MozamWeek

There are parts of Bible translation we don't really think about... We just got an email asking about how we plan to write numbers. Do you spell them out or do you write the numerals? There is a "rule" in English where anything over ten you usually just use a numeral in a text. (Though I noticed this isn't followed in the English Bible I use.) There just aren't any norms for this in Nyungwe. There aren't lots of books written, so you can't just see what other people are doing. Besides, it is a bit more complicated than following rules. In many African languages the counting system is a little cumbersome. It takes a lot of long words to spell out a big number. It is common to hear English or Portuguese numbers spoken in the middle of a Nyungwe or Chewa conversation. It isn't that the numbers don't exist in the language, but they just use English or Portuguese numbers because they are easier or they are used to them. So this morning, we were t

When Tete is cloudy we smile... When I arrived from my week-long committee meetings in Pretoria, South Africa, the pilot announced 37C/98F as the temperature in Tete. Since I'm used to thinking that 38C is hot; I was immediately thunked into reality when I exited the plane: 37C is hot, too! I couldn't help but smile. The feeling of pervading warmth is not completely unpleasant. There is some degree of wonder in the whole experience. You are embraced with a kind of cushion of heat. You breathe in air that is the same temperature as the breath you exhale. A breeze doesn't cool you, but is just the same temperature as your sweat... which you don't really feel because it actually body temperature. When the novelty wears off, you just want to move out of this feeling of unity with the air around you. But, alas, there is no where to go... That was on Friday afternoon around 3pm. On Saturday morning we awoke to surprising showers of blessing. Dripping blending with bi