giovedì 14 marzo 2013

After the second fieldwork

Last week I was back from the second two-month fieldwork of the Bayso Haro documentation project. Before leaving to the Bayso area I spent about one week in Addis, where I organised a workshop with all the members of the team and prepared the trip. It was the last fieldwork of the first year of project. Therefore, I have made sure that the material we are supposed to archive for the first year was there. Everyone did his and her job. Only Endashaw is still in the field because teaching commitment kept him in Addis Ababa. But I am sure he will not fail.
With the help of Abdissa Ballamo I checked past recordings, transcribed and translated a 22-minute narration on the origins of the Bayso people with some information on neighbouring populations and digitalised three texts with the ELAN software. After I finished with the audio recordings I did the videos. I was lucky to happen into a wedding feast, were I recorded the groom telling the story of his wedding, some women giving blessing, the couple receiving the gifts and thanking for that and women singing. I did the translation of the video speech with Doctor and Getahun, that I had met in the previous fieldwork on the island. This time I was not able to sail because the boat we used last time was not there anymore. I had planned to go with Doctor, but he always delayed the trip because he was busy with building his new house in the Alge village. It is in this village that I did the recording and worked with Doctor and Getahun. I conducted the part of research with Abdissa in a hotel in Mirab Abbaya, the nearest town. This does not sound so exotic and adventurous, but I needed some comfort to deal with the language.
Now it is time to move everything into ELAN and upload the material on the central server of DoBeS. By May we have to produce a report to prove that we reached our target. And get the second year of financing.....