- San Scripture Engagement 5th workshop Khwe held in Samuchina at Krokovango
I am seeing continued signs leading towards local Khwe ownership by their readiness to come each session and how they are growing in their participation, as well as that they would prefer to give up a meal instead of miss a needed workshop session. They also worked hard to the last minute of the workshop and were not occupied much with their departures.
Respectfully submitted,
Durk Meijer, Wycliffe RTS Ethno Communications Specialist
December 2:
We continue preparing stories and I set up a recording studio so we can record any stories that are ready for further testing and those that are ready for a final consultant check. The recordings of Gen. 11:1-9 (was not recorded in studio and quality is marginal with lots of background noise and different ambiance and background noise for one re-recorded verse); Mt. 25:1-13 (was already recorded in D’kar) are finalized and can be used as a standard. Pieter was ready to tell Matthew 4:1-11 and I did a recording in the studio for testing. Pieter did very well, but due to lack of time is was not process any further. The recording of Mt. 1:18-25 (recorded on site in studio) with Sonner went very well. It was checked but needs a re-recording of one verse (the re-recording could not be done yet, as Hessel did the checking after most of the people, including the story-teller, had left already. One team had been preparing Genesis 4:1-16 and it took very long to consultant check it due to the transcribed story in Khwedam having quite a lot of things that needed to be adjusted, as well as that the story had not been storied in the communities. I tried recording it in the studio with James, but the existing recording with its many retakes of small phrases shows the challenge if a story is not known well. There was no time to edit the recording. The whole process of internalizing and sharing it in the community, so it can really can become the story of each individual members of the teams or at least the people who will serve for the recording of the final product. We finished about 15:30 since Eben had to leave for a workshop that started the next day in Zimbabwe.
December 1:
All day is spent preparing, back translating, and consultant checking stories. The creation story is processed with Anton as translator through the 7th day and we ask for some of them to memorize it, so it can be consultant checked the following day (there is no opportunity to practice sharing it outside the group due to our workshop venue). Everybody is working very hard, but since the most of stories are not known well and since we discover quite some errors in the transcribed stories, is the progress very slow.
November 30:
We go to Tsodilo (also see Hessel’s report) and when they discuss their heritage there seems to be an interesting affinity to their place of heritage despite that nonoe of them ever have been there before. Some want pictures taken as a memory of being there and a few of them even lie down in the cave overhang and pretend sleeping there for the picture. There seems to be a general consent that they definitely believe that this is a place of heritage, but not as a start, since that conflicts with their understanding from the Bible. Despite the stories that they grew up with, most express that they don’t see Tsodilo with great spiritual value, but they are curious why the Khwe came to this place and why they left it (there is some history that the Ju/’hoansi chased them away). In the evening Lucas shares from Acts 17 about the God’s of Athens, including altar of the unknown god.
November 29:
First we bring the four men from Namibia up to speed of what we processed the previous day and complete the inventory with their input. The rest of the day we divide into three teams. One group that can back translate into Afrikaans (with Lucas), one into English (with Eben), and the third group processing the creation account from Genesis 1:1 to 2:3 (with me). Annah knows the first day of creation pretty well and we add the second day as I model the process once more. After that they are divided into groups of two to each take one or two days. By the end of the afternoon little progress has been made and it is clear that they do still need a mentor to help with the process. When I serve as such, two of them internalize the third and the fourth day pretty quickly. Hessel arrives in the early evening.
November28:
We start our session with the people from Shakarawe and Kaputura present. The Namibians need to vote first (election day) and they arrived with Lucas van Vuuren towards the evening after we finish. After connecting again and praying together, I ask them what they see as the focus of our project. MoKoja is quick to answer and he says that it so they can have the Scriptures in their heart. After discussing this some, it was clear that their hope was to have these scriptures become part of their life and that the recorded product would be like their reference point for checking and remembering the story (only the Botswana side that is present). In the midst of talking about the focus it suddenly shifts to the group outlining the sacrifice they make and their physical needs that should be considered through some kind of payment. John is not even wearing shoes to emphasize the issue (he does later wear a nice pair), but in general their concerns are real issues of life that should not be overlooked. Eben is well aware of the issues, but at this point their commitment has been mainly in participating in the workshops, which many others might like to join too since they are have lots of food to eat and they have an opportunity to learn new things that are dear to their hearts. He is working on a plan to get this addressed across the San cluster with guidelines in place, so there won’t be any issues of jealousy of who gets paid, how much, productivity, etc. After we listen well all their concerns, we ask them to let Eben address the issue further towards the end of the workshop. Next we talk about the need to work together and that all of us have different gifts as participants of a team. I use a rope with its many strands as a visual example and we talk about the different gifts they have. John has transcribed most of the recorded stories (including those not finalized), as well as three that have not yet been recorded (see list on page 2). In the afternoon we start to look at who internalized and storied the previous processed stories and how they were shared in the communities. It seems that nobody really has done this at all and that there is ample room for the stories to be repeated in the communities (again only the Botswana side is present). We finish the day with making an inventory of what needs to be done and end up with the list on page 2.
It is important that the process includes proper checks and balances, yet fits the skills and needs of the group.
We also talked about the need to address in the workshop that the work needs to be team effort and that there are different tasks that that may fit some people better than others, yet that they work closely together. At this point the people from Namibia have quite some experience in doing some translation work at a local level. They also were specifically selected by Lucas as key people to be part of the project. They are a small group. On the Botswana side there are some key people involved, but their gifts may not fit some of the tasks needed, as well as that some of the people need more training and experience to do the needed tasks well and that there still is a need for other people to be involved with the right skills and gifting. At the last workshop we agreed that the next workshop would be once the stories listed below are translated, memorized/internalized, engaged with, shared and tested in the community. I explained that the first time around all the different communities will work on the same stories, so we can learn how to deal with the differences of Khwedam spoken in the different communities and get the opportunity to learn what they are doing and sharing the experiences when we come back together again. The stories processed were part of a set of stories to help people connect with God and building a foundation:
- Genesis 1:1 to 2:3 has been translated and processed by some, but needs to be translated, processed, memorized/internalized, engaged with, shared and tested in the community. The best way to do this may be to take each week one day at a time, then repeat telling all the previous days every time untill the whole story is complete.
- Genesis 4:1-16 has been translated and processed by some, but needs to be translated, processed, memorized/internalized, engaged with, shared and tested in the community.
- Genesis 11:1-9 has been translated and processed by most in the group, but needs to be further processed, memorized/internalized, engaged with, shared and tested in the community.
- Luke 10:25-37 has been consultant checked and recorded, but still needs to be internalized and tested in the different communities.
- Luke 15:11-32 has been translated and processed by some, but needs to be translated, processed, memorized/internalized, engaged with, shared and tested in the community.
- Luke 18:9-14 has been translated and processed by most in the group, but needs to be further processed, memorized/internalized, engaged with, shared and tested in the community.
I encouraged for the community teams to meet at least twice each week for a minimum of three hours each time. Before we leave we pray and commit the work to God and Shakarawe is setting their first team meeting to be on July 15 in the afternoon. There was a good group interested to come together and the afternoon is chosen to include a few ladies that have to work in the mornings. Eben will work to get the group started in Kaputura, Lucas will facilitate helping the people from Namibia (there are two communities involved that are about fourty kilometers apart), and Johani will get the Platfontein community of both the !Kung and Khwe started in anticipation of a Scripture Engagement Exposure workshop to help them get going from August 7 to 9, 2014. Johanni will lead the coordination of this workshop involving as many as possible churches in the community. We discussed what happened in the context of the things we agreed the previous workshop to do.
- I wondered how much value the agreed upon action points of my reports are in the overall planning. It seems that it had not really been referred to.
- The Platfontein community at this point will work predominantly on their own goals and is not part of this workshop or the process of preparing the Scripture passages. Eben has followed through with further visits after the August workshop and he is involving people in the general area to be able to follow through with them more consistantly.
- Lucas was able to process with the Namibia team. The team has been working diligently on some of the stories they have chosen (Matthew 1:18-25, Matthew 4:1-11, Matthew 25:1:13). Lucas indicated that doing the same stories over again would become boring, but I asked if they were really internalized and used in the community in the first place beyond the workshop where we processed the stories. I plan to ask the participants of the workshop to see what the real situation is, since at the consultant checking/recording session in D’kar it didn’t look like the stories we agreed upon were known or had been processed. They even worked on re-recording Luke 10:25-37 for a whole day, which had been completed as indicated in the list from the action itmes from the last workshop.
- We again realize that what we’re doing is a new way for the people (not only leaders are involved and Scripture becomes a key component to engage with instead of a reference point in teaching) and it involves the community from the start and the stories should become part of the life of the people.
- Eben is looking for the proper people to be involved as the core team on the Botswana side. Together with Eben’s heavy travel schedule making him less available than needed, this has resulted that not as much has been achieved.
- Eben also shared the need for communities to engage beyond Shakarawe and Kaputura in Botswana and Lucas echoes that sentiment for the entire Zambezi region. Lucas plans to do this through sharing the audio recordings of the Scripture passages with church leaders in the region for use in their churches.
Internalize the story and do initial testing. Next, make an audio recording of the draft story, transcribe the story, back translate the story and repeat this cycle as needed until the back translation can be sent to the consultant. The consultant will make suggestions and corrections will be made. The story then can be recorded, transcribed, back translated, and sent for a final check. Upon approval, the recording then can serve as the standard. The last part can also be done when several stories are ready with the consultant physically present and in that case an audio recordist may be able to help to do the recording. Unless the story is properly internalized and has been properly practiced by telling it out loud to other people by the narrator, the result of the final product will most likely lack naturalness and clarity, as well as that it will still be very difficult to get a good quality recording. If there is no one to transcribe then the process can be done with audio recordings only that can be back translated. If the process happens in a short span like in the first Khwedam workshop, then the internalized story can serve as the source for the consultant to check without making test recordings.
Matthew 7:13-23 and Luke 19:28-48 has been translated and processed by some, but still need to be further processed, memorized/internalized, engaged with, shared and tested in the community.
November 27:
Eben, Lucas and I discus together the progress and challenges of the Khwedam project. We realize that there may be some confusion as to the purpose of the project. Is it primarily to prepare Scripture passages for recording as part of oral Scriptures in Khwedam or is it a broader approach, where internalization and engagement are equally key components, which then combines aspects of evangelism and discipleship into the project. The first workshop we processed, memorized/internalized, engaged with, shared and tested in the Shakarawe community the passage of Luke 10:25-37. Since Hessel was present during this workshop, we were able to have it also consultant checked and recorded. Lucas experienced this as our focus being on production and I could see why, because in a first workshop there normally is no consultant present and we’re not prepared to record a final product either. This was a unique situation. I decide to check with the Khwe the first day of the workshop to see what they feel the primary purpose is. We reconfirm that the focus is broader and that the engagement process is a key part of getting a better translation, since people have to deal automatically in that process with exegetical, key term, and natural oral discourse issues. People are also more interested to be involved, since the passages are of immediate relevance to them and it helps to develop community. So it is also an important part to foster local ownership of the project and the materials produced. The recordings serve primarily as a standard (i.e. Scripture in Khwedam), but they can equally be used to listen to on audio devices in other engagment strategies. In Namibia the communities are spread out over some 300 kilometers and the recordings will be helpful for other church leaders to become familiar with the stories in order to start using them. We need to make sure that the final recordings then also will be of sufficient quality that they can be distributed freely. The progress made at the October 2014 consultant checking and recording session in D’kar showed that the team can improve on the planning and preparation for such an event (see Hessel Visser ‘Report oral consultancy Khwedam, Oct 2014 ’) and the report included excellent suggestions. Due to the chance of early draft recordings being distributed and confusing in the end which recording would be the consultant checked standard, Eben and I were cautious about making audio recordings of the early drafts. Lucas felt that this would not really be a big issue, especially in light of otherwise there not being a draft to refer to from which corrections need to be made. He feels that oral internalization doesn’t provide a record that is stable enough. Since among the Khwe there are a few people that can transcribe the recordings, Lucas feels that it would be even better to have it also written down and then back translated into English or Afrikaans. We agree then to the process as follows:
*decision needs to be made as to which recording of Luke 10:25-37 will serve as the standard
Passages to be considered in this workshop:
Genesis 1:1 to 2:3 (can be divided day by day or several days together, not recorded) Genesis 2:4-9 (not recorded) Genesis 2:15-25 (not recorded) Genesis 3:1-24 (can be divided into two or three pieces, not recorded) Genesis 4:1-16 (not recorded, but written down in Khwedam by John) Genesis 11:1-9 (recorded October 2014 in D’kar with John as narrator, transcribed by John, needs back translation for final consultant check) Matthew 1:18-25 (needs back translation for final consultant check) Matthew 7:13-23 (not recorded, but written down in Khwedam by John) Matthew 20:1-16 (done in earlier workshop but not processed and not recorded) Matthew 25:1-13 (needs back translation for final consultant check) Luke 15:11-32 (not recorded) Luke 18:9-14 (not recorded, but written down in Khwedam by John) Luke 19:28-48 (not recorded)
Passages completed since beginning of project:
Matthew 3:13-17 (October 2014, D’kar with Pieter as narrator) Luke 10:25-37 (October 2013, Shakawe with Sonner as narrator and October 2014, D’kar with James as narrator)
Topics to be covered in this workshop:
Reflecting on where we are, which passages are ready for consultant checking Internalization of Scripture stories becoming part of who we are is like learning to walk Practicing oral Scripture telling en engaging with the Scripture passages Back translating transcribed passages from recordings into English and/or Afrikaans Continue developing a team and a smooth process with workers from the different communities to start oral Bible translation in Khwedam Consultant check passages that are ready Record passages that have been consultant checked and those that need to be checked
Action items are in red
J
Participants:
Pieter (Dutch Reformed) from Mashambu in Namibia Sonner, Anton Paulus (has Polio and can’t use legs, musician, teacher and interpreter, Catholic) from Chetto in Namibia, as well as Musavanga (from?). Mokoja Jame (Esia, who is blind) and Michael Kativa (who had theological training in the 1980s and is Dutch Reformed), and Annah Tendere Kanapo (wearing a ZCC badge) from Kaputura (Botswana) James Kongwa (ZCC), Anita Pove (song leader and story teller Kiang) and John Mbango (7th Day Adventist together with Anita his wife), from Shakarawe (Botswana) Eben Le Roux (serving the Khwe and The Seed Company (TSC) San Partnership Coordinator) Lucas van Vuuren (serving the Khwe through the Dutch Reformed Church of Namibia) Hessel Visser (SIL translation consultant)
