We learned a new way to say "Thank you" in South Africa: "Buy a donkey." We thought our guide might have been kidding us when she told us...but we used it at dinner and received a big smile from our server, who seemed happy that we are "learning the language."
Our guide in Cape Town is an interesting woman with an interesting husband. She has worked in government, both under Apartheid and post-Apartheid, and also in television. She is fluent in seven languages. Her husband has had many occupations: college professor, Anglican priest, Catholic monk, and a few others. (He is now retired.) As a Catholic monk in South Africa, he often allowed a friend who was an anti-Apartheid activist, to hide in the monastery when the police were after her. That friend is now married to Ken Follett (yes...the author), and the families spend time together, as schedules and distance permit.
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