Language

The main two native languages spoken in Zimbabwe are Shona and Ndebele. I can't tell the difference between the two by just listening, but The E. Africa employees started to teach me Ndebele (apparently Shona will come later). Many people's surnames are animal names, that is how I started to learn.

Nyathi, pronounced (n-eye-at-ee), is cape buffalo
Ndlovu, pronounced the way it is spelled, is elephant
Ncube, pronounced (n-click-oo-bey), is baboon
Ngwenya, pronounced the way it is spelled, is crocodile
Sibanda, pronounced the way it is spelled, is lion
Nyoni, pronounced (no-nee), is bird

I've also learned the Ndebele greeting sequence:

Salibonani (meaning hello, how are you), the responding person then says yebo (literally 'yes', but more of an acknowledgment), the original speaker then says linjani (meaning how are you, again), then the responder then says siaphile or sikohlo. This is just enough Ndebele for me to convince anyone I am talking to that I know what I'm doing (when I really don't) and to set them off into a conversation in Ndebele that I cannot follow in the slightest.

A few other random words I know: iminyaga means age, buhle means beauty, and thando (pronounced tan-doe) means love.  No, as a prefix, means mother, so in combination with the other words, Nothando and Nobuhle and common names for girls (meaning mother of love and mother of beauty)

A few longer words I have learned are Nkosikhona, meaning 'the lord is there' and Siyaphambili, meaning 'going forward.'

Another odd thing here with relation to language are the names that some of the locals have. I'm not very good at spelling or pronouncing the Ndebele names, but many people are named English words that are not common in the western world.

For example, I have met women named Precious, Prettygirl, Pretty, Beauty, Prudence, Sister, Flatter, Sympathy, Progress, Rejoice, and Loveness. Similarly, I haveve met boys named Gift, Bright, Progress, Profess, Preacher, Clever, Trymore, Studymore, Prevail, Wisdom, Remember, and the most unfortunate of all: Nobody.

I'm nowhere close to trying to hold a conversation in Ndebele, or to understanding what someone else is saying, but maybe by the time I leave, I will have a better understanding of conversational Ndebele, and maybe even Shona.