WHY ENGLISH?

I was born and bred in South Africa. My mother tongue Afrikaans. Afrikaans has some of the most powerfully beautiful descriptive words and I love the language. Poetry in Afrikaans is like aged red wine, since one word can captivate a feeling, a whole scenery, taste, smells and so much more, but only people living in South Africa can truly understand the power of the endless words accessible to describe a whole scenario in one word.
Most people do not know this, but my grandmother, from my mother’s side, was an orphan. Her father dumped her and her three siblings at the orphanage after their mother died and he chose to start a new family with his new wife. This was in the 1920’s. She was placed in an English orphanage, where she was raised and schooled in English. In those days only the top student in their year group was allowed to continue their schooling for the next year. She, as the oldest, pushed her sisters and brother as hard as she could to excel academically so that they could continue their schooling and not be placed up for adoption. Firstly, to stay together, but also so that they would get an education in order for them to find decent jobs and further themselves later in life. Unfortunately, her only brother was not able to stay in the orphanage and was placed under the supervision of a farmer, where he had to do manual labor under precarious circumstances. The three girls managed to get their matric certificates, a great accomplishment in those days, and my grandmother placed first in the Union (as South Africa was not a Republic yet) for Biology.
Needless to say, she was a phenomenal woman. She overcame extremely difficult circumstances and she is one of my ultimate role models. As a very strong and determined woman, she expected of us, her daughters and granddaughters, to be raised as equally determined and successful in life. Part of her love language was to broaden our outlook on life. She invested a lot of time in schooling us in etiquette, manners, grooming and art, but the one thing she was adamant about was that we would master English. She was a visionary, seeing into the future a day that South Africans would leave Apartheid behind and join the global society and we needed to be prepared. She always prepared for everything, even her pantry was stocked with pickled vegetables, biscuits and dried meat. So, every second day in her house was English day. One day we were allowed to speak Afrikaans and one day we were only allowed to speak English, where she would select any and every word out of the English dictionary and quiz us on the meaning and how to use it. It became a fun game. The result of this? I not only love English as much as I love Afrikaans, I discovered that English has just as much enchantingly descriptive words to offer.
So why English?
I am still having fun with it.

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