The Aari participants developed a special friendship with Patrick & Gideon (left), who fit much more naturally into their culture than we from the West.
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Aari Translators Duba and Fikadu had worked hard to translate the Bible lessons and those on health and agriculture into Aari in preparation for the workshop. These would later be revised for inclusion in the primers.
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Two of the new words in each lesson had to be “picture words” - nouns that could be illustrated in a picture. Here participants discuss together possible picture words for a lesson.
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Duba points to the list of available new characters on the blackboard and suggests a picture word. The Aari participants wrote the lessons themselves. They were challenged by the "word control" - only 4 words and 7 characters allowed in Lesson 1. After that not more than 2 new characters and 4 new words per lesson.
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In later lessons they could have 6 new words, and toward the end up to 21 new words. The first lessons were VERY hard to write. Here Agonafar and Fikadu count the new words in their lesson to be sure they don’t have too many.
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After the participants gained experience in writing lessons, they divided into 3 groups to speed up the process. Each team would write a different lesson, then read it to the rest of the group, who checked to be sure the wording was natural and no untaught words or characters had gotten in by mistake.
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Duba reads the lesson he and his team have written. His father-in-law (lower left) was the only non-reading participant. He patiently endured through the entire two-week workshop and offered valuable insight when questions came up regarding the naturalness of a phrase or sentence.
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The local and district church leaders made sure we were well-fed during the workshop - three meals each day plus coffee or tea and snacks at break time. Here the participants munch sugar cane at breaktime.
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And here Fikadu receive a ladleful of split pea wat (stew) to eat with his injera (the national staple - a sourdough bread made from tef, a fine millet-like grain native to Ethiopia). Click here to see how injera is made. Viewed: 603 times.
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