English as a Second Language

Katie is pumping out posts on her blog that will inform everyone in great detail about our adventures here in South Africa. I thought I might be able to post a few things from time to time, perhaps noting some of the misadventures or missteps. These are frequently encountered if you spend much time with me. Here goes...

In eight grade I got my lowest grade of my academic career. I have not descended to that level since. Senor Clayton, all 300 pounds of him, felt I deserved to be esteemed mediocre or worse because I was bored by his lessons and could not fathom why I need to be able to tell some I like tacos in Spanish. I took two years of Spanish and escaped as quickly as I could.

Years later I moved to Costa Rica and spent two years learning the unparalleled joy that comes from REALLY understanding another culture, in their own place and their own language. And despite Senor Clayton's assessment, I found I had a pretty good knack for learning another language. One of the more entertaining parts of learning another language is finding those unique idioms, phrases and cognates that make you think, or at least chuckle.

For example, I remember walking around Stockholm with my father-in-law a few years ago trying to explain, with a straight face, that an "utfart" is not what he was thinking it was, and therefore, an "infart" was not painful, requiring some sort of prevention, termed a "farthinder". I don't know if there are two more juvenile minds to discuss this than me and Bill. Entrance, exit and speedbump couldn't have been more enjoyable terms to discuss that night.

Well, as it turns out you don't have to learn an entirely new language to start to find things to chuckle at.
* It took me several days here in Joburg of hearing people talking about broken robots to realize that South Africa is not a sci-fi experiment - that's simply what they call traffic lights.
* South Africans are quite sensitive about their hooters. People have bumper stickers that ask other drivers to get their hands off their hooters and to stop hooting. I think that's a very exciting thing to call a car horn. I'll definitely keep my eyes on the road and my hands off the hooter now that I'm driving on the left side of the road.

This brings me to another misadventure. I don't drive much here. We have a driver, and for good reason. However, I do walk down halls. And when someone comes the other direction, I step to the right to avoid a collision. And she steps left. And we collide. I've had enough fender benders simply walking down halls here that I'm quite convinced that our driver is horribly underpaid if only measured in avoided insurance premiums.

One final "John's a goof" thought. When we lived in Stockholm, I was the only member of the family that could be pegged as Ameritrash in an instant. Katie had outfitted herself and the kids within days to blend in with the locals, decked out in the season's finest H&M or Polarn Pyret. I just couldn't do it though. Boxy black shoes (I referred to them as Volvos) and tight black pants just weren't working for me. I used to walk through Stockholm noting how I was the only one that didn't look like a dork. Of course I fully understood the irony. I was the dork. So be it. However, I'm quite sure I'd don tight black slacks and Volvos in a heartbeat to avoid what poor Mason has to deal with. Does he self-confidently call everyone else a dork, or does he grow his hair out so he can look like a 12 year old Rod Stewart? I say dorks all.

Till next time, step left.