Awe bru!
Keeping an ear open for the sounds of home.
There are a lot of people in Berlin. Whether it's due to the socio-cultural shift I’ve made in moving here, where everyone walks to the shops and takes trains to work and all watch soccer in the park together, or if it’s simply due to the sheer density of the city and its almost four million inhabitants—I see a lot of people. I must clap eyes with upwards of one hundred strangers a day, and more than double that on the weekend. More than just seeing them, I hear them, too. And sometimes I listen.
There are several languages, I’ve found, that sound a little like Afrikaans. I’ll often be on the train with my earphones in (listening to the Little Women audiobook, how fantastic) when the rhythm of a conversation happening behind me draws my attention. Out comes the left earphone and I pick a spot on the dental hygienist advert plastered to the interior of the subway to focus my eyes on while I train my ears on the conversation. I wait for the strangers to speak. Yes! I think to myself as some of the familiar, guttural tones of my motherland eke out over the noise of the train. The tone is definitely right, and I certainly hear the rounded, motor-bike R used in Afrikaans and Spanish, rather than the high-in-the-palate, growling R characteristic of French and German. That tannie’s spiky, blonde haircut is certainly helping the case! As the couple rise from their seats to exit the U-Bahn, I strain my ears one last time to be certain of my hypothesis. Alas, as they pass, their Afrikaans slips into Russian and in goes the earphone again.
This is not always the case, though. About a year ago my girlfriend and I were sitting on the U-Bahn; two young women in their early twenties were sitting diagonally across us. As they chatted it became clearer and clearer to me that they spoke with the familiar lilt of Capetonians. Without any K-Way or Sealand branded items on them to confirm my suspicions, I was forced to take a leap of faith and asked them where they were from. Thankfully, I’d nailed the accent, and they were both from the Southern Suburbs. The first was in Berlin working as an au pair, and the second was living in the Netherlands but had come for the weekend to visit. I was just about to get their contact details when our stop came up and we had to go. Another time, I had my Sealand bag with me and I overheard a guy on the Tram talking about the clubs he’d like to visit in his last week in Berlin. Again, there was familiarity in his voice. I shouted from across the Tram car (as South Africans are want to do) and told him to have a great last week here. He saw my bag and we chatted for a minute before I, predictably, had to get off at my stop. Once, while buying dumplings at an Asian market I overheard two women about my age struggling to choose between the brightly coloured packages. I showed them my favourite brand and filling and without skipping a beat, one of them turned to me and asked, “Are you from South Africa?” To which I replied, “Of course I’m from South Africa mah bru!”
My favourite encounter deserves a line break. I was walking down the road to the nearest grocery store (as the Germans do) and crossed the street to head to the entrance. I saw an older woman with a walking frame and who I guessed was her grandson exit the shopping complex as I was about to enter it. As always, my ears were on high alert. The exaggerated Rs and Gs that carry the fingerprint of Afrikaans emanated from their conversation. The earphones came out. They got closer and I began to understand a word here and there. “Praat julle dalk Afrikaans?” I asked them (are you perhaps speaking Afrikaans?). A resounding, “Ja!” was the reply. We stood and talked about where they were from and how long they’d been here in Berlin and when last they’d been back. We chatted until I was out of Afrikaans words (for they have grown few and foreign in their lack of use) and they waved me onward. I missed my bus.
It seems like just about all of us three-and-some million Berliners speak a different language. At any one time, a single train car will bear witness to Ukrainian, German, Arabic, Turkish, English, Spanish, Portuguese, Swahili. I keep listening for Afrikaans. Whether I’ve got my ears full of an audiobook or if Billy Joel is serenading me at the end of a work day, I’m always on the lookout for fellow wanderers who also find themselves a long way away from home. Net om ‘mooi loop’ te sê.
While I’m in Germany, the Southern Suburbs feel like they are right next to my home in the Northern Suburbs. Then I go home again to discover that it’s a two-hour drive away and essentially as far away as Berlin is (to those driving-lazy Capetonians, at least). If you enjoyed this journal, please subscribe.