Life in South Africa

I've posted this story before... but I've had such an amazing response I thought I'd share it again. Thank you to everyone who has taken the time to write to me and share a little of their own stories with me. It's amazing to think we can connect over a few taps on the keyboard. Cheers!

A while ago I received an email from an American woman living in Asia, who is married to a South African and contemplating relocating to Cape Town. She asked for my thoughts on life here, in the long and the short term. She wondered about the things you hear in the news – the negative explanation points that seem to encompass a place, deservedly or not. Her email really got me thinking about my own experience here. I took my time to craft my reply to her and wanted to share it with you as well – I hope you’ll enjoy my candid response:

Dear friend-

Thanks very much for your mail. I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to come back to you. The truth is, your question kind of intrigued me and at first I wasn’t really sure what I would say. In a way I feel that it’s a privilege to share my perspective with you as you make this very important decision, and at the same time it is a huge responsibility to respond to you with honesty. Ultimately only you know whether moving to South Africa is a good decision for you. You might already know the answer you are seeking, somewhere deep inside.

My story in South Africa began a long time ago, in 1998, when I came here as a study-abroad student in university. At the time I didn’t know much about SA. I had heard about Nelson Mandela and apartheid and was fascinated with the idea of “Africa” – but otherwise I came with a mostly blank page, innocence, excitement and pure joy. I had always dreamt I would travel – and I couldn’t believe how lucky I was to finally board that plane and awake to sunrise over the Kalahari.

While I was here studying I fell in love. We met amidst the Southern Hemisphere’s largest sand dunes, in Alexandria. It’s a place not too far from Port Elizabeth where the dunes pile up like mountains. The view from the top makes friends at the bottom look like ants, far away, and then the blonde giants tumble down dramatically to the edges of the sea. I grew up in land-locked Pennsylvania and had never seen such harsh and abrupt beauty.

I went back to the States to finish my studies and six years went by. I had a new life but something was always missing for me. Eventually I had the chance to come to South Africa for a three-week holiday and then everything changed. I reunited with the friend I had fallen for before and we travelled together to the Transkeii on the East coast and had one of the most amazing times of my life. Those 21 days were full of turning points for me and memories that still make me smile – New Year’s Eve fireworks on a wild coast, feeling the humid tropical weather, driving through pouring rain and waving to locals who walked slowly, the same as they would on any other day, camping on a hillside next to a village where people live in huts, don’t have electricity and cows roam the beach. It was a world away, even now, and it helped me make my decision to move here, to be with this wonderful person and to carry that feeling of absolute freedom every day.

A year and three months later I moved here. It was difficult to leave my “old home” for my new one. I sold off most of my things, packed what I could, and arrived full of anticipation. I never looked back, even though this hasn’t been an easy journey. It took me a long while to make new friends and really feel like this is my home. My professional life was also full of adjustment and at first, cultural misunderstandings that proved frustrating. Soon after I arrived I personally experienced crime – something which served as the biggest stumbling block for me in adjusting here since it destroyed my sense of confidence and for a while, my free spirit. But time heals all things and now I can say I am living the life I dreamt I would live.

In the long run South Africa will present you with financial challenges – the rand does not go very far which makes international travel and every day shopping a budgeting exercise. There is talk of a national policy to weaken the rand further, making exported goods cheaper and more competitive but meaning that imports are that much more expensive. Crime is a reality that affects many people. The nation is awash in “transformation” and Black Economic Empowerment and while this is good for many it creates special challenges for white South Africans. The price of electricity is rising at a rate of 30+% each year. Quality education comes at a high price and with a good dose of competition for the limited classroom seats. The public healthcare system is troubled – there are stories in the news of hospitals having to close due to copper wire theft, babies dying due to unsanitary conditions. The president is a polygamist with five wives but still there are stories of his fathering children with other women out of wedlock – making his position as a role model in a nation awash in rising HIV / AIDS rates difficult to believe. Life in South Africa can be first world in some places, in some experiences, in some lifestyles – yet there are stripes of third world realities, struggles and corruption and the two sides cannot help but intersect at some points.

In the short term South Africa will offer you a beautiful life with wild and wondrous scenery, awe inspiring weather, joyous discoveries and memories for a life time. We’ve been to Mozambique where I slept next to the beach, snorkelled in clear warm water, ate prawns and discovered that at night there are hundreds, maybe thousands of crabs that come out and scamper along the sand. I’ve seen the greatest sand dunes of Namibia, in Sossusvlei, where the grains at the peak form a snake-like dragon highlighted by the first light of dawn. We camped in Etosha National Park and clung to our pillows while Honey Badgers snorted outside, in search of food and by day watched elephants and zebra drink at the watering hole. We walked in the zone of leopards and heard hyena at night in the distance. I’ve climbed to the peak of Monk’s Cowl in the mighty Drakensberg Mountains, 18 hours of steady walking, exhausted and exalted at the end. I’ve spent time learning to surf in the frigid Atlantic and the warm Indian Oceans. I’ve been surprised by a giant purple-domed jellyfish and later laughed at my own freak out. I am learning bits of Afrikaans and surprise locals by throwing in a word or two while talking. People are generally quite curious about me as an American and are inquisitive about life in the States and how I came to be here. I now live in Cape Town, one of the world’s most beautiful cities. We laugh that on weekends spent at home we still feel like we’re on holiday with all of the amazing things to discover. I’ve grown into a better person and learn new things every day. I miss my friends and family – and reunions are that much sweeter. I think about the things that are important to me and thank the universe for allowing me to be so lucky.

What happens to one person will never happen exactly to another – we each have our own path – and for that reason I think we must each make our own decisions. I hope you will make your decision carefully but believe that a dose of light heartedness goes a long way, and that sometimes the decisions made with our hearts are the most powerful ones of all. Thank you for the opportunity to share my story with you.

Wishing you all the best from the fairest cape in the whole circumference of the globe,

Theresa

Life in South Africa

A while ago I received an email from an American woman living in Asia, who is married to a South African and contemplating relocating to Cape Town. She asked for my thoughts on life here, in the long and the short term. She wondered about the things you hear in the news – the negative explanation points that seem to encompass a place, deservedly or not. Her email really got me thinking about my own experience here. I took my time to craft my reply to her and wanted to share it with you as well – I hope you’ll enjoy my candid response:

Dear friend-

Thanks very much for your mail. I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to come back to you. The truth is, your question kind of intrigued me and at first I wasn’t really sure what I would say. In a way I feel that it’s a privilege to share my perspective with you as you make this very important decision, and at the same time it is a huge responsibility to respond to you with honesty. Ultimately only you know whether moving to South Africa is a good decision for you. You might already know the answer you are seeking, somewhere deep inside.

My story in South Africa began a long time ago, in 1998, when I came here as a study-abroad student in university. At the time I didn’t know much about SA. I had heard about Nelson Mandela and apartheid and was fascinated with the idea of “Africa” – but otherwise I came with a mostly blank page, innocence, excitement and pure joy. I had always dreamt I would travel – and I couldn’t believe how lucky I was to finally board that plane and awake to sunrise over the Kalahari.

While I was here studying I fell in love. We met amidst the Southern Hemisphere’s largest sand dunes, in Alexandria. It’s a place not too far from Port Elizabeth where the dunes pile up like mountains. The view from the top makes friends at the bottom look like ants, far away, and then the blonde giants tumble down dramatically to the edges of the sea. I grew up in land-locked Pennsylvania and had never seen such harsh and abrupt beauty.

I went back to the States to finish my studies and six years went by. I had a new life but something was always missing for me. Eventually I had the chance to come to South Africa for a three-week holiday and then everything changed. I reunited with the friend I had fallen for before and we travelled together to the Transkeii on the East coast and had one of the most amazing times of my life. Those 21 days were full of turning points for me and memories that still make me smile – New Year’s Eve fireworks on a wild coast, feeling the humid tropical weather, driving through pouring rain and waving to locals who walked slowly, the same as they would on any other day, camping on a hillside next to a village where people live in huts, don’t have electricity and cows roam the beach. It was a world away, even now, and it helped me make my decision to move here, to be with this wonderful person and to carry that feeling of absolute freedom every day.

A year and three months later I moved here. It was difficult to leave my “old home” for my new one. I sold off most of my things, packed what I could, and arrived full of anticipation. I never looked back, even though this hasn’t been an easy journey. It took me a long while to make new friends and really feel like this is my home. My professional life was also full of adjustment and at first, cultural misunderstandings that proved frustrating. Soon after I arrived I personally experienced crime – something which served as the biggest stumbling block for me in adjusting here since it destroyed my sense of confidence and for a while, my free spirit. But time heals all things and now I can say I am living the life I dreamt I would live.

In the long run South Africa will present you with financial challenges – the rand does not go very far which makes international travel and every day shopping a budgeting exercise. There is talk of a national policy to weaken the rand further, making exported goods cheaper and more competitive but meaning that imports are that much more expensive. Crime is a reality that affects many people. The nation is awash in “transformation” and Black Economic Empowerment and while this is good for many it creates special challenges for white South Africans. The price of electricity is rising at a rate of 30+% each year. Quality education comes at a high price and with a good dose of competition for the limited classroom seats. The public healthcare system is troubled – there are stories in the news of hospitals having to close due to copper wire theft, babies dying due to unsanitary conditions. The president is a polygamist with five wives but still there are stories of his fathering children with other women out of wedlock – making his position as a role model in a nation awash in rising HIV / AIDS rates difficult to believe. Life in South Africa can be first world in some places, in some experiences, in some lifestyles – yet there are stripes of third world realities, struggles and corruption and the two sides cannot help but intersect at some points.

In the short term South Africa will offer you a beautiful life with wild and wondrous scenery, awe inspiring weather, joyous discoveries and memories for a life time. We’ve been to Mozambique where I slept next to the beach, snorkelled in clear warm water, ate prawns and discovered that at night there are hundreds, maybe thousands of crabs that come out and scamper along the sand. I’ve seen the greatest sand dunes of Namibia, in Sossusvlei, where the grains at the peak form a snake-like dragon highlighted by the first light of dawn. We camped in Etosha National Park and clung to our pillows while Honey Badgers snorted outside, in search of food and by day watched elephants and zebra drink at the watering hole. We walked in the zone of leopards and heard hyena at night in the distance. I’ve climbed to the peak of Monk’s Cowl in the mighty Drakensberg Mountains, 18 hours of steady walking, exhausted and exalted at the end. I’ve spent time learning to surf in the frigid Atlantic and the warm Indian Oceans. I’ve been surprised by a giant purple-domed jellyfish and later laughed at my own freak out. I am learning bits of Afrikaans and surprise locals by throwing in a word or two while talking. People are generally quite curious about me as an American and are inquisitive about life in the States and how I came to be here. I now live in Cape Town, one of the world’s most beautiful cities. We laugh that on weekends spent at home we still feel like we’re on holiday with all of the amazing things to discover. I’ve grown into a better person and learn new things every day. I miss my friends and family – and reunions are that much sweeter. I think about the things that are important to me and thank the universe for allowing me to be so lucky.

What happens to one person will never happen exactly to another – we each have our own path – and for that reason I think we must each make our own decisions. I hope you will make your decision carefully but believe that a dose of light heartedness goes a long way, and that sometimes the decisions made with our hearts are the most powerful ones of all. Thank you for the opportunity to share my story with you.

Wishing you all the best from the fairest cape in the whole circumference of the globe,

Theresa

Life in Limboland

Living abroad makes you feel like you're odd man out - you know, like that feeling you get sometimes, like everyone is watching you? Like maybe you just realized you’ve had something stuck in your teeth for the last hour, or you’ve been walking around with a section of toilet paper stuck to your shoe? You feel conspicuous, like suddenly everyone else is very noble and you are just, well, you.

Well, I’ve realized that when you decide to live abroad a similar phenomena happens – you are a foreigner, you are indeed odd man out. And even as I get more comfortable in my new life and hear that my accent is evolving, I know without any doubt that I am not from “here.” I am from “there.”

But sometime even though I know this to be the truth, an even stranger thing happens. Sometimes people whom you’ve gotten to know “here” seem to forget that you are from “there” – like in conversations with people who sometimes correct your pronunciation so that it sounds more like “here,” like maybe I forgot or perhaps spent too much time watching American television. Worse still, there are those that don’t believe you could really be from “there,” even to the extent that they mistake me for an imposter – a person who is just putting on a funny accent – a pretender, a wannabe, or someone who spent their childhood holiday in the States and became so enamoured they could never bear to shake it off.

The worst phenomena of all that happens when you’re living abroad is that sometimes people from “there” – from where I am really from – start to think that I am odd man out, too. Imagine when your friends start to tell you stories as if you’re actually a foreigner to them – they all start the same, “Well in America, blah blah blah...” I don’t know why this bothers me, probably because I never expected it and because deep inside I am still hoping to fit in someplace in the world. But I guess to be fair I must admit that this is at least partially true. I’m not like everyone “there” any more – even though I’m also not like everyone “here.” I am a member of a small population of people who are just like me, even though they’ve never met me or even each other, because they have also left home and started a new life someplace far away. The very nature of our decision means that we live in isolation from one another. We are Limbolanders – sort of in between – having the foundation and values of our homelands, the new learnings of our new lands and a sort-of understanding of both as we slowly lose touch with our old place and gain touch in our new place.

Life for Limbolanders is a kaleidoscope of learnings gained “everywhere” – I have friends all over the world, yet most of them don’t know each other and sadly, will probably never even be in the same room together. They are my virtual Sunday afternoon walking partners, my Friday-night-drinks crew, my shopping buddies – the fact that we are chatting over the phone while in different parks across the globe, or that we are in our separate homes connected by Skype over a glass of red, or that the shop happens to be on the internet – doesn’t change our connection to one another.

And this, in fact, is the most amazing phenomena of all – the fact that the deepest and truest of friendships can survive travel miles and time zones, that no matter where in the world you hang your hat you can keep these treasures with you like jewels in your pocket, even as you gather new ones.