Culture Behind Words

 Some words don’t have good one-word translations.

Island procession of wedding gifts

At English club, a student asked us what ‘dowry’ meant. The idea of a dowry is antiquated enough in the States that I could imagine that American young people might not know what it is either, and hearing it explained I would imagine that to American youth it would sound strange and archaic.  

On the islands, the idea of a dowry isn’t strange at all. For them the problem is that they already have well-developed ideas about gifts and money surrounding weddings and so they automatically want to create a one-to-one correlation between dowry and some part of island culture.

We’ve run into this problem with other words around marriage and weddings. Because the island understanding of weddings is so different, the terms for weddings often don’t have good one-word translations. If you do find a word, it is often forced.

For example, the word ‘wedding’. In the US this is usually a singular event that takes a couple hours at most and represents when the bride and groom actually become man and wife. The ‘reception’ is then a party to celebrate the union. On the islands, ‘weddings’ usually consist of several days of different events celebrating the union, each often lasting for hours, and these events can be done years after the bride and groom actually got married. For any one of the these events, an islander could say that they are going to a ‘wedding’ but they all have individual names as well. So what do we mean in English when we say ‘wedding’?

Some gifts from bride's family

At the English club, we ended up with the word ‘dowry’ written on the whiteboard with our island friends discussing what the island equivalent would be. Islanders exchange a lot of gifts at weddings. Some gifts go from the bride’s side to the groom’s, some from the groom’s to the bride’s. So the islanders took a lot of time asking from whom and to whom a ‘dowry’ was going. But eventually this highlighted another complicating difference between the islands and the west.

On the islands, families are still very involved in weddings. The families negotiate what the weddings will include and the families are the givers and receivers of the gifts. Our good friend Ma Riziki married off her son last week and we are considered part of the family. This means I was asked to contribute to the gifts given— both with something I personally bought as well as a financial contribution towards some of the baked goods that had to be made. I was also called over to film and document all the gifts that came from the bride’s family. There were piles of produce, baked goods, clothes and toiletries. As part of the family, over the next few days, I got my share of the wedding ‘booty’— a bunch of pastries, a traditional outfit, a slice of pumpkin, a big hunk of an island-made dessert, and local peanut brittle balls.

Now I’ve been to a number of weddings in the US, but I’ve never seen the members of the bride or groom’s family divvy up the presents afterwards. Speaking generally, weddings in the west are usually more about the bride and groom breaking away and starting a new family. On the islands it is about families coming together and blessing each other.

Eventually we were ready to start our English club activity so we told our friends that some words are just too steeped in culture to have good simple translations. If you want to understand the word, you have to understand the culture behind it.

(Doesn’t it make you so grateful for the people thoughtfully working in the important area of translation!)

Part of our share from the wedding gifts

PRAYERS ANSWERED
The women had their monthly gathering and it was well-attended, including a visiting sister from the smallest island who is eager to study with others while she is here. The administrators were able to make the same day connection to visit us on Clove Island and safely made it to the small island today. It was a blessing to have them, to share the islands with them and to hear more about what is happening in the greater region. Tom had both of his weekly meetings to study last week and both were very encouraging, including a new island man coming to study. The big group event on Sunday happened. It is exciting to see our island sister be creative about how to engage her family and neighbors in thoughtful ways and how to draw people together for mutual encouragement. 

 

PRAYERS REQUESTED
We are very excited that we have a new future teammate! However the question of timing is proving a complicated issue. Pray that we would all have clarity and unity about the best time for her to join us on the islands. Our medical teammates are going to start house-hunting on the far side of the islands. We pray that God would provide just the right house for them to rent. Our team is planning on taking a retreat this weekend— pray that it would be restful (it has been a busy time) and that we’d be prepared for the months of transition ahead of our team. Please start praying for some reconciliation meetings scheduled for Sep 13-15. Islanders from Clove Island will be going to the big island to help mediate some long-standing conflict there— pray for all involved that they would have humble hearts, a willingness to admit wrong and a desire to forgive and be reconciled.