2 Days 2 Smiles

So far, two things have given me much pride this week. The first is that I made my first ever apple crumble, using our Jamaican Otaheite Apple! It is lovely with icecream and or cream - ask my wife, who was, at first, expressed uncertainty about my concoction! ("Yes maasa," I heard her muttered rather sardonically in a low voice, "wata nais sinting yu a go kuk nou!" Well, yesterday, she chided me for having devoured most of the "singting" - after she had tasted it herself, of course!)

The second thing that put a smile on my face is a paragraph in an occasional papar which I've been reading. The article was written by Professor Hubert Devonish and Dr Karen Carpenter of the Jamaica Language Unit at the University of the West Indies, Mona. It is entitled Full Bilingual Education in a Creole Language Situation: the Jamaican Bilingual Primary Education Project and is published by the Society for Caribbean Linguistics (February 2007). On page 22 of the article one reads,

“In Jamaica, the first step in the process that resulted in the BEP [Bilingual Education Project] came from an initiative my Mrs. Faith Linton, a retired educator who had been active in the process of Bible Translation into Jamaican...the Bilingual Education Project, was inspired by the commitment and daring shown in the Linton initiative” (emphasis mine).

Last month, John Roomes, Executive Director of Wycliffe Caribbean, sent me an e-mail which contained the following:

"The UWI is conducting the dual language education in three schools because of Mrs. Linton and two of us from WBTC who in 2003 went to the then minister of education and declared that we disagreed with the government’s language policy. The minister virtually overturned the policy and we brought the UWI in to retake their place in taking the language back into our schools. Out of this a relationship has developed with the UWI. We later insisted that they be made part of the partnership for the translation."