Words and meanings

Yesterday afternoon at the university we had an event where Year 9 kids from different backgrounds were teaching us their languages. There was a girl teaching Norwegian, but to my great disappointment all she could provide were names of animals – I wanted ‘I love you. Marry me’. That was beyond her knowledge of the language. Oh well.
There were also three kids teaching Polish – all people who had stopped at their tables would come back to me and show off what they had learned. I particularly appreciated Lyndsey telling me that she had a cat – which in Polish could mean ‘I’m nuts’ and Paul declaring he had a horse – which could have been interpreted as him admitting to having a penis. Ah, you’d better be careful, you never know what you’re actually saying!
So I’ve learned some Norwegian, some Portuguese, some Lingala, some Cantonese and some sign language. The latter being the only one that I’ve not forgotten.But most of all, I learned some Satswana. It’s a language spoken in Botswana. And it’s amazing. Their currency is ‘Pula’. That word also means ‘rain’. In an African country. Wow. ‘Madi’ means both ‘money’ and ‘blood’. Wow again. But it gets better. ‘Monday’ is ‘mosupologo’, which means ‘get out of your shell and get going’. Hating Mondays must be something they don’t quite get. Or maybe they get it even better. The word for ‘Sunday’ means ‘bells are ringing’. But my very favourite is ‘maitsiboa’, which translates as ‘evening’, but means ‘you know it’s time to come back’. Isn’t that all that evenings should be about?