We are a variety of cultures working together. When it is somebody’s birthday we sang “happy birthday” in three languages. Friday I experienced a valuable moment while I was translating an Afrikaans song into English.
My Afrikaans speaking colleague entered, look at what I was doing and started to sing the song in Afrikaans. Our Setswana speaking colleague walked passed, listened to the tune, then he called two other Setswana colleagues and they started to sing the song in Setswana.
We discovered that all of us learned this song in our mother tongue when we were children. Although we grew up during the “Apartheid” years we found another thing that we have in common. This was a real moment of gratitude.
THE SONG:
Afrikaans: “Tel jou seeninge tel hul een vir een …”
English: “Count your many blessings, name them one by one, …”
Setswana: “O bale masego a gago, a o a neilweng ke modimo …”
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