New Friends

On our second night in Cape Town we met a group of guys who live in Cape Town but grew up together in another part of South Africa about 7 hours away.  (We learned that it is very common for people to move to Cape Town after high school, either to work or to go to college.)  The place where they are from is on the coast so they are all surfers.  When we asked them about their nationalities, they all seemed to be a combination of English and Afrikaaner.  We ended up hanging out with them for the rest of our time in South Africa, which was very convenient for them since they were on “holiday”.  Although, to be quite honest, I’m not sure how much their schedules change when they are not on holiday.  They have a very relaxed lifestyle.  They listen to music, play videogames, and hangout.  I don’t think we ever saw them wear shoes and when we asked them about going out to a club we had heard about, they all looked at each other, laughed, and said, “No, we can’t go there, you have to wear a collared shirt to get in.”  Out of the five of them, only one of them had a phone.  They also didn’t have laptops and didn’t seem to use the internet very often.  This isn’t to say that all people from South Africa are like this, but these particular surfer guys were very “mellow” (a word they used often to describe anything that was good, cool, alright, chill, fine… For example, “don’t worry about it, it’s mellow.”)

One of the best parts about hanging out with these guys was listening to how they talked.  In addition to “mellow,” we also learned a lot of other phrases and new uses of words.  For example, “cruise” referred to driving a car.  “Let’s cruise” or “I think he wants to cruise soon” were used often.  They also said “Awe” but pronounced it “a-WAY,” and this was another word for cool or nice.  They said “bro” a lot, but also “brew/bru” when they addressed each other.  “See you later, bru” or “No way, bru” were used a lot.  And the most commonly used phrase in their vocabulary was definitely “one love.”  Whether it was the way they talked or the things they said I don’t know, but what I do know is that from the second we met them until we had to say goodbye, we never stopped laughing.  Again, I wish I was able to post videos because these guys could make anyone laugh—particularly one named Tyrone. 

In addition to their language, we also got to see other aspects of their culture.  We listened to their music and were able to see how it compares to the kind of music we listen to in the United States.  Of course, their group of friends probably has its own taste in music, but it was still interesting to see which artists and songs were popular in South Africa.  On one of their TV stations that would be similar to our MTV or VH1 they played a lot of Rihanna, Beyonce, and Lady Gaga.  (I swear that people from every country know who Lady Gaga is.)  We also played card/drinking games with them, which was fun to see which games were the same as ours and which were different.  Lastly, they took us to a really pretty lookout spot called Signal Hill which had a beautiful view of the city and the water.  A lot of families and couples were there having picnics.  The weather was perfect.  It was such a nice afternoon and one of the many great memories I will have of my new South African friends.