Family Tongue Ties

---

So I’m living in a home-stay in Windhoek. The family is really nice. The mother, whom I call Aunty, takes pretty good care of me, making sure I’m fed and clean and such. It’s quite the pampering I must admit. I have all the luxuries of home except for one thing - no showerhead - and it’s killing me! Bathing is gross. I have yet to figure out how to properly clean yourself in a bath. I feel like I'm bathing in your own filth. Any tips on how to bathe effectively, I’d much appreciate it.

Aunty has three children, one daughter who’s away at university so I haven’t met her yet, a second daughter who is about my age and a son who is 14 years old. Aunty’s nephew is also living here - he’s 18. Cousins and siblings seem to be interchangeable in Namibia. It’s pretty common for relatives to send their kids to each other’s families to live. So far, I’ve met about 10 cousins and I’m told there are plenty more to come.

Namibia has over 20 ethnic groups each with their own language. My family is Damara. The Damara language is the one with all the clicks and pops in it. Go figure, I end up living with people who speak the most impossible language to learn. Not only do they click when they speak, there is actually four distinct clicks represented by different combinations of exclamation marks and forward slashes. They say very few foreigners ever learn the language and even other Namibians cannot figure it out. So far I’ve mastered two of the four clicks. My family gets quite the kick (or should I say click - bada-ching!) out of watching my practice flicking my tongue against my teeth. All the same I’m well on my way to Damara protégée status.

It doesn’t matter if I ever learn Damara because my family speaks perfect English and Afrikaans as well. Most Namibians speak at least three or four languages. English is the official language and Afrikaans is also very popular. There is also Owambo, German, Herero, Nama, etc… It’s confusing because people slip out of one language and into another like it’s nothing. A lot of the time I understand the beginning of the conversation but then get lost because no one is speaking English anymore. I just nod along like an idiot and no one has yet noticed. I’m bent on learning Afrikaans so I can keep up but it’s not easy. Like Dutch and German, it’s a guttural language and nothing is pronounced like it’s spelt. So far, I’ve got Goeiemôre down, which in writing looks close enough to Good Morning, but when spoken sounds like you’re choking on a tuna sandwich….a very old tuna sandwich.

English isn’t exactly English either…it’s Namlish. For the longest time, I couldn’t figure out why the conversation always turned to robots every time we got in a car. I finally realized they were referring to the traffic lights. Silly me, looking out the window for some space robot from a 1940s black and white movie. Pick up trucks are called bakkies, minibuses/vans are combis, buns are bretchen and running shoes are tackies. Namlish 101...learn it or get left behind.

---

Comments

[danbo]

well well
I had no idea you had started a blog! Here I was waiting for an email or something to hear if you were alive or not. Anyway, I enjoyed your two entries. Aunty sounds like a favourable woman. How'd you figure out so much about these languages? Did you gauggle it? Can't believe that Namibians work so much, I thought that was a north american thing. well, that feels good then. Granted, I only work about 4 hours a day, the rest of the 4 hours I pretend to work. It's killing me. Hope to hear about your culinary experiences as well in your next blog! Adios muchacha