PNS Interview with Obagado Onoye, PhD

 PNS:  Good evening.  This is Rita Trevalyan with Planetary News Service here to interview Obogado Onoye of the Proserpina Exploratory Mission.  How are you tonight, Mr. Obagado?

Onoye:  Mr. Obagado is my father.  Please call me Onoye.

PNS:All right, Onoye.  What is your job in the mission?

Onoye:  My specialty is hydraulics.  Anything having to do with water, I’m your man.  

PNS: So on the trip over, you assisted Nadyezhka with her plants, and now you are assisting the natives to irrigate their crops.

Onoye: Yes.  It is very exciting.  When my father was a very young boy, the American Peace Corps came to his village and taught the people how to  have fresh water for drinking and cooking, and water for their crops and bathing.  Now I do the same thing for these people.  Davida started by digging up an ancient irrigation channel, and I found the rest of the channels.It is like the Peace Corps all over again.

PNS: That does sound very exciting.  How hard is it to learn the language?

Onoye:  Oh, Winifred has taken care of all of that.  She learned it first, and had 2 natives to help her with accent and modernize her pronunciation, and the three of them have been giving us language lessons.  She is a true polyglot.  I don’t know of a language that she hasn’t at least tried to learn.  

PNS:  How many languages do you speak, Onoye?

Onoye:  Only 4.  English, of course, Afrikaans, That’s a dialect of Dutch, I’m learning the language here, I’ve picked up a little Russian, mostly swear words, I’m afraid, and X!hosa, my tribal language.  Father would never forgive me if I forgot that.  

PNS: What is your present ambition?  What would you like to do on Proserpina that you haven’t done yet?

Onoye:  Continue learning the language, of course.  Being able to communicate with these people is such a basic part of life that I don’t know how we could proceed without it.  And once I have become a bit more grounded in the language, I’d like to learn more about the people and the culture they set up when they had to live in the lava tubes.  I am also an anthropologist, you know.  

PNS::Thank you, Onoye.  Tune in next week for another stimulating  interview with a member of this team.

PNS Interview with Davida Izriri, PhD

 PNS:  This is Rita Trevalyan here with Davida Iszrri.  You’re from Israel, right, Dr. Iszriri?

Davida:  Right, but call me Davida.  Dr. Iszriri is my mother the medical doctor.  I’m just a simple archaeologist.

PNS:  Not so simple.  You’ve made a few discoveries, haven’t you?

Davida:  Yes, all of us have.  What used to be a city very close to our encampment.  And it’s in remarkably well preserved condition.  

PNS:  Does the city have a name?

Davida:  We are calling it Cerberus after the three headed dog who used to guard the entrance to Hades, to make sure that only the dead entered there.

PNS:  Cerberus, interesting name.

Davida:but Winifred, our ancient language expert, is working even now on translation to discover their name for the city.

PNS:  Where did you get your PhD?

Davida:  Tel Aviv University, then I did some postdoctoral study in Jerusalem.   I was studying the Western wall of the Temple, the Wailing Wall, when I was called to this mission.Did you know that under the right wind conditions the Wailing Wall actually does wail?

PNS:  No, I didn’t.  I thought it got its name because of the people who stand there and wail over the destruction of the Temple.  

Davida::  Well, that too.  

PNS:  How did Dr. Harris manage to learn their language so she could translate it?

Davida:  Well you’re going to have to have another interview with her, aren’t you?  But to make a long story short, she discovered that it resembles ancient Mayan, except that the characters are phonetic, like ancient Egyptian rather than ideographic.

PNS:  Thank you, Davida for a very interesting talk.  Tune in next week for another inspiring interview of another member of the Proserpina Exploration Team.

PNS Interview with Marcel Goddard, PhD

 PNS:  This is Rita Trevalyan with the Planetary News Service interviewing Marcel Pierre Goddard PhD, one of the brave astronauts on the Proserpina Exploration Team.  How are you, Dr. Goddard?

MPG:  Si vous plait, call me Marcel.  I am fine.  How are you?

PNS:  Can’t complain.  What is your area of expertise?

MPG:  I am a physical anthropologist.  If we find humanoid remains on the planet, it is my job to analyze them, and get a picture of what they were life in life.  

PNS:  What are the chances you will find signs of advanced life on the planet?

MPG: Oh, I would say about 50-50.

PNS:  What do you mean by that?

MPG:  Either we will or we will not.  It could go either way.

PNS:  Where did you study?

MPG:  At the Sorbonne, of course, is there really any other universite?

PNS:  I can see you’re still very loyal  to your alma mater.  What are your plans fo after this mission?

MPG:  Well, UNSA has plans for me, make the circuit, you know, and I probably will write a book about my experiences, and settle down to be a husband and father.  I’m engaged, you see.  Engaged to be married.  It was all quite sudden, you know, but we are very happy about it.

PNS:  Congratulations, Marcel!  Tune in next week for another stimulating interview with one of the members of the Proserpina mission.