels. But I am looking forward to it! Marc is using his afternoons to prepare teaching for the church.

Simon and his teacher!

Benjy in his little corner of the translation office:

growth!

2011-08-31T21:07:00.004+01:00

Since I posted the following photo, taken on July 15th, I have realised I was wrong to assume this field had peanuts in it again this year.

Now it is plain to see that it is full of corn, and I find it amazing how it can grow this much in just a month and a half!

Simon's corn is also doing well, seen here on our rainy day yesterday:

And here is a photo taken the day before, of a rain cloud over neighbours a few miles away! (To the naked eye you could actually see the rain pouring out of it, but unfortunately it didn't come out on camera - obviously too shy!)

out with the old, in with the new

2011-08-29T21:06:00.005+01:00

Every parent knows that once a child has adopted a favourite toy or softy, there is no replacing it, and a crisis of international proportions looms if that particular friend goes missing. Simon has had the same softy (in French, "doudou") since he was about 6 months old, and Benjy similarly adopted one when he was about the same age. Simon's, called Little Prince, has been confined to his bed since Simon's third birthday, and only comes out if we are travelling. So far he's never gone missing for more than 15 minutes or so. He has got grubby at times, but washes well, and has come out of his first four and a half years looking pretty good.

Benjy's softy is called Bengy (yes, it's confusing, but that is what it says on his label) and he has spent more of his life on African floors than Little Prince. Thanks to some foolish parental behaviour he also ended up with some large holes ... and thanks to Benjy's gnawing teeth many little ones.

Then came the day when the (admittedly filthy) Bengy got thrown into a basin of water at 6pm by Benjy's "helpful" older brother who thought he would "clean" Bengy. Very unhappy Mummy, as I do prefer softies to be dry when they are taken to bed, especially during rainy season when they can smell very mouldy! So I decided that Bengy couldn't get any wetter, so I would give him a proper clean, and just to buy myself some time brought an alternate softy out of the cupboard, one rejected by Benjy many months ago. He also has "Bengy" on his label, so I said, "Look, Benjy! New Bengy!"

And Benjy adopted him and hasn't spoken of old Bengy since. Now Benjy isn't stupid, and new Bengy is quite obviously different from old Bengy, so I can only assume that Benjy was a bit tired of old Bengy's damp smell and head coming loose, and decided to quit while he was ahead. ("Ahead" in this case being "in possession of a clean, sweet-smelling and actually soft softy"!)

And here they are, old Bengy after being washed and just before retirement:

New Bengy:

And here is Simon with the Little Prince in his hand, at 5 months old!

And again when he was nearly 3:

the big city (or "and our nomadic lifestyle continues...")

2011-08-21T14:52:00.006+01:00

We were down in Cotonou last week to apply for our new residency cards. Hopefully these will be 3-year ones, as we have to both apply in person and pick them up in person, and with Cotonou being a two-day journey from home, that's a lot of time on the road!

I took this photo of Cotonou. Probably not one that they'll be using for their next tourist brochure, but it does show all the cranes working on the new port extension.

It is already an extremely important West African port, bringing goods in for Benin but also for the landlocked countries beyond - Niger, Burkina Faso and even Mali. And anything going to Niger comes up the road in front of our house, on the back of lorries. No wonder the road deterioates so fast! And unfortunately the lorries don't always last long either - this is not an uncommon sight when we are travelling:

The long journey down isn't much fun, especially the Parakou-Cotonou day, which includes about six and a half hours of driving. So we try to enjoy ourselves when we are in Cotonou, getting some shopping done and treating ourselves to meals out, for example this restaurant on the beach:

neighbourliness

2011-08-09T20:37:00.003+01:00

We have picked up our language sessions with Pastor Samuel with enthusiasm. We've had lots of news to share on both sides, after five months apart, and we showed him photos of our family and the churches we visited in France and England.

We have also done some revision of vocabulary and money (not simple!). I have also been looking out for discussion topics. One day last week I used a question from my Bible study notes, which was, “How has your Christian faith made your life more difficult? How do you feel about that?” which kept us talking for nearly an hour.

Another day I used a proverb I'd read during my daily reading, as I was sure it would be something foreign to the culture here.

“Seldom set foot in your neighbour's house – too much of you, and he will hate you.” Proverbs 25:17

I found it in the rough draft Monkolé translation of Proverbs, and gave it to the pastor to read. Then I said that a lot of people in the West would tend to follow the gist of this proverb – better to have your neighbour wish he could see more of you than have him hide when he sees you come up the garden path!

The pastor laughed and said that among the Monkolé people this proverb doesn't apply. He said, “We are so close to each other that we are always together.” He gave the example of one of the elders of the church, and said that if he didn't call in on him for a week or two, this man would come to him and say, “What's wrong? Are you ill, or are you angry with me?”

He then confirmed what I'd suspected and said that they only feel like this about other Monkolés. He said that although people from the village would like to come and visit us, they don't want to bother us, and they think we don't understand the language well enough yet. They are afraid we won't understand them and vice versa. He said that was good since he thinks we'd be worn out if we had constant visits! I did point out that unless we have opportunities to practise the language we are never going to understand very well! But I had already got the impression that some people don't speak to us other than to greet us because of fear of our incomprehension. I am grateful for those who do make the effort!

But it isn't as if we don't have any visitors at all, even now in rainy season when most of our friends from the village are in the fields working. Last Saturday we had about 28 people for lunch – not only did a short-term French team visit us, but Beninese friends who were driving past stopped and joined us to eat! It was great fun!

Part of the team as they left – and Benjy getting the gate for them!

Family stuff

2011-07-28T20:27:00.005+01:00

Someone asked me when we were back in the UK what our boys do with no special activities to go to out here in Africa. I said, "Um, play?" We are blessed to have a sizeable and relatively secure compound around our house, and the weather being what it is here in Benin, they can play outside more or less 365 days a year! We were also handed-down a whole lot of toys by other missionaries with older kids, and for the kids from the village our home is a bit like Disney World, so there are often other kids here to play with ours. Simon is quite into Lego at the moment, too, but most of the time he is taken up with imaginative play. The Bible being quite an influence on him, there tend to be a lot of soldiers (they have replaced his disciples for now!).

Just a few examples of what our boys get up to. Today I made the boys a little kitchen unit out of some cardboard boxes, with a margarine tub as the sink, and Simon made lunch which he and Benjy sat down to eat together. Apparently it was pasta and cake. He then ordered Benjy to "bed" (in the squashy playpen) for his afternoon nap.

Later I heard Simon telling Benjy a story he'd made up (I was making our real lunch so didn't hear much of what it was about). The story was a very long one, and after a few minutes I heard Simon say, "No, Benjy! Come back, the story isn't finished yet!" to which Benjy replied, "'tory finish!"

There was also a lot of running round the house chasing each other, with Simon shouting, "I'm going to 'pirate' you!" amid shrieks from Benjy. There was also some turning round in circles just to experience the world continuing to turn after they'd fallen over on the floor.

And this afternoon I went out for a walk in the fields with Benjy. He was very enthusiastic about it, and walked well, except when we saw a goat and he needed me to hold his hand. He also kept up a running commentary, reminding me about the place where we saw an elephant 6 months ago (except we hadn't - it was a large cow which we mistook from far away ... why does he have to remember our most embarrassing moments?!) and happily waving to the children we saw working in the fields. (I suppose if we run out of activities to propose to our kids there's always that!)

The boys in their "squashy play pen" playing at being in bed:

Newly-planted fields we saw on our walk:

second year of planting!

2011-07-25T11:15:00.004+01:00

We know we've been in the village for a while when Simon's field is being planted for the second year running! We're branching out this year - not only are we planting corn and okra, but we're trying our hands at tomatoes, cucumbers, aubergines and carrots. Not that we're doing much, to be honest, most of it had already been planted when we arrived back from Europe! But Simon and Benjy have been helping with wedding and re-planting parts of the field.

The rains are disappointing so far this year - after starting late they haven't yet started to fall as regularly as the farmers would like. When they do come, we have been enjoying seeing the sky turn dark, and the wind pick up - seen here behind the recently-planted peanut field next to our house:

oops there goes my linguistic competence...

2011-07-16T14:40:00.001+01:00

(Written on the 11th, but took a while to get posted!)

Ten days back in Benin and I'm feeling the changes. Obviously there is the material side – suddenly electricity, light and internet are no longer reliable friends, and I'm missing having a washing machine – but also the change of status. In Europe our main role was face-to-face communication with friends and churches about the ministry out here. In many ways that suits me very well – I love spending time with people, and in both English and French I feel confident expressing myself and explaining things. So I felt fulfilled and encouraged in that role.

Back here in the village, while it is good to be home, it is with some trepidation that I step back into the role of the person who doesn't understand everything and can't say all she wants to. I still feel on the outside here – everyone is friendly, but only with a handful of people do we have anything resembling a real friendship. This is partly our choice, in that we chose not to use French with people (with a couple of exceptions) to help us learn Monkolé. But it is really hard to build a friendship with another adult when you feel you talk like a child and can't show much of who you really are! We do need prayer that we wouldn't lose courage as we persevere with this.

Fortunately we have good friends among the missionaries and French-speaking Beninese in Parakou, and in our 3 days of vision and strategy planning for SIM Benin-Togo last week I retained the role I'd had in Europe, feeling I could participate freely and usefully in the discussions!

The pastor is taking his annual leave at the moment, so we have been settling back into life here, sorting out as many of our practical problems as possible, and easing back into using our Monkolé. While it is a little rusty, we don't feel we've really lost it. We'll be doing some revision sessions with the pastor before September, when I'll start on the translation work and Marc will begin his preparation for Dry Season Bible School. He will also begin home-schooling Simon in the mornings. I have been looking through resources I bought to help me with translation, and am getting quite excited about finally working with the team!

last few days...

2011-06-27T11:55:00.003+01:00

And so we prepare to leave Europe again. It has been a very full time – full of journeys and visits and talking and laughter. Full of encouragements and sharing and thankfulness. It has done us good, but it does feel like it's time to get back to our “real life” or at least some kind of routine! (Routine? What's that?) I would say it's time to get on with our real work, but actually part of our work is to communicate well with the churches and friends who support us, and face-to-face contact, even if it is rare, is very important. Several people said to us that despite having read our news and seen the photos, actually having us talking to them, and being able to ask questions, made it all come alive for them.

I'm very grateful to God for these last few months, and for the lack of complications we've had despite our ambitious travel plans! I'm also very grateful to all those who have given us a bed for the night, or a meal, or have simply taken time to bless us through their words. I'm grateful to our boys for putting up with it all and charming so many people!

We had a last family get-together last weekend at my cousin Catherine's wedding. Lots of fun! Here are Marc and I at the wedding (slightly weird angle seems to be shortening our legs, but you get the idea!):

And the boys at the Westbury White Horse the next day (Simon is still allergic to photos, and yes, that's Marc's nose, I didn't have time to edit!):

answer

2011-06-23T11:47:00.002+01:00

I forgot to give the answer to the question about my mystery activity. I was doing this:

last church

2011-06-22T15:37:00.003+01:00

Last week we spent time with our Bedford church, visiting a lot of home groups and other church groups, and speaking in the mission slot on Sunday morning. We had a lovely week, and enjoyed all the time getting to know people better. Here's my photo of the church, though in some ways I feel that it might have been more representative to have put a photo of someone's front room :o)

dygwyl (or "holiday" in Welsh!)

2011-06-12T16:20:00.007+01:00

A few photos of our week's holiday in North Wales. Simon watching the peacocks from the window of our sun room:

Family photo on Conwy Castle:

Benjy on Penmaenmawr Beach:

Simon having tested the temperature of the Llyn Brenig reservoir (he wasn't tempted to take a dip!):

And finally a challenge! What activity am I engaged in in the following photo? The answer will come in a future posting!

touching base

2011-05-29T20:31:00.009+01:00

Last week we spent two nights with SIM-UK (and N.Europe) in Wetheringsett Manor, near Stowmarket. SIM has field offices and sending offices, and although our sending office is SIM France, SIM-UK does handle some things for us, such as finances coming from the UK and communications with UK supporters. So since we didn't know the UK staff very well, they invited us to come and visit.

We stayed in the (very comfortable!) guesthouse, and gave a presentation of our work at the Wednesday morning Day of Prayer. It was good to get a better idea of who works at SIM-UK and what they do. We were made to feel very welcome, and also enjoyed relaxing in the grounds - the boys particularly liked the trampoline in the playground! And we admired the typical English cottages in the village, the horses and foals in the fields, and a hedgehog in one of the gardens! We even visited the Mid-Suffolk Steam Railway ... it was closed but we were allowed to go and have a look around anyway.

Wetheringsett Manor:

A cottage:

A foal:

The hedgehog:

At the railway:

presently past

2011-05-23T21:28:00.007+01:00

Our last few church visits have included trips down memory lane for me! First we visited the Parish of Yeovil – the churches of St John's and St Andrew's – where my dad was Rector when I was a teenager. We then went on (after a couple of relaxing days in Westbury) to Bath, where Dad was vicar when I was a child. I still know people in both places, and had often been back to Yeovil, but being back in St Luke's for the first time in 18 years was quite an emotional moment for me!

In all three churches we were warmly welcomed, and there was a sense of thankfulness for past times spent together, but also real interest in what we are doing now. We feel very blessed to be supported by these churches, as by all the churches we have links with, and we see it as being very important to visit them and talk face-to-face with people. And the added bonus of having a personal link means that we already feel like family!

A few comments from others:

“Your husband's preaching was wonderful – I think we'll keep him here! And your boys are so gorgeous I could just gobble them up!” (So apparently I may be the only one returning to Benin!)

“I know I shouldn't say it, but when you stood up at the front you looked just like your mum!” (That's ok, I think my mum's great!)

The churches:

St Andrew's, Yeovil

St John's, Yeovil

St Luke's, Bath

It's tiring work, all this travelling!

And an extra big THANK-YOU to all those who have hosted us, whether in France or the UK! You have been so kind to us. (We're not leaving yet, but most of our travelling is behind us...)

moving swiftly on...

2011-05-12T20:30:00.000+01:00

We have now visited our last church in France and our first in the UK! Our trip from France to the UK was eventful, as our one train from Poissy to Gare du Nord ended up having to be 4! The train we originally intended to catch was cancelled. I don't believe in premonitions, but that didn't stop me having one - when Marc's mum said, "We'll still have plenty of time," I replied, "If nothing else goes wrong, that is!" And sure enough, the train we took half an hour later then got stopped a few stations down by another broken down train blocking the line!

Fortunately a helpful man told us to get onto another train and we phoned Marc's brother Matthieu to get instructions on how to get to Gare du Nord as quickly (and easily) as possible. If we hadn't had Marc's parents with us to carry one of our suitcases and one of our small boys, we'd never have made it. As it was, having left ourselves over an hour to spare, we arrived only 2 minutes before check-in closed - phew!!

Maybe it was just so that when we go back to Benin we aren't tempted to believe that everything in Europe works like clockwork!

Anyway, we've had a good first week back in the UK, seeing friends and family, visiting our old placement church in Hatfield (from our time at All Nations college), preparing for future meetings and making sure all the local playgrounds are where we left them (they are!).

Our final church visit in France:

Our first church visit in the UK:

Playing in my parents' garden:

national identity

2011-04-30T19:58:00.003+01:00

Despite being in France, I managed to watch the Royal Wedding live at a friend's house (thanks, Manue!). I still remember watching Charles and Diana's wedding when I was nearly 5, and so when Simon asked if he could come with me, I said yes (as long as he promised to be good!). I don't know if he will have any memories of it, and it has to be said that the soldiers on horses and the policemen on motorbikes interested him more than the wedding itself, but I thought I should give him the chance.

It's hard to know where our boys will feel that they come from. I am English, Marc is French, and yet we live in Benin. Watching the British Royal Wedding with French commentary is quite a good example of what our life is like! And I do want to give our boys the opportunity to feel they have some roots, so keeping up with what is going on in our respective countries is important.

It's true too, that I never realised how English I was before I lived abroad. Or perhaps I never had to feel English as compared to someone else. Apart from the clichés (and I do love Marmite and tea), it's hard to define, and must vary for each English person, but you still recognise it when you meet someone else from your own country! I think it is possible to be proud of your origins without believing yourself better than someone from somewhere else ... and doesn't mean you don't recognise the negative side of your own country.

Here is the English flag flying from our balcony in France for the 2006 World Cup:

nomads

2011-04-22T09:04:00.008+01:00

It's a chameleon life that we lead. Our clothes might change, the language we are speaking with other people might change, but underneath we're still the same people serving the same God.

Anyway, this Home Assignment thing we're on at the moment is made for me! We get to travel around seeing beautiful parts of France (and soon England), catching up with old friends, meeting new ones, and speaking about a country and a people who we love (Benin and the Monkolés, in case you're wondering!).

We spent two weeks in Nancy. It is the city where Marc and I met and Simon was born. And in some ways it still feels like home. Obviously some things have changed, but it was good to catch up with friends from church and Marc's colleagues at the university, and meet new people. Being there for a fortnight meant that we could relax when spending time with people, instead of it being a marathon, and also meant that we could take part in regular church activities and not just the meetings that we ourselves were leading. Another bit of good timing was the inter-church service on the second of our Sundays, giving us the opportunity to chat to friends from other churches in Nancy. And staying in the flat over our church gave us some family time on our own too.

It was funny to go to an inter-church prayer meeting for the GBU (university Bible groups) and not to recognise anyone in the GBU! I helped to lead it for 4 years while living in Nancy, but of course things move on quickly in student circles. I was encouraged to hear the students' testimonies of living out their faith on the same campuses I knew a few years back.

Meeting up with Marc's colleagues was great. It reinforced the feeling that there is a real friendship there, which is going to last. We had hoped also to visit a friend of mine from the university, who is now in Châlon-en-Champagne, but unfortunately her little boy wasn't well, and we had to make do with a telephone call this week.

Nancy is a beautiful city, especially when the sun is shining, as it was almost every day of our time there! I love the fact that it is surrounded by hills, and also that there are so many lovely parks in it. Parks are one thing I miss in Benin … that and being able to walk around anywhere anonymously!

Here are a few photos from our time in Nancy:

tour de france (2)

2011-04-09T08:54:00.007+01:00

After a good time of debriefing in Orange, we spent a long weekend in Lyon visiting friends and another of our supporting churches. We also visited the "Parc de la Tête d'Or" to see animals we haven't seen (yet) in Africa.

We are now in Nancy, where we used to live, and as a friend here said, "Ce sera toujours chez vous!" ("It'll always be home for you!") We're staying in a flat over the church and have several meetings and meal invitations lined up. It's good to be staying somewhere for a bit longer ... and Simon and Benjy are also enjoying the different playgrounds around Nancy!

tour de france

2011-03-28T20:16:00.009+01:00

We have visited the first three churches on our official programme - from top to bottom: Poissy, Chinon and Gap. I love sharing about Benin and our work there, and testifying to what God has done for us. Yes, the travelling makes it tiring, and the boys, while coping well, have at times seemed a bit perturbed at all the changes, but it is worth it!

And I had a lovely surprise at the church in Chinon - a couple who now live in France who I'd known in Yeovil at the age of 17 and not seen since!

We are also enjoying the fact that we are able to see friends on our travels, and spend lots of time talking. Not something we get to do much in Benin (except in Monkolé, which is harder going than French!).

A few more photos from our travels. Chinon:

"Mummy, Benjy wants to hold my hand!"

Some snow we managed to find in the Auvergne:

On the road between Orange and Gap:

Mountains near Gap:

The journey back from Gap was a bit less wonderful, as it was raining and I was very sick. But at least I got that out of the way between Sunday's afternoon meeting and this morning's debrief with our SIM France Director, Jean!

the other side of the Channel now!

2011-03-16T21:21:00.008+01:00

I haven't been so good about keeping my blog up lately, but then being here in Europe is such a change from Benin that I've lost momentum!

How about a couple of quotes which illustrate what it is to grow up in Africa and then visit Europe:

Simon: Papy, do you have croissants in France too?
(Originally said in French of course!)

Mummy: Simon, stay on the pavement.
Simon: What's the pavement?

But we are all continuing to adjust well. After a relaxing time in the UK we are now enjoying some time with the French side of the family, and also had our first meeting on Sunday afternoon at Marc's parents' church. Marc also preached in the morning.

We begin our "Tour de la France" on Tuesday, when we leave for Chinon to visit some friends and speak at their church.

A few photos...

Great entertainment in England:

Simon and his cousin Andrew ... spot the difference!

And Benjy is wearing exactly the same clothes as Simon two years ago, which is amusing when I see him from behind:

We went and visited our friend James' farm:

And now we have crossed the Channel and are testing out French playgrounds:

And French bikes:

I would put photos of our families in too, but it would end up being far too long a post! We are of course loving spending time with them!

small world

2011-02-28T22:26:00.003+01:00

Sometimes when you watch the news on TV you feel interested or concerned, but can't feel anything very deeply because it all seems quite abstract. Not so for me with the news about Libya. Having travelled back through Tripoli just 10 days ago, I can't help but wonder how the air hostesses and stewards are now. The lovely woman who gave Simon a pillow from Business Class, the man who insisted we swap to better seats, the younger man who didn't mind Simon refusing to talk to him when he'd just woken up... Are they in Libya? How are they and their families? And what about the Libyan woman I chatted to on the plane in June, who is living in Canada but has her 12 year old son at school in Libya?

It makes me care more. And grieve more when I see the bodies on the news. I'm glad I can pray, because otherwise I'd feel totally helpless, whereas at least I know I can put this into bigger hands than mine.

following a trend

2011-02-09T10:24:00.002+01:00

I have to admit that I bought my boys brand-name products on the market here last week:

celebrating with the Fulani people

2011-02-03T09:00:00.007+01:00

Last Saturday we went to the Dedication of the Fulani New Testament. The people are the Fulani (or Peuhl) and their language is Fulfuldé (or Fulbé). They are a nomadic people, spread out over a large part of Africa, and different dialects of the language can be quite different. The Fulani people of Benin have used a Fulbé Bible from Cameroon until now, but up to 40% of the vocabulary can be different, which as you can imagine makes it very foreign-sounding. This is why they need their own Bible in the language they speak. It has been a very long process with many setbacks, but at last their New Testament is complete! It was a real joy to be present at this ceremony and to see so many people celebrating God's gift of His Word in their own language.

Marc next to our own Pastor Samuel:

Some more of the missionaries and Beninese pastors:

The head of the translation team, Pastor Isaac Matchoudo, and his wife Marie-Claire receiving their copies of the New Testament. Incidentally, they were my hosts when I first visited Benin in 2002!

Just a small part of the crowd present:

People flocking to buy the New Testament – the 500 available sold out immediately!

au revoir

2011-01-18T21:37:00.001+01:00

Being relatively young, the Monkolé churches are still trying to work out how to do things as Christians within their culture. A good example of this is a question which arises whenever one of the Christians dies: “Pastor, how do we deal with this?”

The tradition here is to bury someone the same day they die. The Christians usually have a short ceremony at the graveside (which may be in the cemetery or may be within the family property in the village) with prayers and a brief message. Then traditionally people come and visit the family to support them in their grief. Far-flung members of the family must be lodged and fed, and all visitors are fed too.

Recently an old man from the church died, and Marc attended the burial and visited the family during the week following their bereavement. A week after the death, there was a notice in church saying that on the Monday (8 days after the death) there would be a service in open air in the village to mark the end of the time of mourning.

We wanted to be present for this, and went down at 9.30, since we had been told 9.15 … and even so we were still far too early! The service got started at about 11, and lasted a little over an hour. There was a lot of singing from the choir – deliberately chosen songs about the joy of knowing Jesus – some readings from the Bible, and a sermon from a visiting pastor. During this time and throughout the whole morning tens of women were hard at work preparing a meal for everyone around (our boys got a foretaste to keep them quiet when they got restless during the service!).

After the service there were instructions about who would eat where. Being missionaries, we got sent off to eat in the local government representative's house with the pastors. Pounded yams (the “best” food here, reserved for parties), chicken and spicy sauce were served to us, and we could have had rice too, if we'd had any room left!

We didn't remember the pastor having told us about such a service after the week of mourning, so we asked him about it. He told us that it can be difficult for a bereaved family because no one knows how long the time of mourning should go on for, and sometimes members of the extended family hang around for ages afterwards (requiring food and lodging). The Christians here asked their leaders how long the mourning period should last, and they asked a more established church among a neighbouring people group what they do. They said that it lasts for about a week, and then they have a big service to mark the end. Not only does this give a signal to family to leave (!) but it is also an opportunity to witness to the Christian hope that death is not the end, and that within the sadness of losing someone is the joy of knowing that they have gone to be with Jesus.

Speaking of which, Simon has learned the lesson well. Here is a recent conversation we had:

Simon: Why we can't eat the mushrooms in the compound but we can eat the mushrooms on the pizza?
Mummy: Well, the mushrooms in the compound might be poisonous.
Simon: And they can make us ill?
Mummy: Yes.
Simon: And they can kill us?
Mummy: Maybe.
Simon (looking happy and excited): And then we can see Jesus!
Mummy: ?!?

Sometimes applied theology gives unexpected results!

harmattan

2011-01-10T10:35:00.004+01:00

We are now well into harmattan season - windy, white and dusty! Even with our windows closed, all surfaces are covered with a thin layer of white dust within a few hours of being wiped. Temperatures are much more pleasant though, in fact we've even been feeling cold!

Our New Year's Day family walk:

Benjy got a bit tired at the end...

Confusing Christmas

2011-01-01T09:48:00.006+01:00

Our Christmas weekend was another good example of cross-cultural living! This was partly because we wanted to keep some of our own traditions while discovering how things were done here. What also happened was that the way the church did things didn't seem to be the way we'd been told it would be done. We didn't know whether that was because a) we hadn't understood in the first place, b) plans had changed and we hadn't heard/understood why, or c) things were exactly as we had understood but looked different from the way we expected!

We didn't go to the Christmas Eve meeting as it was at 8pm (ie. 8.30 or 9pm!) and so past the boys' bedtimes. And Marc and I felt that we wanted to spend our Christmas Eve together.

Our boys opened their stocking presents on Christmas morning and then we all went to church. The Christmas morning service seemed joyful but not particularly Christmassy, which we put down to the Christmas Eve meeting being the more Christmas-themed of the meetings. We went home afterwards to our Christmas dinner of guinea fowl, opened more presents and then spent the afternoon as a family.

Sunday's service was followed by a long discussion which I understood was something to do with “the youth”, “preparation”, “Saturday or Sunday” but the details were beyond me (however I was definitely missing the context, which I only learnt on Tuesday when we had a good long chat – in Monkolé – with the pastor).

On Christmas Day the pastor told us we were invited to eat with a lot of people from church on Sunday. But he said, “Go home after the service, and we'll call you when it's ready, because the ladies can't start preparing food early because they'll be in church.” We figured this would be a midday meal but certainly not before 1pm and probably not until 3 or 4pm. We just snacked, and put the boys down for their usual nap at 2pm. But by 5pm we were starting to wonder whether we'd got it wrong. Finally at 5.30pm the pastor rang to say that … the meal still wasn't ready! But at least that reassured us that we had understood … just hadn't understood the likely timing! At 6 he rang again to tell us to come down to the village, and by 6.30-ish we were tucking into a delicious meal of pounded yams, chicken and spicy sauce.

It just brought back to us the frustration of living somewhere where you don't know the unwritten rules of social interaction! And reminded us how as Westerners we really don't like to just be hanging around waiting for someone else! Part of me also felt it was a shame we hadn't gone down to the village earlier, but we had been told to wait at home because they didn't want to keep us waiting around. So I was afraid that if we went down earlier they'd feel under pressure to get the meal served earlier.

More became clear on Tuesday during the aforementioned chat with the pastor. First of all, they hadn't celebrated Christmas with as much gusto as usual because someone linked to the church had died, and so they felt that out of respect to his family they couldn't have a party. The discussion after church had been about the youth not having done the preparation they were supposed to for the party, and others saying that it wasn't appropriate to be having a party anyway. Secondly, usually the big meal we'd been invited to would have been earlier (at 3 or 4ish) but that's because usually Boxing Day isn't a Sunday so the ladies can get cooking much earlier. So we'd kind of got it right but not made allowances for it being a Sunday!

I do feel sad to be so far from our families at Christmas, so I am very thankful that the church here is so welcoming and supportive of us! It would make it even harder if we weren't feeling at home here.

The choir at church all dressed up in their Christmas finery:

Our family (in the Christmas material chosen by the church women):

Me showing off my new outfit:

from grain to table!

2010-12-20T21:14:00.005+01:00

Here is the last stage for our corn! First a photo of Marc and Benjy de-graining the dried corn cobs. Then I'm afraid no photo of it being milled in the village, as I had to leave it there in the morning and go back and collect it in the afternoon. Next, a photo of it made into "pâte", a fairly solid paste which you eat with whatever sauce takes your fancy! In this case a fairly non-traditional mince and tomato sauce with tinned peas!

Benjy may be looking as if he has been forced into child labour, but I promise he volunteered his services!

Of course, it would usually be eaten with fingers, but we were hungry and it was hot!

context

2010-12-13T20:43:00.001+01:00

A: Is it true?
B: Yes, it happened just like we thought it would.
A: Oh no. And is it bad?
B: Uh-huh – at least 5 have been affected.
A: Oh dear. How long do they think it will last?
B: It could be up to three weeks.

I hope that as you read this conversation you found that you understood every word and yet still didn't have a clue what these people were talking about. This is how I sometimes feel at our current stage of language learning (though I also have times where I don't understand many of the words!).

Language is more than just learning vocabulary and getting to grips with grammar. It also involves relationships, and knowing what the person you're talking with knows about which you therefore don't need to mention explicitly.

This means that when you come into a village where everyone has known everyone from birth, and spends most of their time together, you are bound to lack a lot of the shared knowledge. I sat through an hour-long church meeting recently where everyone else knew what the problem was which was being talked about, but I didn't! So although I understood quite a lot of what was said, I was missing the crucial bit of information necessary to work out the relevance of what everyone was saying!

Of course, when people are talking directly to us they do adapt what they say accordingly. They know we don't know the same people, and haven't experienced the same events. But even then, there may be cultural assumptions we don't share.

For example, I was telling my seamstress how much Simon liked the new trousers she had made for him.

Me: This morning he told me, “Mummy, I want to wear my new trousers!”
Seamstress (in a jokey manner): Ah, was he going on a journey?
Me: (puzzled silence until I remembered that here people dress in their best clothes if they are travelling somewhere – quite the opposite from what I would tend to do!)

We could allow ourselves to be discouraged when we realise that we have a far greater task ahead of us than simply learning the rules of a language. Yet it also makes it more exciting, as we have a whole new world to explore, and a new community to become part of. Yes, we'll always be outsiders to some extent, but that doesn't mean we won't have real friends and a positive role to play.

PS Even I don't know what A and B are talking about above ;o)

circle of the year

2010-12-09T10:50:00.002+01:00

Spring is green and yellow
and the summer, pink and gold.
Autumn's red soon turns to brown –
the year is getting old.
Wintertime is blue and white –
the ice is crystal clear:
All the colours dance around
the circle of the year.

(Lois Rock, in “My Very First Prayers”)

This poem is in a book of Simon's. It is interesting to read it with him, because he doesn't really remember about European seasons. He is quite fascinated by the idea of snow and ice!

Here in the North of Benin, the harmattan wind is blowing again. This brings us right around our circle of the year, since when we arrived here in February it was the end of harmattan. The harmattan wind is a cold(ish) north wind which blows down to us from the Sahara. At the moment our nights are chilly (down to 15°C) but after some mist early in the morning our afternoon temperatures can go up to 33°C or even higher. The air is very dry, and I have to dig my moisturising cream out again.

The year is basically divided into two parts – about 6 months of rainy season and about 6 months of dry season. The dry season includes harmattan and hot season. Hot season is well-named! We didn't have our thermometer during the last hot season, but we know it was 43°C in our nearest town at the beginning of hot season! The hardest part is that the temperature doesn't even go down much at night, which makes sleep difficult, especially if like us you don't have electricity at night-time, so no chance of ceiling fans. By the afternoon we have hot and hot running water, and one of the loveliest things my husband ever did for me was to manage to cool some water overnight so that I could actually have a coldish shower in the morning!

By the time the rains finally come, it is a real relief to feel the freshness they bring, though at first the drop in temperature doesn't last much longer than the storm! We had big storms at the beginning and the end of rainy season this year – with several trees and branches knocked down in May. The boys found it quite scary, as they couldn't remember the last rainy season, and the rain sounds very loud on our metal roof!

The other wonderful thing about the beginning of rainy season is the speed at which the vegetation grows back. One day everything is dry and bare, and then in the space of a few days there is grass everywhere!

The rains were heavy in the middle of August, and there was one week where we didn't see the sun at all, putting a strain on our solar-powered electricity system and making it nearly impossible to dry laundry. We were grateful to have a generator (and I even resorted to using my hairdryer to finish drying some nappies!).

Then by October the rains are usually dying away again, though this year they went on longer than usual (see my post here). And then we end up back in the harmattan end of dry season. I love harmattan, it is definitely my favourite season here. The only thing I find strange is to know that Christmas is on the way, but not to “feel” Christmassy. There is too much warmth and sunshine, and whereas down in Parakou there were quite a lot of Christmas decorations and things in the shops, here up North I haven't seen anything yet. Simon and Benjy do have an Advent Calendar, and I think I'll put the Christmas tree up this weekend, so we will try to get into the spirit of things. We have been told that Christmas is a big celebration in the church here, so that should help!

We have yet to find out how much of a shock to the system it will be to fly into the UK at the end of February, dropping about 30°C overnight!!

A few photographic memories:

Dry season

After a storm

Near the end of rainy season:

But...?!

2010-11-24T20:43:00.000+01:00

Two good examples of how your cultural background can both help and hinder your reading of the Bible came up this week.

On Tuesday we were reading the passage in Mark where Jesus sends some disciples to prepare the Passover meal. He tells them to go into town, and when they see a man carrying a water jar, to follow him.

In discussions in Europe, I've heard comments like, “But that's so random! How could they tell whether it was the right man?” Yet here in Benin it is very rare to see a man carrying water – he would stick out like a sore thumb. So no one here is surprised to hear that the disciples had no trouble finding the right man.

This morning, however, we were talking about the story of Jacob stealing the birthright from his older twin, Esau. The pastor said that Monkolé people may well be confused when they hear this story, since in Monkolé tradition the twin who is born in second place is considered the elder twin – and the text clearly states that Jacob was born after Esau. In Monkolé understanding he would have no need to steal the birthright as it would be his already!

Which all goes to underline the importance of understanding the historical context when you read a text … and why you might not understand what you read if you don't!

harvest-time

2010-11-21T11:54:00.007+01:00

The harvest continues here in Pèdè. Here are Simon and his friend Benja collecting the last corn cobs (to be dried ready to make flour):

Hard at work harvesting peanuts in the field next to our house:

Papa working hard while Benjy supervises(?):

Hélène carrying another sac of peanuts into our compound:

All the peanuts that have been harvested so far:

conference

2010-11-15T11:17:00.001+01:00

After ten days away and then a visitor, it is reassuring to get back to blogging! We went down to Parakou at the beginning of the month for the SIM Benin-Togo Spiritual Life Conference. We were half looking forward to it, half apprehensive. We only managed two days of last year's conference, as Benjy decided to go on sleep strike! But he is a year older now, and the conference was being held in Parakou, which meant we were sleeping in our “usual” Guesthouse room, so we thought we could count on it being a bit better than last year.

And it was! Another bonus this year was that we had Esther looking after the boys for us again. Not only do they like her, but we know she won't let them get away with too much, so we really can concentrate on the meetings we go to. The boys came with us to the worship meetings, and then stayed with Esther during the teaching and report sessions. They did go to a couple of the kids' meetings, but are still a bit young for group stuff, especially organised games.

There were 72 of us at the conference, including 22 kids. It's actually SIM plus other smaller missions, giving us a chance to catch up with far-flung missionaries we wouldn't otherwise see very much of. The teaching was challenging, refreshing and very honest. Our speaker was the brother-in-law of our director, and he came from Canada with his wife, cousin and cousin's wife, the three of whom led the children's work together. We even had a guest worship leader, the sister of a TWR missionary, and she came all the way from the USA to bless us!

All the missionaries present gave short reports of their work. It is easy to give in to the temptation to compare one's own work unfavourably with all that others are doing … but it is far better to rejoice that we are all serving one God together in many ways with our diverse gifts! And it was encouraging to hear other language-learning missionaries who have been going through similar experiences to our own.

We also had fun times – games and a barbecue one afternoon, a Fun Night with sketches, and a bonfire on the final evening, which just happened to be November 5th (remember, remember!). It's the first Nov 5th bonfire I've been at for years!!

Of course, as parents of small children, we don't quite manage to talk at length to everyone we'd like to, but there are other blessings. When we arrived on the Monday the boys were quite shy and avoided talking to people. By the Friday they were even playing with other kids and holding long conversations with some of the adults.

So all in all, it was a week of blessing and growth!

trying times

2010-10-25T15:44:00.001+01:00

We had a tiring week last week. Over the weekend, Benjy had had vomiting, diarrhoea and a high temperature. A visit to our local clinic on Monday for some tests revealed that he had a bacterial infection. Antibiotics soon had him recovering, but after four very turbulent nights his parents needed to recuperate too!

Just as Benjy was on the mend, our fridge broke down. Everything in the freezer de-frosted and had to be thrown away or eaten, and we had to chuck a few things from the fridge too. Thankfully we found a fridge repair man who was able to get it up and running again. He warned us though that conditions here – the heat plus the unreliable electricity supply – aren't great for fridges, and ours isn't the best model either.

However, stressful and exhausting as our week may have been, it is nothing compared to the suffering of others in this country. We and our neighbours at least have not been hit by the floods affecting many people in Benin – see here.

The farmers around us are worried though, as the rains are continuing longer than usual, and crops are rotting in the fields. And “farmers” applies to most of the people in the village so it is a hard time for all.

mystery objects

2010-10-13T11:29:00.007+01:00

Yes, it's time for some more guessing games! Though I'm afraid anyone who lives, or has lived, in Benin is not allowed to give the answers - that just spoils it for everyone else! So here we go ... I think it goes from easiest to hardest, but we'll see. The final photo is not exactly native to Benin, but is rather abstract!

can cook, will cook

2010-10-02T17:05:00.004+01:00

Last weekend our church here in Pèdè held a youth rally – an event hosted each year by one of ten churches in the region. I wasn't able to go to the rally on the Saturday, as both boys were under the weather, so Marc went down on his own. But on the Friday the women of our church were preparing the food – for an estimated 100-200 people – and I went down to watch them. It was so different from the cooking I know that the only helpful thing I was able to do was to get the cellophane wrapping off a box of stock cubes which was giving them difficulty!

It was good to be there – so often I am put off going into the village by not knowing if anyone will be around, and this time I knew exactly where I would find people I know! I can't say I understood all that much of the conversation – which in a group of people who know each other extremely well is not that surprising – but I got the gist of things. I did manage to make a joke, at one point, and despite that being a risky thing to do when you're a language learner, it did appear to be understood and appreciated! I only understood on about the fifth telling when someone joked to me that if I ate their spicy sauce my skin would turn black like theirs!

It was interesting to see and have explained to me what they were doing. They were using enormous cooking pots over their three-stone cooking fires, using wood for fuel. When I was there they were making “akassa” - a starchy food made with fermented corn spooned into individual bags while it was hot (hygienic if not very environmentally friendly!). They were also making soy cheese, made with soya and the water taken from the fermented corn – when it becomes solid it is fried in oil. I tasted some of the akassa with the sauce they'd made (with beans and chilli peppers) – it was very good … and my skin isn't noticeably darker yet!

While it was a positive experience, it did bring back to me just how different my cultural background is to everyone here. They all knew what they were doing – they've grown up helping their mums do it – and for me it was all new. I already knew that I'll always be an outsider here, even though I am accepted and very welcome, but it really made me feel the fact that I am an oddity and that that won't change. It made me a bit sad, but that's just the way it is. It helped, the next morning, to be reminded in my Bible notes that as Christians we are all on a “journey of sacrifice”. And serving God here means sacrificing part of our identity and status. It is worth it!

firstfruits

2010-09-27T20:11:00.005+01:00

When Hélène - who works for us - arrived this morning, she told me that she thought the corn was ripe. Simon was very excited to hear this, so she took him and his friends out to harvest some for lunch.

Simon automatically carried it back into the house the way everyone carries things around here:

Steamed for 15 minutes, a bit of butter, salt and pepper, and it tasted gooooood!

Marc thinks that we can call it organic, fairtrade corn ... if we can prove that Simon pays his workers a fair wage ... or any wage at all for that matter! (Don't worry, they'll actually be taking home most of the corn!)

getting cornier!

2010-09-18T16:31:00.005+01:00

Simon's corn continues to sprout at an impressive rate! Here is Simon, now able to hide in the middle of it!

An ear of corn forming:

The rest of the corn and the okra, looking a bit like a paddy field after a big rainstorm:

huh?!

2010-09-07T21:09:00.003+01:00

When you are learning a language, sometimes you understand the words themselves but not the meaning when they're put together. Today Samuel quoted a local proverb and I just didn't get it! The proverb was:

Prison isn't for sheep.

Okaaaaay...? No matter how much I tried to get my brain round that, it still didn't make any sense to me (apart from supposing that the literal meaning is true!).

So Samuel explained that the proverb is quoted by anyone feeling rebellious. They say that prison isn't for sheep, it's for people, ie. they would feel quite at home there, so the threat of it isn't going to put them off breaking the law.

Although I felt enlightened by the explanation, I still found it rather weird reasoning … but that may well be a cultural thing too! Or just the fact that I have always been very law-abiding :o)

Another culture-learning experience we had was to learn a local card game, having the rules explained to us in Monkolé. It was fun, but I'm not likely to play much. I suspected it would be just the men who play, and Samuel confirmed this, saying that women don't have time to. (This was confirmed by a local woman I talked to later on, and she didn't seem to mind!)

Here are Marc and the pastor playing, with Simon looking on (and camouflaging well into Marc's shirt!).

Simon and the corn stalks

2010-09-02T21:15:00.003+01:00

When the okra was planted (see my post of 3-ish weeks ago), the corn was about a foot high. We got back from travelling on Saturday and found it THIS high!!

sur la route...

2010-08-30T11:14:00.006+01:00

We are at last home in Pèdè after all our travels. Someone out here told us that a missionary family is always on the move, and our experience seems to back that up!

This time we needed to get our residency cards renewed, which involves a blood test (done in Parakou) and medical, and then a trip to the government office in Cotonou. We made the most of our days in Parakou (waiting for the blood test results) to get some work done on our car, and then the mechanic came down to Cotonou with us to replace our wheels with stronger ones. Given the state of the roads during rainy season, this seemed a good idea!

Benjy was a bit hit in the government immigration office. One woman came in with her meal of traditional Beninese food (akassa) and Benjy started smiling at her and pointing at the food. “Does he like this?” she said, doubtfully. “Probably, “ I replied, and she tried giving him some. Soon he was gobbling it down, with much lip-smacking and appeals for more. The previously stony-faced officials were laughing incredulously and saying he must think he is African! (Children are always good at making friends in high places!)

The Parakou-Cotonou journey is a long day of driving, and we wouldn't choose to do it unless really necessary. But once we were there we enjoyed the opportunity to do some shopping in Cotonou, and to introduce our boys to the hypermarket (they'd been there before but didn't remember). Not that they were very impressed with the idea of shopping - it took the “Baguette d'Or” café-restaurant to reconcile them to big city life! Here's Simon with his dessert – he was disappointed when I said he had to choose just one of the many on offer!

The road between Parakou and Pèdè is worse than the road further south. Here are a few photos taken on my mobile phone. First, the supposedly tarmac-covered road! In this case, the tarmac is still there, it's just covered with mud!

The rain coming down, and the water flowing along the side of the road:

A lorry we saw which was lacking its back right-hand wheel!

fieldwork (2)

2010-08-12T20:57:00.005+01:00

After watching – and participating in – the sewing of peanuts in the field next to our compound, Simon started to play at planting seed in “his field” - one corner of our compound. We looked on, smiling indulgently … and were very surprised to discover one day that he actually had real corn growing in his field! Well, it turns out that our home help, Hélène, had planted it, and last week she suggested planting some okra too. So she, two of her kids, Simon, and another visiting boy all got busy planting the okra seeds.

The team hard at work:

The boys with their buckets of seeds:

Benjy wondering if he can join in!

visitor

2010-08-05T21:39:00.005+01:00

When I met a short-term French team in Parakou last month, it brought back memories of the first time I came to Benin, in 2002. What struck me was that way back then Benin felt so foreign … and now it feels so normal!

However, there are reminders now and then that West Africa is not the England I grew up in. Yesterday evening, as we ate tea, I noticed a strange creature with a very odd walk moving along our compound wall. I went out for a closer look and this is what I saw.

Yes – it's a chameleon! And here it is again, trying to get away from me!

I love its huge round eyes and funny-toed feet!

peanuts growing

2010-07-28T11:10:00.004+01:00

As you can see, the peanut field is coming along nicely, thanks to lots of hard work from the pastor's kids, who spent two whole days weeding it last week. School holidays here are spent working in the fields, at least part of the time.

outside in

2010-07-27T11:53:00.003+01:00

We had some good friends to stay here in Pèdè last weekend. They are a family we knew in our church in France – in fact Alexandra and I knew each other before we knew our husbands, and she was the first person to talk to me about SIM's work in Benin. She did a work placement in the hospital here in 2000, and Guillaume, like me, first visited Benin in 2002. This summer they've come back to Benin so that she can do a few weeks' work in the hospital and he can help with a music camp. Their first child was born just 6 weeks before Simon, and so it was exciting for us, if not for the kids themselves, to see them together again! All four kids got on well together, which gave us parents more time to chat over the weekend.

It was a refreshing break for us to spend time with old friends, to relax, reminisce and share news. Another unexpected benefit of them being here was that we were no longer the most “outside” people here. Suddenly we were the ones who knew people, who could explain how the church service goes, who were able to give a rudimentary translation of the sermon, and so on. For the first time I had the impression of being on the inside – as relative as that may be!

This is not to say that I am no longer experiencing culture shock, but at least it has been balanced out a bit by our weekend.

A photo of our church taken back in April:

the old man isn't snoring

2010-07-15T20:54:00.000+01:00

Last night, at about 9.30pm, we heard what sounded like children chanting, clapping their hands and banging tins far off in the village. The sound continued for quite some time, and gradually moved towards us. It got quite loud as they reached our house, then went quiet before starting up again and moving back into the village. (I didn't see anything ominous in this – we are the last house on our end of the village, and people don't generally go wandering off into nowhere in the dark!)

This morning, when Hélène arrived for work, I described what we'd heard and asked what it was. At first she looked puzzled, then she laughed and said it was the “cho-lo-lo”. That didn't mean anything to me, so she explained that it is a kind of rain dance. When rain is sorely needed, as it is at the moment, people shout and sing and bang things, praying for rain to come. She said that they are chanting, “Come here, come here, rain fall, rain fall!”

I don't know to what extent it is taken seriously, and my Monkolé wasn't really up to asking. She, as a Christian, didn't seem to put much stock by it, and I should imagine that here as much as anywhere some people may just join in to be part of the crowd. Do we really think much about the Gunpowder Plot as we watch our fireworks in the UK on November 5th? And do all those celebrating St Patrick's (especially in France) care about Irish patriotism or the great man who evangelised Ireland?

Anyway, 24 hours later the rain dance doesn't seem to have worked … a shame really since the fields desperately need water.

encouragement

2010-07-14T20:53:00.000+01:00

It is a relief to get back into language again after Pastor Samuel's month of annual leave. Encouraging too. Yesterday afternoon I called in to see a friend in the village, my seamstress, Emma. She's single, a bit younger than me (I suppose) and sings in the church choir. She greeted me warmly and brought two chairs out so that we could sit in front of her workshop. I know she speaks French because Grace told me so, but she has never spoken French with me. I'm very grateful, as it makes it that much more easy to stick to Monkolé. We caught up on each other's news, and I found I understood most of what she said, and was able to say more or less everything I wanted to say. It went more slowly than a normal conversation, of course, but it was reassuring to realise that I am making progress and can build on a fledgling friendship!

She told me she'd been away working in her family's fields. The fields are 18km away, so they go and stay there while they're working. Her brother, who is a lorry-driver, drove them out there, and they called him (on their mobile phone) when they wanted him to come back and get them back! She told me they'd planted cotton, corn, millet and soy, and that elephants had been getting into their fields! (My comprehension was helped by having learnt “elephant” in one language session, and by the fact that a friend who works for the Forestry Commission had told us that elephants have been getting into fields north of here and destroying people's crops.)

We also talked about my journeying, the French team who are going to be calling in to see us on Sunday, the state of the road between here and Parakou, and a friend who passed his Baccalauréat (equivalent of A Levels) in Niger and then got it validated in Benin. So all very satisfying for someone like me who likes to natter! I came home praising God for encouraging me and re-motivating me for language sessions!

speaking in tongues

2010-07-03T11:32:00.002+01:00

It is quite a privilege to be part of a bilingual family. During my undergraduate studies I was interested in language acquisition, particularly second language acquisition, and, by extension (though it is not the same thing) bilingualism. As I became more fluent in French, and found myself becoming comfortable speaking two languages and switching between them constantly, I wondered what it would be like to grow up with that. I couldn't help envying anyone who didn't have to put hours of effort into learning a second language!

When Marc and I decided to have children, I don't remember even considering the idea of bringing up our children monolingually. It would have seemed odd to me not to speak my mother tongue to my own children – despite not minding speaking French to my husband most of the time! – and since both of us understood both languages, there didn't seem to be any reason not to. What's more, since we knew by then that we were heading for Benin, where the official language is French but many missionaries are English-speaking, it seemed logical to give our kids a headstart.

We chose the OPOL (one person one language) model of bilingualism, whereby one parent speaks one language to the child(ren) and the other speaks the other. In our case that seemed the most natural way to do things.

To my shame as a linguist, I haven't done any formal study on Simon's language acquisition, though to be fair we've been pretty busy doing other study and moving countries since his birth. But from very early on I was impressed by the the way he obviously understood both languages. As he began to speak, we were living in England, and he was going to nursery in an English-speaking setting. So although we'd decided to deliberately speak French between us parents, his English developed faster than his French (in production, at any rate).

When we moved to Benin, for the first eight months he was hearing and speaking more French than English, as he was spending most of his time outside the family with French-speaking Africans. It was fairly obvious that his French production overtook his English at that point. After we moved to the village we were spending quite a lot of time with Grace, an English-speaking Canadian, and the Africans we now spend time with speak more Monkolé than French. His English has seemed to catch up again, and he has started speaking a few words of Monkolé! (So I guess soon I'll be able to say that we are a trilingual family!)

A few months ago another missionary we didn't know very well called in, and in our conversation he was asking about whether Simon spoke French or English better. So I decided to ask Simon:

Mummy: Which language do you speak best, Simon, English or French?
Simon: English.
Mummy (out of earshot of Simon): Peut-être si Papa pose la question en français la réponse sera différente!
Papa: Simon, c'est quelle langue que tu parles mieux, le français ou l'anglais?
Simon (with a huge grin): English!

There's nothing wrong with his sense of humour!

Simon always uses French to speak to Marc and English to me, except occasionally when he decides to joke with me and says something like, “Maman? Qu'est-ce que tu fais?” If I reply in French it makes him laugh. He's used to hearing me speak French, but not to him!

One thing I always wondered about was which language our children would use to speak to each other. It is very interesting – and I can't explain it – to see that Simon prefers to speak English with Benjy than French. A typical example occurred the other day when the following conversation took place at a mealtime.

Marc: Dis merci à Benjamin, Simon.
Simon: Merc- thank-you, Benjy!

Benjy already understands both English and French very well, and has himself begun using a few words – a real mixture! He says “Mumma” (a mixture of Mummy and Maman), “amam” (for both “amen” and “all gone”!), “au'voir”, “bravo” (in French), “aawo” (Monkolé for “no”!), “honey”, “brr-brm” (for any vehicle) and a whole host of animal noises!

As for my poor brain, now that I'm using a third language on a daily basis, sometimes when I switch out of Monkolé I find myself speaking English instead of French!

getting to grips with Monkolé

2010-06-29T11:28:00.003+01:00

Our method of language learning is not a traditional one, and we are finding it very useful! I don't want to go into all the details (see any of Greg Thomson's work if you want to know more), but just thought I would explain a few of the principles.

First of all, this method prefers not to talk about “language learners” – since in theory at least you could learn a language alone in a room with book – but “growing participants” – people becoming more and more involved in a language community.

The idea is that you can learn more quickly, and more naturally, by first understanding and responding to language input, and then allowing this passive knowledge to “surface” as active knowledge. This means that at first you don't concentrate on speaking, or on understanding grammar, but on responding appropriately to what someone says to you.

When you do start learning the language, it's important to realise that you will speak it badly. Adults often hate the idea of speaking with grammatical “mistakes” or sounding like a child or someone of limited intelligence, but unfortunately this is inevitable if you are going to communicate your own thoughts and not just memorized expressions.

Those of us who feel we are visual learners don't always like the idea of learning without writing anything down. But the only way to improve listening comprehension is to learn to understand spoken language – insisting on seeing the words won't actually help in the long run! (Few people in the real world speak with subtitles!) Since we are learning a language which is written phonetically, if we learn to hear and speak it accurately, we will automatically be able to read and write it pretty well too!

In a way, using a method like this is liberating when learning a language like Monkolé for which there are no formal courses, very little literature (the New Testament in Monkolé and a few literacy primers), few audio recordings (some sermons recorded for the radio) and for which no systematic grammatical analysis exists.

As parents of small children, we have the advantage of already having a good stock of toy animals for learning to talk about animals, plastic bricks for learning colours and positioning (left, right, next to, etc.), story books to look at with our language helper and so on! Compared to formal language lessons, this format is much more “kid-friendly”, as the children can wander in and out of the room where we are, and can take part in the activities if they want to.

The challenge for us is to discover what we need to learn. We realise that there are a lot of things we don't need to know how to talk about, because they are unknown to the Monkolé people, such as seaside holidays, mountain life, central heating, waltzing, MacDonalds – to name a random few! So what do people talk about? What is important to them? What are the everyday concepts that any small child is aware of, and which we need to know about? Our language helper can help us with this, but we can't just put the question to him, as these things are so obvious to him that he may not realise that they aren't obvious to us!

As for us, we may mistakenly want to learn to talk in categories unknown to the Monkolés. To take an easy example, it's no good asking them whether they describe ginger hair as “orange”, “red” or whether they have a specific word like “ginger”. None of the Monkolés have ginger hair, so there is no “normal” way to talk about it! There are sure to be less striking examples where it is more important to us to listen to what is said rather than asking for Monkolé translations of our way of thinking or speaking in English or French. I can't help but think that the old saying about having two ears and only one mouth applies to language learning too!

Here's Marc learning animals with Pastor Samuel:

oats and beans and barley grow ... actually just peanuts in this case!

2010-06-17T17:48:00.005+01:00

We got our first taste of fieldwork today. Admittedly it wasn't much more than a taste, but it was an interesting experience. It rained yesterday evening, and again for much of the morning, and when it stopped, the pastor's wife called in on her way to plant peanuts in the field next to our compound. We said we'd like to see how it was done. We aren't just trying to learn the language, we also want to participate in village life, and since we know nothing about farming at all, this seemed a good opportunity to get started!

I had always imagined that all fieldwork was a hard grind, but soon discovered that planting peanuts isn't so difficult … or at least not if you only do it for 15 minutes! In the photo below you can see Daniel – on the right – going down the rows making holes with the end of his stick. Hélène, Marc and Simon are dropping one peanut into each hole and closing them over with a foot. If you have good aim, you don't even have to bend your back to do it!

This was the second time the field had been planted. We were filling in the gaps where the first peanuts sown hadn't sprouted. We'll let you know how things grow!

Here's my foot next to the hole into which I've just dropped a peanut.

back in benin

2010-06-09T20:11:00.004+01:00

The long gap between posts is due to my trip to the UK for my sister Ali's wedding. Marc and the boys stayed in Parakou, and though we all missed each other, everything went smoothly for everyone. Here are a few photos from my time away...

I had hoped to put more than this, but I can't upload any more at the moment (dodgy connection, I think). Our family just before the wedding:

The happy couple triumphant after cutting all the way down through their cake:

power cuts are coming to Pèdè ...

2010-05-15T13:47:00.005+01:00

... say the cynical among us! But in between the cuts, we might even get mains electricity. It has been promised for a long time, but now look - the holes have been dug, and the poles are by the road. Admittedly not yet the right way up ... but they make useful benches in the meantime I noticed this morning!

A pole not currently being used either to carry electricity or as a bench...

fresh and green

2010-05-05T15:45:00.006+01:00

Last Monday we left Pèdè with the countryside around looking like this:

As you can see, the trees were green, but the ground was still very dry and brown. A couple of rains had done nothing to change that.

We arrived the same day in Parakou, 200km south, to find it looking like this:

Rainy season arrives, and works its renewing magic, earlier there than up North!

The day after we got back we experienced this: (This should be a video file showing the rain, but I'm not sure if it will work in this format.)

And here is Simon looking at the immediate consequences - you can tell by his clothing that the temperature hasn't gone down much!

uniformly different

2010-04-25T17:06:00.007+01:00

In the UK, any woman who enjoys dressing up for a party would be very embarrassed if she arrived to find that another woman was wearing the same dress as her. But here in Benin, when there are events like marriages or church Christmas parties it is common for a particular pattern of fabric to be chosen which all the guests are invited to buy to make their clothes from.

Our colleague, Grace, will be retiring next month, and so the Monkolé churches held a goodbye party for her last Saturday. We were told a few weeks ago that some material had been chosen, and we ordered enough to make outfits for the whole family. A seamstress from the village took our orders, and delivered our clothes on the Thursday before the party. It was our first experience of wearing this kind of “uniform”, and it certainly made us feel like we belonged!

It was very impressive to arrive at the party and to see literally hundreds of people wearing the same cloth. Here are a few photos taken during the morning:

Grace, the guest of honour.

One of the choirs.

The youth group dancing for Grace.

Simon in his outfit (we forgot to take photos of us parents, as usual!)

confusing culture

2010-04-15T21:30:00.003+01:00

One of the problems about culture shock is that it's hard to pin down exactly what is wrong. Part of this can be because in your own culture you know how things ought to go in any given situation, and you know when you are justified to feel angry or frustrated. If you are aware that your own cultural expectations are likely to be unreliable in judging such things in another culture, you are in for an uncomfortable time. You are often left feeling you are adrift in a sea of ambiguity and unrecognisable social cues.

Here are a couple of examples.

On Saturday, I found a piece of paper in our Post Office box saying that they had a parcel in my name (too big for the box) and that I should come to the Post Office with proof of identity to pick it up. The Post Office was closed on Saturday, so Simon and I headed back there on Monday. Marc had already told me that he couldn't figure out how things really worked when you went into the Post Office, so I had already decided to ask.

As we went in, I could see two desks with employees behind them, and what looked like a small hatch marked “Parcel pick-up”. At one desk there seemed to be two customers, and at the other, a group of 3 or 4 more customers. I knocked, without much hope, on the hatch, and there was no answer. A woman being served at the first desk said to the employees, “There's a lady here with a question!” which forced them to notice me, and I asked, “Is it this hatch or one of the desks to get my parcel?” One of the employees replied, “It's here, but you'll have to wait your turn!” (as if I was trying to jump the queue!) then said more politely, “Please take a seat,” indicating some plastic chairs the other side of the room.

This was reassuring, as it showed me that, 1) there was some kind of queuing system, and 2) they knew I was there and where I should be in the queue!

But then followed half an hour of the two customers at the desk going up to the desk, leaving again to come and sit down, being called back again, leaving again … the employees seeming to do nothing very much … and I realised that while it wouldn't be unheard of to wait for half an hour in a European Post Office, at least I would understand what was going on! You'd be in a long queue, hearing people called to different desks, watching the Post Office employees doing recognisable things like selling stamps, weighing parcels, dealing with people's accounts … and here I really didn't understand what was going on or why I wasn't being called. But I didn't feel I could be annoyed at being made to wait, because probably everything was being done according to the “rules”!

And yes, it is always said that Africans have a different idea of time, and don't mind waiting (a bit of an over-generalisation!), but when it is 37°C and you have a rather warm small boy sitting on your lap, you can't help thinking wistfully of your air-conditioned car sitting outside!

A funny twist to this was that a woman who arrived after me did go up to the desk before me, but the PO employee still called me up first (phew – the English side of me wouldn't have liked to see any queue-jumping!). He did then ask the woman what she wanted, in French, but she answered in another language (obviously not knowing French), and he rolled his eyes at me and said, “Oh, these other languages!” which was a bit odd, as I suddenly found myself included in the “us” of French-speakers against the “them” of non-French-speakers, where I'd been thinking of myself in the “them” of non-Beninese compared to the “us” of Beninese!! (No, I didn't attempt any Monkolé, as even if she had been Monkolé, I doubt I'd have understood her well enough to translate!)

The second example is a young man who called round today to ask us for some clothes. Not only do we not have a whole lot of clothes anyway, but we didn't know him from Adam so had no idea if he really needed them or would just go sell them at the local second-hand market! Marc chatted with him for a bit, then hinted that he should go away (if you call, “Au revoir!” a hint!) and the guy then leaned over the bonnet of our car and fell asleep there!

It seemed to us that it wasn't just our Western culture that made us think that was a bit strange, and that was confirmed when some Beninese colleagues came round and also found it very odd behaviour!

We've always been told that you have to be careful to welcome people here, but they told us we don't have to let just anyone into our house. They said you should be ready to talk to anyone, but that if you don't know the person it is fine for Marc, as head of the household, to talk to them at the gate of the compound, and only invite them in if he thinks they are genuine.

We are very thankful that we do have wise Beninese friends to advise us about this kind of thing. We really want to avoid offending anyone, but don't particularly want to be taken advantage of either!

(And in case you're interested, the parcel was well worth the wait!)

worlds apart

2010-04-05T16:36:00.003+01:00

We are about to begin a new phase in language learning with the pastor of the church here in Pèdè working with us as our language helper. I am currently trying to plan different ways for us to learn, to keep it interesting for both us and him. I also hope that some things will be accessible for Simon too, as it would be good for him to learn a bit more Monkolé (he currently knows a few greetings and numbers).

One idea I read about to help gain vocabulary in a new language is to use a children's book with lots of pictures. Simon has an excellent book like this, called “1000 Words and Pictures” (thanks, Grandmum!). However, when I looked at it to see if we could use it with our language helper, it turns out that the majority of the book will not be very useful to us.

We will be able to use pages such as: Bodies and families, actions, wild animals, opposites, colours and numbers, and shapes and comparisons.

Some pages are of no use to us because they illustrate places unknown to your average Monkolé, such as:

The Park
The Supermarket
The Railway Station
The Airport
The Seaside

Other pages might sound as if they should be useful, but the places illustrated bear little or no resemblance to the Monkolé equivalent:

The House and Garden
The Kitchen (theirs are outside)
Partytime
Builders and Buildings
Games and sports (they do play football, but skiiing? Judo? Ice hockey?)
Clothes (again, some are similar, but some very different)
Weather and Seasons (you can imagine!)
All about plants

This is, of course, no criticism of the book, which is brilliant for the purpose for which it is intended, and will be very good when we want to explain to Simon and Benjy about European seasons, houses, parks, parties and so on! But for our language learning we will need to be more imaginative. I recently read an article in which the author suggested taking photos of daily life in the local culture and using them to learn vocabulary and descriptions, and I think we may well use this idea.

We could come back to the picture book later when our Monkolé is better to discuss differences between our background and daily life here, but I think we first need to concentrate on local culture.

Speaking of which, the “chef d'arrondissement” here – I think kind of like a county councillor – recently got the opportunity to travel to France as part of a twinning programme. He is from our church in Pèdè, so we know him a bit. Before he went we chatted to him one evening about what he should expect, and insisted that he take one of Marc's jumpers with him, as he said he only had one. He was unconvinced … but when he got back he told us he'd had to wear it every night! He thoroughly enjoyed his trip – except the cold – and when Marc visited him on Saturday he was telling his friends about his journey in the aeroplane. It is interesting to have someone from our new world here visit our "old" one!

A Monkolé kitchen (coincidentally belonging to the "chef d'arrondissement"!):

Dry Season Bible School

2010-03-29T21:07:00.009+01:00

For the first four weeks of March, we were busy attending Monkolé Bible School. It is held every year during dry season, since that is the time when there is no work to be done in the fields, and therefore people have more time. It's open to anyone, and this time there were on average 15 men and 5 women who turned up each morning. The teachers were our Canadian colleague Grace and Monkolé Pastor Samuel (see photos below). Another one of the elders of the church gave a few lessons too. The sessions took place in an open-sided hut with a blackboard, and people sat both inside and outside (in the shade of a mango tree).

The subjects covered this year were baptism, eternal salvation and a study of several chapters of the Gospel of Mark.

It was good for Marc and me to hear so much Monkolé, and although we didn't understand most of it, some days we were encouraged by the improvement in our listening skills. The other useful thing about Bible school was that we were able to meet and start to get to know people from the church. It will make it easier for us to go out into the village and visit!

At the end of the month, after the last class, there was a party with Kool-Aid, popcorn and prawn crackers (not traditional fare in the village!) and you might notice a small gate-crasher in one photo!

the humble "pagne"

2010-03-20T16:10:00.010+01:00

Wax block printed material is sold here as a “pièce” of 12 yards length or a “demi-pièce” of 6 yards. I have been thinking about all the different uses for a “pagne”, which is 2 yards of this, and I've come up with the following (non-exhaustive) list, some of which are traditional uses, some of which were invented by us! The photos demonstrate a few of these uses:

- wear tied around the waist as a skirt
- make up into clothes
- tie around head
- carry baby (small baby with arms and legs inside, bigger baby with arms and legs out)
- use as nappies or folded into underwear for a woman's monthly needs
- if tied as a skirt, part of it can be twisted at the waist to hold money, as a built-in purse
- make up into curtains
- sleep under when it's hot instead of a big sheet
- tie up against car window to shade children
- hung up from mosquito net poles on bed so that children can't see each other during naptime!
- to make dressing-up clothes for kids
- to make a playhouse for kids
- as a safety belt for a baby on a sofa

I really don't know how we managed without "pagnes" in Europe!

mystery fruits

2010-03-08T15:52:00.008+01:00

So here are my mystery fruits ... any guesses?

And I also forgot to mention that oranges and lemons also grow here ... and that my strange boys love eating raw lemons ... here is the photographic evidence! I really don't think they are that deprived of Vitamin C!

munch munch lovely lunch

2010-03-05T13:49:00.003+01:00

A few people have asked about traditional foods here. Various cereals are grown in Benin, including corn, millet, rice, sorghum and soja. Rice is eaten in grain form, but the others are generally ground into flour and then made into “bouillie” (a sort of thick drink) or “pâte” (similar in texture to smooth but stodgy mashed potato). Bean flour is used to make savoury “cakes” - a great favourite of Benjy's, usually eaten with an oily, spicy sauce. There are other foods made from carbohydrates, such as gari and tapioca, made from manioc. Potatoes, yams and sweet potatoes are also grown in Benin, and pounded yams are another common dish.

Beef, chicken and guineafowl meat are widely available, although how often an average Beninese person can afford to eat meat is another question. In some towns pork can also be found. Fish can be found, particularly in the south, but it can be bought in dried or frozen form further north.

Most sauces served with “pâte” are based around onion and tomato, and a bouillon cube gives extra flavour! There is also the famous green “sauce gluante” (gluey sauce?!) made with okra. Spinach is popular too. Homemade peanut butter is often added to tomato sauce too.

Other vegetables available (depending on the season) are marrows, squash, carrots, cabbage, green peppers, red and green chilli peppers (hot!), aubergines, cucumbers and beans (both green and several types of dry).

Fruits include bananas, plantains, pineapples, mangos, papaya, guava and coconuts (or are they nuts really?!). Also some fruits I'd never seen before, but I'm leaving them for another post with photos! Peanuts and cashew nuts are also harvested in Benin, and can be bought all over the country.

Snacks range from “couli-couli” (kind of like baked peanut butter mixed with chilli peppers!) to sweet doughnuts.

Of course, I am far from being an expert in Beninese cuisine, and may be able to give a far more detailed and complete version of this in a few years time! I like cooking, and have enjoyed the challenge of learning to cook new meals. But I sometimes have to stop myself from thinking about the meals I used to love cooking and eating back in Europe! (I have already started a list in my head of foods I want to eat when I'm briefly back in the UK for my sister's wedding at the end of May!)

Benjy eating bean cake, with Maman Sera, who used to look after him during our language lessons in Parakou:

official at last!

2010-02-21T16:57:00.003+01:00

In the excitement of moving I forgot to say that I at last received my permanent Beninese driving license!! Hooray! The day before we moved, Esther said to me as I left home to do some shopping, "Weren't you going to see if your driving license is ready yet?" I had completely forgotten, with everything else on my mind, and wasn't very optimistic. But I thought I had better drop into the transport office to find out ... and it was there! The big boss said he'd made a special effort to get it for me, so it's a good thing I did go before we left!

The episode-before-last was that a month or so earlier one of the driving school instructors turned up at the mission headquarters with a photo of me, trying to track me down because they didn't have my contact details and they had found out that my passport wasn't enough, they needed to send in my birth certificate too. He'd been asking for "Rachel" (my middle name) so strangely enough hadn't found anyone who knew me, hence the clever idea of using a spare photo of me they had. Marie-Claire, who was on reception at the mission that day, thought it was a bit strange though, and went to ask someone else whether she should admit to knowing me or not!

So anyway, we'd been to the law courts with him so that they could get a photocopy of my birth certificate "legalised", and he'd thought it was unlikely that the license would be ready before we moved. But it was! And I now have a life-long Beninese driving license - so no need to renew an international one every year ... it has been worth it in the end!

greetings

2010-02-15T21:11:00.000+01:00

Yesterday after church a “delegation” was sent to greet us. Mainly the mums of the church, with assorted children, probably 30 or 40 altogether. They didn't stay long, just gathered in our porch, the pastor's wife said a few words of greeting, and then a couple of them prayed for us. It was a very welcoming gesture, and they seemed to appreciate me thanking them in Monkolé.

This morning we went out early into the village with the pastor to do some official visits. We were introduced to the local kings, mayor, imams and other important figures in village life. Lots of smiles and greetings. The greetings are quite ritualized, which makes them easier to learn! Pastor Samuel also explained who we were, and that we are going to take over from Grace, who also accompanied us. I am suffering from an affliction common to many language learners. When people are talking I understand the gist of most of what is said … unless people are speaking directly to me, in which case I understand nothing at all!

People were all very friendly and welcoming. We received lots of blessings (if you hear the word “God” at the beginning of a sentence you know you can reply with “amen”!) and Simon and Benjy were able to see lots of animals (cows, goats, sheep, dogs …).

It was pleasant to be out in the early morning, and we needed to go out that early to escape the heat. When we finished just after 9, it was already starting to feel uncomfortably hot in the sun! I didn't envy the guys from church who we saw working on digging a foundation for the new church building!

I'm afraid I haven't taken many photos of the village or its people yet. I'd rather wait until I know people a bit better.

settlers

2010-02-12T20:16:00.003+01:00

And here we are, settling into our new home in Pèdè (North Benin). So far, so good! We are being well looked-after by Grace, a Canadian missionary who has lived here for years (but will retire in May), and the pastor and his family. It does help when you already have friends around!

I do occasionally have a moment of feeling tired of moving and starting all over again – after our fourth major move in two and a half years. But then I remind myself that – God willing – this should be the last move for some years, and that this time I can enjoy decorating the house the way I want it, and get to know people with the perspective that these can be daily friendships that will last!

Life here is different again from life in Parakou. Our water is pumped out of our well into a huge plastic storage tank on the roof. Some of it then goes into a solar water heater (basically pipes heated by the sun), giving us lovely warm water for our evening showers. The rest is piped into the house, and some of that we put through a sand filter then a Katadyn filter for drinking water. It is hard to convince our boys that the water coming out of our taps is not for drinking!

Our electricity is provided by solar panels on our roof. We are being eased in gently, since Harmattan is the best season for solar power – plenty of sun during the daylight hours and then cool nights which mean the fridge doesn't use too much power overnight. We were hoping to use a borrowed kerosene fridge during hot season, but it is proving hard to get it working properly. Marc has some tiny solar panels my Grandpa gave him which are powerful enough to charge our mobile phones! We try to make sure we remember to charge the laptop, and run the bread machine or the food mixer, in the middle of the day, when we have plenty of power.

Having had to get used to a limited range of food products available when we arrived in Parakou, now it's time to get used to having even fewer things on sale! The only Western-style cheese we can get is “La vache qui rit” (soft spreading cheese), and fresh fruit and vegetables are scarce, as it's hotter and drier here than in Parakou. I did manage to buy onions, tomatoes, okra, cabbage, carrots, bananas and oranges, so that's better than nothing! And I have some vegetables I canned in Parakou, and some fruit I dried there too.

I make my own granola, yoghurt and bread (Grace is selling us her bread machine) and if we want cake or biscuits I have to make them too. Almost all meals have to be made from scratch. Fortunately I enjoy spending time in the kitchen! (And it's a good thing we like the taste of “scratch” - haha!)

We have help with the housework, as we did in Parakou. The pastor's wife worked for Grace when Grace was living in this house and she is now working three days a week for us and two days a week for Grace in the smaller house Grace has now. She comes highly recommended by Grace! We have also taken on a younger girl to do the clothes- and nappy-washing, since we have such a lot and it all has to be done by hand. I did find it a bit strange when we arrived in Parakou to have people working for us, but it helps us enormously, and the provision of jobs is useful for the local economy. The side benefit is that it means we get to know some of our neighbours very well. Esther, who cleaned for us in Parakou, became a good friend. Here it is also good to hear Monkolé spoken and to be forced to use our own Monkolé, limited though it is!

Our house:

the day before...

2010-02-01T22:05:00.005+01:00

Today had the potential to be stressful. The day before moving day always does, but when your contact for getting a taxi to transport your stuff announces at 9.45 that the taxi you thought was coming tomorrow is turning up today ... anytime from 10 onwards ... well, it is a bit of a surprise, to put it mildly! After the initial shock, I realised that actually we'd managed to be so well-organised (praise God!) that we just about had enough stuff to fill a taxi, so I just threw some more things into a couple of crates and a suitcase, and by the time the taxi eventually arrived at 11 they had plenty.

Here is the taxi getting loaded up...

It actually worked out really well, as all that stuff was out from under our feet, and our friend Abraham who went up to the village with the taxi will be able to get back tomorrow morning and go back up again with tomorrow's taxi (just taking a few last boxes which won't fit in our car). Our bulky stuff left this afternoon on a lorry transporting cement from Lomé (Togo) to somewhere in Niger. We're just hoping no one will tomorrow be getting too excited about what "came off the back of a lorry"! The photo below shows the lorry - though they were going to cover our stuff up with tarpaulin so it wouldn't be quite so obvious!

We have also been very well-looked after, with one or other of our neighbours giving us lunch and tea today, and breakfast tomorrow! Plus another missionary has invited us to lunch en-route tomorrow, and our co-worker up in the village has promised us our evening meal! We do feel very blessed and carried - many thanks to all those praying, too!

moving on ... again!

2010-01-26T10:45:00.002+01:00

We are getting ready to move in a week's time. So there isn't anything very interesting to report. It is like moving anywhere - boxes and chaos all over the place. We are, however, wrestling with some questions we wouldn't have if we were moving house in Europe. There are no removal men (as such), and you certainly can't pop online and book a drive-your-own van with Hertz or Avis. Fortunately we don't have a lot of furniture to move - we are buying up quite a few things that were already in the house - but we do have a few awkward things like a 2m long desk and our double bed and mattress. It looks as if we will just use two taxis and our car ... but I'm not sure that will give us enough space, despite the ability of these taxi drivers to get an awful lot in and on their taxis (I'll try to remember to take photos on moving day!).

Marc has been busy converting mobile phone chargers into transformers for our 12 V fans. An ingenious idea of our neighbour's to avoid having to install a 12 V circuit in the house. Marc did find it a little difficult to explain to the person selling the chargers that he didn't care which brand of phone they were for, it was only the voltage they produce that interested him!

happy birthday, Benjy!

2010-01-25T09:49:00.005+01:00

Now:

And then:

colour blind

2010-01-20T20:33:00.004+01:00

Until today, during these first eight months here in Africa, Simon had never mentioned skin colour nor given any indication that he realised his skin wasn't the same colour as most other people's. Then today at lunchtime, he was talking and laughing with our friend Abraham, and suddenly stopped and looked at him again, turned to me and said, "Oh! He's black! He's not like us. Why?" I gave a brief, three-year-old-friendly explanation of skin pigment and sun protection, and that satisfied him. I'm sure the subject will come back, probably when he realises that it's his skin colour (and not just his cuteness and good looks) which gains him so much attention from strangers here.

january doesn't bring the snow ... but other changes are ahead!

2010-01-07T20:28:00.001+01:00

The holidays are over and it's back to life as usual … except that we haven't found out what that is yet! The month of January is actually going to be a month of preparation for our move to the Monkolé village of Pèdè. It has been good to live in the large town of Parakou as we adjust to life in Benin, and it has given us the chance to get to know the other missionaries here. We have also very much enjoyed the house we have had in Parakou, as it is big, light and airy. It was a blessing to be able to start to learn the Monkolé language during our time here, but even that will be easier once we're living in the community where it's spoken.

The missionary currently living in the big house in Pèdè is going to retire back to Canada in June, and she kindly said that she would move into the small house for a few months so that we could move straight into the big house. There is some work to be done where the concrete is crumbling around windowframes, and the whole house needs to be re-painted, so Marc is going to go up to Pèdè next week with a mason and a painter. They will help Grace to move out, and then get the work done.

We will then need to leave the paint some time to dry and lose the worst of its new-paint smell, but during that time Marc will probably go up to Pèdè again with another colleague who will make a few alterations to the electrical system to make it more efficient. The system is solar-powered, but we are likely to use a generator to pump well-water and a kerosene-powered fridge to make sure that we have enough electricity for all five of us (our family and the other missionary).

We have bought curtain material, and need to get curtains and new sofa cushions made up. It is a novel experience to realise that we are moving into what will – God willing – be our family home for years to come!

I stayed with Grace in the big house in 2003. When I left, the translation team told me they were hoping I'd come back to take over from Grace when she retired. At the time I thought that God might possibly be leading me to do that … but I never dreamt that I would actually be back with a husband and two small boys!

school day

2010-01-06T20:17:00.006+01:00

On Saturday we took a trip out to Nikki – 100km (2 hours drive) away – to visit Anni. Anni is a Dutch missionary also serving with SIM here in Benin, and she was our neighbour when she came to Parakou for a while during the school holidays last summer. She teaches at the Nikki Girls' School, a Christian school which gives girls discipleship training while training them in practical skills such as knitting, sewing or weaving.

We had been intending to visit ever since she went back there in September, and this was likely to be our last chance before we move North. On the way there we took the tarmac road as far as N'dali, and then the dirt road from there to Nikki. I realised that I got far more car sick on the tarmac road (with all the braking and swerving to avoid holes) so on our way back we took an alternative route which is dirt road all the way back to Parakou.

Benjy was the star of the show when we arrived at the school. All the girls wanted a turn holding him, and at first he wasn't at all bothered, even when he was carried off out of our sight. But eventually he decided he wanted to go back to his mum, and I then had the difficult job of fending off new girls who turned up and tried to pull him out of my arms!

We saw around the school – a classroom, a sewing room, the knitting room – and Anni also showed us the current accommodation – just small huts with concrete floors – and the site where they are going to build a new dormitory. They will also have an indoor kitchen, since at the moment the girls have to cook all their meals outside. Fine at this time of year, but less fun during rainy season!

We also enjoyed catching up with Anni over a meal. We do appreciate the friendship of the other missionaries here, from so many different backgrounds.

Some photos from our trip:

a hot and happy Christmas...

2009-12-29T20:48:00.002+01:00

Did we have a happy Christmas? I will answer that question with this one-take, self-timer photo taken after our Christmas dinner...

and the winner is...

2009-12-23T20:48:00.002+01:00

... well, no one guessed exactly ... and I'm going to put the answer to last week's mystery object into the comments section of this post so that no one reads it by mistake before looking at the last post ...

mystery object

2009-12-15T21:43:00.003+01:00

Can anyone guess what this is? (Please don't answer and spoil it for everyone else if you actually know!)

seasonal confusion

2009-12-10T13:44:00.000+01:00

When I was a child, my aunt and uncle were living in South Africa, and one year they kindly gave us a calendar which said on it “It's sunny today in South Africa”. This wasn't a message we necessarily wanted to hear on a gloomy November day in England. Now that they are living in England, I'm tempted to make a calendar for them which says “It's sunny today in West Africa”!

But jokes aside, I have realised that it is very odd for me, as an English girl, to be living somewhere where the weather is so stable. At the moment we never have to wonder how the weather will be the next day, as we know it will be sunny but fresh in the morning, temperatures around 32°C by the afternoon, and cooler again in the evening and overnight. It's reassuring … particularly since this kind of weather suits me very well. It may be less comfortable in dry season when the predictability means we know that temperatures are going to be up near 40°C every day!

I have at last been able to feel a little bit as if Christmas is coming. Yesterday I went to the rehearsal of the missionary kids' Christmas Presentation, and hearing them singing carols helped me believe it might really be December after all. We are planning to buy a Christmas tree this week and get it up and decorated this weekend. Fake, of course!

yellow fever jab

2009-12-03T16:17:00.001+01:00

The Beninese government is having a Yellow Fever vaccination campaign, offering free vaccinations to everyone, this week. Anyone entering Benin over the age of one year is checked for Yellow Fever vaccination as they go through customs, so all of us except Benjy had been jabbed already. But Benjy is now old enough to have it – he is ten months and it is recommended from nine months – so we thought we'd take advantage of the offer of a free jab.

I went with Esther (our home help) who mentioned she wanted to go today and was very happy to have us come along too. Marc is in Cotonou so it was just me and the boys. We had heard a rumour about one of the places it could be done where there would be less queueing, so went there. It was difficult to find, which might explain the lack of crowds! In fact when we got there Esther was able to be vaccinated immediately, but they told us to take Benjy elsewhere and ask for the person in charge.

So we drove up the road to another dispensary, where Esther jumped the (not very long) queue to say we'd been sent there. She then called me in, I answered a few questions about Benjy, and he received his injection.

The cross-cultural confusion I have is that I'm still not sure a) why Benjy couldn't be injected at the first place, and b) whether we jumped the queue at the second because we're white, because we were sent there from elsewhere, or for some other reason, like Benjy's age. However, I'm not too bothered about not understanding since the important thing is that Benjy has had the vaccination now!

family

2009-11-29T10:04:00.002+01:00

Time for some family news, I think!

Last week the weather shifted quite abruptly into harmattan. We had had a “short dry season” at the end of rainy season, and all of a sudden the harmattan wind began to blow and evenings, nights and mornings became much cooler. We still have temperatures in the low 30s during the heat of the day. The dust is already making itself at home in our house, so I can't imagine what things will be like in a couple of months' time!

The change of seasons has brought a cold, and we are all a bit snuffly at the moment.

Simon is paradoxically seeming more and more sure of himself but also revealing a sensitive side to his character. He is very friendly, and loves to go visiting other people on the compound, yet the slightest upset will have him wailing. He is also finding it hard to adjust to having a mobile brother, as he realises that his toys are no longer safe!

Benjy mastered crawling a few weeks ago and has also cut 5 teeth in the last three weeks. Sleep has never come to him easily, and teething has just made things worse! We have only had about five unbroken nights sleep in the last ten months! We are thankful that God has given us strength for daily life and work despite this.

I am very happy to be here living in Benin after years of waiting to get here. I can see that God had the right timing, although at times I got frustrated. We can see the way that the time was used to put so many things into place that helped us to feel more at home when we eventually got here.

I'm enjoying the language learning and getting to know our Beninese colleagues. The climate agrees with me too. So far it has never been very very hot, and I am happy to be missing out on the cold of a European winter (with just a few nostalgic pangs for autumn leaves and clear frosty days). I was re-reading “A Year in Provence” (by Peter Mayle) recently, and smiled in recognition when I read: “Socks were a distant memory.” I love being able to go barefoot in the house. And despite what those who remember me living in jeans might think, I love wearing long swishy skirts all the time!

Fortunately I have always preferred to cook from scratch, as there isn't any other way to cook out here. Occasionally in a lazy moment I do wish I had a few pots of pasta sauce in the cupboard! I have got into canning – squash, beans, pineapple and papaya so far – and yesterday we made marmelade from the grapefruits growing on our compound. The missionary who gave me the canning jars also gave me a fruit drier, and I have dried papaya and apple slices and look forward to trying other fruits!

I do enjoy having help around the house – and it would be difficult to manage without it here since all our clothes and nappies are hand-washed. We have been blessed with an extremely conscientious and cheerful house-help, who also loves the boys and is very good with them. We are going to miss her when we move!

I have always said I'd like to live more simply, and being here has forced me to do that. It is refreshing to strip away non-essentials and realise how much more you appreciate treats when they are fewer and harder to find!

Over the years I've belonged to some quite different kinds of churches, and here is different again. I love the lively music, but struggle a bit to concentrate on the sermon when the French microphone always seems to be turned down lower than the Bariba microphone – plus I'm sitting at the back with mums and kids wandering in and out, with at least one of my boys sitting on me getting bored. There is no crèche here – if your baby makes a fuss then you just take yourselves outside and sit on the steps of the church in the sun, or stand under a tree. Since Benjy's morning nap is now bang in the middle of the morning I have now missed a few Sundays. Not something I necessarily recommend – and sometimes Marc stays at home and I go to church – but I'd rather have some (oh-so-rare!) peace and quiet at home while Benjy naps than stand outside church trying to manage an overtired, hyperactive baby!

I don't want to complain, but also don't want to give too rosy a picture of life here. We do, of course, miss friends and family. New friendships are always harder work, and particularly when they are cross-cultural – which is true here of both our relationships with other missionaries and with the Beninese. Internet access – or lack of such – is also an ongoing frustration. I miss having a choice of foodstuffs in big European supermarkets. Power cuts sometimes come at the most inconvenient moments. Our boys are wonderful, but they do try our patience at times, and with broken nights we have been suffering from tired-all-the-time syndrome. Life has its downs as well as its ups, but I prefer to focus on the ups – and I think there are more of them, overall!

PS And if you are wondering why I haven't said much about how Marc is finding life here, you'll just have to go and visit his blog to find out (he writes some of it in English).

well-established

2009-11-21T11:27:00.002+01:00

Yesterday I thought to ask Abraham where the word “Monkolé” – describing his people and their language – came from. I wondered if it was linked to the fact that “moko” in Monkolé means “man” (the “o” after the “m” is automatically nasalised) as I had read that many tribes, worldwide, have a word for themselves which just means “the men” or “the people”. But in fact, according to Abraham, in this case it has nothing to do with that.

The Monkolé language is closely related to the Yoruba language, and their common ancestors came from Nigeria. Abraham told us that the people migrated west to the North of Benin (not that it was called Benin at the time!) and then some of them suggested going back again. The others answered them in Yoruba, “Mon ko lé” which apparently means “we've already built houses”, ie. we don't want to go back as we are well established here.

Amazing what you discover through one simple question!

PS And on the subject of being well-established, today we are celebrating six months in Benin!

call a spade a spade and a "maman" a "maman"!

2009-11-18T14:38:00.003+01:00

Marc wrote a blog post about his many names, and I thought that it was such a good idea that I would write my own about mine!

Back in 2005, when I was finishing my PhD, a friend from Cameroon told me that when I got to Africa I would find that if I had a doctorate, people would always call me “Docteur”. At the time, this didn't sound too bad to me – I felt like it would be nice to have my perseverance and hard work acknowledged! As my doctorate faded into the past though, I realised that “Docteur” had a rather formal sound to it, and I was quite relieved when I arrived here and discovered that what most of the Beninese call me is “Maman” (French for “mum”) or “Maman Simon/Benjamin”. I'd rather be “Maman” than “Madame”, and it just isn't the done thing here for someone younger than me to call me by my first name, so “Maman” suits me fine!

Of course, Benjy isn't talking yet, and Simon actually calls me “Mummy”, unless he's talking about me to someone in French, in which case he says “Maman” with a Beninese accent, making it sound more like “Mamain”.

Being “Maman” also gives me the status of being a respectable, married woman with children … and so I'm not plagued with marriage proposals as I was when I was here short-term as a single girl!

In Monkolé “Maman Simon” is “Iyayie Simon” (if I write it as it sounds) so I'm getting used to that being me too!

Marc and I rarely call each other by our first names, we usually use “chéri(e)” and were very amused when Simon started to call Marc “chéri”. I told him he could say “Papa chéri” (kind of equivalent to “Dearest Daddy”), and it has stuck, which is sweet.

The other thing we are called quite a lot is “baturé”, which means “white person”, and it is usually shouted at us by kids on the street. It doesn't bother me really, and almost as often we will be greeted by polite children who say “bonne arrivée” (“welcome”) which always earns them a big smile from me!

In Beninese families the children have their own first names but there are also names which mean “first son”, “second son”, “first daughter” and so on. So Simon can also be called “Woru” and Benjy is “Shabbi” (or in Monkolé “Sabi” as they don't have the sound “sh”). As a first daughter, I am “Nyo”. Simon knows who “Woru” and “Shabbi” are, and Benjy responds when addressed as “Shabbi” (Esther often calls him that).

How many different names do you have?

change of plans

2009-11-14T11:56:00.000+01:00

We had a small problem at the annual conference. His name was Benjy. That is a bit unfair, but it does seem as if when we said we were going to our Spiritual Life Conference, Benjy misheard, and thought it was Sleepless Nights Conference! A change of environment or bed always upsets his night-time sleeping – which has never been the best – and this was the worst we'd had so far. The first night at the conference I only got four and a half hours sleep, in several bits. The day which followed saw an overtired Simon refusing to do anything his parents asked him to, and Benjy spending an hour in the afternoon screaming because he was so short on sleep but still couldn't drop off! The second night, Benjy didn't once sleep an entire hour without waking up and crying – and we were worried he'd wake up our neighbours so kept taking him out to the car, the only place where his screams were muffled!

All this meant that by the second morning I was at the end of my tether. I knew I couldn't possibly go on with so little sleep. The days were hard enough, but at night I was feeling really desperate. So Marc went to see our Director, who talked with her Deputy and his wife, and they agreed that although Conference is supposed to be obligatory, for our own sakes it was better that we go home. I was very relieved to know that the nightmare was going to be over, but very sad to be leaving Conference early. Despite everything, we had appreciated being with the other SIM missionaries, plus others from our partner missions, and felt like part of one big family. This was reinforced by the reaction to the announcement that we would be leaving – many people came and told us that they understood but were sad to see us go, and assured us of their prayers. Several also made a point of saying when they would next see us.

Fortunately we will be able to listen to the teaching and the individual missionaries' reports, as they are all being recorded.

We travelled home to Parakou after lunch on Wednesday with a colleague who had to leave to go to meetings in South Africa. He was glad of the lift, and we were glad of his company and a fresher driver to share the strain of driving on pot-holed roads! It took four and a half hours, and we arrived in Parakou in a thunderstorm, which was slightly weird as we thought the rainy season was over! That night we got over nine hours sleep, with only two short feeds, nicely spaced four hours apart. Such a blessing! And quite a confirmation that we'd made the right decision to leave.

We'd dropped Esther, our home help, off in Djougou (a city two and a half hours away) on our way to Togo on Monday. Funnily enough, the taxi she took to come back to Parakou overtook us while we were having a break at the side of the road, and she yelled greetings out of the open window as they zoomed past. She then turned up for work at 8.45 the next morning, which was very helpful as we had a lot of dirty washing!! She's always fun to have around, too, and the boys like to watch her work – or even help out.

international travel

2009-11-08T20:07:00.002+01:00

Tomorrow we will get to visit our second West African country (if you don't count Libya, where we changed planes on our way here!). We are driving over to Togo, for the week-long annual conference of SIM Benin-Togo. It's being held at the SIL Centre in Kara and about 70 of us are going - SIM missionaries, TWR missionaries and a few missionaries from other missions also serving in Benin or Togo. Benjy will be the youngest there, but there are quite a lot of kids, which should make it fun for both our boys. Sleep tends to get messed up (even more than usual) when we travel, so that should make it "fun" for both us parents! Ah well, it should still do us good to get a break from the usual routine of language lessons and spend some time being taught and getting to know the others better.

Back soon!

please, thank-you and blue skies

2009-11-06T09:44:00.000+01:00

We discover interesting things every day about the culture here through discussions with our language helper, Abraham. For example, politeness works differently. “Please” and “thank you” are used, but not in the same way as we would use them or at the same time. If you give someone something, they may thank you at the time, but they will make absolutely sure the following day to say, “Thank you for yesterday!” (When we forget to do so, they must think us very ungrateful.)

There was another example that came up in a sentence Marc had written in his “homework”. He wrote that he had asked the tailor to make him some clothes. Abraham said, “No, that's the verb 'to ask', you want to say 'I told the tailor to make me some clothes'”, with the implication that since the tailor's job is to make clothes and he obviously wants custom, you don't need to ask him to do it, you can just tell him to!

On a completely different subject, Marc commented the other day that the weather means we now feel further from Europe than we did a few months ago. In the European summer, when temperatures were in the 30s there, it didn't seem that strange to be living in the heat here. But now that Europe is heading into winter, our cloudless skies and hot sunshine do make it hard for us to believe that it is November!

verb me a verb!

2009-10-29T16:12:00.002+01:00

If you are learning English, getting the hang of the verb “get” will get you (aha!) a long way. It is, however, difficult to grasp all the different nuances of meaning it can carry, especially when used with different prepositions as a compound verb. “Get on”, “get off”, “get with”, “get at” and so on. When I was in France, some fellow doctorate students asked me to proof-read an article they'd written about several uses of “get”. I had to disagree with them when they said that “to get through” a bad experience was the same thing as “to get over” it. (To me, “getting through” something simply means surviving it, whereas “getting over” it implies that it no longer bothers you. You could say about someone, “he got through the war, but he never got over it”.)

In Monkolé, we've noticed two verbs which have a wider meaning than their literal translation in French or English. The first literally means “to find” and the second literally means “to leave”. So they would be used in sentences such as “I've found a friend” or “I left the house this morning”. But “to find” is also used in sentences which would literally be translated as “I've found years thirty-three” (ie. I'm thirty-three years old) or when haggling over prices “francs one hundred won't find” (ie. I won't go down as far as one hundred francs). “To leave” can be used in an expression which literally means “why it left”, meaning “because”.

Abraham used another expression containing this verb which appealed to me a lot. He and I were having our recurring, good-natured argument about whether it's true that “people say various things, but what's in the dictionary is the real Monkolé”. (He says it is, I say that what's in the dictionary is an arbitrary standard form.) Anyway, he was saying something (in French), and I was interrupting him (also in French) because I was sure I'd heard him say the same things many times before, and he said, “jom a chucku titan”. It means “first let me fall [before you rush to pick me up]!”

Still on the subject of language, it is interesting to see the way that Simon's linguistic competence is developing. When we arrived in Benin he spoke more English than French (though he understood French as well as English) after having spent 18 months in England with only his Papa speaking French to him. Nowadays, though, he spends more time speaking French than English, and it is quite obvious that his French has overtaken his English (at least in production, probably not in comprehension). A lot of the time he is speaking French with the Beninese, and we have already noticed a Beninese accent creeping in on certain words (his nasal vowels are rising, to be technical!). He also knows greetings in Baatonu and Monkolé, and we are quite sure that after a few months in the village his Monkolé will have outstripped ours!

Benjy is babbling away, and rather than him learning our language from us, Simon seems to be learning Benjy's language from him. At mealtimes Benjy will say something like “da-da-da” and Simon will repeat “da-da-da”, then Benjy will say “gung-gung-gung” and once again Simon will repeat it!

verb me a verb!

2009-10-29T16:12:00.001+01:00