A few useless facts about the princess (that’s me ofcourse!)…

Well, I was born into and raised by an Afrikaans family. Both my parents’ first language is Afrikaans and this is the case with all my cousins. Interestingly enough my father decided it would benefit us more if we were placed into an English school and do our subjects in English instead of Afrikaans.

Since there were no decent schools in the ghetto I grew up in – I had to take a 45 – 60 min bus ride to the “other side” of town everyday where I went to school. It was a predominately Muslim, very conservative community and school. Every Friday I was allowed to leave early because the boys had to go to the mosques to pray at midday..

Anyway - Back to the point. At home I decided to speak English to my parents as opposed to Afrikaans. My school was also very politically active trying to fight against apartheid and I realized that the Dutch settlers who were in office at the time were the ones who enforced this stupid apartheid regime on us and caused me to have such crazy and insane ideas about life, were the ones forcing us too, to speak Afrikaans, I decided to rebel against the language. So, I would not speak Afrikaans to my family - I told them that I did not know how to speak Afrikaans..

Two years after I graduated from high school and apartheid had just come to an end, I decided it was actually kind of nice to be able to speak a Second language, also many of my very best friends spoke Afrikaans. I started learning a bit more and falling in love with a lot of what the language expressed.
Being here in America, it’s very convenient to be able to speak it in order to express my frustrations at people who still smile at me hahaha. No seriously, it’s just nice because I now have the ability to pick up other languages a little easier because my brain is attuned to grasping concepts other than English.

I decided to try something a little challenging….. Writing my first Afrikaans poem. Now folks and friends in SA – DON’T LAUGH!!

Here goes:

Uit die diepste van my siel
Staan ek weer op die verhoog van my lewe
Stilte
Ek is verras
In die skaduwee van my verlange
Voel ek gin ontbreek nie
In jou hart hou jy my vas
In my drome
Stilte
Dis ek
Nooit alleen nie.

Ok gees.. i will translate:

From the depths of my soul

I stand again on the stage of my own life

silence

I am surprised (or amazed)

In the shadow of my longing

I feel nothing is lacking

In your hand you hold me tight(ly)

in my dreams

silence

never alone

See translated it sounds like crap! :-)