Siyabonga

SIYABONGA
We thank you.

Hamba khale
Go well.

Sala khale
Stay well.

We thank you. There is something very powerful about language and what happens when you start to be influenced by it. I took a wonderful linguistic anthropology class at in college with Professor Leap. And recently I have come back to that.
In Zulu when you say goodbye, you say go well or stay well. I am sure many other people in South Africa use it as well. It was not until watching part of Cry, the Beloved Country and someone asked if the acting wasn’t the best or if they were reading a script. But for me it was just more patience with the words, slower and with exact meaning each time a phrase was used. When they said go well or stay well to each other either in Zulu or English, I began to realize how much those phrases mean to me know and how I use them. It is second nature, but it is also with meaning. It’s almost like peace be the journey and a protection. When you say it you mean it. Just something I have observed and the personal meaning it holds for me, particularly when I use the words.

I also love the plural of words here. They reflect the culture. On my first trip into Wattville to do home visit with Bula Monyako we met two older women in the street. They have worked with Bula before and greeted and welcomed me to the community. But before I left they said very genuinely, siabonga sisi. We thank you sister, we welcome you sister. I often realize I have to use the singular at work, I come in alone and thank alone. But then when I am with people I work with and we talked to others when one says good morning, ‘we say good morning’ when one thanks, we thank, when one says we are fine, we say we all are well. There is a beauty to how the language reflects and I am still trying to learn how to quickly switch from the singular to the plural.

My last point on language as I brought up this class is the many different languages in South Africa. Though there are many and different languages some words transcend them all or there are very South African phrases that everyone knows. My favorite in some ways is that every cell phone company uses a word to promote their network, which has origins in one of the languages- but becomes used for the present in a new way and represents a very current culture. For the major cell phone companies MTN uses AYOBA (greater than great), Vodacom uses YEBO(YES!), and Telcom (the landline company) has just introduced cell phones plans under HEITA (hey/hello).

(to be continued)