In The Zone
Now that we lead this bi-cultural life and are somewhat bi-lingual, I (Chris) figured a title with a bit of double meaning would be appropriate. In the zone in French (Dans la zone) means actually being in a location. That, coupled with the American colloquial use of this phrase to indicate a moment of high intensity, nicely describes our work at the moment.
Since our last update, a good deal has happened. My application for a research permit from the Cameroonian government to allow me to do my work in the Makaa zone has been submitted. I have also begun studying the Makaa language by working with a language helper a couple of days a week. And our first songwriting workshop for Makaa speakers was held in the East Region recently.
Learning to speak and read Makaa has turned out to be very challenging. My language helper comes to the house two days a week for my lessons. This is the first language that I have studied in which there is almost no vocabulary that is related to my own mother tongue. Outside of a few borrowed words for western items, everything is completely new. This concept is one thing to understand intellectually, but something altogether different to experience in actual language learning. There are no “life preserver†words to fall back on except the words for post office, school, and tomato (at least those are the ones I’ve discovered so far). Otherwise, it’s a lot of memorization and repetition. On the plus side, when I was recently in the Makaa zone, villagers were very honored that I used the greetings in their language. It makes a giant difference in their perception and reception of an outsider.
As for the recent songwriting workshop, we can report that it was largely a success. The least successful element of the event was the turnout. We had received word that about 30 people would be attending. In reality we only had 10 participants. One of the participating denominations had a breakdown in communication that resulted in far fewer of their people attending our workshop and a literacy workshop that followed.
In spite of the low attendance, we were generally pleased with the workshop. It was the first time for me to lead the teaching of such an event and also my first time to teach in French, which caused a few moments of miscommunication. Despite those hurdles, everything turned out better than expected. I taught the sessions that dealt specifically with music while my colleagues Apollinaire and Jean-Yves led sessions that dealt with social and cultural topics and also handled the logistics beforehand.
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