Thread: Belated introduction

Hi all, I waited a bit until I got some rank before I posted here! (So embarrassing to be a private...)

I live on a mountaintop in Mpumalanga, South Africa. We don't have many high mountains in South Africa but this one is pretty high for the area (about 1400m above sea level). Beautiful view, perfect climate. At night the antelope graze around our house, in the daytime the monkeys play in our trees (and eat our fruit!) We don't have any lions or elephants that I'm aware of! (This sounds like a cliche of Africa!)

Anyway, up until this time last year I was still living in a city, teaching 500 students every semester how to program computers in C. And trying to write academic papers about the ethics of proactive computing. And hating the paper-writing bit. So I quit, moved to the country and am now working as a freelance graphic designer. Much much nicer, although people seem to think I'm mad to give up a promising academic career to come sit under a tree!

I love computers, movies, music, nature, reading ... I loved teaching, but that was not to be...

And, having bored you all with my (semi) life story, I'll just say I'm very happy that I chose Vodahost and that this forum seems like a wonderful community. I would love to make a million posts and see everyone's sites, but I have a 500Mb/month bandwidth cap - that's combined upload and download, folks! That gives me around 16Mb per day which isn't much at all. Living in Africa has it's pros and cons, I suppose...

Sure does, but your sites look splendid !! I like the sunsets.
Do you speak Dutch/ African ?

Glad you like my pics! I speak Afrikaans, which is derived from Dutch. If you speak slowly to me in Dutch I should be able to follow...

I know some words in some of the 12 official languages, but I can't claim to speak any of them. Where I grew up (Pretoria, capital city) we learned some Northern Sotho (or Sepedi) at school, but I've moved 300km east now and they don't speak the same language anymore... I'm not sure what the local dialect is, I can't understand it A lot of people around here speak Portugese because Mozambique is just across the hill from here (so to speak!)

Hello leoni , I'm John from Greece ! I live in Athens , have you ever been ??
Here we have a lot of mountains and as you maybe have heard many many islands with fantastic sea . I would love to visit Africa one day but I'm still a bit young and can't afford the travel . But I

But I hope I can make it someday ! I want to ask you something . Have you your own site ? What's the URL ? You see I want to built my site in the field of Food Nutrition , because I'm a dietitian(study in Food science and Nutrition). What do you think about my thought ? Is there a chance to visit my site many people ? In future I consider if someone could purchage e-diets from my site...I think about it.
Have a nice day

Hi John! I would love to visit Greece, everything I've seen of it on tv and on the web is lovely!

I'm sure a site about Food Nutrition would get many visitors; it's an important topic especially for all of us trying to lose weight! Good luck setting it up, I'd love to see it!

My own site is at www.leo-design.net or you can visit my gallery at mainbearing.deviantart.com

Well Leoni,

As I can't speak Dutch to you right now, I write a few words in Dutch;

Je leeft in Nelspruit, ik denk dat is afgeleid van kind van Nel. Verder verbazen we ons in Nederland over de grappige veranderingen in woorden in het Afrikaans. Zoals amperbroekkie, bikini; litteraly less underwear. en braaibak barbecque litteraly basket for grilling. or nooit nie zink nie boot, submarine litteraly a boat that never sinks.

Groeten en tot ziens !

www.jaspernieuwenhuizen.nl

Wow, this is cool! I'll answer in Afrikaans then...

Ja ek woon in Nelspruit - dis is afgelei van Nel stroom. Spruit beteken klein stroompie of riviertjie. Ons dink Nederlands is net so snaaks. Ons noem 'submarine' 'n duikboot, en praat sommer net van braai vir 'barbeque'. Afrikaans verander nog elke dag!

Check out this cool list of "South African English" terms ... even our english is almost another language...

Grappig,

Bij ons heet een submarine ook een duikboot, hoe heet een slagschip, ik hoorde een nooit nie bang nie boot is dat waar ? Wat is snaaks ?
Ik vind de link leuk !!

In België wordt ook Nederlands gesproken maar zelfs dat is weer anders, lijkt iets meer op Afrikaans.

www.jaspernieuwenhuizen.nl

I saw the word bliksem on the site in Dutch it means thunderlightning, like donner.

I think someone's been pulling your leg about Afrikaans, as I've never heard "nooit nie bang nie boot" used anywhere (except here, haha!).

"Slagskip" = "slagschip"

"snaaks" = funny / grappig (we use 'grappig' too sometimes)

The terms at the link are more slang than real meanings, so indeed, 'bliksem' comes from 'bliksemstraal' or 'weerligstraal' - both 'bliksem' and 'donner' are used in less polite conversation to refer to beating somebody up.

I do think so ! It was a teacher years ago, explaining the differences just before a new girl from SA came in my class ! She was realy shocked with the liberal attitude at school adressing teachers and not to wear a uniform.

I may have to check the language out my self some time...

Ah, that explains it! School, yeah it's pretty rigid here, or it used to be! I haven't been there for a while...

I missed out on learning some Dutch at school for reasons never clearly explained at the time. Other kids read a book called 'Koning van Katoren' in Dutch, but we never got to it. That really annoyed me because I'd read the english version and I thought I'd score some points already knowing the story! So much for that idea...

A Dutch guy I met at a conference found our word "kombuis" extremely funny for some reason. That's our word for "kitchen" ...

Yeah Kombuis is a really ancient word, now only used in boten. We now call a kitchen a keuken.

Ik heb de Koning van Katoren nooit gelezen waarschijnlijk mis je er niets aan !

Dit was 'n oulike kinderstorie in Engels :-)

En ons praat van skeepskombuis in bote...

Hello to you (English) welcome to VH. Sounds wonderful where you live, and the monkeys.....sounds too cool.

Hi! I've been trying to get a good photo of them but they're so quick! Apparently the best way is to sit inside a car, they don't recognise people as people then... I just never spend time sitting in my car (which is parked in the garage anyway!)

And luckily I love English :-)

Yes please do, get some pics, would love to see them.

Originally Posted by leoni_v

Hi! I've been trying to get a good photo of them but they're so quick! Apparently the best way is to sit inside a car, they don't recognise people as people then... I just never spend time sitting in my car (which is parked in the garage anyway!)

And luckily I love English

I love that area where you live Leoni, I live in Alberton but I do visit up there now and then on holiday.
That whole Sabie Mountainous and Forest Area is really beautiful.

ENJOY THE LAND WHERE THE SUN RISES.

Originally Posted by Astraltraveller

ENJOY THE LAND WHERE THE SUN RISES.

I do, I really do! It's been like one long holiday living here :-)

Cool to meet fellow countryman. Haha, I was checking into a hotel in Singapore once and a guy walked past, stopped, came back and said "From South Africa, right?" Gotta love the accent, I suppose ;-)

I love the monkeys too. Spend a lot of time with them last summer in Thailand in a remote park. Of course they did not recognise me as a human being!!

I can't say I've spent any time with monkeys yet :-) I was all set yesterday to take a picture, and then my dogs realised that the monkeys were in the garden and chased them away. Sigh :-)

Meanwhile, here's a photo of one of my neighbours (13Kb).