Sala Kahle
Hello! I’ve been back state-side for almost a week now, so I thought it was finally time to wrap things up and write my closing post.
My time in South Africa came to a nice close…I finished up my project just in the nick of time, putting the final touches on my paper (which is currently being sent as a report to the Department of Health, and will later be published in a journal in a much-condensed form). I spent my last day saying goodbye-the iThemba Lethu kids blew me lots of farewell kisses-and I had a lovely last dinner with my digsmates. Then, the long journey home…
I’ve been having some deliberations about whether this is too gross to post (how poetic 
), but I’ve decided that things like this only happen once in a blue moon, and so their stories really just have to be told. But be forewarned…if you have a weak stomach you might want to skim down towards the bottom.
So, the first stretch (Durban to Joburg) of my journey home was uneventful, and I was happily settling into my Joburg-Dakar flight when all of a sudden the woman sitting behind me got sick and projectile vomited onto…me. It might not have been that bad on a short flight, but unfortunately I still had about 20 hours to go, so that was really not an ideal situation. But I tried to apply my new Bridget Jones life philosophy (finding humor even in those otherwise awkward or pitiful situations), told myself grin and bear it, and wet-wiped myself down.
I guess the take-home message from all this is that maybe we should adopt a new perspective on what qualifies as a “bad flight.” I used to think that meant turbulence or a seat-mate who hogged the armrest, but now…my standards have changed.
So, on that very classy note, I’ll bid you farewell. I’m so excited to talk to or even see all of you in the very near future! I’ve currently got a bit of a cold and my voice sounds like a combination of a man and a frog…so for everyone’s benefit, I’ve been trying to keep my social schedule low-key…but soon!
Hopefully I’ll be back blogging about more adventures in the future, but until then I’ll leave you with a Zulu goodbye: Sala kahle- Stay well.
Oh my word…
Ok, finally…the long-promised list of South Africanisms. Given that I started off this blog with a South African word, and I’m now coming to the end of my time here, I thought this would be a nice way of coming full circle. So, drum roll please:
-shame: probably the most commonly said word in South Africa. Occasionally used in situations where we might say “what a shame” or “that’s a shame,” but generally just one of those filler words that gets used to start expressions…or end expressions…or give you something to say when there’s nothing else to be said. For instance, “Shame, what a sweet girl.” “I know, shame…” “Shame.”
-howzit: a shortened version of “how’s it going?.” It can be a question (with a slight upward intonation of the voice at the end), but is generally just an equivalent of “hey.”
-sho: another filler word, although this one is usually used to express some sort of sympathy/disbelief/commiseration….think of it as a more chilled version of “haibo.”
-must: obviously we have the word “must” in our English vocabularies too, but the difference is the frequency with which it’s said here. I feel like Americans tend to reserve “must” for situations of urgency, whereas here it can be for something as basic as “you must tell me about your day.”
-ja: Afrikaans for “yes.” Pronounced “yaw,” this one has become quite a fixture of my speech. I’m hoping I’ll be able to phase it out fairly quickly, but if not…please be patient.
-keen: again, another word we use too, but just very differently (or much less often). Here it’s used to indicate/ask if people would like something. “Going to movies- anyone keen?”
-jol: party/good time.
-choon/chooning: usually the equivalent of “teasing”: for example, “he wouldn’t stop chooning about my accent.” (incidentally, “jol” and “choon” are both words I specifically don’t use because of my accent. Also “maul”—see below)
-much of a muchness: the same thing. So, when deciding between two relatively similar things, people will often get fed up and say “agh, it’s much of a muchness.”
-bru: Afrikaans for “brother.”
-lekker: Afrikaans for “nice.”
-just now/now now: anytime from a few minutes to hours away…so if someone says “I’m coming just now,” they are coming…when??? no one knows
-hectic: a variety of uses. Often used the way we do—”I had a hectic day!”—but it can also mean big/very, or just act as an expression of shock.
-smaak: Afrikaans for “like.”
-rock up/pitch up: arrive.
-offey/offish: rude/unpleasant. My personal favorite use was by my old digsmate Sam—she was very good about getting problems out in the open and resolved quickly, and she’d often start by looking people straight in the eye and saying “why are you being offey?”
-maul: kiss (often of a certain variety)
-more-ish: makes you want more.
-bob’s your uncle: ok, not a strictly South African thing…in fact a few of these are probably just English English as opposed to American English…but I liked this so much I just had to include it. The best translation I could get was “voila!”
-taken a shine: developed a soft spot or gotten the hots for.
-lost the plot: gone crazy. Similar to “lost their mind,” but I think much more amusing.
-braai: Afrikaans for “barbecue,” but I include it here as an excuse to describe the epic phenomenon that is the South African braai (I don’t think I have before…?). I feel like we Americans are generally quite big on our meat, but even our barbecues will usually only have a few different kinds. By contrast, I’ve been to South African braais where they were serving probably 7 or 8 varieties of animal protein…that’s commitment.
-blah blah fish paste: etc etc. (go figure)
-oh my shattered nerves: not an especially common expression—in fact I’ve only ever heard it from my friend Irini—but it’s another one of those things that just couldn’t be passed up. Pretty much means what it says.
-true as bob/trues bob (there’s some debate): again, not used terribly frequently, but when it is…oh man. I’m still not totally clear on its meaning—I’ve heard it used both as “seriously” and a kind of “there you go”—but as far as I’m concerned it’s such a good expression that any usage is just fine…
In other news, monkey attacks on our kitchen have now become almost a daily occurrence. Last week we had 3. We’ve since made a rule of closing all the downstairs windows unless someone is actually sitting in the room watching, which has made for a slightly smelly house…and to think that I actually used to like those monkeys! On that note…I’ll probably be back for one more farewell post, but until then…bob’s your uncle
Mr. South Africa Finalist Murray Clark
Hello again…I’m back so soon- aren’t you impressed with me?
But it’ll actually just be a short one for today. I just want to post the links to a few youtube videos starring one of my digsmates…I can’t remember how much I’ve written about them on here- not a lot, I think- but my digsmate Murray is currently one of 12 finalists in the Mr. South Africa competition. As part of the competition, he’s been going around speaking at South African high schools, so to get the word out I thought I’d post the videos of his speech here. Enjoy!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-HA-pYuic2w
Monkey messes…and milk banks in Cape Town
Hi! Again, apologies for being so bad about updating…I think as I get towards the end of my time here (just over 2 weeks! I cannot believe it…) I’ve been trying to focus my energies on who and what’s going on here…not that I don’t love you all terribly;) , but I figure I’d rather just wait to have an in-person conversation with all of you once I’m home, and to get in those last few in-person conversations with people here while I’m actually here…logical, yes? I think my emails have been lagging a bit too—I’m sorry—but I promise to make up for it once I’m back.
But now that I am here and updating this blog, 2 little stories for you: Late last week I was feeling a bit flu-ish, and on Friday morning I came into work but then started getting quite bad chills and fevers and pretty desperately needed to get home. One of the women from work was kind enough to take me, so I finally made it back around noon and had no thought in my head besides climbing into bed and wrapping myself in as many layers of blanket as possible. So, considering that I was already a bit feverish, imagine my surprise when—upon opening the door to our house—I saw a monkey running through our hallway! Now, I’ve become quite accustomed to having monkeys AROUND the house, and I understand that some South Africans have actually experienced a monkey in the house before, but I most certainly have not, and so this was quite a shock.
I could see that the door to the balcony was open and that the one monkey had run back out, but I wasn’t sure if there were others, if they would bite, if I could go back into the house…so many questions! After a few unsuccessful phone calls I finally summoned the courage to brave the house alone…and fortunately, my little simian friend had also been alone (at least for a while), so I didn’t have to have any stare-downs (or worse) with any others. But it had left us quite an unbelievable mess! It had gone into the kitchen and eaten all our fruit and food that was out on the counter, and then left the peels, cores, seeds, etc. all over the entire kitchen and living room. And I think because it had been carrying the fruit around and touching everything, all the floors and counters had this sticky, dried-sugar effect…very very unpleasant. I think this experience has put a bit of a damper on my love of monkeys…
Fortunately I didn’t have to hang around in the mess for very long, because the next day I actually headed down to Cape Town. One of the hospitals there has a very well-functioning milk bank that gets lots of support from its doctors and nurses, so we took down two of the nurses who are supposed to be helping with our milk bank here to let them see how it’s done. I was lucky enough to get to learn along with them, which was incredible…getting the doctors and nurses on board is something that we’ve really struggled with for our milk bank here, and so being in a place where the staff are so enthusiastic about the importance of donor milk and the difference it’s made for their babies was really encouraging. I also got a bit of lactation consultant training (something that I’m hoping to continue once I’m home), because the two women who run the milk bank there actually do rounds in the hospital every day, checking up on all the new moms and helping them with any breastfeeding problems- awesome stuff. And then on top of all that, Cape Town is just a stunning city and it was so lovely being there…I’m trying to keep this short so I won’t go into much detail here, but I’m happy to tell you more about it once I’m back. I really think it may be one of the most beautiful cities in the world.
On that note, I’ll be on my way soon to another one of the most beautiful cities in the world…San Francisco! no bias there… I’m sure I’ll update again at least once more before I go, but I can’t say enough how excited I am to see (or at least speak) to all of you in the very near future!
Moving, data analysis, and the Amazing Race!
Hello!
I’m sorry it’s been so long since my last post…it’s been a rather hectic (as South Africans love to say) few weeks. Two weekends ago my digsmates and I moved into our new house- quite a long and exhausting day, but well worth the result. The new place is a “maisonette” (basically the top half of a duplex) just next to one of Durban’s biggest parks. It’s a beautiful old house with nice open rooms and 2 balconies overlooking the park- I feel quite spoiled! I’ll try to post pictures soon.
And things are moving along with my work as well- I still have a few little side projects that I’m hoping to finish up, but at this point the main thing is analyzing the transcripts and writing up the paper about the focus groups. It’s proving to be a bit trickier than expected, since it’s a qualitative project and so analyzing the data isn’t exactly cut-and-dry…but, to resort to another favorite South African expression, “we’ll make a plan.”;)
But the real highlight of the past few weeks came this past weekend when I took part in South Africa’s very own Amazing Race! Not the official one, of course, but one of my friends organized his own version for his birthday party and it was quite a “jol” (South African for party/good time. I think I may have said this before, but I really am planning a post that’ll be solely devoted to South Africanisms. I promise that’s coming soon, but I thought for now I’d throw in a few starters just to whet the appetite;) Anyway, back to the Amazing Race: there were 15 clues that led to various places in Durban and the surrounds—we’d be given a picture of a specific street vendor and be told to find him and buy a necklace, or go into a restaurant and have our faces painted, or dig a message in a bottle out of a trash can. I think the biggest challenge was when we had to go to an Indian restaurant and down 3 chili bites—little globs of potato, onions, spices and- you guessed it- chili peppers. They handed us a plate with 2 of the mild kind but one that was basically exploding with green chilies, the hottest kind. They wouldn’t give us the next clue until we’d cleared our plate, so we just stood there desperately trying to get this thing down…I actually don’t know if I’ve ever “felt the burn” to quite that level before.
My team—me and my digsmates James and Murray—put on a very impressive performance, and with our stunning intellects and stamina (it was quite a workout…at one stop we ran for almost half a kilometer trying to find a lifeguard named Ross) and a few highly illegal traffic maneuvers we managed to place 3rd out of about 20 teams. Not too shabby…We were actually in first place for quite a few of the stops, but the last clue involved unscrambling some letters to make the name of a restaurant, which turned out not to be any of our strong points…all in all, though, it was a pretty awesome time. I’m contemplating a similar event in the Bay, so I’ll be sure to keep you posted if I make any progress with that.
Alrighty, I’ll sign off for now…gotta conserve my energy for my taibo class tomorrow- I get exhausted just thinking about it
I miss you all so much and can’t wait to see you or at least give you a tinkle on the telly when I’m back home in just 5 weeks!
Kickin it in the Kruger
So now…the promised post about my adventures in the Kruger National Park! First I should say that one of the best parts about it was that I was not expecting to go to the Kruger at all- the Zim trip had been described to me as “not a holiday,” so when I found out that we would be spending not one but TWO nights in the Kruger I was pretty darn stoked.
I’d been to game parks before this one, but they hadn’t been the most successful in terms of sightings, so my expectations were pretty low. Fortunately this was quite the turnaround- within an hour into the park we’d seen elephants, giraffes, and even a hyena (quite rare during the day, or so I’m told).
The first big highlight was when we came upon a pride of lions hanging out in some bushes near a water hole. I was pretty excited about just seeing lions, but what was even better was that there was a herd of zebra approaching the water hole too, which started talk about the possibility of seeing the lions make a kill. One of the guys on the trip had actually worked as a game ranger, and he had some pretty epic commentary to offer. We had radios to communicate between the cars, and he kept up piping up with little things like “get your cameras ready…it’s gonna be over in 2 seconds…the biggest adrenaline rush of your life.” We sat there for about an hour waiting for the zebras to come closer (because the lions wouldn’t initiate anything unless they were quite close, since zebra can easily outrun them) but alas…not the biggest adrenaline rush of my life . But still, quite cool.
When we stopped for lunch that day I remember talking to someone about the lions and how excited I was to have seen them, and he made some comment about “that was nothing—you’ll see more.” Given my past experiences in game parks I was a bit skeptical, but sure enough after another half hour on the road we come across 2 big male lions with a fresh buffalo kill just chilling—I kid you not—15 feet from the road. One of them was lying on top of the kill and the other was sprawled on its back in that classic position of something that’s eaten too much It was absolutely mind-blowing: we were so close that we could see the color of their eyes, and oftentimes when I leaned out the window to take pictures they’d turn and stare straight at me. Towards the end a third one came walking along—we named him Aslan—and just seeing him come out of the bush and start eating this kill was such a raw, breathtaking experience.
My camera died a bit after that so the pics end there (at least until I get everyone else’s), but the next day and a half were equally impressive. We saw a total of 21 lions, and then jackals, baboons, a mongoose, a giraffe carcass that was being eaten by another group of lions, wildebeests, a range of buck—impala, kudu, water buck and a whole lot more that I can’t remember—crocs, hippos, a plethora of birds , and probably a lot more that I’m forgetting.
The cherry on the cake came at the end of the second day when a few of us when out for a night drive. By this point we’d seen 4 of the big 5—elephant, rhino, water buffalo and lion—but were still missing the crucial ingredient: the leopard. At the beginning of the drive the guide (after 6 they don’t let you drive in the park on your own, so for night drives you have to do a proper guided deal) went around asking everyone what they were hoping to see. Most people said things like “oh, I’d be happy with anything,” but when it came to our group we’d each just say “leopard,” “leopard,” “leopard”…no pressure for our dear old guide He definitely made a serious effort- taking us to water holes and other spots where he’d seen leopards before—but by 7:30 or so (the drive ended at 8:00) we still hadn’t seen one and started heading back. We’d all pretty mcuh given up hope, but in a final stroke of luck (with only about 20 minutes to go) a beautiful leopard just came waltzing out onto the road. It was quite close to our truck and actually stayed with us for a while, alternating between walking along the road and sitting in the grass watching us, and the whole experience was just stunning.
So, hopefully that’s inspired you to consider planning your own game park experience, or at least watch some Planet Earth. More to come soon!
Zim Pics
Ok, some Zim pics:
-A Baobab Tree (the Redwood of Southern Africa…the trunks of the big ones are probably 20 feet in circumference)
-Some of our group catching a ride on a donkey cart
-Possibly my favorite picture from the whole trip: on our way back from the more rural of the two food drop sites we saw this little playground by the side of the road. In the midst of it all here were these swings, soccer goal posts, and even a little see-saw. Pretty incredible.
-Two of the kids who we met on the way to the food drops (trying on some new clothes!)
-Billy goats having a bath!
-One of my favorite things about driving around Zim were the incredible Jacaranda trees that were in bloom almost everywhere you looked. And especially when they were blooming next to somewhat run-down or empty-looking buildings, it was just such a stunning reminder of the natural beauty of the place.
-Me and a lil’ baby tortoise
-Cows. (Need I say more?)
