Culture assimilation

I thought I was English, heck, I KNOW I'm English, but really, what does it take to assimilate culture?

I'm not talking about high brow culture here, but the culture of everyday - the hello, the good morning, the how are you.

I'm confused to a marginal degree. This confusion is not a bad thing, it's just a mild interest in trying to figure my place in the scheme of this everyday culture.

I've been a white boy in Africa so long, it's all over me like a pair of kaffir takkies.

It seems that my English "front" is slipping somewhat, deep seated africanisms squeeze out without warning - out of the great blue yonder, dripping into my conversational tone.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not hiding anything, rather trying to layer more of the Engelsman over the Pommie, it's a natural enough thing, considering I am actually a pommie.

The guys at work know I'm pretty much a Souf Fafrican, if not by birth, by assimilation, but they also know me as a Brummie - my roots are here too.

If they notice the odd slang word in a sentence, the ones which are born of habit, they pay no mind.

I've been here six months and still catch myself saying "ya" or "fully" and a hundred other little slangisms which I've soaked in over the years.

Other times, I naturally come across as the perfect English gentleman.
The cultural magpie? The mimick?

Certainly I have a portion of that ability, to lay on attitudes for the moment, to play up to situations - but this africanism is bugging me.

My accent is all over the place not really knowing where to settle, yet it's not a conscious decision either way, rather, it fits the moment.

Since I arrived, I've pronounced Berkshire as Barkshire which is the correct way - I didn't even think about it, but now I'm slipping into the africanism for no reason I can fathom.

I keep saying "berk" and not "bark"

Perhaps, over time, the accent will settle, but I think the odd slang words will be around forever.

What does irk me, is that in any culture, there are just so many "in jokes" and these are often seasonal - they may be around for six months, or a year or even 10 years. A silly South African example is "And anuffer fing Darren" - I often find myself a bit lost, because I'm missing all those connections here, that "every day culture"

Hmmm, could be worse, I could be living in France ...

Country walks, deers and hawks

The weather is starting to turn as spring arrives with much needed rain.
Here in South East England, it's been dry for two years. It's hard for people to imagine England as being a dry place, the picture always presented is a green land with far too much rain.

The truth is that England has never really been afflicted by too much of the wet drippy stuff and droughts are frequent.

During a break in the weather late this morning, I squeezed my boots on and ventured outside without a jacket for the first time in months. It was overcast but bright and wonderfully fresh. The clocks had moved an hour forwards, so I decided to celebrate with a country ramble.

Doing "my bit" for recycling, I took a collection of bottles and magazines down to the recycling bin by the canal as part of my ramble. Can't say whether it makes me feel like I'm being a good "green" lad or not, considering I've had the washing machine rumbling away all day. I guess every little bit helps, doesn't it?

Who knows - perhaps when they collect those large plastic recycling bins, they take them to a land fill to be dumped with the rest of the areas garbage.

As I walked down the Basingstoke canal, toward Farnborough way, the signs of spring were everywhere. A lone swan eyed me up and down, ready to accost me for bits of bread. Under a bridge a school of fish were hanging around. Perhaps they were hiding from the fishermen?

The sun broke through the clouds and all was good with the world, as the distant hum of traffic faded and the green fields of England rose up around the canal banks.

I decided to take a pathway off the beaten track and into the forest. The signs of spring were everywhere, the trees in bud and forest flowers blooming and - mud.

I aquired an extra foot in height during my tramp through the forest, wet sticky mud clinging to the underside of my boots. I was more interested in not getting it all over my backside, as I slipped about dangerously close to puddles. I eventually gave up caring and gleefully loped along the muddy forest tracks. Ahhh, this is the life.

And then I spotted her, in a clearing in the forest, a deer. She was there for just a few seconds before trotting into the forest, suddenly it felt like I could've been hundreds of years back in time, ready to hunt. The distant drone of an aircraft quickly broke the moment and I rambled on.

Out onto the edge of open fields, spotting rabbits bounding into the brambles alongside a country road, I followed it for a while passing mansions with twee names and fancy cars in thier driveways. To the manor born!

Back onto the forest path I met a few other ramblers, "good morning, nice day for a walk" and was followed for a time by a few terriers, snuffling about in the undergrowth, tails wagging.

They say that the English countryside is in danger of vanishing forever, as the land gets evermore poplulated.

Perhaps a good dose of pandemic flu could assist nature in ridding her of a few million humans, for the idea of these little patches of country forever lost beneath a sea of car parks and housing developments is too scary to contemplate, too much has been lost already.