09 ː Salasaka pt. III

El que cree en mí, como dice la Escritura, de su interior correrán ríos de agua viva.

Juan 1:1 (RV1960)

Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.

John 7:38 (ESV)

I’ve been back in the States for just over a month and am excited to tell you about the rest of my internship experience in Ecuador.

Things experienced:

Home stays. For two weeks, a fellow intern and I were hosted by a lovely Salasaka couple in their forties. The husband weaves chumbis (decorative belts), ponchos (a Kichwa word that has been borrowed into English), and shawls; the wife spins wool and sells their wares in the central plaza. We accompanied them in their farm work, helping pull weeds in the potato field, cutting alfalfa to feed their rabbits and guinea pigs (eaten on special occasions), and slicing up large agave leaves for the pig to eat. We got to know their extended family as well. Their nieces and nephews took us on a hike up to a peak of 12,000 feet in altitude, and we often spent evenings chatting outside their nephew’s food stand, snacking on French fries, a la Salasaka.

https://video.wixstatic.com/video/46732d_29b18f86d9274014b41db6cee0473236/1080p/mp4/file.mp4

Video: My host father weaving a chumbi for his neighbor.

Gallery: 1) My host family's rabbits and guinea pigs. 2) Me pulling weeds in a corn field (and learning Kichwa!) 3) Me cutting up pieces of agave leaf for my host family's pig, whose name is the Kichwa word for "sunrise." 4) Friendly neighborhood farrow. 5) My host mother's wool-spinning apparatus. A clump of wool on the large stick is hand-spun into thread that is wound into a spool around the small stick.

Touristas. During our days off, we had a chance to do some exploring in the Andes. A young Salasaka man from the local church became quick friends with us interns. He took us to his favorite restaurants and to some nearby hot springs to go swimming and hiking. Part of our group also went to the equator, for which the country is named.

Photo: Baños ("baths") is named after the natural hot springs.

https://video.wixstatic.com/video/46732d_2fffdeb2caeb4731bbff302b090d7724/1080p/mp4/file.mp4

Video: Bridge near the town of Baños.

Paro: While we were in Salasaka, we began to hear rumors that the Indigenous peoples of Ecuador were going to protest the rising prices of gas and cooking oil, as well as the inequality in education. We left a couple days early for Quito to get ahead of the inevitable road closures (el paro, "the stoppage") that would occur as part of the demonstration. Thankfully, we got to the airport with no problem. However, just days after we left, the government responded with a violent show of force by placing soldiers in many provinces and using tear gas and rubber bullets to break up the protests. They even took captive the leader of an important Indigenous political coalition for many days. Many Salasakans were at the frontlines of the demonstrations. Due to the turmoil, my host family has been unable to access many basic necessities, such as gas for cooking. Since then, the president has called off the military presence and has agreed to sit down with Indigenous leaders to discuss terms and demands.

Things learned:

Mourn with those who mourn. Two years ago, my host parents lost their only two children to Covid-19 within a week of each other. Many in the community criticize them for not doing more to save their children; some outright blame them for their deaths. The women in the market tell the wife that she does not need to sell because she has no children. It is difficult for me to imagine such intense sorrow and heartbreak. I’ll be honest and say that it was often uncomfortable for me, as I felt powerless to comfort them. However, as with other aspects of relationships and cultural navigation, I've been learning to listen. I learned to sit with them in their grief as they told us how empty their house felt, how deeply they missed their children, and what precious memories and stories they had of them. It was difficult leaving them, especially after they related to us that our presence in their home was a deep comfort to them.

Hands-on Kichwa. The latter half of the internship, our language lessons shifted in modality. We traded our classroom for a potato field and our Kichwa instructor for a Kichwa host family. It was quite the ideal setting for increasing my vocabulary and refining my sentence formation in Kichwa. Each new noun was something I saw, and each new verb was something I acted out. No charts, no vocab lists, no Quizlet. It was a new and—dare I say—more natural way of learning, something that excited me and also challenged my analytic, detail-oriented tendencies in language learning. It was also a new experience using Spanish in order to learn another language.

Mentorship. I was extremely blessed to be among such dedicated Christ-followers and seasoned missionaries, both from the U.S. and from Latin America. They helped me grow in cultural awareness, prayer, critical thinking, and love for Jesus, his Church, and the written Word of God. They also introduced me to Paratext and Bloom, two software programs developed by Bible translators to assist in translation and literacy materials.

Linguistic observations. In addition to Kichwa, I also learned much about Andean Spanish. For those who are similarly curious about languages, I’ve included some of my observations here:

· Regalar literally means “to gift.” I was surprised to find that in Ecuador, as in Costa Rica, it can be used more flexibly to mean “to borrow”, “to sell”, or “to hand.”

· Ecuadorians use the progressive verbal construction (estar + present participle -ando/-iendo; equivalent of English verbs ending in -ing) much more often than other varieties of Spanish. I was told that this was an influence of Kichwa, which has a progressive tense that is used quite often.

· No más is added to the end of many sentences to show politeness or friendliness. This is unique to Ecuador and is another influence of Kichwa. The morpheme -lla is commonly added to Kichwa verbs to denote the same thing, but since Spanish has no such special suffix, no más is used in all instances that -lla would be in Kichwa.

· ¿Mande? is used instead of ¿Como? to ask “What?” or for someone to repeat something.

· My host mother used the imperfect subjunctive ending -se (hablase, tuviese) more than -ra (hablara, tuviera). I had never heard someone actually use the -se form before, rather only in writing.

· Merienda is more like a light dinner than a “snack.” Almuerzo is the main meal of the day, usually served with a brothy sopa with a chunk of meat in it followed by a plate of meat, rice, salad, and potatoes or beans.

· The article is typically used with names. If someone were referring to me in the third person, they would say el Joel.

· Most of the community, except for some of the older generation, is bilingual in Kichwa and Spanish. In my extended host family, the parents would speak to their children in Kichwa, and they would respond in Spanish.

· There is a movement in Ecuador to institute a "unified" Kichwa, one that uses no Spanish borrowings and is intelligible by speakers of all varieties of Kichwa in Ecuador. This version of Kichwa is often taught in schools as the only "proper" way to speak Kichwa. As a result, many speakers of Kichwa feel embarrassed by their speech. It is a synthetic language, not a naturally occurring language; no one truly speaks Unified Kichwa. Despite their attempt to unite Indigenous groups in Ecuador and reclaim it from Spanish influence, those who promote its use ultimately create unnecessary obstacles for the next generation to acquire Kichwa, which includes many varieties that are already in danger of extinction.

· Adios has a connotation of not seeing the person for a long time, not just a “see ya later.”

· It is interesting hearing Kichwa spoken since there are so many Spanish loan words. Noun and verb roots are often borrowed and then added on to with Kichwa’s case endings and verb conjugations and other morphemes.

· There is free variation between voiceless aspirated stops and their corresponding fricative forms (ex, [kʰ] and [x]).

· Spanish rr corresponds with Kichwa retroflex [ʐ]. In a word like burro, a mestizo would use the trill (rr; IPA: [r]), while a Kichwa speaker would curl their tongue behind the bony ridge on the roof of their mouth and make a sort of z sound. (The sound [ɻ] is another retroflex sound. Look familiar?)

· Kichwa has four different terms for siblings: a female’s sister, a female’s brother, a male’s sister, and a male’s brother.

· Saber literally means “to know.” Among Salasakans, it can be used much more liberally than in other Spanish varieties. It can communicate having done something before or a habitual action as well. For example, someone asked me: ¿Sabes comer colada morada? (Have you drunk puka api before?). And another time I heard my host cousin say: Después de ser degollada, la gallina sabe moverse mucho. (After the hen’s throat is slit, it usually moves a lot.) I was told that this was an example of language impoverishment. Many Kichwa people do not receive quality education in Spanish and thus have a reduced vocabulary, forcing them to use other words in innovative ways to get across what they'd like to communicate.

· I heard many Salasakans leave out reflexive pronouns or even use se inappropriately as a direct or indirect object.

· Future forms were often used as commands. This isn’t uncommon in Spanish, but future forms generally indicate a very strong command (for example, the Ten Commandments are usually translated using future forms of verbs in Spanish). However, my host family used these forms in very casual situations, such as telling me to have some more bread at the dinner table (¡Comerás pan!).

· When calling out someone’s name, the final syllable receives the stress in Andean Spanish. So, if I were trying to get María’s attention, I would exclaim “¡ma-ri-A!” rather than the typical “¡ma-RI-a!”.

· Greetings: Maimu ringi? Maimunda ringi? People ask “Where are you going?” or “Where are you coming from?” when they see each other on the road. Some will add a little polite jaku ("let's go!") at the end as if to say, “Come a long with me if you’d like.”

Salasaka boasts a view of three volcanoes, which each play a part in local lore: (from top to bottom) 1) Snow-capped Chimborazo with his son, Carihuairazo, in the foreground. Chimborazo is the highest point in South America, and, if measured from the center of the Earth rather than sea level, is the tallest mountain on Earth. 2) Tungurahua, mother of Carihairazo and ex-lover of Chimborazo. 3) Cotopaxi, with whom Tungurahua cheated on Chimborazo.

Things felt: Illness. I didn’t catch Covid-19 when many in my team did early on, but I came down with something towards the end. I had a stomach parasite that had me feeling icky for the last week and a half, and a couple days before we left, I had a migraine and a brief fever. Luckily, I felt well enough to travel, and we didn't have to stress about Covid-19 testing since the U.S. had just dropped their testing policy for vaccinated travelers entering the country.

Vocation and calling. One of my biggest prayers during this trip was that God would help me discern whether I should pursue Bible translation vocationally. While I’m still unsure where I’ll be even a year from now, I believe God has granted me a greater sense of patience and flexibility regarding my vocation and calling. I could very well see myself working with an missionary translation organization; I could just as well see myself pursuing a PhD in linguistics and doing research in the preservation of endangered languages. For the moment, I’m keeping my options open. I’m asking God what simple obedience looks like in the immediate next steps and stepping through the doors he has opened in front of me.

https://video.wixstatic.com/video/46732d_766782061c094875b9c09fb7e502acb0/360p/mp4/file.mp4

Video: A group of Salasaka men celebrating Inti Raimi, the Incan summer solstice.

Prayers & Petitions:

If you are a person who prays, please keep the following in your prayers:

· That the people of Salasaka would continue to encounter God through his Word.

· That the Holy Spirit would bring about grace and humility to heal divisions in the local Evangelical church.

· That, as I begin my senior year at UNW, our Father would continue to reveal his calling upon my life, especially as it pertains to future missions and linguistics work.

Photo: La plaza central in Salasaka

If you are at all interested in learning more about the Bible translation movement or supporting those working in translation, I’d be happy to connect you with a missionary or a ministry representative.

I appreciate you so much. Thank you for your impact, prayers, and presence in my life.

Be well,

jcb