easy If you will indulge me, let me share with you a long excerpt from Karen (Isak) Dinesen, the beginning of her superb memoir Out of Africa. It is long and descriptive, but instructive, and I will have some things to say about it: I had a farm in Africa, at the foot of the Ngong […]
Tag Archives: South Africa
South African All-In-One.
27-Jul-15buy accutane online europe South African liquor stores have come up with an important innovation: the Three-Pack, an All-Inclusive combo: a pack of Peter Stuyvesant cigarettes, two liters of Coca-cola, and a bottle of Richelieu brandy. All you need for an evening of fun. Minus the cigarettes I think I could have a pretty good time this way myself. […]
We had a reading from Leo Africanus, a Moor and polymath who was supposedly the inspiration for Shakespeare’s Othello. He wrote of his journeys through Africa in Latin, taking note of certain plants, one of which is called Surnag: … Est quoque et hoc radicis genus in Athlantis Occidentalibus locis proveniens, cui vires inesse aiunt […]
Evan Gardner’s Language Hunting.
26-Jul-15Had the pleasure of watching Nancy Llewellyn begin learning Afrikaans over lunch. She uses a method pioneered by Evan Gardner known as “language hunting.” She asks, in English, how to say “what is that?” in the target language. Once she had it, she then used the phrase over and over again to learn the words […]
Went to a restaurant which served French Toast – “filled with crispy bacon, garlic fried mushrooms, cheddar and mozzarella cheeses, and whipped cream.” It came with french fries too. Wishing your palate a healthy good morning!
Latin and Race.
25-Jul-15The immersion program is begun, and it is worth noting that there are no black participants. For a Classicist this is nothing unusual – indeed, for anyone involved in the high levels of almost any academic discipline, this is not unusual. In the United States, where blacks comprise about ten percent of the population, it […]
Latin Beyond Classicism.
23-Jul-15June 29th. We began the Latin immersion today. We read an account of Tungubutum (Timbuktu) written in Latin in 1595 by Adriaan Van Roomen. Tungubutum; situm ad magnum lacum piscibus abundantem, aqua tamen lacus est amara et venenata. Civitas magnae negotiationis, ad quam non tantum fit concursus Fessanorum et Maroccorum, sed etiam Cariensium. Huc magna […]
In the Living Museum.
23-Jul-15A most extraordinary thing today: the sort of thing which only happens when one is on the road. We were walking through the university campus, as I was hoping to catch a glimpse the university botanical garden before having to give a Latin tour of it later this week. As we walked we passed an […]
Twenty-One Years After Apartheid.
20-Jul-15I expressed some dissatisfaction, in my last post, with the ANC’s “revolutionary” rhetoric about keeping alive the “spirit of ’76” while neglecting the tasks which actually could make people’s lives better: and here is a good time to offer some more general assessments of what I have seen so far in South Africa. Far and […]
Statues.
20-Jul-15Had lunch with a pair of Classicists, teachers at one of the universities here in South Africa. They were lovely people, doing their best to inspire their students, and conversation was genteel and thoughtful, as it usually is among people who truly feel themselves to be teachers first and foremost. But wanting a bit more, […]