Language

As I have written before, South Africa has 11 national languages. What language predominates depends on what area you are in. This is because during the Apartheid Government designated areas for each ethnic group to live in South Africa. There were ten "Bantustans" or homelands spread out across South Africa and when the Apartheid Government was removed in 1994, many people residing in the Bantustans remained in the regions where they had been forced. It is for this reason that the majority of people living around me speak Sesotho (also called Sepedi), but if I travel north I enter a predominately Tsonga region and if I continue northbound I find myself in the Venda region bordering Zimbabwe. Limpopo has a diverse group of languages compared to other provinces of South Africa, like KwaZulu-Natal where the majority of people speak...you guessed it, Zulu. This is because many smaller ethnic groups in South Africa were forced to the northern reaches of the country, now known as Limpopo.

Part of our training was to learn greetings in a variety of languages so that when necessary, we can politely greet before asking to switch to another language we know.

            So far in my Peace Corps Service, language has been the most important aspect of my integration into the community. At this point, many people in my village know me (being the only white man, it wasn’t a difficult task to achieve) well enough to at least wave and yell, “Amo!” as I walk by. Amo is my name in South Africa, short for Amogelang which means welcome in English. It is standard to greet everyone you see, with a short exchange of words and maybe a question like, “Did you sleep well?” or “How was your day?” depending on when the interaction takes place. These interactions all take place in Sesotho as do most of my interactions throughout the day. A few weeks ago, I began to truly appreciate the language training I was given from the Peace Corps when I began tutoring math at the Drop-In Center. The students were having trouble with simple problems and I soon realized that my coaching in English was only making it more difficult. Initially, I didn’t think my Sesotho was good enough to tutor but starting with butchered together sentences, I was able to get my point across.  Even more recently, some of the older students have begun correcting my Sesotho when I tutor, which helps me with my Sesotho. Even more importantly it shows me they are listening to my instructions and that makes me very happy: Ah the little things: they keep Peace Corps Volunteers sane.