Superlatives

If nothing else, we will leave here having taught our students English superlatives for “good”:  great, excellent, fantastic, outstanding, etc.  Because they always try to show off their English to us, our kids will drop “fantastic” or “excellent” to describe seemingly mundane, everyday things.  Recently, a group of kids watched a movie at our house.  When they left, one of the boys told Matt that it was a “fabulous visit.” 

Teaching superlatives, however, has also led to some unforeseen negative consequences.  All of these positive words roughly translate to “mnandi” in Zulu, and this same word is used to describe tasty food.  So Matt taught his 5^th graders early in the school year that “ukudla kumnandi” means “delicious food” in English.  At the time, Matt didn’t realize that mnandi was used not only for food, but also for every positive experience known to man.  Later in the year, Matt gave grade 5 a test and asked them to write a complete sentence about their favorite school subject.  We were thoroughly amused when one of the brightest boys in the class wrote “science is delicious.”  We’re not sure if our explanation of when to use “delicious” completely rectified the mistake, but you win some, you lose some!

Our Weekend

We’ve enjoyed a nice, rain-free weekend.  Because we apparently only know how to blog in spurts, why not tell you guys about our Sunday?  We were planning on going on a run, but when we were joined by our 10 year-old friend Aphile (pronounced A-pea-lay), we knew it would be more of a walk.  First things first, we had to walk with her to her house to ask permission from her mother, a local high school teacher.  It felt awesomely juvenile to ask a grown woman if her daughter could come out and play with us.  Fortunately she said yes.  So off we were on our typical walk to the main road, about 3 miles roundtrip.  At the road though, we spotted a bunch of baboons in the distance.  Because we had nothing better to do, we decided to check things out.  We ran into a group of young boys from our primary school who were walking in the same direction.  We asked them in Zulu “what are you doing?”  They responded in Zulu “we are fine.”  Hmm.  On the second take, with help from Aphile, we found out that the boys were going to throw rocks at the baboons.  Matt asked in Zulu if they wanted to kill a baboon.  They said yes and showed us their rocks.  We obviously started walking with them.  When we got to within a good 50 yards of the baboons, some of the young boys got excited and started running.  The baboons ran faster, much faster.  The boys heaved their rocks into the air, all falling at least 30 yards short of the mark.  A failed mission for the boys, amusing diversion for us. 

On the walk back Aphile was telling us about a book she is reading.  After our conversation included a mix of English and Zulu, we reached a roadblock.  We didn’t know the Zulu word she was using, so we asked her to show us.  The demonstration went as follows.  Aphile put Sara’s ipod on the ground and told Matt to walk 10 feet away.  Then she told Matt to call Sara.  “Zahara!  Zahara!”  (yeah we aren’t Matt and Sara here).  Aphile then told Zahara to walk to Sbu (Matt).  After that happened, she ran up and grabbed the ipod and ran away.  “Oh, steal!” we both laughed and told Aphile. 

When we got home, church was finished which meant one thing:  here come kids.  We had a noisy afternoon with 12 year-olds watching Terminator 2 (Schwartzkegger was requested) while the little ones colored on the ground. 

All in all an ordinary Sunday, but as we reflected on it we realized that what we consider mundane can actually be pretty entertaining to people back in America.  We are organizing a 5K race and kids’ fun run for this upcoming Saturday, so we will definitely let you guys know how that goes.  

What I Really Miss

Of course, we miss our family and friends, but people aside, it’s surprising what you end up missing.  You’d think I would miss having a washing machine or a dishwasher, but I’m pretty used to washing clothes by hand.  When it rains for several days straight (like it did this week), it would be nice to have a dryer, but no big deal.  Honestly, I’ve sort of forgotten what it is like to have a dishwasher.  As long as you don’t let dirty dishes build up, washing by hand is fine.

What I DO miss, however, is our Swiffer.  Sunday is our mopping day, and it is a physical and emotional ordeal.  After five minutes of mopping, the mop water turns brown, and 50% of our house still remains un-mopped.  Once, the actual mopping is finished, you then have to wait for an eternity for the floors to dry.  Confined to our bedroom, we typically twiddle our thumbs in boredom waiting for the sun to make its brief daily cameo and accelerate the drying process.  Once the floors are dry, there is a brief feeling of euphoria, however fleeting.  By this time, it’s nearly one o’clock and church will be letting out soon.  That means kids will soon be coming over for a visit, tramping dirt and mud all over our once immaculate floor (okay, not really immaculate but whatever).  Mopping sucks.  Big time.