Home Sick (by Jennings)

(or "How we came to visit family in the U.S. for the holidays, and I ended up bald and living in my parents' guest room")

NB: I wrote this piece back in March 2019, when I was still reeling from the news that I had a recurrence of endometrial cancer, as a metastasis, and that I would need 4 months of chemo and radiation and might need to stay in the U.S. for 2 years. At the time, I wondered if I would ever see our home in Bunia again. My deepest fear was that our life there was over, and I was in shock at that idea. I wrote the following post in the midst of those thoughts and emotions. I'm posting it now because it expresses much of what I love about our Congolese life.

What "coming home" looks like, every day, in Bunia

This Little Puppy Went to S.P. , This Little Puppy Stayed Home...

Elikya playing with her pups

In December, the day I returned from Goma (previous post), our dog Elikya had puppies! Douglas texted me when the first arrived, while I was still in the Goma airport. By the time I got home, there were 5, and by the time we went to sleep there were 6. When we woke up, there were 7!
Of course, having the puppies made for a very fun - if slightly chaotic - Christmas and New Years. Then, quite suddenly, two of them got ill and died. We think it was worms, though we're not sure. It was heartbreaking... I try not to think about it too much...

Puppies having one of their first meals, back when their ears and paws were still so tiny.

The others stayed healthy, and the first one left to go to his new home just a couple of weeks ago. The day guard at our office, who loves dogs, had picked him out of the litter because he's unique-looking, all white. He asked what the puppy's name was, and we told him that we were calling him "Whitey" (or "Le Blanc" in French... "the White One"). I asked him a few days ago how Whitey was doing. He said he is a very nice dog, "très gentil". I love that he appreciates that about him! He said that they changed his name from "Le Blanc" to "Le Bon"... "the Good One". I love that, too. I am so happy that Whitey went to this new home!

Whitey getting ready to go to his new home. Now his name is "The Good One", Le Bon.

What does that mean?

With part of the Exegesis class from this summer

In July, I (Jennings) co-taught a course on "Exegesis for Translators" to 14 translators from Tanzania, South Sudan, Ethiopia and Guinea Bissau. Basically, exegesis means discovering the original meaning of a text in its historical context. In Biblical exegesis, we're trying to understand what the original authors meant and how the original audience would have understood them. Of course our understanding will always be limited, but with study - and the help of the Holy Spirit - we can we understand more than without.

One of the biggest obstacles to understanding (and translating) correctly is assuming that you understand something when you actually don't, because you don't understand the context. This became vividly clear when we studied figurative language. The Bible is full of figurative language: hyperbole, euphemisms, litotes, synecdoche, metonymy and... metaphors.

We looked at several metaphors in Scripture and analyzed what the point of resemblance was and what was being communicated. For example, I Peter 1:24, "All mankind are like grass." The topic (mankind) and the image (grass) resemble each other in that both are short-lived and perishable. So, what is being communicated is that the human life does not last for long.

Then I had them think of common metaphors from their own language, and the rest of us would try to guess what they meant. It came down to what the salient quality is, in our minds, of the thing that something or someone is being compared to. For example, one of the students said that in their language they might say "Women are like sheep." We tried to guess what that meant. In my culture, sheep are meek, they're fluffy, they're followers, they're innocent (ex "wolf in sheep's clothing"). But in this man's culture, sheep are thought of as forgetful. So, "Women are like sheep" means "Women are forgetful." See how easy it could be to create a misunderstanding?

Here are a few others from the class, for fun.

1) "That child is a tortoise."
2) "He goes like water."
3)"This child is a cow."
4) "That man is a solitary monkey."
5) "She is a chicken."
6) "That man is a crow."
7) "Shaasa is a person."

 A couple that are proverbs:
8) "A man is medicine."
9) "To be big is to be a stone."

Answers after the jump.

Of Ginger Tabbies (and their mistresses)

"Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken.
If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal.
Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements.
Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness.
But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change.
It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.
To love is to be vulnerable."

  -- C.S. Lewis

Last Friday, our friend Sarah's cat went missing. She hasn't seen him for over a week now. She is grieving his absence, and fearing the worst. He is an exceptionally sweet and friendly ginger tabby (or "orange tabby" as we say in the U.S.). She got him two years ago when he was just a kitten and named him "Stilton with Ginger", or Stilton for short. Sarah's first year or two here were quite difficult -- her work load was very heavy, her living situation was not peaceful, and her health was unsteady. But by the time we arrived in Bunia in 2010, she had just moved into her own house, and she had this sweet kitten to keep her company. He has been a constant, affectionate companion ever since.

There are plenty of cats in Bunia, but the idea of a cat as a pet struck many Congolese people as odd. Life here is hard, people usually have so little money and so many family members to look out for that they can't afford to be very sentimental about animals. Cats are there to do a job -- to kill rodents. Also, cats are often associated with witchcraft. People who spend a lot of time with cats, or talk to them, or carry them around, may be assumed to be doing witchcraft with them. And then there are some groups who see cats primarily as food. (I won't explore that.)

When Helping Hurts* (by Jennings)

Our neighbor's cat, whom we call Fangs, is a hard-working, outdoor cat. We've seen him killing -- and disposing of -- rats in the yard, and we believe this is why we don't have rats in the house, like most of our friends here do.

I (Jennings) have a huge soft spot for cats, for any cat. I love them all. I love to watch them, to pet them, to play with them, to hear them purr. I am totally and completely smitten with them. (Which is weird to a lot of people here, who see cats for their practical value as hunters, or... as food. Cats are often associated with witchcraft as well, and people who are friendly to cats, who carry cats around, etc., may be viewed with suspicion.)

Anyway, so we are friendly with Fangs, we let him in the house, and we regularly put food out for him to eat. Not a lot of food, just some milk, maybe a little avocado or bread, or cheese rind. I figured we were helping make his tough life a little more comfortable.

The problem is... the food sitting outside started to draw crows. And recently, two other neighborhood cats - one of them a very large tomcat - have also been coming, eating the food, and leaving their "mark". Fangs ends up in fights almost every day, and sometimes multiple times in the day and night. He is obviously upset and now has fight marks. So we stopped putting out food for him.

So much for my great idea of helping.

I don't want to draw some grand, overarching conclusion here. But it does remind me how easily well-intentioned efforts can go wrong, and can hurt the very ones they are meant to help. And it reminds me how little I understand things.

*This is the title of an excellent book (and website) on how the best intentions of people (like you and me) who want to help others can, in fact, in up doing more harm than good. I've been reading and struggling with its implications, and I highly recommend it.

Interestingly, my friend Kim just posted a story about their decision not to step in and "save the day" for someone, and how the church and family stepped up and got it done.  She's been reading the same book.  We all struggle with this issue here.

Palm Sunday

Palm Sunday morning, we got up earlier than usual to go to the 7:30 French service at a church we've been attending.  Douglas went outside before breakfast and noticed that our neighbors' cat was sitting at the top of our water tower.  How cute! We like this cat a lot (except for the fact that he makes Jennings sneeze) - he is friendly and feisty, seems to be a good hunter, and gets along well with the two dogs Fiona and Simbi and the duck Ferdinand that he shares the yard with.  Unlike them, he doesn't have a name, so we just call him "Cat" or "Pousse" in local French or "Pusu" in local Swahili, or "Little Buddy" or "Fangs".

By the time we were actually ready to walk out the door, we were already running late.  The cat was still on top of the water tower, but now he was crying in distress -- he couldn't get down.

Tower for the water tank outside our kitchen door