This last friday I handed in my notice to my bosses. My last day of work is the 23rd November, and then I have a few days to pack up two years of my life [and the entire contents of a well stocked WHSmith bookshop] in shipping boxes and head home to the sunny shores of the Eastern Cape of South Africa.
I am so excited, I feel like I am going to explode with antici….pation. I have spent the last two years cataloguing why the UK is not for me, and why home is where the heart is [that is stuck on an aloe in the hills of frontier land or floating in a rock pool on the wild coast]. I can’t wait for sunshine, glorious sunshine and rising temperatures and warm evenings on the beach. I will consume only braai and biltong for the first week, and drown myself in SAB’s finest offerings [and I am not even a beer drinker usually].
But putting all excitement aside for a moment, there is a small list of things that I am returning to that don’t leave me giddy with joy. Try to read the following points in the spirit in which they are written – that is positively, with an eye to what we should want to achieve together in South Africa.
1. Firstly let’s get crime out of the way. No one wants it. It affects everyone. It sucks, sure. The point is that there is crime everywhere in the entire world. House breaking is universal. What probably worries all South Africans more than theft is the level of violence we have come to associate with these crimes. I think Rev. Desmond Tutu has already said publically [cant find the quote at the moment], that clearly Apartheid and our past did much more lasting damage than we originally thought. It broke something fundamental in us as a people. Maybe that can’t be fixed, but we can raise a new generation of whole and happy people, by nuturing the humanity we see in all of us. I just wish we could fast track this.
2. I have previously written about how I miss driving over here, and i do, but I know I am going to be in the position to afford a car and the upkeep thereof when I get home. Not everyone can say as much, and the only other real option for these people are taxis, which often come with taxi violence and unroadworthiness as a package. We need to provide effecient public transport locally and long distance options. To do this we need to offer both gov-funded and private contracts and open up the industry. The market is there, where are the Richard Bransons of South Africa?
3. limping, crawling, capped internet is for the nineties! I love ordering my groceries online in ten minutes and booking a delivery slot. I love renting all my dvds through a personalised list on the internet. I adore having a wealth of information at my finger tips at any time of the day – always connected, fast and above all cheap. I pay for my internet connection is two hours working time. It costs the same as 4 pints of lager or 3 packets of cigarettes or a third of my weekly shopping. It gives scholars access to research they couldn’t even imagine. It drives development pure and simple, and we need it in SA!
Yes, they aren’t small problems, but they are fixable. When we get them sorted, I guarantee lots more people will start heading home, and fewer will want to leave for long term anyway.
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Popularity: 4% [?]
October 31st, 2007 at 2:04 pm
Hey Kate
Thanks for the positive but realistic thoughts about home. The phrase that I have started using is ‘building a country rather than just inhabiting one’- as South Africans, we have a chance to effect the changes and make things new. What we need most is passionate people to help make that happen!
On the negative side, who will we share National Braai Day wth next year?
October 31st, 2007 at 2:21 pm
hey jen.
thanks for the comment. I like your line – I think i may use it [with appropriate referencing of course].
as for national braai day – I dont know, maybe you’ll have to adopt a whole new couple
October 31st, 2007 at 2:48 pm
Kate, love this post. Reflective, honest, positive and real.
Great that you coming back and think we should crack a Hansa open on your return sometime!!
October 31st, 2007 at 3:55 pm
thanks, Nic. those things are exactly what i was hoping to be with this post – so I really appreciate the feedback!
and the Hansa is on me (take advantage while I still have pounds to convert)!
October 31st, 2007 at 8:00 pm
Do you know what else you’re gonna miss, cheap books… its unbelievable how exspensive a 100 pages of paper is here. Talk about robbing you blind. No wonder they are raising a bunch of small minded illlitrate biggots, oh yeah and know it all bloggers, no one can afford a fooking book,its actually incredible R200 for a soft cover Grisham, when you can get 3 for that price in the UK.Stock up,big time, you may want to full a couple more boxes.
Buy as many electronic goods as humanly possible, everything here has at least R2000 added on (tomtom,apples ipod,macbook,dell,nokia,sony),I don’t know why,maybe its for good luck,BEE exspenses,Manuels treasury, some chaps tuscan mansion.I didn’t even think the boat ride from China is that much longer to Europe than it is to SA, but some how every single bit of technology has rip off South Africa written all over it.
Another thing you are going to miss is competent Employment Agents, good luck with the ones over here,remember when you put your CV on the Internet in the UK and everyone phoned you,well lady those days are way over,you’re going to have to beg them to look at your CV over here, some do not phone you for a month, some never even mail you back or acknowledge your existence. Does anyone know how these people make a penny ??
Oh yeah and a proper salary with money to chuck around, gone, gone, gone…..
Oh yes you forgot to mention feeling guilty,because every time you complain,moan or whinge you’re going to be told you’re white and you have no right to moan.
Did you actually spend your two years in the UK,cataloguing why the UK is not for you ?? What a waste of time and experience, thats probably the most negative thing I have ever heard.
Maybe I should spend the next two years beating myself over the head or in Sunny SA I can hire someone to do it happily for 50 cents,hell they do it for free at many interchanges and robots and cataloguing why I hate getting hit over the head.
Good luck to you, because you’re going to need it. Unless you’re wealthy,very wealthy,stupid wealthy….
November 1st, 2007 at 1:08 pm
Me:
life isnt so sunny in the UK. Don’t kid yourself.
1. books – yes, i will miss that. books are pretty expensive is SA, but also in Oz, India, Italy etc etc. There are several market factors that contribute to this. It is not unique to SA.
2. Competent employment agencies: are you kidding!??! no one phoned me when i put my cv online. I spent a huge amount of my time over here unemployed. despite the fact that I am a graduate, with work experience, and was willing to do almost anything. All of my friends in SA found good work, in their chosen fields within a few months of graduating. I temped, and typed, and answered phones and slept on friends floors for the first 6 months!
3. proper salary with money to chuck around: see above. only this last year did I find work that paid okay, but I also did not like my job at all. I’m happy to scrimp and save for the next few years if it means not having to wake up every morning thinking: “oh, crap, back to that horrible office again”.
4. as for me cataloguing what i didnt like about the UK: not every second of every day, of course. I travelled and I had good days and summer 2006 was pretty good. but overall this has not been a positive experience for me, unless you look at the outcomes -which are me growing up considerably, learning to be totally independant, clarifying exactly what type of career I want to pursue, confirming that there is no where else I’d rather live than in SA. those are all positive things.
5. as for feeling guilty. I have spent the last two years feeling guilty about not loving the UK more. but I dont. I really dont. and I am no longer sorry that I didn’t think this was the coolest thing that happened to me like some of my mates did, or how my parents wanted me to feel. or you for that matter.
your comment is one of the most negative things I have ever read. Get a little perspective, and stop getting your kicks out of pissing on someone else’s parade.
November 1st, 2007 at 1:11 pm
and stop commenting anonymously.
if you believe something strongly enough to attack unknown people publically as you have done, you should be willing to put your name behind it.
November 1st, 2007 at 1:36 pm
I aint going back to about go on a rant about internet anonymity again,you can read it on “South Africa’s most influential Blogging personalities”.
How about I reveal my name when you get the scary anonymous guy who rants on about Continuing the struggle and fighting the power (come to think about,it may be Flava flav), on what I consider probably the most influential Blog in South Africa, the Presidents weekly rant (ANC Today) to tell us all his name,then my skaatie I will reveal my name.
Good luck with your homecoming.
I hope you start it with just as negative perception you tackled the UK with “Cataloguing why its not for me”. Lame.
November 1st, 2007 at 1:46 pm
what is really lame is the primary school bullying tactics you employ in your comments. Why are you on this website anyway? Clearly to seek out those with whom you disagree. I think you would be much happier on a right wing, racist blog where you can all entertain each other writing about how SA is going down the drain, and holding your breath until it does. lame.
November 1st, 2007 at 2:26 pm
Kim – thanks soooo much for your comment. I was starting to get bogged down in arguing with “Me”. You’re right: the positives totally outweigh the negatives! and I wouldn’t swop wimbledon for wilderness any time for anything
see you around in wonderful africa!
November 1st, 2007 at 2:26 pm
Don’t write, if you cannot take criticism,its going be pretty hard out there if you expect everyone to agree with what you say, especially in a country as diverse as South Africa. Grow a thicker skin, you’re going to need it.
I have not said anything racist on my posts (unless mentioning the goverment Blog and Flava flav is racist) and I take offence that you use racism the same way the goverment does,to deflect criticism, I have already said I like this website for its positive commentary and until Mark Forestor installs a censor button I am going to contribute my own voice, it may be a bit off message,even if it does not go down with the “tinted glasses” crowd.
Seeing that you’re “blogging” and a female,I am guessing you probably want to be a journalist or writer, in that case criticism should be your life blood.
I don’t care that books are exspensive in Oz, India, Italy. I live in the worlds 3rd largest paper producer and the reason they are so exspensive is because they are taxed as luxuries and are imported from Europe,like no one in South Africa can print a book on our own paper. How can a book be a luxury in the Information age, in a society with 60% illitracy levels,encouraging reading should be the main priority of this place.
November 1st, 2007 at 2:51 pm
“Grow a thicker skin, you’re going to need it.” – i am not damaged by your comments.
It’s quite telling that you think you’ve had that much impact on my life in a few short, ill-informed, unfocussed, rambling bitter comments.
What I object to is your broad stroke approach that lacks any central argument. you didn’t even stop to notice that my original post is sans tinted glasses.
the 1st backed up statement you have made is your most recent about paper, and I have already conceeded that this is an issue five comments ago.
you see dissent where there isn’t any, and you seek to spread it where you can. your’s is the attitude we need to fight against in SA.
You can have my flat in grey cold scotland if you want. I wont be using it! then you can see the racism of the brits terrified by the “looming polish invasion”, and the lack of job opportunities for foreigners, the spitting swearing chav teenagers that attack you if you are foreign, piss on disabled grannies and assault their teachers in class.
I could go on, but you would just throw south africa’s short comings at me. and the truth is that all places have their problems. I choose SA’s problems for the life I know i will live their.
And that is what my post was about. A concious, seen-the-other-side, choice. I am going home with open eyes. what precisely is your problem with that?
November 1st, 2007 at 2:52 pm
oops, their = there, in the 2nd last paragraph.
November 1st, 2007 at 4:20 pm
Wow this post got pretty intense pretty fast hey!
Let’s see, me – I appreciate that you like this blog but am not really sure what Mark Forrester has to do with the price of eggs, he has nothing to do with this blog.
Other than a fairly interesting debate!
November 1st, 2007 at 4:32 pm
too intense!
November 1st, 2007 at 5:37 pm
Wow sounds like you had it tough, slumming it with the lower classes like that…must be a really long way down from the white bred aristocratic upbringing you had, to have to get down with the dirty part of society…don’t worry you will soon be back in the upper classes with your maid hovering after your spoiled ass.
You do realise that 80% of South Africa live under similiar circumstances,actually worse circumstances than the chavs you describe, a lot of the youth in this country are more feral than the bored thugs on your list. Just because they dont live in the burbs with you,it don’t mean they aint there. And just like the book “The Timemachine”,they pop up from time to time to take a little of what they are owed and normally a life or two.
Very few people in South Africa describe the decadent pleasures of an aloe in the hills of frontier land or floating in a rock pool on the wild coast as things they do on a regular basis,seldomly or ever,these are the fabulous things that only a minority of the population get to enjoy(me included), because they are the super rich of South Africa, just like the chavs you go on about would not know how to play polo,speak like a toff, go on annual skiing trips or what it feels like to sail a yacht around the Med,because these options have been cut off from them,because wait for it,they aint part of the rich,they have to work for a living.
Needless to say there are plenty of British people who do get to enjoy these things and also hold the poor in such abomination,hence the word “chav”. I think you’re upset that you do not belong among them (South African rand been what it is, imagine what a princess you would have been treated like if it was still a 1 to 1 exchange rate)
Xenophobia is rife in South Africa, ask any Sudanese refugee with a business in Cape Town how hard “Employment” oppurtunities are for foreigners. Can you say necklace.
You are bound to find many of the attitudes that you find so abhorrent of “UK culture”, in the lower classes of all societys, the problem is you never lived in the lower classes before because you’re a bit of a posh bird who does not know it yet and after two years of living among the peasants has done her hard toil and is now willing to return from her self imposed exile to graciously rattle off your catalogue of the horrors of Mud Island to your fancy (mostly white) friends who will all laugh at the British lower classes,in much the same way they laugh at lower class South Africans on a daily basis.
If you cannot find something in common with poor people of the same race as you,who are actually pretty well off in South African terms, how will you find it for people of different races who are really the lowest of the low??
November 1st, 2007 at 6:02 pm
there is nothing in your last comment to dignify with a response. you didnt get the reaction you wanted from me so you started mud slinging, and deliberatly misinterpretting what I wrote.
when you want to have a real discussion about the problems in south africa come back and i’ll be happy to participate.
November 1st, 2007 at 6:16 pm
Go get ‘em girl! I think you are honest and brave for saying that it is not utopia in the UK. Everyone we meet in South Africa (well, not everyone, but it feels like it) can’t stop going on about how fantastic it is to live there, yada yada ya, but fail to see the bad and downright horrid bits and don’t believe you when you tell them.
What they also fail to see is the wonderful place that South Africa is and can be, despite the obvious problems. If you all work together, towards a common goal, it has all the ingredients for one of the best places in the world to live.
Life tends to be what YOU make of it, wherever you live. Everywhere has some problem or other which is always the fault of someone else. Make your life what you want it to be, spread some happiness and hope that it will come back two-fold.
I think South Africa is lucky to have people like you who want to go back home and I hope that it attracts many more people who in recent years have made their homes abroad. Good luck to you in your future life.
November 1st, 2007 at 6:32 pm
All I was saying is that you’re a bit classist, come on look up Chav in the dictionary,its not a nice word,it means burgeoning British underclass….All I was asking was how you could have possibly expected to have the high standard of living in South Africa’s upper 20%, in the UK’s lower to middle class 40% ? Its like moving to from Summerset West to Kheyeletisha Ext 6 and asking why the mall in Kheyeletisha is so crap…theres nothing wrong with been spoilt,just don’t laugh at the little man.
November 1st, 2007 at 7:07 pm
I’ve been to this blog twice now, and both times I’ve encountered ‘me’. He is a classic example of an internet troll.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_troll
The best is just to ignore him, by arguing with him, you’re only giving him what he wants.
Don’t feed the trolls!
p.s I love SA!
November 1st, 2007 at 9:02 pm
Helen: thanks for the support! I am excited about going home, and agree that it is what you make it.
jcbrand: thanks. I know! I am just such a sucker for taking the bait, but his last comment just reminded me how futile it is.
No more feeding the troll!
November 1st, 2007 at 10:31 pm
so jcbrand,making obsvervations and saying something that does not toe the old party line makes you a troll, weird I actually put thought into what I said,if anyone is a troll its probably you. and the reason I have a debate because I also love south africa but I am not blind either. Sorry for questioning the wonderfulness of the homecoming for katie. Oh yeah Kim one third of the Sa population live on welfare,think about it.
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