5k Kate

I should retitle this blog: Reasons why I didn't run today by Kate.  I didn't run today because the skin on my back is falling off in one big sheet from that terrible sunburn. Also it was cold and I was cozy in my sleeping bag. I know that that image of me shedding probably doesn't sound cozy, but you learn to put up with a lot here for basic comforts.  Today was an incredibly productive day linguistics-wise. My corpus of verbs is really coming together and I'm able to sort verbs into various conjugation classes based on their root allomorphy. Their conjugation class has implications for the phonology, for example it determines if the root will undergo reduplication or nasal metathesis. I have been transcribing and translating a lot of stories and finding plenty of examples for the short grammar texts that I've been writing up. I can't believe we only have one full work week left. I wonder what I want to get done... I promise to run tomorrow. Or at least come up...

Finally got out on a run today, first day of November. Limol villagers returned from the burial last night and will return to Malam this Sunday for the funeral feast. I felt sad running down the road that had just led those mourners home. I finished my run at the edge of the village and Grace was there waiting with the water roller and bucket. We went for water and saw a wallaby near the well. Second time! We rolled back and I had to have a very quick shower and breakfast because a man named Sawe Bolet who speaks another (!) Pahoturi River language (dialect) called Em was waiting to work with me. Together we did the Yamfinder survey and transcribed half of his story about a sacred cassowary that attacked him. In the afternoon, I gathered more verbs with Warama and Jerry and translated a text on Funeral Traditions that Winson had written last year. After work, I went to see the baby of the mother who had died. The baby boy has been given to a woman named Sandra in Malam who doesn't ...