Bahamian Langauge

Found this info on a website:
Althought there is no language barrier between the English speaking world and Bahamians, there are plenty of Slang words tossed around that you might want to be familiar with. Bahamian slang is intermingled with american English as well as British words and slang. A very colorful and interesting sound. Please note that these slang language is also widely spoken in the Turks & Caicos Islands, neighbors of the Bahamas.
argie: to argue
back-back: to go in reverse (Pronounced wewoise) in a car
big-eyed: greedy
biggety: anything bold, brassy, and boastful
big up: Pregnant
boonggy: rear end or hind quarter ; considered a national word
bound: constipated
break: without money (broke)
bright: light complexion
buck up: to crash, as in car
bungy: alternative pronouncement to boonggy
bust-up: badly drunk or intoxicated
calm head: smooth hair in a female
camolly: lump, or bruise
conch: large mollusk; considered to be an aphrodesiac; national food
cowboy: to take an abbreviated bath, without getting in the bath.
cut hip: to give a beating
dead: used as an adjective to intenisfy anything ("dead" ugly)
duff: boiled, fruit-filled dough; a national desert, much loved,with a rum flavored sauce
fast: describes someone who steals, or cannot mind their own business
general: form of address from man to man
gin up: to screw up, mismanage
high: bad smell
hurt: to put a hex on
jack: friend
jam up: to crowd
jumbey: spirit
leg short: arrived too late
long out: to pout
lover: generic name for all Haitian males
low fence: someone that is easy to take advantage of
mashup: smash up a car in an accident
muggage up: to beat up
picky head: short, thin hair pucketery: in a jam, or quandary
purge: to vent rage
quarm: to walk in an affected way
reach - to arrive (as in.. he not reach yet)
shuttail: without pants
sip sip: gossip
show sef: show off
spilligate: to go out on the town
stiff-toe gang; rigor mortis, or to die
sweetheart: affair
tarpree: low class, gullible; like "low fence"
terreckly: soon, from 'directly'
tote news: to gossip

Popular Sayings
“Don’t let your mout (mouth) carry you where your foot can’t bring you back from”

Prickles of Life

Here on the island the grass is very different than at home. Most of it is tough and sort of weedy. There is something which grows in the grass here that produces seeds that are sharp and stick to you, what I would call a "burr”. I asked what they would be called on the island and Miss Pauline told me they are “prickles.”

They stick to your shoes, the hem of your jeans. Before I wash the laundry I find myself checking for prickles because they will transfer from the jeans to the towels and sheets. I have found it is not fun to find a prickle in your bed at night.

Sugar (our dog) gets the prickles in her fur and we need to check her for the things before they get matted and close to her skin. She gets them in the pads of her paws too.

So prickles are just something we are going to have to live with. They are here. They have been here and people on the island have been living with them for years. At home we would spray something or groom the yard to get rid of the prickles. Here, prickles are just accepted and maybe almost anticipated.

We each have our own prickles. The things that bother us. The things of life that get under our skin and rub us the wrong way. These may be things we face every day. Prickles are things we just can’t change right now. We can anticipate that they are to come. We can understand they will come.

What does God have for us in the “prickles of life” ?

It reminds me of verses from James 1:

² When troubles of any kind come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. ³ For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. ⁴ So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing.

⁵ If you need wisdom, ask our generous God, and he will give it to you. He will not rebuke you for asking. ⁶ But when you ask him, be sure that your faith is in God alone. Do not waver, for a person with divided loyalty is as unsettled as a wave of the sea that is blown and tossed by the wind. ⁷ Such people should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. ⁸ Their loyalty is divided between God and the world, and they are unstable in everything they do.

⁹ Believers who are poor have something to boast about, for God has honored them. ¹⁰ And those who are rich should boast that God has humbled them. They will fade away like a little flower in the field.¹¹ The hot sun rises and the grass withers; the little flower droops and falls, and its beauty fades away. In the same way, the rich will fade away with all of their achievements.

¹² God blesses those who patiently endure testing and temptation. Afterward they will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him.

All in a Weeks Work

Just sharing a few photos from our first weeks here and what we have been doing.

We made soup for the team 

In the photo: KP, TJ, David, Linda, Sheleah, and Tori

No Weis market here - and this is not from home. The store in Governor's Harbor uses their bags this week.

Work Days

The following was written for our church newsletter - but it didn't make it in on time. (because I didn't email it when I should have)
I still wanted to share it though...

We look at the calendar and we can hardly believe that we have been on Eleuthera just a month. Time has been just flying by because we have so much we have been doing. We are settled in to our home. It’s just a 12x12 room with an attached powder room and outdoor shower.

We live at Camp Symonette which is in the settlement of James Cistern (everyone calls it JC for short). JC is one of the poorer communities on the island. The school is small and there are limited jobs in the town. The people here are very friendly and love to joke and laugh, you just have to start the conversation. It is expected that you will beep or wave at everyone as you drive down the road.

 

My current job is to host the teams who come in to serve for a week. I work with the kitchen staff and the team leaders and make sure our volunteers are taken care of. Each week a new team of volunteers arrives to serve in the community in building projects. I lead the teams in orientation and explain the work for the week. The teams all take part in helping out with the chores, doing dishes, taking out the trash, cleaning the bathrooms and caring for the chickens and the garden. I do everything from cleaning rooms to baking a cake for a volunteer’s birthday and even act as the tour guide for excursion day when we take the teams to see more of Eleuthera.

David’s work is to keep the supply bus (an old bus in the back of the back parking lot) organized and to do maintenance work around the camp. The camp has not had a long term volunteer dedicated to doing just camp maintenance so there are a lot of small project which need to be completed. He works with the construction manager and the staff project leaders (all of whom are Bahamian). He’s helped to repair the rainwater collection system, tiled a floor and helped to install two newly donated air conditioning units in the second floor office. Last week our 120 gallon hot water heater failed, and so he’s got one more thing to add to the list.

David and I also get to reach out to the local community too. This week we took the afternoon to go to the primary school field day and cheer on the local youth as they ran in their track and field events. The kids love to have visitors. We plan to have photos from the day on our blog.

 

 

 

We are meeting so many interesting people who come to volunteer. Retired businessmen in their 70’s who come to work, retired IBM employees who helped to improve and repair our camp computers, a week of pastors who came to complete training to become “elders” in the Methodist church.

We know you are praying for us because God has been with us through this transition. 

Please continue to remember us and the work we are doing to improve the lives of others.  I look forward to telling you more about the families who are being helped by BMH through improving their housing conditions. Right now our focus is helping the people who come to serve. We are so blessed to have your continued prayers. Please continue to pray and take care of Mason! We are so grateful too for your continued thoughts and prayful support for our parents – Ron and Joan Yunginger, as Ron faces battling with cancer.

Where Moths and Rust Destroy

“Don’t store up treasures here on earth, where moths eat them and rust destroys them, and where thieves break in and steal. Store your treasures in heaven, where moths and rust cannot destroy, and thieves do not break in and steal." Matt 6:18-18

It may not be just the moths in Eleuthera but, certainly it is the termites. 

Part of last weeks work has been to remove a wooden book shelf from the dinning hall because it was being consumed by termites. Some of the books too had been found to have been munched on by these destructive bugs.

The termites are as common here as the mice and the mosquitoes. On our walk to church we could even see a large termite mount in the bush about 10 feet off the road. 

New Bookcase for Books and Games built by TJ

Into the Dinning Hall

Out with the Old

Camp Island Life

So what is living as a missionary like? I’m sure it is very different for everyone who is working in ministry service. It is certainly a change in lifestyle and an understanding of sacrifice.

It is a simple life here at Camp Symonette.

We are living and working at the camp. We have a room and we have use of the rest of the camp when there are no work teams here. We are the only people currently living at the camp. We have the use of the kitchen and dining hall to prepare our own meals and a place to eat them.

On a week day some of the young staff, mostly Leroy, arrive early enough to make themselves breakfast using the eggs collected from our chickens or leftovers from a meal when teams are here.

Leroy's best three egg omelet

Our pantry

 We share space – in the kitchen and in the refrigerator. Everything needs to be marked so you know who bought what food. Food is just expensive here so it is not polite to use another’s supply without asking.

Everything we have in our pantry to cook meals for the week.

Our laundry is hung out to dry on the line. So you have to think about things like – will it be cloudy today or will it rain? – When you have a clothes drier there is no need to plan for the weather.

We have daily chores to do – taking care of the chickens. They are so interesting to watch and to learn their habits and routines. Also, we make sure the garden is being tended.

Our first week of work we were called to do many things. When no teams are here to work in the repair of homes, camp prepares for the next team to arrive and finds time to organize and clean up. These winter months are slower than in the summer so much is being done to prepare for the summer busy season.

This week’s task was to clean out a space at camp to prepare it for future interns to live. Some tasks happen as a result of things breaking down. Our large camp freezer, which was in need of repair, stopped working – so, fixing this snowballed into removing it from the room, repairing it, and while it was out of the room, painting the room (always in a color which is fun and bright and tropical!) and shelving in addition to tiling the floor.

David cutting tile

This was also the space where all of the camp medical/emergency supplies are kept so this needed to be reorganized and put back in the room. (we seemed to find enough items which I think would allow someone to undergo a surgical procedure while at camp) Besides your basic band-aids and headache pills – we have blood pressure cuffs, blood sugar monitoring, CPR kit, tourniquet, survival heat blankets, suture kit, eye wash, eye patches, asthma meds, itch creams, allergy pills, bug bite wipes, Epi-pen and more gauze then anyone should ever need.

We try to take time each day (usually in the morning) to do devotions. One day I got up in time to watch Joyce Meyer online from the roof deck as the sun was rising.