thoughts

today i was sitting in a taxi for about 45 minutes waiting to fill up (taxis won't leave until every single seat is full-meaning 15 people, so at lower peak times this takes a while) and over the loud speaker of the taxi rank (kind of like a bus depot in my case, but it can vary to even just being a stop on the street) came the South African national anthem. In the past I can say for certain that I have never really appreciated national anthems, but the SA anthem is simply amazing. It takes from both black african, afrikaaner, and white south African (English). The first verse is Zulu/Xhosa, and then the next verse is Sesotho, then Afrikaans, then English. So it respects all cultures and is really pretty at the same time. Anyways, it made me think, how awesome is it that people love this country this much that they just play the national anthem over the loudspeaker? I know I would definitely be annoyed if this happened in the us (i would always think I was at a baseball game?) but the historical context just makes me love it when people love south africa so much. Anyways, sitting in the khoombi (taxi) a bunch of the elderly women sitting there waiting with me just started singing it really loud. This is also another great aspect of south african culuture; people just break out into song occasionally.

I was talking to my fellow pcv friend about funerals here in south africa. I’ve been to two so far, and will probably going to quite a few more (it is a regular Saturday activity for many in the community, and invite me to come quite often). An interesting part of funerals (this is also in church) is that women just break out in singing randomly. Like south africans know about 50000000000000+ songs by heart. In the middle of the service, when someone thinks its an appropriate time, just starts a song and likd 3 word into the song everyone is singing. I can’t get over how incredibly rude this would be in the US at a funeral or church. The pastor takes a breath and all of a sudden: SINGING! Just imagine it, people would be so pissed in the US. Just thinking about it makes me laugh. Haha.


<3<3