Click, stumble, repeat.

Thursday afternoon and I'm back in Khayelitsha. Back sitting in the waiting-room of one of my community partners, an organisation that provides mental health services to children and families. The room I'm in is small and yellow and covered in posters promoting sexual health, good nutrition, and generally positive life choices. The staff move between two rooms to my right, either walking between the two doors or calling across to one another. I sit, quite contentedly, waiting.

"You've been here some time now," one woman comes up to me, "can I get you some tea?"
I smile. "Ofcourse, yes please."
"Ubisi?"
"No thanks, kodwa iswekele, no, I mean itispuni iswekile enye?" I end the sentence a question, just to make sure I'm understandable.
She giggles at my shaky Xhosa and repeats, "no milk but one sugar."
"Enkosi sisi."
She turns to walk away and a voice calls from the doorway next to me:
"Don't tell me you don't speak Xhosa, just listen to you with the sugar!"
"Ewe," I agree, "ndiyazi the important things."
More laughter. "Yes you do, keep practicing."

The admin assistant is off the phone and looks over his counter to me, "keep going."
"Are you sure you're not busy?" I ask.
"No, come," he insisted, "keep talking."
We'd spent the preceding half hour practicing my Xhosa. At first it was just him and me, and I hadn't meant to distract him, but he was so psyched about the few sentences I could get out about the weather and the traffic that the small-talk had morphed into a conversation, which now attracted the attention of the whole office. The staff called out instructions, admonishments, corrections and advice as they heard me stumble over the still unfamiliar sounds. There was disagreement--and it was vehement and impassioned--about who was telling me what. There was also a lot of laughter. I wasn't helping myself, complementing my mangled Xhosa with white-girl questions:
"How do you whisper in Xhosa?"
More laughter.
"No, it's a serious question." I replied. "Can you make a soft click?"
A man standing eating his lunch out of a bright blue tupperware leans over to where I sit and starts clicking softly in my ear.
"Shoh, but that's some other kind of technique!" I try to mimic the muted sounds with mixed success.

I ended up being there the whole afternoon. I drank my tea, practiced my Xhosa, and was moved from chair to chair as space alternated between availability and demand. Eventually I ended up at the desk where everyone keeps their handbags. Behind the zips and the bits of bling I had a little time to think. To muse about why my Xhosa was such a hit. I'm not particularly fluent, far from it. Considering the amount of time I've spent in Xhosa-speaking neighbourhoods the last few years, and more recently the time I've spent in Xhosa class, you'd expect more meaningful linguistic achievement. And yet, my limited abilities are so welcomed.

Look, I suppose I've always known how few white South Africans make an effort, any effort, to learn Xhosa, or Zulu, or Tswana or any of the other nine official languages that we aren't exposed to in the well-decorated classrooms of our Model C schools. But it's really only now after I've mastered slightly more than the "Molo, unjani's?" that I'm starting to think about what that absence of effort means in relation to those vulnerable and bendy struts of all the constitutional goodies: equality, freedom, human dignity etc. I get that English is an internationally understood language, that it's the language of global trade and politicking, but what does a preference for English mean for people who don't call it their mother tongue? How does it exclude and demean? Because it does.

I speak Xhosa like a child, a child with a strange accent and a speech impediment. So, despite my general life confidence, my lack of ability discourages me from speaking in Xhosa. Fortunately, most people with whom I engage can speak English so I'm not silenced. But when I balance the option of speaking Xhosa, to speaking nothing--and in the context of my job sometimes I have to--it's kind of a kak decision to make. Do I speak and run the risk of people thinking I'm a fool, or do I smile and say nothing? As a white English-speaker and all the privilege that goes with that identity, I know that I have an infinitely easier time than most.

And so, while ndisasifunda isiXhosa and I sound like a loon most of the time, ndiza kuzama noko because I don't like that my language has the potential to exclude, silence, and marginalize people. (Also, my white-girl Xhosa is a really good ice-breaker and obviously if speaking Xhosa means more people offering more tea just so they can offer it in Xhosa, then hello yes, I am on that train.)