Showing posts with label South Africa. Show all posts
Showing posts with label South Africa. Show all posts

Friday, 14 November 2014

Nkosi Sikelel iAfrika

Today I found the best rendition, a duet

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YzWnxYjALQ0

Haylea Hounsom's

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v9kajLhrX6I

And gospelized karaokeized version. Kinda funny but still easy to my ears. Well, what can I say when the song itself is beautiful

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2Q6pa5cSSo

Sunday, 2 November 2014

Hot hot caliente...

I live on a tropical island. It's always hot and humid. Most would imagine a tropical island as breezy and balmy. People from temperate region would envy us for living in 'paradise'. What paradise? A paradise would be breezy and balmy. Hot and humid, it's a few steps away from hell... (I know I am being hyperbolic... no it's not that hot, it's just 32 centigrade... no biggie)

Living in one of the hottest region (again with the hyperbole) We are still positive. We still think that our country is not that hot. Still bearable.

The town where I grew up, has a foreign university. The students are from every corner of the map. So, one fine Saturday, a group African, South African and Zimbabwean to be exact attended a church service. A man trying to break the ice (what ice? it's hot, no ice), asked " How do you find it here? Is it cooler than Africa?" The Africans replied "It's hotter here than in South Africa. We can grow apples in South Africa".

Is it just us or all over the world. We tend to think Africa as the hottest continent on earth. Blame it on the media. Africa is often portrayed as arid, hot, dessert, famine, war. Some parts of Africa are nice and beautiful. I would kill to have to live in a beautiful like Cape Town. Beautiful scenery and beautiful weather. (Weatherwise, a classmate of mine grew up in SA. He told me the weather is just fine. Not too cold, not too hot. An Afrikaner pastor also said the same thing, same goes with the uni students. )

The Afrikaner pastor and I share the same name... :P

Tuesday, 28 October 2014

Zebra vs zebra

One of my favourite comedian is Trevor Noah. According to him South African pronounce zebra as zebra not zibra

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fht2v-SnJKs

here's a link to the pronunciation of zebra
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/pronunciation/british/zebra

Usually, South African vowel shift are like New Zealander
example, they  would pronounce expect as ixpict, respect as rispict, pen as pin and deck as ....... I need to censor that.

Apparently, zebra is the reverse of these vowel shifts.

Heyyyy... I'm gonna miss my bestie's Kiwi accent. (If she were in Hollywood, she could coach those actors with foreign accent... southern, Kiwi, Oz, Brits... you name it)

Nkosi sikele la, thina lusapho lwayo...

My fascination to South Africa starts when I was reading about Tierra del Fuego, a remote island. So I was compelled to read more about this rainbow nation.

First, I learn to sing their national anthem. A hybrid of African gospel song with previous Afrikaan national anthem. A unique blend of languages reflecting this multicultural, colourful nation. Even the flag itself is colourful.

That was last year. This year, I tried to memorize the states in South Africa. Initially, there are 4 provinces namely, the Cape Province, Natal, Orange Free State and Transvaal.

Now there are 9 provinces after Cape province and Transvaal divide itself into 7 more provinces.

Natal was renamed to KwaZulu Natal (KZN), Orange Free State is simply known now as Free State.

Transvaal is divided into Gauteng (pronounced as Hauteng), Mpumalanga and Limpopo
Cape Province is also divided into Western Cape, Northern Cape and Eastern Cape.

Wait, earlier I said 9 provinces. Did I miss any. Yup, North West Province. Historically, it was part of Transvaal and Cape province.

South Africa has 3 capitals. Cape town in Western Cape, Pretoria in Gauteng and Bloemfontein in Free State. No Jo-burg is not one of the capital. But it is not far from Pretoria.

One more trivia. There used to be an enclave in KwaZulu Natal. It's part of Eastern Cape. Speaking of enclave, a whole nation is also an enclave in South Africa. Yup, it's Lesotho.