Traditional healing

So, we get into the Kalanga Bible translation office this morning, set about getting email. One of the translators thanks me for the brazil nuts and red wine I gave him last November, says he's been feeling much better since he started taking it. Warms the heart, to have my remedies work.

That's sort of been a niche I've fallen into naturally (pardon the pun) since I've been here; a dispenser of harmless food remedies that actually work. I treated a bunch of gals with stomach ailments with peppermint oil at the ELCB music workshop in Maun, with success. And I gave one of my fellow music camp mates some licorice for her persistent cough, also with success, within minutes. She then reminded me that I had treated her last year at music camp as well, for a stomach ailment (peppermint oil and white bread), also with success. She then said, “You know, you're the best traditional healer I know in Botswana.” Made my day. Made Rob laugh.

I love offering simple food treatments for simple physical problems and having people accept them without looking at me like I'm cracked in the head. It's not uncommon here to boil up a root or eat something to solve minor illnesses so I'm culturally “in” that way.

More video!

Yes, now that I've just discovered that my videos on facebook can be freely and easily shared here, I'm putting a few from the last year, for your historical perusal.


The burning bush


Monkeys around the house in Gabane


Goats on the road from Maun

Marimba class performance

Here it is, the final performance of my marimba class at Botswana Music Camp 2008. Yes, it is as much fun as it looks. The amazing thing to me is that so many of us were complete beginners prior to this 5 day class. Yet, here we are, hammering it out with the rest. Me, I had spent 1 hour the year before learning in an appreciation session.

Bible Stories published!

Yes, the time has come - the Bible Stories Retold in Shiyeyi have been published! I probably don't have to point out how exciting this is for me. I mean, more than 11 years after the seed was first planted in my heart, to be involved in the task of Bible translation, I am finally getting to hold in my hand a fruit of that seed, something that I helped bring into being. Yes, it's a small fruit, a mere 26 pages of 11 Bible stories. But it contains a good selection of events from the New Testament, including Jesus' birth, ministry, teaching, death and resurrection. The best of the good stuff, right?

While esthetics aren't everything, I must say that it's a fine looking book as well. There are distinct advantages to having married a guy with years of experience in publication layout. I personally think that it's great if the publishing quality of the first books in a newly written language can at least be on par with those of the national language. And this one, though small, is definitely professional looking. Kamanakao even had it printed in my happy color: green. And I didn't even tell them that I liked that color! God revels in the details, let me tell ya.

I'm thinking my first chance to see the book sales in person will be at the festival at Easter time, unless there's a workshop before then. I can't wait to see people while they're seeing it for the first time, buying it and reading it! And I can't seem to type without using exclamation marks! This is great!

“I will take delight in doing good to them. I will faithfully and wholeheartedly plant them firmly in the land.” - God, in Jeremiah 32:41

Blog hiatus 2

December
8 - First day of marimba class. Which, by the way, is the most satisfying class I've ever taken.
9 - Second day of marimba class. Begin practicing with Darius (marimba classmate) for the student night performance (Thursday). Teachers perform tonight.
10 - More marimba. Field trip to the set of the No. Ladies' Detective Agency film an T.V. series. Pro-Zimbabwe-aid play in the evening, donations collected afterwards for water purification tablets and cholera meds.
11 - More marimba. Student performance in the night: Rob plays guitar with an international group doing a Cuban piece, as well as accompanying me on my solo performance of Wayfaring Stranger. Darius plays flute in both pieces as well.
12 - Last day of marimba class.
13 - The big student performance night at Maitisong Theater in the evening. Braai afterwards; a very late night.
14 - We depart for a hotel in Gaborone as we have immigration business the next morning.
15 - Go to immigration. Find that one of the waivers is missing and are instructed to return the following day.
16 - So, we return the following day and collect the other waiver. Make a return trip to the car dealership to see if the one we had our eye on is sold yet. Have a meeting with the ELCB music team in the evening to assess the past workshop in Maun, earlier in December. Find out that one of the houses we had our eye on in Maun is now available for viewing.
17 - Drive to Maun. That's a full day trip via the Ghanzi road.
18 - Check out the house, get a copy of the lease to go over, make a list of repairs needed. Drive back to Francistown in the afternoon.
19 - Stop by the Kalanga Bible Translation Project office to give our Christmas greetings before they close for the holidays.

And I do mean “close for the holidays”. Many places close down until halfway through January. For example, after trying in late December to get a hold of business people about various things we needed to take care of (i.e. get the bakkie in for repairs, finalize the house rental, buy the new car), we discovered that everything shut down Christmas Eve and would not be available again until at least January 5. That's today. So, I called these places this morning. No answer at any of them. And, if they're not open today, that means they probably won't be open until January 12, the next big beginning of a business week. Anyhow, December continues…

20 - Take a day off: it's more than overdue.
21 - Another day off. This is when I started feeling not so healthy.
22 - Yup, I'm definitely sick and not improving by mid-afternoon.
23 - Go to the doctor, get a blood test for malaria (which comes back negative, thank God), start on some antibiotics
24 - Go to Christmas Eve service, then to Carl & Melody Knight's place for dinner and to spend the night
25 - Wake at 3AM with a fever, stay up until it breaks (around 6AM). Drag around all day at the Knights, go home in the evening.

It took me a week to get back to where I was feeling ready to be “up and at 'em”. Made an occasional foray out for food but would tire rapidly so Rob would have to take me home. I am now pretty much fully recovered, thankfully. Which is good because I have a lot to do. I'll keep checking the businesses I need to contact every day to see when they open, for starters. On the days that they aren't I'll keep working on my Setswana lesson plan for Rob & I, for a February start. Our hope is that we'll be settled and begin language learning the first week of February. We couldn't find a conventional language learning school anywhere so I'm having to make my own lesson plan from a few Setswana textbooks I found left here by a former LBT missionary. The plan is now complete. Next, I recruit a local mother-tongue speaker to record the vocabulary and example sentences from the lesson plans. Then, we study on our own for 5 days each week, meeting with a Setswana tutor (a lovely lady named Beauty) to fine-tune and check our progress for a few hours each weekend. Barring work interruptions, the whole study time should be 13 weeks. That means we should finish in the last week of April. Maybe we'll celebrate our completion (and our 8th anniversary!) with a touristy trip somewhere in the first week of May; that would be fun!

Speaking of being settled, we haven't found a house yet. We have found a number of options but none that have materialized (yet) into something fully viable or concrete. I'm actually waiting to hear from someone Beauty referred us to yesterday who is moving and, therefore, his place will be available for us to move into, if we're interested. The plan at this time is to move on the 15th to Maun and stay in the apartment of a Finnish missionary who is currently on home leave. That place is available to us until February 15, giving us a full month to finally get a place.

We haven't had our residence permits extended yet but we do have a waiver (sort of an interim residence permit), which has been extended until the end of March. At least we won't have to think about that for a while, eh?