BIMI
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days on a riverboat, they arrived in the small village of Kinchwa to begin their new lives. Her first challenge was language. She knew no French, which was the official language, and she definitely did not know any Chiluba, which was the local dialect. She started her language study by learning “What is this?” in Chiluba and from there developed her own vocabulary. She even learned the “language of the drums.” Since villages were far apart with no means of communication, drums were used to send messages back and forth. This method was also used for religious purposes. Since none of the natives had any concept of time and therefore could not understand that church started at a particular hour, the missionaries on Sunday morning would beat the drum meaning “Time to wake up.” Fifteen minutes later, a different drumbeat would sound out meaning “Time to eat breakfast.” There was then a drumbeat later for “Time to go to church.” This, of course, did not solve the problem with punctuality, but it at least helped the faithful to be more faithful! Culture adaptation was a challenge. Martha had to relearn just about everything —for in that primitive culture everything was different. To do something too different would raise suspicions in a culture already overly superstitious. Culinary skills were developed and soon cooking elephant and grinding monkey meat into hamburgers was mastered. Martha's main job was teaching the missionary children as several missionary families lived together on a compound and would have one school for their children. Later, she and the missionary children joined with a boarding school further south in the village of Kijiji, which had a total of ninety students. In those years, boarding school was the “norm” for missionary children, and 13