On the Road...

Last week, I [Chris] had the opportunity to do a couple of songwriting workshops.  I did two short workshops of three days each.  They were in two different countries, conducted in two different languages and had two completely different types of participants.

The first stop was in Kribi, South Region, Cameroon.  Kribi is a popular destination for tourists (and sometimes expat missionaries).  It was a bit hard to convince my friends and colleagues that this time I was headed to Kribi to work.  The coordinator of our Scripture Engagement Department, Apolinaire, went with me to guide the first one.  He is a dynamic guy and bails me out when I get myself stuck in a corner with my French!  It was also the first time that Apolinaire had been so near the ocean, so we made sure to head out to the beach one day after our sessions.

(L-R) Apolinaire, local pastor Francois, and Georges, the mobilizer for the Kwasio language project.

We had 10 participants - 9 from the Kwasio language and 1 from Iyassa.  In these workshops, we guide them through the creative process and give hints on how to use scripture effectively, encourage them to use the true music of their culture, and then have them do some composition in groups.  At the end, we record the groups and give them their songs on an SD card so that they will remember what they created and be able to teach it to others in their communities/churches later.

Most of our participants in the Kribi workshop

After the workshop, Apolinaire headed back to Yaoundé, but I went south to Campo, at the far southwestern corner of Cameroon.  I drove down there with the Iyassa-speaking participant of the workshop, Adolphe.  We stopped in the village he grew up in and he introduced me to some of his extended family as well as showing me the sights of Ebodje.

Following Adolphe from his family home in the village down to the beach.

Miles of beautiful beach...

A culturally significant rock that the Iyassa call The Tortoise

In Campo, I stayed the night and left my truck at the home of my colleagues Wendy and Benis, linguists studying the Iyassa language.  The next morning, I boarded a small boat and went across the river into the country of Equatorial Guinea, where I was met by another colleague that has worked in EG for a couple of decades.

In Bata, Equatorial Guinea, we did another workshop.  The difference in this group was that the participants were more urban, with most living in Bata, which is a fairly large city.  But, it was interesting that many were originally from other parts of the country, as we had five different languages represented.  The music produced was more western influenced, but they all were interested in pulling in some elements from their home cultures as well.  This group also had some polished musicians, a few of which had produced professional recordings in the past.  What made this workshop easier was that I was able to teach in English!  Spanish is the language of wider communication in EG, so my colleagues that work there translated for me in addition to leading some of the discussions.

Some men of the Fang language getting help with vocal parts from Benga and Kombe women.

The results in EG were closer to finished products since these were more experienced musicians.  We took the opportunity to make some sample recordings of their new creations as well as some older songs that many of the musicians had.  This group also did something very unique: instead of recording a "rough draft" of their songs in progress, which is what we typically shoot for by the end of the third day, this group worked all together to add voice parts to each of the other groups in the other languages.  It was cool to see a trio of Fang-speaking men teaching a trio of Benga-speaking ladies the words to their songs so that they would have women's vocal parts included in their their songs.  And each group did the same, including all of the others in their music.  It was hard getting all of the participants comfortably into the small office we used to record, since we only intended to record 3-4 people at a time.  But they didn't seem to mind squeezing 11 or 12 into the space for the fuller sounds.

At the end of it all, Scott and Margaret (my colleagues based in EG), were thrilled to have the musicians of five different languages excited to write new music in their own languages and hear the finished products.  While hearing the participants singing scripture songs together in their mother tongues, they said, "This is what we came to EG for!"

My trip back to Yaoundé was a long one on Sunday.  I left Bata at 7am and was driven an hour and a half north to the river at Rio Campo, took the boat back across (not a fun experience this time, but that's another story for another day...), picked up my car at Wendy & Benis's house, and drove 6+ hours home to Yaoundé.

One of my fellow passengers on the boat back into Cameroon.  She and her friend make the crossing every Sunday from EG to go to their preferred church in Cameroon.

All in all, it was a successful trip.  I missed my family, but was glad to have some positive results in both Kribi and Bata.

Calm before the storm

That's probably not a very good title.  I [Chris] don't know necessarily that there's a storm (metaphorically speaking) headed this way...but we're definitely in a calm period before some change.  So it may or may not be appropriate.

If you see our newsletter, you probably know that we have a firm assignment with the Makaa language group.  If you care to know more, I'll provide the details that I know about how this will look.

Right now, the calm is that I'm doing administrative-type things.  Today I was working on creating paperwork to obtain a research permit.

The research permit is important for a couple of reasons.  First of all, it's a tool that allows us to do arts research.  One thing that I respect very much about SIL is that we're pretty thorough in what we do and try to do it to a high standard.  In the work of trying to understand local arts so that we can encourage its use in the church, we do our research in classic academic fashion.  Lots of folks from SIL publish their findings in linguistics and the arts in academic journals, present papers at conferences and the like.  I'm looking forward to that aspect of things, really.  In terms of arts research, there's some low-hanging fruit.  A lot of the artistic life in this region has not been thoroughly documented, so topics to bring to light are plentiful.

The other reason for the research permit is that it gives us an opportunity to give something valuable to the community.  In documenting their music and making it available to be understood and/or heard, it lends dignity to the cultures involved.  And that dignity can be a big step toward understanding the value of oneself as "made in the image of God."  We don't conceptualize this too well in North America, because we have a relatively homogenous culture and we value equality and pluralism.  But in Africa, some cultures really have identity issues that affect the self-perception of entire communities because of their status as a non-dominant culture in an area.  It's been demonstrated many times in our organization that when a culture is dignified by our presence and research, they often become open to hearing the gospel.

Anyway, I hope to have the research permit business done really soon.  I just need to polish it up a bit.

A Presbyterian Church building in the village of Bagbeze in the Makaa area...

…complete with a church bell.

The other part of the coming change is taking on language learning and finding a music teacher.  I'm going to start learning the Makaa language as soon as I get hooked up with a language helper.  A Makaa gentleman in a church I've been attending is trying to find someone for me.  I'm a bit intimidated by learning Makaa, because it has some difficult elements.  First of all, it is tonal.  That shouldn't be too tough because I'm a musician.  But it's different, so one never knows how tough it will be.  Second, I'm told that the language has about 10 noun classes.  And your next question (if you're not one of my linguist buddies) is, "what are noun classes?"  Well, take French, for example.  Nouns are either feminine or masculine, so there are two noun classes.  In German, there is feminine, masculine and neuter - three noun classes.  Definite articles (the), possessive adjectives (his, her, their, our, etc.) and other things may change depending on the noun class.  So I guess I'll eventually find out what the 10 noun classes in Makaa are based on, because it surely cannot only be gender or lack thereof.  I'm anxious to get started and find out!

Some typical tam-tams (or slit drums).

As an aside, you might ask, "Why do you need to learn the language?"  I'm not going to be translating or anything like that, true.  But I've always told people that in SIL we believe that "one doesn't learn a language; one learns a culture."  Well, that cuts both ways.  If my job is to learn the Makaa culture and music well, there are certain intangibles that one can learn through learning the language.

Finding a music teacher might be a bit more tricky, but in the end probably more fun.  I'm going to learn the instrument known as the tam-tam.  It's from a class of instruments known as idiophones - which basically means that the instrument itself is vibrating but without strings or a head of any sort.  The tam-tam is actually best described as a log drum.  Some call it a slit drum because of the opening on the top.  This instrument is at the core of a lot of Makaa music.  It also has had a communication role throughout African history.  Tam-tams were used to communicate messages over long distances (like several kilometers - village to village) by drumming out rhythms that evoked the tonality of the language.  I was joking with Lori that apparently Africa has had wireless communication for millenia!

And the last thing is a bit of traveling.  The Makaa zone is about a three hour drive to the largest town.  It's another few hours to get to some of the more remote areas where the culture is more "pure."  I'm planning on being out there 4-6 days per month.  I haven't planned my first trip yet, but I hope to get started soon.  I'm hoping on my first trip to find a tam-tam to buy.  I'm not so sure my neighbors are going to be happy about my owning an instrument that has the capability of being heard for miles!

So a little bit of change is coming, but mostly just for me.  The rest of the family is happy that we don't have to move and they will get stay in their schools and that their routines won't change much.

As I get some music recorded, I hope to be able to share some interesting things over the next several months.  Stay tuned!

In the meantime, enjoy some more pictures of the past few months.

Meeting with a church leader in Campo, a village in the Iyassa language group.

Limbe, Southwest Region.  This is a much more beautiful beach than this picture lets on.

Lobé Falls, Kribi, South Region.  These small falls are one of the rare spots where a waterfall drops directly into the Atlantic Ocean.  It's hard to tell in this picture, but there is another 20-25 foot drop before this river reaches the ocean behind us.