Just had another church meet. There was singing, dancing, faith healing – everything you expect from your average capitevalgelist TV channel, but all in toockey's living room. I enquired as to what kind of success rate they had from the faith healing – apparently 80%.
As ever with SA parties, there was a lot of cake, juice and sugary snacks, although when I asked if I tried to help clear up I was waved away; “It's our culture...” said the members of the local women's league. Before long, a “soapie” was put on (generations) which everyone took very seriously. In tonight's episode, a man had to switch of his daughter's life support machine. A heated debate ensued, and from what little I could understand of the conversation, it concerned ethical issues at the end of life. There was only so long I was going to be able keep a straight face, but when let out a snigger, inevitably I was asked my opinion. I pointed out that it was just a TV show... tumbleweed.
In other news: I find it depressing how much people can talk the talk... People talk endlessly about segregation/aparteid and the tragedy of the language barrier, but so often can't be bothered to teach me siSwati. I do feel a bit excluded when so much chat is in a language that I only have a passing understanding of. Bearing in mind how much my keenness to learn siSwati is mocked, it's frustrating how little people actually teach me. Afrikaans is really quite straight forward – it only has two tenses (I think), whereas siSwati, like English, is massively rich and has a huge potential for expression, something you can't really learn from a phrase book. I'm sure it's just because explaining the finer nuances to me is bloody difficult when you only have a superficial understanding of English. Will keep trying.
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