We “slept in” this morning and had the continental breakfast at the hotel. Jodi picked us up at 9:30am. We headed to a park that is inside the city; Emancipation Park. It is one of the only things to really “site see” in the city, other than the Bob Marley Museum and Port Royal. Anyway, the plan for this morning was to continue doing what we did yesterday, go talk to some people about the translation project. Again, we had some very interesting interactions.
Right when we got out of the car we bumped into two men that Lloyd knew. One was an old classmate and the other was the husband of one of Lloyd’s former teachers, who also is a principle and is very well educated. He expressed a lot of doubt about written Patois because some people pronounce the same words in slightly different ways.
So, Lloyd and Jodi explained how the most common usage of the word would be the one chosen as the standard. They also pointed that although it is pronounced a little different everyone still understands what is being said…similar to the many accents you hear in English. He understood their points but still wasn’t completely sold on the idea. We couldn’t talk with him long because he was showing some visiting family around. Lloyd’s other friend couldn’t stick around either, but before he left we found out that he had been to many places in the US before including Atlanta where his sister is a nurse at Emory…”It’s a small world after all…”
We went into the park, saw a small camera crew filming a commercial, and looked for some people to talk to. Lloyd spotted a group of students who were with their teacher and asked for her permission to talk with them. When she found out what we wanted to talk about she absolutely refused to let them.
She called the translation project nonsense and a stupid idea. We tried to reason with her and convince her that it would be beneficial for the country, but she refused to believe that Patois would be anything but bad and confusing for her students. She said “they struggle with English enough as it is, it would just make their English worse!” I even tried to make a comparison for her with me trying to learn French without have English to help me understand what I needed to learn and I think she got my point, but still refused to consider it a good idea. The stigma of Patois was just too much of a barrier for her.
Next we approached two women. One, when finding out we wanted to talk about the Bible didn’t want to on that premise alone. I think she mentioned something about “religion” not working for her and things never went her way, so we talked with the lady sitting next to her instead and she was still able to listen. This other woman, as well, was skeptical at first, also because she was well educated and wanting to raise her five year old son to speak English (and that was her focus). Once Lloyd convinced her of the benefits of raising her son to be bilingual she began to listen to Lloyd while looking at him rather than just looking around him. You could see her interest growing.
Then one of her friends came to sit next to her and joined the conversation. She seemed to like the idea a lot. We gave them the bookmarks and the tried to read the Lord’s Prayer and struggled because they were trying to pronounce Patois words with English pronunciation rules. But, after we encouraged them to think about how they speak Patois while they read it they read much better.
Speaking of the Lord’s Prayer in Patois, would you like to see what it looks like? Try to read it too: (think about a Jamaican accent while you read…and if you need help with that go watch the movie “Cool Runnings” and come back and try again)
“Wi Faada we iina evn,
Mek piipl av nof respek fi yu an yu niem.
Mek di taim kom wen yu ruul iina evri wie.
Laad, mek we yu waahn apm pan ort,
Jos laik ou a way u waahn fi apm iina evn apm.
Evri die, gi wi di fuud we wi niid.
Paadn wi fi aal a di rang we wi du,
Siem laik ou wi paadn dem we du wi rang.
No mek we fies notn we wi kaaz wi fi sin,
An protek wi fram di Wikid Wan”
(Matyu 6: 9-13)
Anyway, back to the ladies we were talking about…
Before we went to talk to some other people Lloyd offered to pray with the first woman who said she wasn’t really interested in talking, and she was willing.
Our last conversation was with a girl who was sitting in the park studying. From the very beginning of our conversation she was supportive and in favor of the Bible being translated to her native language. She easily saw the benefits and even pointed some of them out on her own. It was encouraging to end by talking with her. She even allowed us to video tape her talking about why she thought the project was a great idea. It was a little windy in the park though, so we’ll have to see if we can eliminate some of the noisy wind.
The rest of our day was spent being tourists…with great tour guides! First we stopped to grab a snack. A Jamaican treat called a patty. It looks a lot like a taco, but the inside is just meat (sometimes with cheese) and it is wrapped up in coco bread (which is just yummy delicioud doughy bread). Then we drove out to Port Royal (the same one that is referred to in The Pirates of the Caribbean movie). Did you know that a lot of Port Royal is now underwater because of an earthquake? What was left was neat though. There was a base that was designed to look like a ship if you were approaching by water in the distance. This way, when an enemy ship was headed toward you, by the time they realized that you were really on land and had an entire army behind the walls it was too late to get away!
Currently, there is a coast guard based there and the rest of the area has been preserved as it was. The people who live there even live as though they were living in a different era than the rest of Jamaica.
After a tour and some looking around, we drove out to Portmore, where Lloyd lives and ate at a jerk restaurant; Sundayz by the Bay. We tried jerk chicken, jerk pork, and steamed fish that was cooked with okra and other veggies. It was all very good, but Lloyd’s steamed fish was really really good. There were also some puppies around the restaurant that were extremely cute and playful and were lucky to get some of our leftovers.
Then David went swimming, I started writing, and we watched LOST before bed. That show is ridiculous…if you’ve never watched it, don’t start now! …or else I will have to recommend a book to you called “Don’t Waste Your Life” by John Piper. Well, I recommend the book either way!
2 comments:
Are you going to post about the time you spent in Montego Bay?
Yah mon!
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