Life has been a bit weird this week, but the feeling of life just carrying on is there. Most significant was the death and funeral of a Kovol newborn. It’s so strange how such a tragic, permanent and sad event is both life-changing, but things carry on as normal.
Did you know that there is such a thing as mountain crabs? Part of homeschooling for Oscar was learning about trips to the seaside and he found rock pools and crabs really interesting. It turns out that the jungles around Kovol have their own crabs and so to tie in we arranged a little hunt.
Do you ever get the feeling that everyone knows about something apart from you? It’s a common occurrence for us learning a new culture and language and I’ve lost track of the number of times a crowd of people have gathered seemingly from out of nowhere.
We’ve learned that the Kovol language isn’t particularly descriptive. I guess it’s because no one ever has to describe what a banana looks like, anyone you’d talk to in the Kovol language knows what one looks like. That’s my theory anyway.
As we look forward to teaching lessons we’re thinking about how we go about introducing new concepts. How do we describe new things? How do we introduce unfamiliar settings? When describing something where does detail need to be put and where can it be glossed over?