His name is Ouseman, and he's a master mason in Djenne, an ancient city made entirely of river mud.

他叫乌瑟曼，是杰内古城的泥瓦匠专家，这座古城所有建筑均由河泥建成。

I lived with this master mason for seven years to learn the craft.

为了学习这门手艺，我和这位石匠大师一起生活了七年。

Master masons at the guildhall test the journeymen, and if they're skilled and pass the test, the master masons hire them.

市政厅的石匠大师会测试熟练工，如果他们技术熟练并通过测试，石匠大师就会雇用他们。

He paid another master mason nearby to take me on as an apprentice when I was 11 years old.

在我 11 岁时，他付钱给附近的另一位石匠大师收我为徒。

The wages of the master mason, supposing him to have been without employment one-third of the year, would have fully equalled them.

石匠大师的工资，假设他一年有三分之一的时间没有工作，就完全等于他们的工资。

Once a journeyman gets a job, he chisels his personal mark on the stone he carves so the master mason can evaluate his work.

一旦熟练工找到工作，他就会在自己雕刻的石头上刻上自己的个人印记，以便石匠大师评估他的工作。

Eventually I left my teacher and began the life of a journeyman, someone who has finished his apprenticeship but is not yet a master mason.

最终我离开了我的老师，开始了一个熟练工的生活，一个已经完成学徒但还不是石匠大师的人。