Your South African Dictionary

As I’m sure most of you know, South Africa is quite a melting pot of people. Of course you have the black Africans which are represented by many different nations of people. The dominant black language here is Zulu, and many of the other languages share many things in common with Zulu. The dominant culture here around Kruger (but a small minority in South Africa on a whole) is the Shangaan people who speak a language of the same name. Shangaan doesn’t have any of the clicks in it like many of you probably imagine native African languages to have, and I have learned some basic phrases but not enough to carry on a conversation. There is also a large coloured population in South Africa, which refers to people of mixed racial heritage. Indians are the most populous of the Asian peoples here - Durban has the largest Indian population outside of India.

The white culture here is dominated by people of Dutch descent, the Afrikaners, and English descent. The primary white language in this part of South Africa, or at least most people’s first language, is Afrikaans. It’s derived from the Dutch tongue and was only recognized as a true language and not a dialect of Dutch a couple of decades ago. It is close enough to German that I can pick up words and phrases, but mostly it’s incomprehensible. A small majority of South Africans speak English as their first language, but most people speak English well and most others speak some English. Some of the older black staff members speak only Shangaan and Afrikaans (Afrikaans was compulsory for everyone under Apartheid), but most of the younger blacks speak English as well. Given that the British had a large influence here for a long time, the English spoken here is much more like the Queen’s English than what we hear in the U.S.

So the point of this post is to define some of the commonly used words here. There has been a lot of cross-pollination among the languages so you find many Afrikaans words used in English conversations and vice versa.

General South African words
Lekker – Afrikaans in origin. Literally means “sweets” or “candy”. Used to mean anything good or nice. “The meal was lekker.” Basically anything can be lekker, kind of like using “cool”

Dankie – Afrikaans. Means “thank you”. Probably the funniest story out of this trip so far has revolved around these last two words. Allison asked an older Afrikaans gentleman how he was doing one morning, and he replied “Like my donkey”. Allison wondered for several minutes how it felt to be like a donkey before she realized he said “Lekker, dankie”

Sharp – used by the Shangaan – pronounced “Shop” that means everything is alright, good, cool, whatever

Aish – universal South African term – means “I really screwed up”. Can be used in any context. Dropped the milk “Aish”. Ran off the road into oncoming traffic and caused a ten car pile-up killing a bunch of people “Aish”

Now – This one seems simple - it is not. If I tell you “I’ll do that now” it means that I am basically already physically doing the task. When someone in South Africa tells you “I’ll do that now” it means that they will do it any time in the next several hours. “I’ll meet you just now” means that I’ll see you in a little while, not really now. If someone tells you “I’ll do that now now” you are basically screwed. It will never get done no matter how long you wait.

Cricket – fairly incomprehensible sport that uses a bat and ball like baseball but requires the batter to run after hitting the ball only when he wants to – strange. Players in cricket are called “Slips”, “Points”, “Silly Points”, etc…who comes up with this stuff

Kruger/work related terms
Dam – we call this a reservoir. Here it does not refer to the physical structure that retains water. It refers to the water itself.

Dam wall – the physical structure that retains the dam.

Koppie (sp?)– rocky outcrop

Spruit – stream or small river

Stretcher – a cot used for camping

Cot – a baby’s cradle

Torch – flashlight – I quite like this one.

Ablutions – Toilets – I had never heard this word before coming here.

Panga – machete – likely a Shangaan or Zulu word

Spanner - wrench – very British

Takkies – running shoes – I assume its Afrikaans because don’t understand this one at all.

Driving related terms
Hoot – to honk your car’s horn

Robot – traffic light – no idea where this comes from

Bonnet – hood of your car

Boot – trunk of your car

Windscreen – I call it a windshield

Indicators – turn signals

Petrol – gasoline

Tar road – paved road – When we first got here, Allison spent days looking on the map for this road named “Tar Road”. She couldn’t find it anywhere.

Bakkie – Afrikaans for truck – pronounced “bucky”

Food related terms
Braai – Afrikaans – means to barbecue or grill food – it can be the grill itself, the act of grilling meat, the food, etc. – braaing is an extremely popular thing to do, very South African – a very nice way to end the day. The Afrikaners are very serious about their fires.

Boerewors or wors – farmer’s sausage, pronounced “vurse”– often the most vegetarian thing at your braai – South Africans like meat, lots of meat – A friend here told me “I eat vegetables, you know, chicken and pork”

Biltong – jerky – comes in beef or many game flavors such as kudu, ostrich, gemsbok, impala, etc. quite tasty

Potjiekos – Afrikaans, often shortened to just potjie and pronounced “poykey”– basically a stew – had an oxtail potjie recently that was actually very good, like pot roast

Pap – pronounced “pop or pup” - ground corn dish popular with black Africans - much like grits – consistency varies from thin and runny (porridge) to a very firm dish that is eaten with the fingers – only white corn is popular here and yellow corn is very hard if not impossible to find -quite good with stews and a popular side at braais

Mealies – corn on the cob

Baby marrows – zucchini

Paw paw - papaya

Sosatie – kebab

Sundowners – drinks (beers, ciders, gin and tonics) at the end of the day usually on a koppie to watch the nice sunset

Sunuppers – our version of sundowners but obviously in the morning at sunrise – a little brandy and coke in the morning makes the rest of the day much better

Brandy – very popular liquor with the Afrikaners, very much like rum and not what we think of as brandy

Cool drink – canned soft drinks as in “Do you want cool drink?”

Atchar – pickled fruits and spices that are served on sandwiches, etc. – most popular is mango atchar which is actually made from green mangos – I have no idea why you would ruin a perfectly good mango by picking it green and then pickling it. Gross

Rusks – basically very stale bread cut up into small, almost bite-sized pieces – good with peanut butter but will break teeth if not careful

Marmite – not a fuzzy rodent, that’s marmot – not really South African either but popular on toast, sandwiches, etc– essentially salted yeast extract – absolutely disgusting

Tea – I know all of you know what tea is. Unfortunately, in South Africa, tea is a tasteless, watery drink with lots of milk and sugar - blech. Afrikaners typically like the their hot drinks very weak, and I’m convinced they don’t actually dunk the tea bag in the boiling water but just kind of wave it over the steaming cup of water hoping that as little flavor gets in as possible.

Coffee – See entry for “Tea” – Given that Africa spawned the coffee bean, the coffee here is very disappointing. I tried desperately to convince a woman that I really did want a shot of espresso dumped into a cup of regular coffee – I ended up with espresso diluted with warm water. Honestly, who does that. If you don’t like the taste of coffee, don’t drink it.


You should now be able to successfully navigate your way around South African society when you come to visit.

Driving in South Africa (or Why I Might Not Make it Back to the U.S.)

Each time I leave Kruger to go shopping for supplies, visit Allison, etc. it is an experiment in suicidal tendencies as I confront my fellow drivers. We all complain about the traffic/drivers in our home towns. Atlanta drivers don’t use turn signals, speed, talk on cell phones, etc. However, the main difference between the US and here, Atlanta drivers don’t pass you around blind curves while going 20mph over the speed limit and playing chicken with a tour bus. That my friend is South African driving.

The road rules are usually mere suggestions. You can stop if you wish but its not really necessary. The no passing lines are really only if you don’t feel like passing…if you do, by all means go ahead and run the guy in front of you off the road as you duck in just before the oncoming traffic smashes you to bits. To top it off, the speed limits here are ridiculous. On a good two-lane road the speed limit is 120kph, that’s 75mph to you and me. Imagine driving 75 on your standard two-lane state highway. Plus, the cops here can’t really give you a ticket unless you are going over 10kph faster than the speed limit, so the functional speed limit is actually 130kph or 81mph. That’s really freakin’ fast and its not uncommon for people to pass you easily going 140 or more. Plus you have to do all this while driving on the wrong side of the vehicle and shifting with the wrong hand. Luckily the pedals aren’t backwards or I wouldn’t have lasted this long.

One of the best ideas here though is that the two-lane roads are really three lanes wide because both sides have very large, paved shoulders. So to pass people, the person in front pulls over slightly into the shoulder while you pull slightly into oncoming traffic. This happens regardless of if there is oncoming traffic or not, and you just hope the guy coming the other way pulls far enough onto his shoulder so that you can pass three-abreast on the road. Its often closer than I’d wish. The peril here is that you could be doing this over a slight rise and there could be a group of people on the should over the rise waiting on the bus, or a cow being a stupid cow, or a herd of goats lazing between eating tin cans, or use your imagination and you will probably see it on the roadsides here (like men peeing, they rarely hide in the bushes but just do their thing right on the side of the road in full view of all passersby).

So if I am to die while here, it won’t be from a lion gnawing my face off or a mauling by a black rhino. Its going to be because I drove my car through a herd of goats while someone passed me going uphill around a blind curve into oncoming traffic during a driving rainstorm.

The thunder rolls (I’m pretty disappointed that I actually know this is the title of a Garth Brooks song)

Seems like most of my posts recently revolve around rain, or the lack thereof. Well, I was pleasantly awakened at 1:30 this morning by a raging thunderstorm. The rain gods thankfully have stopped their embargo on Satara. We got in the neighborhood of 2 inches overnight which should be more than enough to shift the grasses back into growing mode and fill up the water holes for the animals. I didn’t even have to do a rain dance or sacrifice an impala, but was not far from trying. So now I’m enjoying a pleasant, cool day in my tent working on some manuscripts and letting the roads dry out.

If you have never experienced a thunderstorm from a tent, I highly recommend it. While you can easily sleep through rough weather tucked up in your bed at home, its impossible to ignore a thunderstorm here. The wind billows your tent walls and merrily scatters your dishes around the campground. Streams soon appear where there were none before, like under my porch. The leaks in the tent are strategically placed away from all the important things like my bed, computer, refrigerator, etc. Just a few puddles to clean up in the morning, nothing major. But now the bush is alive. With all the standing water the frogs are having a field day. Sounds like they have all crawled out of their burrows searching for a little love. I can hear at least six different calls as I write. The other animals seem out and about as well. There will surely be a horde of insects out tonight following the rains. I heard a lion call at around 8 this morning which is easily an hour and a half later than they usually stop calling in the morning. Can imagine that thunderstorms are great for hunting.

The thunder is different here from what I’m used to. Here there aren’t as many trees to muffle the crash of thunder like the southeastern forests back home. You understand what rolling thunder really means as it moves in waves across the savanna.

New Pictures

Hi all I've posted a bunch of new pics on the Flickr website http://www.flickr.com/photos/kruger_park