Molo!

One of the biggest cultural changes for me being here is rarely hearing English spoken when walking around the streets. South Africa has something like 5 official languages-English, Afrikaans, isiXhosa, isiZulu, and Sesotho. I don’t know for sure, but the impression that I get from being here is that Xhosa is the most common for the black South Africans in Cape Town. Every Tuesday evening from 5:30-6:30, a lady named Ivy comes to the VAC office and teaches a Xhosa lesson. If you don’t speak Xhosa you pronounce is co-sa, if you do speak it, it’s pronounced (click)co-sa. I can’t do the click though. Anyways, last Tuesday I went to my first class. Ivy is a really great teacher and class was a bunch of fun. We just focused on greetings so here it is:

Molo! sisi/ bhuti --Hello (sister or brother as a sign of respect)

Ewe! sisi/bhuti—Hello (ewe also means yes)

Unjani?—how are you?

Ndiphilile. Wena unjani?—I am fine. How are you?

Nam ndiphilile. –I am also fine

The women in my office at work all speak Xhosa and on my first day my boss told them that so they had me tell them what I learned…I was super embarrassed but actually impressed that I had remembered. Next class I think we’re starting to learn the national anthem which has at least 4 different languages in it –one of them being Xhosa, so that should be fun. It’s really fun to listen to people speaking Xhosa to hear all the clicks and stuff because they’re noises that I have no idea how to make so it will be interesting to see how far I get with these Xhosa classes. Who knows, maybe by the time I get back I’ll be a Xhosa speakin’ clickin’ machine.