South African: hi my participant number is f c three six dash p one my passage that i will read to you now is please call stella ask her to bring these things with her from the store six spoons of fresh snow peas five thick slabs of blue cheese and maybe a snack for her brother bob we also need a small plastic snake and a big toy frog for the kids she can scoop these things into three red bags and we will go meet her wednesday at the train station

English: hi i'm my participant number is f c thirty six p two and the passage reads please call stella ask her to bring these things with her from the store six spoons of fresh snow peas five thick slabs of blue cheese and maybe a snack for her brother bob we also need a small plastic snake and a big toy frog for the kids she can scoop these things into three red bags and we will meet her wednesday at the train station

South African: so here's our conversation um i was thinking we should talk about food since i know that we both like food what are some of your favorite foods

English: um i don't have favorite specific favorite foods i have favorite um countries of of foods i like indian uh of course italian um and i'm going through a bit of a japanese phase at the moment how about you

South African: yeah um i don't think my mom cooked too much indian food when i was growing up there was very western food so i do enjoy eating a curry when i go out um i also like um italian food of course pizzas pastas um sometimes when we feel like eating unhealthy though we like to eat some american style takeout like burgers and those sort of things um yeah but i think here south africans don't really eat too much unhealthy food like too much fried stuff as they do in other countries people enjoy um barbecues which we call braais um what do you enjoy putting on your barbecue

English: um chicken is always good um but i do love a steak from time to time um and of course potato like a baked doing like a baked potato on the coals

South African: on the barbecue okay that's nice and how do you like your steaks done

English: uh well we do a marinade like uh it's called for short sow so soy sauce olive oil and worces worcestershire sauce

South African: yeah

English: and we marinate it in that it's pretty good

South African: yeah o okay since i i believe it makes it quite um tender and soft

English: tender

South African: yeah

English: mm

South African: and do you like it medium then medium rare or just rare

English: medium more medium

South African: or well done

English: yeah not not so much juice

South African: mm okay interesting

English: and what do you do on a braai or barbeque

South African: yeah i mean it's that's i like um lamb choppies um or lamb chops they call them don't know if yeah choppies is probably a south african word but um yeah i like lamb chops in the braai chicken is also very nice of recent i have been enjoying chicken on the braai and we do this type of sausage here which we call boerewors uh which is a type of beef sausage but it's long curled up like a snake almost um

English: and heavily spiced

South African: yes lots of spices in it i don't know what's what's they put coriander

English: mm

South African: garlic those sort of spices some even put chili in it yeah so that that's quite nice on the braai i'm just trying oh we also enjoy um oxtail um but then it has to be cooked along it's like a stew on a braai um but that's like yeah it has to be about three hours or so four hours

English: mm

South African: it's a whole day thing to cook oxtail um i was just thinking when you were well i mean when you were a child were did you eat did you you did are there any foods that you didn't like eating as a child that you eat now or what sort of foods

English: um

South African: did you not like eating as a child

English: so as a child well even now um my family never cooked a lot of um like a full kind of stuff so kidneys livers that sort of thing um we didn't eat mutton or lamb either just because and that yeah that that's something i've never been able to acquire a taste for um vegetables were pretty much had to eat all our vegetables so i don't have a much of an an aversion for any veggies um yeah

South African: mm okay interesting yeah with me i think i'm i didn't really like mushrooms as a child but now of recent i've started eating mushrooms um prawns is what i didn't like it too much as a child

English: yeah we never ate that

South African: i think the look of them the look of them kinda put you off but now you know now they you find out they're delicious

English: i love mushrooms what sort of dish do you like with mushrooms

South African: um for the pasta dishes um on pizza is very nice um even stuffed mushrooms that's also very nice and when you yeah stuff them with cheese and i think bread crumbs

English: mm

South African: we use bread crumbs mm

English: so did you grow up um by the ocean that you had prawns as a child or were shown prawns as a child

South African: yeah um i'm i grew up on a coastal town so they um fish was guys would sell fish on the side of the road on the weekends and see would there'd be a fish market and every saturday my father used to go and buy fish fresh fish um yeah uh very different to where i live now i'm quite inland so there's not much fish this side what about you

English: um yeah i grew up all over um but mostly inland uh in south africa um and then a little bit lived a little bit on the coast but i've never um enjoyed fish that's something that i struggle to eat

South African: it's too fishy

English: yeah

South African: okay

English: except prawns i can handle prawns

South African: yeah what about hake hake's not too bad it's not too fishy

English: yeah hake's hake's okay

South African: okay and um oh yeah i think it's finding bones <no-speech> that's gross there

English: mm that puts you off yeah

South African: i remember there's kids in school who used they used to bring their sandwiches which used to be tinned fish and just have the bones in it and everything in it and they just used to eat it just like that

English: oh gross

South African: without taking out the bones apparently they're soft but anyway that was a bit gross and um are you a good cook

English: yeah i'd say so i um uh in high school we had um home what was home economics so part of that was practical cooking um and so in the final year of high school i won the uh i got the highest marks for practical the as practical aspect of the subject

South African: sure that's good

English: um for the for the grade uh the theoretical i wasn't too good with but but yeah practical i got the highest mark for

South African: sure what was the

English: did you have that subject in school

South African: yeah but only the girls took it

English: girls

South African: not a lot of boys um yeah so it was just girls took that subject it was called home economics huh what was the project that you had to make what dish that you had to make for your where you scored your high marks

English: well it was throughout the year so it was different um different things made for the different aspects of cooking so it could be like if it was confectionery so it could be marshmallows or honeycomb or sugar sweets or so it was throughout uh marks gotten throughout the year for the different aspects

South African: hm what are sugar sweets i've never heard of them before

English: sugar sweets like a sparkle like

South African: oh so they what do they call them now are they called uh what are they called like those menthols we we used to get

English: yeah a sugar sweet

South African: no they called them something else (()) uh i can't remember now

English: no idea

South African: i need some research on that um and would you ever think of becoming a vegetarian have you ever tried it

English: yeah for a few months maybe six months or so went vegetarian

South African: okay and how did it go

English: yeah i did well it just requires a lot more planning and like thinking out of the box it's much easier to prepare a meat and two veg kinda meal than it is to prepare a vegetarian meal so it just requires a lot more planning and thinking which you don't always have time to do that

South African: yeah and also people think you save money by eating vegetables the the price of vegetables are actually the same price as meat things are expensive

English: yeah and what about you do you not uh come from a vegetarian background heritage

South African: yeah they they were supposed to be vegetarian but they never practiced it i don't think any of that family on on my side actually practice the vegetarian traditions it's hard to be a vegetarian in south africa because the meat is so good yeah

English: mm hmm

South African: um i did try to be a vegetarian once where i saw this thing on um the tuli elephants being abused um it was on tv it was a documentary and then in protest i was for a month i didn't eat vegetables so yeah that's yeah vegetarian being a vegetarian is quite hard

English: you really took your stand

South African: yeah it was terrible how they were beating them because they had to they have to beat them when they're training them

English: mm hmm

South African: it was terrible and do you um eat a meal everyday like all three meals like breakfast lunch supper or do you skip meals

English: no i eat all three meals uh i'm not a i'm not a huge snacker so i stick to the three meals a day

South African: and what are you what do you like for for for breakfast then

English: um breakfast is pretty simple just a big mug of coffee and some toast with peanut butter

South African: hm okay sounds good and lunch

English: um whatever's going if there's leftovers or a sandwich

South African: you don't care too much about lunch

English: no it's not breakfast and lunch are not important meals in my opinion supper or dinner is the most important meal

South African: hm and how many cups of coffee then do you have every day

English: just one one cup of coffee and then a cup of tea in the afternoon and then some herbal tea at night

South African: okay and um what sort of tea do you like in the in the for your second cup i mean your the one after coffee

English: um so we have five roses tea it's just like a normal ceylon tea black tea

South African: mm hmm (()) tea

English: yeah and like it's a good strong cup of tea

South African: mm hmm okay and then um with tea do you have a biscuit or something like a hobnob

English: um i don't rea often keep biscuits at home um but if i've baked something then yeah i'd have something with it

South African: mm hmm

English: what's your favorite biscuit you're obviously a fan

South African: i like jaffa cakes they're quite hard to find though because i think they're imported um

English: we have our own brand here

South African: who makes that here

English: one of the supermarket pick 'n pay

South African: oh okay

English: has their own brand

South African: and then romany creams are nice um it's that

English: bakers

South African: bake it's it's an oats or (()) it's made with oats or chocolates

English: i think so

South African: hmm and then um

English: what about a chocolate digestive

South African: no i wasn't too much into those um digestives yeah not too much into digestive um i liked its shortbread style ones the eet sum mor's um i think this was it scottish shortbread what did they call it i don't know what the official name for it

English: yeah shortbread

South African: yeah and so you don't have cereals you don't like cereals in the morning

English: no i haven't uh yeah cereals i stopped eating when i was a kid uh and then i stopped eating breakfast altogether i've never been a breakfast eater i just couldn't eat anything in the mornings before like eleven or twelve i had to force myself to start eating in the mornings

South African: hm sure and what is your wherever you live and stuff well what's your favorite restaurant at the moment do you like going out to restaurants

English: yeah um sometimes it can be a bit disappointing because sometimes you can uh do better at home yourself um what what's a favorite restaurant at the moment uh we have a restaurant by us that does a a monday night burger special so you buy one and get one free so i'm pretty partial to a good deal so whatever restaurant's having a good deal is probably would be where i'd go

South African: mm hmm okay yeah the buy one get one free that's always a good deal it's always a winner um are there any like indian restaurants by you

English: there's one uh but i've never i haven't tried it yet

South African: okay chinese

English: no no chinese

South African: french

English: yes there's a lady in the town that's a a french baker she's from the réunion island uh so she makes french pastries and stuff that's that's pretty good

South African: oh um i was gonna ask you about so the burger special that's that's a good one yeah buy one get one free um do have you um yeah so what did you have for dinner tonight

English: um pasta

South African: mm hmm

English: just like a pas pasta dish um yeah and you

South African: you know i had um also a pasta dish and uh but with pork sausages um you know so that was quite nice

English: interesting so did your mom teach you to cook or your dad

South African: no not really so much um my dad never cooked um my mom uh she did cook uh but she didn't teach me really but when i got older um i realized i needed to learn so then i started learning um yeah so now i enjoy it i enjoy cooking

English: so is that something cultural culturally would would a mom teach a son an indian mother teach her son to cook or not really

South African: no it's not not really yeah it's not really socially social socially acceptable uh you know because it's quite a a society where you know the woman is expected to cook um so that that's a problem so that's why many and i because i was a high school teacher so i used to tell my kids all the guys especially i just say to them you must learn how to cook because you can impress a girl if you cook for them um if you make dinner for them and uh if you cook for them so it gave them some good life skills that they needed to learn

English: so what grades did you teach

South African: um i taught grades eight to twelve so that's twelve is like matric which is the final year of high school um so yeah i taught english literature so it was novels and poetry shakespeare the usual stuff you know

English: mm hmm

South African: which the kids hated

English: <laugh> and what um movies did you do for film study

South African: um we did life of pi which is quite an interesting movie um yeah and then um the crucible i don't know if you've watched that one about those girls

English: mm hmm

South African: who accuse all those people of being witches yeah it was quite an interesting one um i'm trying to think now oh but the shakespeare's i always showed them the movies because they battle to understand so we showed them like hamlet and um they loved hamlet for some reason because i think it just starts off with killings and murders and bloodshed so the kids kids love that um yeah but they battled with shakespeare that was tough for them

English: hm

South African: and uh what what was your favorite book in school that you did

English: um i did we did a lot of south african literature

South African: mm hmm

English: um so in the last year of high school i did a book called shades

South African: what was that about can you remember i don't think we do that in our school

English: um i think it was about it was about a a white family a white kid that grows up and befriends a a black child that works on the farm um so it was all most of the literature that we had got in school is a around that sort of topic because of apartheid

South African: hm

English: so yeah that was

South African: yeah

English: what it was about

South African: shades yeah so

English: we we also did um

South African: mm hmm

English: lord of the flies

South African: hm that was good the kids liked that one especially the boys that's they can imagine that happening if <no-speech>

English: so being an english teacher are you an avid reader

South African: not really i enjoy movies more than than books um yeah so definitely watching movies i always told the kids i was an avid reader just to make them read but it was actually an untruth

English: a lie so what movies do you enjoy watching

South African: um firefly um you know star wars star trek yeah sci fi but i like off beat like dark sci fi you know and it's not so happy and then um i like um thrillers and whodunits murder mysteries and yeah oh we love british series um yeah i love that what do you like

English: yeah um yeah also a mur murder mystery kinda ones any any detective crime solving shows um you know documentaries i like documentaries i'm not a big fan of sci fi um or fantasy kind of movies

South African: okay

English: but sometimes it's also good just to watch a comedy or romantic comedy something that's a bit like mind numbing so you don't have to put much thought into what you're watching

South African: oh so i call it chewing gum for the eyes

English: mm hmm

South African: so it's like chewing gum for the eyes so you just watch it through that

English: yeah

South African: um what's what's your last british series that you've really enjoyed i think you were telling me once about line of duty

English: oh yeah yes yeah line of duty was very gripping british series are like more um gripping than american series

South African: yeah they are and i like

English: they give

South African: yeah

English: the the ones where you have to just like stay up and watch the entire season

South African: yeah you have to binge but the nice thing is about british ones as well they only make four or five episodes

English: mm hmm

South African: some american series are like eighteen

English: go on and on

South African: yeah like lost that series yeah and did you have any pets growing up

English: many um so our first pet was so we've always had dogs cats um my mum became a bit of a collector of cats so she'd any cat that she would find strays um she'd come home with uh so we had a lot of cats and hamsters my sister always had rabbits uh which i didn't really like they're always ki kickers um and yeah what else we always we grew up in a bit of like a a rural kind of uh area where there was a bit more wildlife than you would get in the city um so we would sometimes get like uh a dassie we once had a baby dassie um

South African: what's the other name for was that i think um

English: like it's a rock

South African: rock badger

English: rock hyrax rock yeah so we had that and then i hand reared a mongoose um yeah

South African: hm

English: <no-speech>

South African: what was the mongoose's name

English: mongey (())

South African: and what type of what um you know what species

English: species it was a slender mongoose so it's like a very long thin body long tail and like a rusty rusty kind of color fur

South African: mm hmm and what happened to mongey

English: well it was we found my parents found it um its mom had been chased off by a dog um and they waited for the mom to bring it back uh to come back and get it she didn't um so we hand li it had injured injured its back leg so we kept it in an old hamster cage until and fed it until it got stronger we released it but it just it obviously had gotten used to us so it didn't go so it lived like our cats it would jump in and out of the window and go out uh and come back and go out and then there was they're very territorial so there was a wild one that also lived around the house and they were always fighting um over the territory and then the after having it for maybe three years three or four years the wild one killed it and our alsatian who was like a mother she mothered everything she found found it and brought its body back to the house to show us

South African: sure shame fair day and uh how long did you have mongey for

English: yeah it must have been about three or four three it must have been yeah maybe four or five years

South African: okay oh we just got a message from zoom meeting will end in nine minutes

English: nine minutes

South African: um okay so that's sure that's sad and um

English: so did you have pets

South African: there was always dogs it was never anything so exotic like yours um

English: like cats

South African: no i didn't like cats

English: you're not a cat person

South African: no um

English: what about or you just do you still feel have you never been around cats

South African: yeah i've one kind of adopted as um which we grew close to um but yeah not definitely not by choice getting a cat <laugh> um yeah i'd like if i could have a dog again but the area where i live doesn't allow uh dogs we were you watching that uh did you see have you seen those videos on social media at the moment about those dogs that apparently communicate with the owners what do you think about that

English: yeah so you can see in a lot of the videos the owners like making their own interpretation of what what buttons the dog has pressed um there's far easier ways to communicate i mean animals don't communicate in words obviously

South African: hm

English: so yeah there's other ways of communicating with your pets than getting them to press buttons and trying to humanize what you think they're thinking

South African: yeah i think it's just the the tone that you use there so that that you give instructions in it's not so much the words

English: hm

South African: yeah strange people are funny

English: so how come what area do you stay in that you can't have pets

South African: well it's also quite a rural area um and the the problem is they have leopards here and other wild animals so we can't have a pet because it'll be the leopard's lunch or supper um and there's no fences as well um to protect your wild animals i mean your domestic pets from your the wild animals around i think there's even um in the neighboring place to where we are there's lions there even so but they're just separated by an electric fence so they could actually just push through if they wanted

English: hm

South African: but that's what people think about africa when they think about it they think lions are just walking around and they actually are but they have electric fences to protect them

English: s so certain areas

South African: yeah um yeah it would be nice to have a pet again

English: so how long have you lived where you are currently

South African: about three years now three years yeah so i was on the coast and i've moved inland so yeah it's uh it's quite a nice little town very small town it's one of these you call it a one one was it one horse town

English: one horse

South African: um so there's not much to do lots of uh foreigners yeah um we have british

English: tourists

South African: yeah tourists that's because it's close to one of the a big safari park kind of thing and then the area where we live we've made friends with some british american families um yeah so there's quite a mix of people here

English: so which safari park is it nearest

South African: it's called the kruger national park so it's quite a famous one i think whenever someone comes to south africa they g go to the have to go to the kruger national park

English: and do you go often

South African: yeah i like to go at least once a month um it's about an hour maybe but the problem is petrol is getting so expensive because of this the world conditions at the moment so yeah we may have to even limit traveling once a month because you you use a lot of petrol because you're pretty much just driving the whole day

English: hm

South African: um you can even do sometimes like five hundred ks or something in there

English: sure

South African: uh five hundred kilometers not meter not miles um just looking for animals

English: so do you miss the coast

South African: yes i miss my friends at the coast um i i think there was more to do socially at the coast although this area is quite beautiful with nature um i think there's a lot of more interesting restaurants more things to do more friends yeah that sort of thing so yeah i miss that aspect of the cost it's also nice to know that you're at the edge when you're inland it's claustrophobic you know because you feel so yeah but at the coast you know you had to do something at the end (()) but they've had um i think two or three months ago they've had terrible flooding there in that area

English: mm hmm

South African: um and so far friends were affected as well by that and lots of people died there so they haven't been having a really great time there

English: mm hmm

South African: yeah so um and what about um work wise what did you do for work

English: um so i studied interior design um and then i went into law um so i was

South African: slightly rela related field

English: so i was battling to get work uh in the interior design field um so yeah i started out working for a law firm so it was specializing in property law um and i did that for ten twelve years ten or twelve years um and then i left work um and i focused on volunteer work um and then eventually uh my husband and i started an online store selling um men's ties and accessories

South African: oh mm hmm interesting and how's that how's that business going

English: yeah it's doing much better with the covid and lockdowns and everything people weren't it was mainly uh weddings that we did so people weren't getting married

South African: mm hmm

English: um but as soon as that lifted then it went back to normal so yeah it's doing pretty well

South African: okay interesting so covid had an effect on that so in in the area i live as well um because it's based on tourism um well that's their primary source of income the people are game rangers

English: mm hmm

South African: so a lot of companies closed down here during covid so covid really had a negative effect on uh people here

English: mm hmm

South African: um so yeah that's quite tragic um so a lot of these nice businesses had to close down um i think we got one minute maybe you should end it and start again okay i'll speak to you just now

English: okay