Share Your World 15 May 2017

Here are my answers to this week’s Share Your World

How many languages do you you speak?

I speak two languages – My first language is English.   My second language is Afrikaans which I understand perfectly.  When I obtained my Teaching Diploma my Bilingual qualification was Ea.  The capital E meant I was competent to teach in English medium school and to teach Afrikaans as a second language.  I could not get a teaching position at an Afrikaans medium school.  You needed EA  for that.  I began my career as a Speech Correction teacher and taught at both English medium and Afrikaans medium schools so I worked at upgrading my qualification, wrote another exam and did an Oral and passed!   So I am quite proud of bilingual skills.  However, my accent tends to let me down and I can’t pretend that I am as fluent as one who has Afrikaans as her Mother Tongue!   Some Afrikaans speakers are pleased when I speak to them in their language and those whose English is not great are even grateful, but others break into English to spare themselves from listening to me murder their language.

They’re too polite to actually say this but maybe they want to? (Speak Afrikaans or shut up!)

I am trying to learn Italian using the Duolingo App.   I am enjoying it and I’ve reached a level that says:  “You are 20% fluent in Italian!”   So I just need to get the gestures right!

What are you reading, watching, listening to, eating?

I read a lot of Blogs.  I also read Go magazine, Promerops (Cape Bird Club quarterly magazine), Fair Lady, a popular South African women’s magazine and sometimes a caravan and camping magazine.  I am reading a Deon Meyer book in Afrikaans on my Kindle.

I am watching “House” on Netflix.   I listen to BBC Radio 4’s Women’s Hour on a podcast and Cape Talk on AM radio.   The last thing I ate was a ‘braai’ of Lamb chops and salad.   I eat a Low Carbohydrate, High Fat diet.

What was the last photo you took with your phone?

A picture of my husband giving his brother-in-law a foot massage.

What is your favourite time of day?

Early morning is definitely the best time of the day.  At the coast it’s before the wind gets up.  In the bush its calm and quiet and the sunrises are spectacular.   Before I retired I was always up early but now it’s a lot later!   But when we travel it’s early rising again and I love it.

Early morning in The Kruger National Park

Optional Bonus question:  What are you grateful for from last week, and what are you looking forward to in the week coming up?

We love our Off-Road Caravan – an Imagine Comfortvan – and have enjoyed some amazing trips with it.  But the time has come to look for a slightly bigger one.   First we did some research on the internet.   We found two that we liked but wanted to see them in real life before ordering one.  The showroom of the Echo was in Cape Town – not too much of a mission to get there. The Gecko was in Johannesburg – that required a flight and an overnight stay – rather expensive – so we asked the agent if he knew of anyone close to us who had one. He gave us a name and number.   This owner was in Paarl – a doable three hour drive away.   So on Wednesday we drove to Cape Town for the day and on Friday to Paarl.  They were both very nice caravans but we have decided on the Gecko Xtreme which the owner in Paarl showed us.  I am so grateful to him for pointing out the pros and cons of this caravan as well as a number of others that he has pre-owned.

We will be putting in our order for one of these this week

I am looking forward to spending a few days at Warmwaterberg (we arrived today) and then having friends to stay with us for a couple of days.

View from our Bath House as the sun was setting