Sawubona. Igama lami uLanga Mchunu!

Sanibonani! For those of you who don’t know, that means “Hello” in Zulu. Zulu is a language spoken in many parts of South Africa, and a language that is now often heard in Interstudy‘s Boston office. Interstudy‘s South Africa Site Specialist and the newest addition to the office, Langa Mchunu, was born and raised in South Africa and speaks fluent Zulu and English. Even though Langa is the only one from South Africa in our office, we are all catching on with some of his Zulu phrases. The most popular one being “Yebo”, which means “Yes”. “Yebo” just falls off the tongue so much easier than “Yes”. You can count on “Yebo” being the new hip word to use in the US in a few years, and you can thank Langa for that!

First Date

In addition to writing here, I have been recording my experiences on my own blog. In my first blog post about South Africa, I said that I’d already fallen in love with Durban. And now I’m going to take it back. I know, I know, you can’t just do that, but I just did, so give me a minute to explain.

I think I can say I had a slight crush. I had a crush in the way that you do when you meet a person who tells lots and lots of interesting stories and is nice, funny, and all those other basic adjectives. I like her presence and the way that she interacts with people. We’ve sat down and had some really good, yet brief conversations in public, but I still don’t really know her. She always leaves me wishing I could find out more, wanting a real friendship, and desiring that one-on-one connection.

How to Spot an American

 

Wearing raincoats and backpacks. Using a camera. Having a sunburn. Walking in groups of more than three. These are just a few of the things that immediately mark us as Americans on the UKZN campus in Pietermaritzburg. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been introduced to someone and the first words out of their mouth are, “Oh, you’re an American, right?” My go-to response is now, “Which gave it away, the sunburn or the backpack?” This is not to mention our accents. The professor of my Introduction to Zulu class made fun of how we pronounced a list of English words, saying if we don’t know how to speak English properly, how can we learn Zulu? Good question.