SteveStanley

Our journey went pretty smoothly for Papua New Guinea. We arrived early at Goroka airport for our 10 am flight. Our children were bursting with excitement to get on the “big plane”. Unfortunately, Air Niugini had cancelled the afternoon flight to Port Moresby the day before after checking in everyone’s bags. All the passengers who had a flight the day before received priority, and there was no space for a family of 5. “Come back this afternoon”, we were told.

With us heading out for our home assignment, you may think this post is about the different world we’re entering into, returning to Europe, but no, it’s not that. This is about how we feel about entering a different world while still here in Papua New Guinea! Goroka is so very different from Kovol.

This week, I (finally) finished checking through a post-literacy book “How the Jews lived”. Completing the book was an important goal before leaving. I can draft Kovol reading books and Bible portions on my own in front of my computer; but there is a good chance the result isn’t very good!

Students will start at the snail level and move up through gecko, rat, wallaby, pig, cassowary and finally, eagle. Each number represents a task. When the student completes a task, the teacher takes a hole punch and punches out the task and the student levels up to the next task.
Holes 1-3 give the students a certain number of flashcards that they need to read correctly in 1 minute.
Holes 4-6 are writing tasks where students write in exercise books.
Holes 7-9 are reading tasks with comprehension questions.

Pigs are a big part of life in Kovol and Papua New Guinea in general. Pigs are a valuable source of meat, and the meat is an essential part of any important social event. If you apologize publicly to someone for wronging them, but don’t kill a pig to give meat, was it even a real apology? If you don’t kill a pig to celebrate a successful marriage in the pennam ceremony, your words and actions don’t match. You’re saying you have a good marriage with the celebration, but if you don’t kill a pig, then your actions are saying the marriage isn’t worth celebrating.

This week was a huge milestone in the Kovol work, our first translation check. We arranged for a translation consultant to come in to check Genesis 37,39,40,41,42,43,44,45, and 46:1-7. Those chapters cover the Joseph story and total about 200 verses of “simple” narrative, which is great material to get started on as a new translator.

Next week will be my first translation check. Having finished drafting the 200 or so verses of the Joseph story from Genesis, and having checked that it is communicating clearly in Kovol, having gone through it with a fine-tooth comb looking for parts added or omitted, it is time for an expert to take a look.