Uthi lizokhithika?

School holidays have meant another week of inactivity for me. My time has been filled mainly reading.

After work Mary and I have been training for the half-marathon. I am trying to convince my wife that it is unnecessary to greet every single person that we happen to pass (there are many). I am having little impact and feel mean spirited to boot. Those that greet us, do so in a mixture of Zulu and English. Sometimes this can be very funny. Yesterday a teenager bowed slightly and said, ‘Good evening, my lady’ as Mary ran past. Henry Higgins would have placed him in the Home Counties. Even I find it impossible not to wave and talk with the children we pass.

We are in the process of moving house. We are having to vacate our current property (Mandela’s mansion – no 110) for an English family that are coming over. We always expected to move. We were meant to live in no 130 from the start. Convincing promises were made that it would be ready a week after our arrival. Suffice to say we are about to move in and little has been done to it. Today an army of pink ladies were sent in to clean it. I arrived just as they were leaving. Then began a very sensitive negotiation process. On the one hand I needed them to feel the warmth of my thanks for the job they had done. I managed to convey this very well – smiles and laughter all round. On the other, I wanted them back inside to do all the things that had been missed; the bath still looked like it had just been used by a particularly dirty rugby team. Not as successful on the second part. Eventually one pink lady agreed to perform a ‘polishing’ job. Another exercise in the art of the possible. Hopefully Mary won’t be too aghast when she sees it later.

Our vocabulary in Zulu isn’t improving much. It is a very difficult language to learn. Take, for example, the sentence for ‘I am speak very little Zulu’ – ‘Ngisazi kancane kakhulu isiZulu’. Not exactly a longhop. Then I have difficulty learning the phrases that I most need. Annoyingly, much less useful ones tend to stick. I can now say ‘uKhisimusi omuhle!’ meaning ‘Happy Christmas!’. Pronunciation is an absolute nightmare. I have no handle on the clicks at all. Furthermore I get a bit angry when I’m corrected by somebody repeating the noise I have just made but suggesting a difference. Our language issues aren’t helped by our tiny Zulu phrasebook. This was clearly written by an owakwelinye izwe (foreigner). Among the essential phrases section is, ‘Uthi lizokhithika?’ meaning, ‘Do you think it will snow?’ Not bloody likely.

Anyway, on a more cheery topic, we are likely to go to Cape Vidal this weekend. This is meant to be a stunning part of the coast, good for e.g. whale watching. I’ll let you know what my inkosikazi (wife) and I get up to.