Recording Genesis in Toussiana

The story of Abraham and Joseph was translated in Toussian several years ago and was made available in printed form. Recently we were able to translate the first eleven chapters of Genesis but decided to present these in a different manner. The Toussian culture is primarily oral and story telling around the fire at night is still a common occurance. Considering these factors, we decided to translate portions of Genesis in an oral style rather than a straight verse by verse translation. We decided to record these stories and add some songs that have recently been composed by a group of Toussian believers to go along with them.

Margaret thought that a contest to see who could tell the best story would be good PR to introduce these stories. In addition, Colin Suggett, one of our colleagues has started using a device known as a Mega Voice player to play these stories among the Turka people.

Megavoice is a new type of player that looks like a mobile phone, has no moving parts, runs on solar power and is said to be almost indestructible. The whole New Testament can be put on a chip inside. There are three sets of buttons for going forward or back by book, chapter, or verse. It can be easily heard by a roomful of people, or by large crowds through a sound system. There is quite a bit of interest in these players among the Turka people.

We invited Ken and Audrey Joslin, Vernacular Media Specialists, to come and record these stories. What a learning experience for all of us!

The first step in doing a recording is to make a recording studio. We had decided that Margaret’s house and neighborhood might be quieter than mine, since I live toward the center of the village.
		They set up the computer and mixing board. Oops, Margaret’s solar panel couldn’t take that much draw on the current. The solar panel system started to buzz and whine which the microphones picked up instantly. Our translators sat around rehearsing their parts while watching these technical efforts.

We then moved to the office located next to my house.			Again, the equipment was set up. No problem with the electricity. Whew! Again people had to wait their turn in the recording process.
	We had to then set up the actual ‘sound booth’. The Joslins had large pieces of foam that they clipped to wooden frames to buffer the sounds. We had to cover windows and doors as well.

		The musicians started to arrive at the office and we got the instrumentalists			and the singers set up.

Recording music required a different set-up than recording people with speaking parts.

The stories were told with people playing different parts. Interestingly, Pastor Pierre played the voice of God while his wife was the voice of Satan in the story of the fall!

We set up a smaller studio, in which we recorded one speaker at a time for the Abraham story. There were times when the script had to be checked to make sure no parts were left out.

We ran out of "actors" so the welding apprentices next door were recruited.

You’ll notice they didn’t have time to go home and clean up. One of these young men is from a Catholic background, one is nominal Muslim but the other is non-Christian. Pastor Pierre had a chance to explain to them later what the story was all about.

I was very much interested in how all the recording was done and, of course, taking pictures to share with you.
Audrey was also taking pictures.			This experience has helped us to gain understanding for the dubbing of the Luke video.

• January 2006, Toussian Churches
• August 2005, Christian Jr. Hi in Toussiana
• July 2005, Pastor Pierre Wedding
• June 2005, Locust Plague
• April 2005, Branch Conference
• February 2005, Literacy Classes
• September 2004, Market Pictures
• August 2004, Return to Toussiana
• May 2004, In Memory of Wilhelm
• July 2003, Wilhelm’s Parents 50th Wedding Anniversary
• Feb. 2003, New Office Building
• Nov 2002, Reading Contest
• July 2002, Toussian Translators
• March 2002 Literacy classes
• Jan 2002 Bissa New Testament dedication
• January 15, 2002
• Nov 2002  Language learning, Translation, Revision, Ladies day at church
• Oct 2001  Sunday school outing, Fonio harvest
• Aug 2001  Cobly Reunion
• May 31, 2001  Return to Burkina Faso
• May 5, 2001  Germany, Az, Oregon office work
• Jan 2001  Our time in Germany

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