One of the coolest and most difficult to deal with characteristics of South Africa is the fact that there are so many recognized national languages. The main language is English, but that doesn’t mean that everyone actually knows and speaks English. There are many secondary languages (e.g. Africaans, Zulu, Tsonga, Xhosa) that are the only ones spoken in a certain area. We have spent the greater part of our journey traveling through the Eastern Cape Provence; which is primarily Xhosa. It felt like we were in an entirely different country. The locals lived differently, spoke differently, ate different foods, etc.  Now we have moved into the KwaZulu-Natal Province where Zulu and other other native languages are spoken. All of what we have learned will be no more. We are going to be forced to learn yet another language as we travel through South Africa.

Here is a cheat sheet for learning Xhosa,It is pronounced with a ‘click’. There are three different ‘clicks’ for the letters X, Q, and C.