Learning Zulu

Sanibonani!! Over the past 5 days I have been learning different things from history, to a new language, to keeping track of finances, to safety.

I have been spending a bunch of time with a new friend, she is Zulu and works here in the MCC office with James and Joan. Her name is Nontobeko, or Nonto for short.  She has been lots of fun to work with.  She started me out on language lessons.  Zulu is the local language most people speak, especially in the community I will be working in.  This has been difficult but has been good too; I have been able to see each morning that I am getting better. I have been mostly working on greetings and a few basic words here any there. "Sanibonani" means "Hello" but only when you are speaking to two or more people (so lets hope more than one person reads this! ;)  "Hello" to one person would be "Sawubona!" Some other phrases I have learned are "How are you?", "What is your name?", "Stay well and Go well", "Did you sleep well?", "Good" , "Thank you" and "Sorry" (important for any Canadian to know!).  These are just a few of the words or phrases I have learned. Some thing that has been tricky to catch is there are a few words with clicks in them.  The letters q, c, and x all make different kinds of clicking sounds. Maybe in a few weeks I will be a bit better, especially if my kindergarten class wants to teach me.

Nonto also has taken me out in the community to take a combi which are vans that drive around and is the most popular way of getting around, especially for the black people in South Africa.  If I lived here I would take them everywhere it only cost 5 rand or .50c Canadian to take it! And I will be taking it regularly while I am here to get from town to town. Not sure how I feel about going around by myself on it yet, but eventually I will.

Also yesterday Nikki one of the other SALTers was here.  It was really good to see her and for the two of us to talk.  We had lots to talk about to catch up. She told me how her assignment is going and I was able to talk about how I am a little nervous about heading to the school today.  I am sure we will have even more to talk about on next Friday when we see each other after I have also been in my placement for a week.

I am heading to Hope Valley Farm School this afternoon. And I am looking forward to getting to know everyone there but also a bit worried too.  I have realized that since August 20th until now I have met over 150 people. A lot of people for two weeks and the number is just growing!  Today I will most likely meet the teachers, the family that lives on the farm and maybe some of the students.  It is more likely that tomorrow I will meet my students most of the kids.  Then I will have the weekend to get s bit settled in and work on a lesson plan to teach the kids on Monday! Yikes! It is coming fast! Ha.

Be prepared for most of my blogs to be not as often as they have been.  And might be a few short ones every once in awhile. The reason for this is I won't have great internet.
But until next time take the chance to try and learn and new language! And be very prepared to laugh at yourself and try again (I am still having trouble with it all but I am working on it too!)!