Leaving for Wagi

The Basics
Who: Bonnie, Juliann, Gil, & Sara
What: Language vitality survey
When: March 4-9
Where: Wagi language area
Why: To find out how much the Wagi people are still using their traditional language

The Details
Tomorrow morning, bright and early, we're leaving Ukarumpa to go on a survey of the Wagi langauge.  We'll be driving around 5 hours to the city of Madang (near where I had my orientation) and then just a short distance further to the Wagi language area.  Since Dan is gone, another guy, Gil, is going along with Bonnie, Juliann, and me.  He'll be able to help us with our work, so all of our loads will be a little lighter.

Over five days, we'll be visiting the five villages in the langauge to find out about language vitality, whether people are still using the language.  We'll be doing interviews and watching people, especially kids, to see what languages they use.  If children aren't speaking their traditional language (but use the trade language Tok Pisin instead), it might mean that the language will not be spoken in the next generation.  This would affect what kind of strategy the translators will use. 

Here are some prayer requests for this survey...

- We are going to be trying a new method for figuring out language vitality.  Pray that it works well, that we'll have wisdom about how to do it, and that we'll get useful results from it. 

- Pray for safety, health, and stamina for all of us.  We are already tired from a busy last few weeks of writing up a report about our last survey.

- This survey is important because it will determine how the language program in Wagi will proceed.  Pray that we'll get good results that will help translators and others make good decisions about how best to help the Wagi people.

Here's a picture of the team for this survey... Juliann, Bonnie, Gil, and me.