International Languages: It Thrills Me Right Down To My Marrow.

South Africa has this amazing musician named Johnny Clegg. The French have come to refer to him (quite aptly) as the “White Zulu”.

On Thursday, Meg, Shin and I met up with our friends Andrew and Gordon to go see Johnny perform at Gateway (the largest mall in the Southern Hemisphere). The show opened with the lead singer of a band called Tree63. He ended his performance with Three Little Birds > Wave Your Flag > Nkosi Si’Kelele Afrika. It was awesome.

Anyways – Johnny opened the show with a few of our favourites, including “I’m Sitting on the Top of Kilimanjaro” in which he rhymes several words with Kilimanjaro, including marrow, tomorrow, and sorrow.

I stopped grooving long enough to realize that I was in a crowd of mostly white South Africans but we were all dancing and singing along to songs written and sung entirely in Zulu. At first I was irritated. Why couldn’t these white South Africans make more of an effort to integrate the culture that surrounds them into their lives. But then I realized that was exactly what was happening all around me. And, seriously – how cool is that?!

And then yesterday, we decided that instead of walking back to the car from the FIFA fan park, we would dance. Don’t worry… 4 little white girls from the Northeast of the USA started several dance parties. It didn’t matter what race we were or what colour we were or what language we spoke. Music doesn’t give a damn about that nonsense. It was just music and dancing. Man, I wish the world could be so simple.

So between the white zulu, a million world cup dance parties, and a few good soccer matches, I think we have safely exited the mid-yea slump and are moving on with the next 6 months of our South African lives.