Languages and Dead Things

Am I the only one who loves the smell of new library materials? Probably not. We got in some new books and magazines today, which made a nice cataloging break from the hundreds of reports that I've been doing. Seriously. I'm making progress though. Ek maak goeie vordering. (That's “I'm making good progress” in Afrikaans.)

I've decided to pick up as much Afrikaans and Shangaan as possible while I'm here. I don't have much else to do at lunch, and I rarely take the whole hour to eat, so I think starting tomorrow I'm going to show up at the squardavel that the contract workers have been taking their breaks in and ask them to teach me Shangaani. I've been saying “Avusheni” (Good morning) and all the related how-are-yous to them for a couple weeks now on my way to work, but that's really all I know how to say, and I'd like to learn more. They've been super-friendly to me since I started saying hi to them in their language. A couple of the construction guys have tried to speak Shangaani to me in passing, but I never know what they're saying, and when they tell me, it doesn't stick, because I don't use it all the time. Most of my coworkers also speak Afrikaans, and at tea time (yes, we have tea time) I don't know what anybody's talking about. They speak English to me, some better than others, but I'd like to be able to hear what they're saying to each other and understand it, so I've been asking my boss, Sunel, how to say little phrases here and there. Who knows how much will stick? I've never been very good at learning languages. But I'm trying.

So, things rarely actually are dead when I think they are here in Africa, but today two things actually were.

The first was a solifuge, which is related to a spider, but has pinchers instead of fangs and no venom, and looks wicked creepy (this coming from someone who thinks spiders are cool). They're also called red romans, camel spiders, sun spiders, and a host of other names. They can't actually kill you, but they bite when provoked, which can hurt. Anyway, think something like a tarantula, but creepier, and I found it dead in the library today while measuring for posters (we're getting backing and fiberglass to protect some posters that have been put up around campus, because with the heat and humidity, all these nice pieces of paper get gross pretty quickly, so it's my job to figure out a way to protect them and how much it'll cost).

My boss is wicked arachnophobic, which is unfortunate when living in South Africa, because spiders are literally everywhere. I told her, “Don't come back here, I'm going to go get Gawie.” And she was like, “Is it a spider?” To which I responded, “I'm not sure, but I think it's dead.” Sunel, “But what if it crawls?” Me, “Then I guess it's not dead, but it's not moving.” Sunel, “You stay there and make sure it doesn't move. I'll go get Gawie. I don't want to be alone in the same building as a spider.” And so she did, and Gawie came and picked it up and took it away, but not before identifying it and looking it up in one of the library's books so that I could learn more about it. I'm actually curious about these things, because I didn't know what the Hell it was or whether or not it could kill me, so whenever I encounter unknown wildlife, I ask Gawie what it is, and he'll tell me its name and something about it, and I'll go look it up.

The other dead thing was one of the squirrels inhabiting my house. The squirrels have a tendency to mess up the place. They eat anything even remotely resembling food unless you lock it up, poop everywhere, rip up the thatching in the roof for their nests, and leave their children lying around. That's right. Their babies. Just any old where. The babies fall from the ceiling because they're not fully able to scurry and balance properly, and the parents just leave them there, sometimes for days on end, before coming down to get them. The little buggers scream like nobody's business. Practically every day for the last two weeks a baby squirrel or two have fallen in various rooms in the house. I'm surprised every time I go into a room and the thing is still alive. Sometimes they really look dead, until you poke them. Well, today, the baby on the floor didn't move when I poked it. The thing really was dead. Ah, well, nothing to do but sweep it outside and let the snakes have it. Better than attracting snakes inside the house. And unlike the lizard lying on its back last night which started moving when I went to sweep it onto the ground, the baby squirrel stayed dead. I do feel kind of bad for it (the babies are cuter than their parents), but one can only have so much sympathy for a pest, an uncoordinated pest at that, with deadbeat parents who don't care enough to come rescue it. I kind of wish its parents had come to get it instead of letting it die on the floor, though. It's a little bit sad.