These are a few of my favourite things

My friend Jenny who lives in England has been sick with ME for 9 years. She recently posted a list of her favourite things on her blog and asked her friends to do the same on December 1st to bring a smile to her face on a dark day (9 years since she first became ill).

These are a few of my favourite things (in no particular order):

• food of most kinds, especially coffee & cake/pastries, hearty Italian food, deliciously flavoursome Thai or Indian food, icecream or gelato, fresh sweet pineapple, juicy peaches, champagne

• singing harmonies
• reading the Bible with someone and learning together from it
• exploring new places when travelling 
• the beach (rockpools, reading on the beach, walking on the beach at low tide, swimming when the surf is gentle)

• summer evenings spent outside with friends and a summery drink
• observing language patterns and playing language games
• getting packages and handwritten letters in the mail
• listening to singable music while baking - especially at Christmas time, baking mince pies or shortbread while listening to and singing along with classic Christmas carols (A Carnegie Hall Christmas has been my favourite for a long time)

Where can I go from here?

In the latest round of campaigning for the federal election, opposition leader Tony Abbott has announced that he wants to reduce the number of boats of asylum seekers coming to Australia to a maximum of three boats per year (see article). Apparently there were only 3 boats a year during the last years of John Howard's government (1996-2007), and that's his model.

The proposal is to stop offering residency to people who are recognised as refugees. He reckons he can get it down to that level within the first term of government if his party wins the election this September. That's three years.

But wait, what's a refugee? According to the United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees (1951 - which Australia is a signatory of), a refugee is: “Any person who owing to a well founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his/her nationality and is unable, or owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself/herself of the protection of that country.” (see here for more information).

It seems to me that in all the media hype and politicising of "the boats", we have lost sight of the fact that there are human beings on the boats and they are seeking refuge from something. This is not a holiday cruise for them, but a last-ditch resort to save their lives. It is absolutely no surprise to me that, after assessment of their request for asylum, 90% of asylum seekers arriving by boat are considered to be genuine refugees. Surely, only those who are genuinely in need of getting out of a desperate, life-threatening situation would consider a perilous boat journey (and the other parts of the journey before that) worth the risk.

In many cases, a family can only afford to pay the people smugglers to get one member of the country, so the rest of the family stays behind in the hope that one day they might be able to follow. I often sense that people misinterpret this as a cunning, manipulative plan to get one family member in and then the others will follow. They almost certainly hope they will follow, but the motives are for the preservation of life, not the subversion of an immigration policy.

Perhaps we have too high a view of life in Australia. I love it here just as much as any of us, but I think some people assume that everyone in the world would naturally want to live here and people will make up any story to be able to come and live here. That may be true in some cases (and is probably historically the reason that my husband and I have had to spend a lot of money and time applying for a 'temporary partner visa' for him to be able to stay here). But in other cases, and certainly in the case of people seeking asylum, it is definitely not their preferred choice. Entrusting yourself to a people smuggler is a huge risk, and starting life in a new country with an unfamiliar language and culture is a huge upheaval. Next time you meet someone who is seeking or has been granted refugee status, ask them - if the circumstances in your home country were different, would you rather be there or here?

Maybe there are now more places in turmoil causing more people to flee for their lives than there were during Howard's government. In that case there needs to be attention paid to the reasons for people needing to flee their countries - more diplomatic pressure, perhaps. And maybe the whole industry of people smuggling has grown exponentially since then, particularly because Australia and other countries are not offering resettlement of many people applying offshore for asylum. Whatever the reason for the increase in the number of people coming by 'irregular maritime arrival', if people really need to flee where they live, I'm not convinced that Australian "border protection" policies will stop people smugglers from trying to bring them here while there's money to be made from it.

What's with 'God bless you'?

The other day my husband asked me why people say 'God bless you'. Isn't 'bless' the form you would use for first person ('I bless you') or second person ('you bless me') only? Why isn't it 'God blesses you'? I explained it to him and he suggested I write a blog post about it, in case others wondered the same thing.

It turns out many others have wondered the same thing, as you can see on this Wiki Answers post, this one on English Forums, or this one on English Language and Usage Stack Exchange.

Image from 'Fields of Cake' blog

'(May) God bless you' is a bit like (or belongs to the same paradigm as)

God save the Queen (not saves)

Long live the king (not lives)

Heaven help us (not helps)

God be praised (not is praised)

So be it (not is)

Truth be told (not is told)

If I were you (not was or am)

The fancy technical name for this kind of construction is 'subjunctive mood'. It's a particular form of the verb, although in English it nearly always looks exactly like the 'normal' indicative form. That's why we don't really recognise it when we see it and why it looks or sounds a bit weird if you think about it.

It's different in meaning from the indicative because it expresses a degree of doubt or wishfulness, or something of a hypothetical nature.

Here are the paradigms for indicative and subjunctive, to compare the differences:

Indicative:

I save

you save

he saves

We save

you(se) save

they save

Note that the only one that is different is 'he saves' (third person singular form)

Subjunctive:

I save

You save

He save

We save

You(se) save

They save

Now the verb form is the same across the paradigm, and it's only the third person singular form that is different from the indicative. You can of course read the Wikipedia explanation of subjunctive mood for more information on this. But that's the general gist of it.

The meaning of murder

Here's a cheery topic for May: Murder - what does it mean? Can you murder something that is not human? A plant, say? I have sometimes thought of myself as a plant-murderer because I'm not much of a green thumb.

What about insects? If so, then I must confess to being a mass-murderer! Spiders (especially huntsmen!), cockroaches, flies, mosquitoes, ants... the list goes on. 

Or what about a goldfish or other kind of aquatic creature? When I was little my family looked after a yabby for my mum's friend who was a primary school teacher. The yabby was a class pet. It was a hot summer. The poor yabby couldn't withstand the heat and when we came home one day we found it had died.

Mammals? I've orchestrated the killing of numerous rats and mice. Maybe the odd possum on the road.

Of course, it's ridiculous to think that murder includes plants and insects. It's possibly less ridiculous to include fish and reptiles, and getting a bit more uncomfortable once we get to mammals. And that's probably because mammals are getting closer to humans in terms of being warm-blooded.

Any dictionary will tell us that murder is when one person kills another person. It has to be unlawful (i.e. not with the permission of someone legally authorised to give that permission, as with capital punishment - and that's a topic for another day). It has to be premeditated, not accidental, otherwise it's considered manslaughter instead.

I was prompted to think about this after the recent disturbing news of the man in Ohio who had kidnapped three young women and held them hostage in his house for a decade. He probably fathered the 6-year-old child found with the women, and the reports talked about accusations of him forcing one of the women to miscarry other pregnancies. The report in the Sydney Morning Herald said this:

As more grim details emerge about the long captivity of the three women rescued from imprisonment in a dilapidated home in Cleveland, prosecutors said they would seek murder charges, potentially carrying the death penalty, against Ariel Castro, accusing him of forcing at least one of the women to miscarry.

Could causing a woman to miscarry constitute murder, according to the basic definition I put forward above? What was killed? An unborn human child. Was it unlawful? Presumably no one gave him authorised permission to do so. Was it pre-meditated? Hard to say, if it's true that he would 'starve Ms Knight for weeks, then repeatedly punch her in the stomach ''until she miscarried''', that would probably be considered pre-meditated.

One interesting factor in all this is the status of the unborn child (or possibly children) miscarried during those terrible years. If the prosecutors want to bring a charge of murder against Castro, they will have to establish that the unborn child should be considered human. I wonder if their case against him will be made difficult by the Abortion Laws in Ohio that allow abortion of foetuses up to 24 weeks (more than half the usual full-term gestation period). Foetuses at 24 weeks (but sometimes earlier) are usually considered 'viable', that is, able to survive outside the womb.

It seems that it's partly also a conflict of wills. In most cases the murderer wants the other person dead, but the person who dies doesn't usually want to die (except in the case of euthanasia - again, a topic for another day). In this case, it was the will of the man who caused the miscarriage and the mother's will was not taken into account - much less the 'will' of the unborn child.

Reflections of a language nerd

It's been a while since I formally learnt another language. In fact it was 11 years ago that I studied Latin in my third year of university. Opto, optas, optat, optamus, optatis, optant, and all that.

Now I'm studying Greek - the Greek used in the New Testament - as part of a theological degree. I wasn't sure how I'd go learning Greek, after all I'm 10 years older than I was last time I had to study language and do tests and exams. I've learnt bits of other languages since then (Dutch, Swahili, Luganda) but only piecemeal and through immersion, which is a different kind of learning.

So I've been pleasantly surprised that it's all coming back to me - learning paradigms and vocabulary, and translating sentences that don't always seem to make much sense. Thankfully, many of the grammatical concepts I learnt in Latin (such as noun declensions, noun cases and verb paradigms) carry over into Greek, so I didn't have to start cold as some of my classmates did. Of course, being a linguist doesn't hurt either! Now that we are learning more vocab and more structures, the sentences we have to translate start to be more meaningful and some are even recognisable as particular verses from the Bible.

My understanding of Greek, which is so far limited but growing, is also opening up to me new perspectives on translation of the Bible. I'm very thankful for the hundreds, if not thousands, of years of scholarship on biblical Greek and the careful translation work that has been done over past centuries to give us very good and meaningful translations of the Bible in English as well as many other languages.

The translations we have in English are really very transparent, with any uncertainties or ambiguities footnoted in most versions. So there need be no concern about the reliability of the translation. It is not to be taken for granted that we have the word of God, the Author of Life itself, in a form ordinary people can read and understand for themselves. This is especially so when there are still hundreds of languages around the world that have no translation of the Bible yet. Maybe something I can help with in the future...

Experiences of a Ugandan wedding

Late in 2012 we had the privilege of attending the wedding functions of a member of our church home group. I have been meaning to blog about it for a while but have been preoccupied with other things.

In Uganda, a wedding is not just a ceremony and reception as in most Australian weddings. It involves at least two ceremonies, usually on different days - the traditional one, called an Introduction, and the church or civil ceremony with reception. The Introduction is the one least like the familiar Australian wedding. It stems from the Ugandan tradition in which a woman formally 'introduces' the man she wants to marry to her parents and family members. The man brings his family members along as well as gifts to show his appreciation to the bride's parents and demonstrate his financial resources (see this blog, especially the latter part, for a more detailed description of the process and ritual of engagement and introduction, from an outsider's point of view).

The modern Ugandan Introduction seems to have become quite a production in comparison to what might once have been quite a modest and sincere occasion. In some cases, the dowry is not so much offered by the groom as demanded in specific detail by the bride's family (we want 10 cows, 2 goats, this many baskets of fruit/vegetables, a new dress for each aunt…). It is an occasion on which the groom wants to make a good impression on all present, and the bride's family want to be seen to be gaining a worthwhile son-in-law (see this article for some surprising wedding 'cons'). The groom usually holds a series of 'wedding meetings' with his friends and supporters to plan the occasion and raise the money needed, as the cost of the wedding and bride price is borne not by the individual or by one of the families, but by the community (on the groom's side).

Gifts lined up ready to take to the Introduction.

On the morning of the Introduction we arrived at the rendezvous point at 8.30am as instructed, having been told the function would begin at 11.00 and we'd all go together in several cars. The dowry gifts of baskets of fruit and vegetables, 20kg bags of rice and sugar, crates of coca-cola, a box of laundry soap and a custom-made chair for the father of the bride were gathered and wrapped (where possible) at that house and squeezed into cars. We finally left the house at 11.30am to drive to the venue, which was in a suburb a bit further out of Kampala. There was one stop on the way in order to rendezvous with more guests in more cars, and then we proceeded, arriving at the venue close to 1pm. We waited outside with the groom's family and friends as other guests on the groom's side arrived. Finally, just before 2pm, a man who was waiting outside with us told us it was time to go inside. He addressed everyone in Luganda but then translated the instructions into English for us. Basically, we were to follow what everyone else did - sit when they sat, stand when they stood, and speak when spoken to! This man turned out to be a hired speaker who would be the groom's spokesman for the ceremony. There was another one for the bride's side.

We lined up, men in one line and women in another, ready to go in the gate. The spokesman knocked on the gate and announced our arrival and then came the reply: 'What are you all doing here disturbing my family on a Saturday afternoon?*' Huh?? I thought we had come for a wedding. Weren't they ready for us? The spokesman was ready: 'One of us is sick and needs a doctor. We heard this was the doctor's house.' Oh? The reply came: 'Ok, I will send out some people to help you'. Four young women dressed identically in wrap-around dresses came out and began to pin ribbons on each of us (this was to mark us out as guests for when we eventually went in). Our spokesman thanked the occupants, and they replied: 'If that is all, you can go now'. Our spokesman was ready again: 'Actually, we have a young man here who wants to see one of your daughter.' The other spokesman replied, 'What would he want with my daughters? They are still in school.' 'Oh, no he wants to see your other daughter, the one who has finished studying'. 'Oh well, I'm sorry but she is away in London.' What?? Why wasn't she here when she was supposed to be introducing her husband? 'Then please bring her back as we want to see her.' 'It will cost a lot of money. You will have to pay to bring her back.' An envelope was then handed through the gate, and I began to understand that there was an element of farce and performance in this ceremony.

The 'doctors' come out to see to the visitors.

We were finally allowed to enter the gate, and took our seats in the courtyard of the house, facing the bride's family. Her 'father' and 'mother' (her brother and an aunt to stand in for her late parents). There were some introductions made by the spokesman, and fairly early on the bride's spokesman asked who we were and so we had to stand up and introduce ourselves. I guess we stuck out a bit! We were served sodas and then the bride's 'sisters' (probably her sister plus other young female relatives) were sent out to dance a bit and it was pointed out by the groom's side that none of these was the woman they were here to see. Then the bride's aunts came out and danced a bit, and then went out and returned with the bride. At one point they also danced into the groom's side of the party to search out the groom, who was right at the back. They brought him to the front and sat him with the bride.

The bride dancing with her aunts (ssenga)

Over the course of the rest of the event, the bride changed outfit five times, the women on the bride's side danced some more, the two spokesmen bantered and joked a lot (to allow time for the bride's outfit changes!), the gifts were brought in and presented, there were some speeches by various representatives from both sides, and it gradually got darker. Around 6pm dinner was served buffet style. We hadn't eaten anything much since breakfast so we were quite keen to line up, but as we started to go and line up with the rest of the groom's side, we were told that we were to be taken inside the house to eat with the bride and groom. This was a great honour to us as we were included among the bridal party. As is tradition, the bride and her aunts served the groom and his close family representatives (his best man, an aunt, and us). We ate beef stew, rice, chapati, and a special wedding dish called lowombo which is cooked inside a banana leaf. There were many guests on the bride's side who had come a long way (from the eastern part of Uganda near Kenya) so dinner was served and eaten quickly and then the cake was cut and the function closed so that those guests could begin the long journey home.

The gifts are carried in.

A lot of what happened during the event was completely opaque to us because most of the ceremony was conducted in Luganda and translated into the language of the bride's family from the east. Only some of it was translated into English (purely for our benefit). An article I found written by a Ugandan who has been through the experience himself helped me understand it better and it might be worth skimming through if you have time so you can also understand the point of the more surprising details I have mentioned.

Two weeks after the Introduction, we attended the church wedding ceremony at St Paul's Cathedral on Namirembe hill. As the first cathedral in Uganda, it is a historical building and the most sought-after wedding ceremony venue in the country. We even heard of a Danish couple coming especially to get married there because the groom's father had been married there! The ceremony was much like our own Australian wedding ceremony in many ways, with a church minister, bride, groom, bridesmaids, groomsmen, prayers, Bible readings, a brief sermon, singing, and the signing of the register. At the conclusion of the ceremony the cathedral emptied quickly, and when we had been outside for about 5 minutes I could hear noise coming from inside the cathedral. I looked in to see another bride walking up the aisle. That was a quick turnaround, I thought. But when I looked more closely I noticed that there wasn't just one bride, but four! Four couples were being married in the one ceremony! When we asked our friends about it, they told us that was quite normal for the afternoon timeslots at the cathedral. If you want your own private ceremony you have to have a timeslot before 2 or 3pm and you have to pay a bit more. There is wedding ceremony basically every hour on most Saturdays, and if you are late by a certain amount, they can refuse to marry you.

*The dialogue as represented here is not verbatim, but as close as I can remember. The semantics are roughly accurate, if not the words and grammar!