Thoughts on language

South Africa has 11 national languages. Most people here speak at least two languages fluently, but often more. The most common are English, and Afrikaans. The most common other language spoken around here (Cape Town and Groote Schuur Hospital) is Xosha. Xosha is a fascinating language that my American tongue may never be able to master, but I’d love to learn it. Afrikaans is a newer language, influenced largely by the Dutch and English speaking white settlers here. It is a much more familiar sounding language, and one that I will attempt to learn to be conversational in while I’m here.

So, in theory one should be able to get by just fine here knowing and understanding English. That’s only kind of true. Around town, for the most part, it really is true. In the hospital, it’s a different story. Many of my patients speak only Xosha, or also Afrikaans, but understand only a smattering of English. More on that later. As far as English goes, everyone talks about the “South African accent.” Being here for a couple weeks, I’m now convinced that no such thing exists. There are SO many accents around here, I really can’t identify the classic SA accent. The accent is influenced by whatever native language(s) is/are spoken where the person learns English, then additionally influence by whether they speak it natively or have learned it later in life. Then, a lot of people around the hospital speak a mix of English and Afrikaans, switching back and forth between the two, talking so fast that sometimes you can’t even tell what’s accented English and what’s a whole other language. I’m following it better now, but my first few days here there was a lot of “just smile and nod” going on.

I’ve learned a lot about language in general here, being exposed to so many. Here are a few South African colloquialisms that I find fun:
Just now: can mean anything from “now” to “sometime in the next few days/months/years.” If someone says they are going to do something “just now,” don’t hold your breath.
Now now: the slightly more expeditious form of “just now.”
Just now now: I’ll let you know if I ever figure out how to translate that one.
Robots = traffic lights
Mmmmmm: yes. Not to be confused with mmm-mmm (no) or hmmmm (hmmmm).
Quite: this may be a british thing, but they use the word “quite” quite a lot. Rarely do they use “very” or “really.”
African time: very similar to “island time.” Corresponds quite nicely with “Kim time.”
Is it: this one's a bit confusing. can be an appropriate response to just about any comment. If I say "I love chocolate," they'll say "is it."

The Long Trip Over

I’ll start with the trip over. I boarded the shuttle to the airport with a bit more trepidation than I might like to admit. I suppose we always have a bit of fear of the unknown. I also knew that regardless of what landing in South Africa would be like, the nearly two days of getting there could be exhausting. But, armed with entertainment and heavy sedatives, I was off…
The trip was actually not too bad. No sedatives necessary. I had a long layover in NYC, and was fortunate enough to have a place to call home for a few hours (thanks ae and j!!). I went for a run to burn some energy, showered, and re-humanized before boarding the long flight. I’d recommend breaking any long trip up like that! And my fellow passengers were likely just as grateful as me that I’d managed a shower and change of clothes.

The long plane ride from JFK to Cape Town was…long. We boarded in the late afternoon, which I think was early morning in Cape Town. Time, however, becomes fairly irrelevant at some point. Contrary to my itinerary, which listed a stopover in Johannesburg, we stopped for a re-fuel in Dakar in the dark hours of some morning (yesterday? tomorrow?), during which security guards boarded the plane and proceeded to tear apart all the seats looking for contraband. Then we were off again for CT. Or perhaps that was all a groggy dream…

The thing about a 15 hour plane ride is, you’d better like your neighbors. As luck would have it, my neighbor loaded a large bag (over)stuffed with climbing gear into the overhead bin before sitting down next to me. Tristan, as it turns out, was on his way home from 2 months of backcountry skiing and ice climbing in the Cascades and the Tetons. Within minutes, I had a new friend. 15 hours, a sunset, a sunrise, a few bad meals, and a couple of naps later, I had seen pictures of all of South Africa’s premiere climbing crags and had planned many epic excursions through the region. It’s always nice to meet some locals. When they come complete with good beta and a full assortment of gear…who could really ask for more.

Landing in Cape Town was a bit disorienting. Having been out skiing only a couple of days before, I now walked off the plane into 105°F of sunshine. I then promptly tried to get into the drivers seat of the taxi. Hmm…I’m not in Kansas anymore. But I’m home. More to come soon….

Prequel

Here's a quick summary of the time leading up my trip: I worked. I did some skiing. I packed. I moved. I skied. I stressed out. I skied some more. Here's a few pictures of me playing in the snow before I hopped on a 48 hour plane ride back to summer. Check out more pictures at http://picasaweb.google.com/kimgivler

One month and counting...

In an attempt to be organized and on top of things, I'm planning to keep a blog while I'm away. If all goes as planned, I'll post weekly (or so) updates of my time in Capetown and my travels thereafter. I'll try to get some good pictures posted too. Stay tuned...