SA Rocks

Ed’s note: This post is a contribution from a student at UKZN. They have taken on new media platforms and are trying to involve themselves in the sphere of online publishing. I thought I’d help out and have allowed them to send me through contributions. This is the first of hopefully many to come.

I know that I’m one of the many South Africans who finds it a challenge to be positive about my country. I have just disproved to myself that I am an uplifting person, because I have recently discovered how much easier it is for me to see the bad things than the good about South Africa…but that’s not what this site is about. So in changing my attitude I have been thinking of all the things that must be good enough about it to have made me miss home when I was in England for two years. Of course I love the people, and the typically South African foods, but mostly it’s the lifestyle that it just so amazing here. How sad that we only miss things when they are gone.

The first thing I appreciated when I arrived back home is how much space we have – instead of sharing a wall of your squashy semi-detached million pound double storey house with a family of 4, one of which is a screaming baby, we have large enough back yards for a jungle gym and a swimming pool!

Never have I realized how good we have it in terms of service here than when I had to fill up my own petrol tank in England, wash the windows myself, and attempt to locate and add water to the radiator before it overheated!

There is also no one to pack your shopping bags when you visit the supermarket, and everyone always seems to be in such a rush there, that it is rather stressful trying to unpack the groceries onto the conveyor belt, shove them into bags, haul them back into the trolley, and pay – all at the same time!

Only very wealthy people in the UK can afford someone to keep their houses clean and in order, and they have to mow their tiny little strip of grass that they consider a garden, themselves.

Most of all I love not having to wrap up in six layers just to keep myself from freezing! I do not handle the cold well…my mouth goes numb and I can’t talk properly, and my hands become so inept that I cant even sms! Plus, everyone there never stops talking about the weather. Strangers talk to you about how cold or mild or rainy it is – or is going to be, as do your close friends. Its not just small talk there, it’s like the most popular subject! All you need here in Winter is a warm jacket… I came back home after two UK Winters, laden with a beautiful variety of scarves, beanies and gloves…none of which have been used since!

Just last week I was reminded of another thing I love… chocolate marshmallow Easter eggs! It’s the small things you miss – my one expat friend wrote to me about how she missed the Hadedas (madness!) and the bubbly domestic workers shouting to each other from across the street! England may have Easter eggs in every flavour of chocolate bar available, but they don’t have the marshmallow ones like SA does! In fact I keep hearing how good chocolate is for ones health, and how it releases endorphins…maybe a box a day of those will keep me in high spirits when I begin taking a turn towards the negative side again! Instead of getting fat on Starbucks and pub food, I can sit at the pool and catch a tan with a box of melting marshmallow Easter eggs and read the newspaper on a sugar high so I won’t get depressed!

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