Monday, October 02, 2006

The Language of my Dreams

One of the way in which I reward myself from time to time when the business of day to day life make way for a short break is by buying a travel magazine. These magazines provide me with dreams and ideas for leisure trips and hard core adventures on my Gomoto.

My favorite magazine by far is Weg, an Afrikaans travel magazine. I enjoy the informative articles, the creative use of language, and the inspiration found in the magazine.

Last week my wife decided to spoil me with this magazine. EXCEPT! She bought the English version of the magazine, called Go!.

The articles are exactly the same. The pictures are the same. The layout has not changed. The translation is excellent.

BUT. It is just not the same. Somehow it just does not feel right. I'm not even sure if the camp fire food (made according to an English recipe), would taste exactly as the food made according to the same recipe in Afrikaans.

I live and work in English. My family speaks English exclusively at home. But it would seem that my dreams, of travel in particular is in Afrikaans.

If I wanted English, I'd buy the Getaway magazine. But who wants to Getaway if you can go with Weg!

Helderberg Farm

I finally got to take my Gomoto on a pleasure trip over the week-end. It was only about 10 km's, but that is about as much as I can manage without my daughter falling asleep at the back.



The farm is on the R44 between Somerset West and Stellenbosh, and practically borders the College where I live. I think they are incredibly successful in capitalising on the tourist market in the area. (They have 4x4 trails, playgrounds, animals for kids to feed, hiking trails, view-sites, exclusive picnic and braai areas - you pay for most of this of course.)




I visit them for the strawberries that they sell. They sell punnets of strawberries at the same price for which you get them in the shops (about R20 for 800g or so). But then they sell 3kg boxes of Jam Strawberries. These strawberries are either small or a little bit to ripe for the punnets. A 3kg box only costs R30, and who needs the fancy packed stuff anyway.




I'm not sure if the farmer was too impressed with me parking my gomoto practically in his straberries to get this photo :-)