Bungalow in Barcelona, plus Learning Xhosa

I finally got a picture of the infamous bungalow. It's sitting in a part of the township called Barcelona. As you can probably guess, it's nothing like the old Spanish city. It's one of the poorest areas around, basically a shantytown. No paved roads, no brick houses, no flush toilets, only central taps for water. But, people here have a roof over their heads, even if it leaks in the rain. There are lots of kids around, and it wouldn't surprise me if the average household was about 4-5 people in a 10 foot by 10 foot shack.

The bungalow, which is the orange-ish building, used to be twice as big as you see it here. The panels are made of pressed asbestos and are pretty brittle. When the guys disassembled and moved the panels, some of them broke and couldn't be used. When they put it back together, they doubled up some of the panels for better draft and leak control. So, it's now smaller but better constructed. There are still some gaps between the roof and the walls, but I asked if it leaks when it rains hard and was told no.

(There is no concern here about lung damage from asbestos. I think people are so worried about day-to-day survival that they don't worry about future possibilities. Plus, the average person here only lives to their mid-50s, so asbestos-induced cancers are even lower on the list of concerns.)

The woman in the picture is a cleaner at the Centre part-time. I think her name is Nomosi. I've heard Yvonne say it a couple times but it's never really been clear. I'll correct it in a future posting if I got it wrong.

The bungalow does not have electricity yet, so Nomosi uses a lamp for light (you can see it on her bedside table). She doesn't have a heater yet so it gets pretty cold at night. She doesn't like using the lamp or a paraffin heater because it's hard on her lungs (paraffin is like kerosene, and it can burn with a sooty smoke if you don't have a good wick. Asthma is a huge problem in the shacks because of that soot). It's also a big safety concern - over 1000 people die in South Africa every year from burns suffered in house fires.

So, the bungalow story is over, more or less. We are going to work on getting Nomosi electricity so that she can get a stove and an electric light. That should be a breeze compared to what's gone on so far.


Xhosa lessons
I've been taking weekly Xhosa lessons for almost a month. It's a tough language to learn, not just because of the sounds but also because the grammar is very different. I probably know about 50-60 words and a few other phrases, enough to have very short conversations with people. It's fun to surprise people at the clinic or the Centre when I can respond to something they say. If things continue like they are I should be half-way good by the time I leave.

Here's a few words you can use on your friends:
Hello = Molo (moh-loh)
How are you = Kunjani (kuhn-jahn-ee)
I'm fine = Ndiphilile (di-pee-lee-lay)
Thanks = Enkosi (en-koh-see or en-kohs)
See you (good-bye) = Sobonana (soh-boh-nah-nah, not like banana)
Yes = Ewe (a-way with long As)
No = Hayi (hi but hold the I for an extra beat)

There are a lot of English and Afrikaans derivatives in the language. Ifona is phone, iskoli is school, etc. There's no gender distinction as in Spanish or Italian, but there are different pronouns depending on the verb. For example, lakho and yakho both mean "your" but are used with specific nouns. Igama, which means first name, goes with lakho and ifana, which means last name, goes with yakho. There are 15 noun groups that I'll eventually have to learn, each with their own rules about pronouns, plurals, and various other subtleties.

Xhosa also just adds prefixes or suffixes to word roots depending on how you're using the word. "Phila" is the word root for "life" or "well." "Ndiphilile" means "I am well." (Ndi = I) "Andiphilanga" means "I'm not well." "Usaphila" means "Are you still well?" (U = you, sa = still). It all kind of makes sense after a while, as you learn to add or subtract prefixes depending on the word and how it's being used.

This was today's sunset. Tomorrow is the shortest day of the year, so it's all downhill from here.

More to come.