Easter in Owamboland

It is Easter Saturday. As I write, there are 3 boys playing on the trampoline, 3 boys playing bionicles, Étienne and another boy catching spiders and insects with the fishing net, and 2 girls with Caris playing dolls. They must be having fun as there is a lot of noise! Tomorrow we go into the bush to the church with the missing wall (some of you will have seen a previous posting and pic of the church) where David will deliver (DV) an Easter sermon in Oshikwanyama! I have completed Sunday school 2 lessons in Oshindonga and have the 3rd written, as yet, only still in English, ready to translate. It is hard work. But the best bit is that I can hand over finished (albeit in draft form) lessons to Severia Nekwaya, who helps me translate Sunday school lessons when we are at Ondangwa and who is willing to teach the children these prepared lessons when we cannot make it to Ondangwa. We are also translating some Sunday school songs into Oshiwambo. I spent over an hour with someone last weekend, translating that ‘simple’ (!) song, ‘Father Abraham’. One problem in song translation is that the Oshiwambo words are often much longer than English, and they usually have concords (words which belong to nouns), too. This, of course, affects the rhythm. ‘Father Abraham had many sons’ in Oshindonga would be: ‘Tate Abraham okwa li e na oyannamati aamati ayehe’. ‘Right arm’ translates as ‘onyala yo kululyo’. What the song ended up saying in Oshindonga is: “The Lord promised Abraham/ to his descendants he promised/ and we are one of those descendants/ let us praise God.” Weather? Well, we are into Autumn now. It is ‘only’ 35 degrees inside (and even hotter outside!). David has set aside some of our garden for planting a veggie patch. We once did this when in Armidale, before Étienne was born. The ‘soil’ here is just sand. David bought compost. We were late off the mark and the rainy season is over so we are having to water by hand. I planted some some pepperdew, chives and parsley but they are not doing anything much (I am as green as Shrek’s mother-in-law!). David has his carrots, pumpkin, rhubarb and onion already showing themselves. We also have a baby papaya tree growing – it is about hip-high to me. As yet, we have had no post arrive from anywhere, even though we have mail WEEKS overdue from Windhoek (Namibia!!), Australia, USA, South Africa and UK. It is hard to be patient when I see so many things I want to photograph! This Wednesday David will be very busy indeed. A ‘cram’ (to rewrite HSC) school in Oshakati has invited him to do weekly lunchtime Bible studies with the students. After this one, he will travel on to Oonanda, a village 50km further, and do an afternoon workshop. Then back to Oshakati for an evening workshop. Then home. Phew! One of the many good things about living here is the amount of time our children get to play outside (avoiding the direct light, of course) together and also with the local children, and time spent playing with lego, bionicles, dolls and just reading. This does them so much better than computer games etc (which they do play - in moderation). Étienne has just enjoyed (an abridged version of) Robinson Crusoe. Caris is also beginning to read simple books independently. Now it is a sweltering Easter Monday. Church yesterday was loooong. We were away from home for 5,5 hours, 3,5 of which was the service and the rest was getting to and from Omungwelume. David’s sermon went well. It came after 2 baptisms and about 8 songs (about 2 hours into the service). When he had finished, someone got up and summarised his sermon for everyone (it took her about twice as long as it did David). This is quite a common practice actually, and no reflection on David’s communicating abilities! As there are no toilets anywhere (unless you count the general countryside!), I did not drink much whilst we were there, but we have learnt, when going to a church, to take an container of water and some cups as people are always grateful for a cup of cold water after church, before they begin the walk home after the service. I will put up some pictures. Some are extremely low res ones taken with the video recorder (max quality 60 kb!). others are from before the camera broke. You will see the elephant road sign. David saw the signs when up in the Caprivi Strip last month and actually DID see an elephant. He stopped to video it but it was having an off-day and starting making threatening gestures towards the car! Another pic shows how the people groups are found up here in Owamboland. (You may find I go on a bit about the diff languages, but it is because they play such a role in some many aspects of our life here.) Oshakati falls under Kwambi, Ondangwa under Ndonga and Ongwediva just at the bottom on Kwanyama country. The Kwanyama tribal land has the Angolan border going through the middle of it. Each tribe represents a language. I have probably mentioned this before but the Kwanyama are the biggest people group. The other groups tend to use the Ndonga Bible. Unfortunately, the Ndonga Bible is not available at the moment. It has been revised, apparently, but there will be no copies available till Christmas. We have tried since January to get one for me but there are simply none available. It makes us so aware of what an abundance of Bibles we can get in our own language, and in many versions. Can YOU imagine going to the shops and finding there was no Bible available in the WHOLE country for you to buy? You will also see a pic of Étienne with some of his friends, David’s Sunday arvo Bible study, and a novel way of protecting crops from birds (plastic bags over the heads of grain). After seeing the HUGE fields under cultivation when we lived at Collarenebri, we imagine that this means of protection would probably take a year per field to apply!!! So perhaps not feasible in Australia??!!!