When I moved back to South Africa after spending nearly a decade in northern Europe, it was with no small measure of shock that I realized I had forgotten how to live in this country. It wasn’t just the small things like not knowing where to buy stuff or at what age kids here go to school – it was a culture shock which took me entirely by surprise, having longed and yearned for home during most of my time away. In retrospect, what happened was that I lost my tough outer shell.
During those years of living in a place where egalitarianism is the norm; where nobody goes hungry and almost everybody had a roof over their heads, the thick skin you need to live in South Africa had grown soft. I couldn’t cope with the children begging at the traffic lights and the thin women with babies who knocked on the front door asking for food. Once, in Pick n Pay, I found myself behind a woman with two things in her basket – pilchards and rice. That was obviously all she could afford. Yet, she continued to walk up and down the aisles as if, magically, the contents of her wallet would increase the longer she hung around. I had to leave the shop; I couldn’t bear it.
I gave to everyone who asked me. In those early months I parted with vast sums of money. One morning I gave an old man nearly blind with cataracts R500 so that he wouldn’t be evicted from the room he shared with his son. I would stand behind people in queues and pay for all their groceries. I was in despair, and utterly outraged by the wealth surrounding the poverty and the collective blindness everyone down here seemed to practice. I shook my head at the people waving the children away from their 4X4s – as no doubt my friends shook their heads at me, wondering how I was ever going to survive living back in this country.
Then, slowly, I became immunized like everybody else. I started being more selective about who I helped; stopped taking every sob story at face value. One day a man whose groceries I was paying for asked me to hang on a second and dashed off for five minutes, coming back with wine, salmon pate and imported crackers. I hired somebody to clean and look after the girls. Before I knew it I was attending meetings with her grandson’s school principal; buying stationary for her cousin’s child, bankrolling the entire family and – by the way – being taken for the biggest ride. Slowly I started to realise I was behaving like a total imbecile, and if I couldn’t come to grips with my white guilt and accept South Africa for what it was I would be better off living in Perth.
Eventually, I stopped giving to people on the street. I guess I got tired of it – the constant, relentless need and the tales of woe coming at me each time I walked out my front door. And the gaping black hole no amount of R5 coins will ever fill. At first I was horrified by this callous version of myself. Now I’ve made peace with her. There is no other way. Random acts of kindness just don’t work down here. You need to get over yourself and understand where you’re living. The complexity of our socio-political context is impenetrable to foreigners, and you have to have lived here a long time to get it. It’s everything and nothing to do with race and colour. It’s the wild west where dog eats dog and survival of the fittest is the ethos you have to practice, even while you’re acutely aware of the injustices. It’s brutal, and you have no choice but to be as tough as nails.
You make a decision about how you’re going to give, whether of your time or your money, and then you draw the line. You pay people well, care about their families and behave like a decent human being, but you institute boundaries and you stick to them. And, paradoxically, South Africa remains the warmest, friendliest (dare I say ‘happiest’?) country I’ve ever been to, and I’ve been to many. I live in a road with a couple of B&Bs. I’m regularly accosted by tourists who want to tell me how much they love my country and its people – how they’ve never encountered such warmth and generosity of spirit and that they can’t wait to come back. And I have to agree – it’s a crazy place, but it’s beautiful and vibrant and alive. It buzzes with a kind of energy that makes me feel like I can do anything I choose. And what I probably love most of all is the freedom and the open-endedness of life down here; there is something which makes the human spirit sing. A sort of wonder at being alive which Europe – for all its fabulous old buildings – lacks. For reasons I can’t really qualify, it seems to fill people with joy.
So, what I’ve learnt over the past four years is that I can’t save Africa and, frankly, I’ve started to wonder whether it needs my saving. A while back I got a whatsapp from a friend who receives daily words of wisdom and counsel from a sage by the name of Abraham, and it was a message that challenged the way I see this country. It said, what if there is nothing ‘wrong’ with South Africa? What if it simply operates by a different set of standards and norms? What if the ‘problems’ are about us and our perceptions and that there is nothing, in fact, to fix?
Of course I interpret this in my personal paradigm that nothing is random and that this earth realm is the school of hard knocks. We come here for a certain type of experience, and we choose our setting accordingly. No, this doesn’t exempt us from doing the right thing and giving whatever we can, but it does serve as a type of reminder not to take too much to heart; to step back a bit and observe rather than taking everything on as a personal battle. Practice love. Be a good human being. But, it is what it is. It was the a-ha moment I’d been needing all along. You don’t always have to understand things to love them. Sometimes it’s the complexity and the mystery that create the firmest grip on our hearts. We all have different ways of interpreting our truth, but I felt like I ‘got’ it at last. And what a relief to lay down my panga.
The Disco Pants Blog 
A great read, thank you. We have been in the US for 15 months and there is just no place like home. South Africans are just a different breed and hopefully we will return soon to our beautiful country.
Yes, we are quite mad and fabulous. Have a wonderful adventure abroad!
Great read, hope you don’t mind but have shared it on Facebook
Thank you, Lindi! And thanks for sharing it.
Living in Europe, away from living in SA now for over 20years, this article has been an ‘illumination’!! I can feel the freedom and happiness of the African spitrit from here!!! Maybe it’s time to get back …. I ‘think’ I now understand what is missing! Thank-you <3
:-) You’re so welcome, Anna. Yes, come back – it’s alive and well.
stunning article and one I needed to read..just arrived back after 36 yrs away…I found it insightful honest and positive.I love being here like you.
Wow, 36 years. Welcome HOME.
So enjoyed this blog which I shared on my Africa page where it has resonated with so many folk.
Not just those who have returned but also those who have always lived here.
Many of those who commented said that you have done what they couldn’t and that is to put into words what the have been thinking and feeling :)
Just the best piece that I’ve read in the longest time, thanks so much.
Warm regards,
Ayesha
Wow, thank you SO much, Ayesha, appreciate that. Will check out the link! Thanks for sharing me, and for sending it. All the best x
Born & raised in Africa but of British background & married into a German one, I have travelled extensively but always yearned & loved the great African smile & humbleness. Thank you. Your article is brilliant & so very true. Just had to share it!
Absolutely love this!! My family and I have recently returned to South Africa after living in Canada for 10 years. You have put into words my every single experience and thought that I have had since landing back home. Thank you for making so much sense of such a mind boggling adventure.
Thank you so much! It is a mind boggling adventure indeed. All the best to you and yours :-)
Lovely blog … I still hate the 4x4s!
An excellent read!! My family and I have lived in Australia for 10 years after losing our farm in Zim. I have been back to SA 3 times to visit mt elderly parents who live in a retirement village near Durban. In fact on my most recent visit in December last year I visited your Aunt, Brigitta in Cape Town. I understand and feel exactly the way you did every time I go to SA. How can people live amongst all the poverty and turn a blind eye, but unlike you I never stay long enough to get used to it. You write beautifully and I look forward to following your blog in future, Brenda.
Don’t allow your heart to harden. Don’t allow the people who bring about the misery absolution. The minute you ignore the guilt is the minute you become like them. Use what you learnt to make people realise that what you see is wrong and must change for the good of everyone, not just a few.
Nothing to do with a hardening of the heart, Leonard. I think you didn’t quite understand what I was saying, but thank you for reading me and taking the time to write.
I realized that after living in the USA for 34 years, although I had wanted to retire in Cape Town and miss it terribly, I have to remember that it is no longer the country I left behind…. I love to visit but I always appreciate coming home, where I don’t need to live behind high walls and watch out where I go….
Great read, insightful and honest. Thanks so much. I have shared on Facebook too. As another ex SA who has made a life in another country, and who still has family to visit there, I wanted to share your comments with family & friends.
Africa is indeed a sad and beautiful place and the people are special. God bless them all and you.
Thank you for these kind words, Penny x
A good perspective but sadly there is something wrong….the politics are so corrupt, and the people in charge are pillaging the country, if they would use the taxes to educate the people …. And not be lining their pockets with untold riches, things would be very different. I went back after being gone for 19 years, and while I love the beauty of South Africa,I could never live there again! the corrupt Govern,net would drive me insane, having a president that had to be defended against a rape charge is just tooooooooo much for me to stomach, it is no wonder there are all these horror stories about how many woman and young girls are raped every year when you have a president who goes around acting the way he does… With 4 or 5 wives, it is a disgrace, and the sooner the people who put him in office get him out of there the better it will be for everyone! no country can be successful with leadership like that!
We have been out of SA for 5 years, 3 more to go, then we return home.
I miss my friends, the culture, the beauty of Cape Town. People you have a history with, where you can talk about robots (not traffic lights) where roundabouts are circles, a tin of cold drink and not a can.
These are the things that I miss, the colourful language and expressions.
As they say, there is just no place like home.
Thank you for your blog, it sums up everything that I feel.
Desiree Pretorius
Thank you, Desiree! It is also a great gift to leave for a while. I really needed to live away to see this country in perspective. I will never take the amazing life I live here for granted again, and to live in gratitude is a wonderful thing. See you on our shores again soon :-)
I am an immigrant after coming here when I was 5, then choosing to return after a gap year at 21. It is a new country now, in that ‘choice’ is the freedom now bestowed on us. It is the contrasts which create the confusion, returning to sheer bliss of not choosing. The freedom in thinking, the vibrancy in the unexpected, the stretching of the imagination of the human spirit. The colours of the people contrasted to the apparent starkness of the karoo. The freedom of looking out to the flat open horizon and seeing no sign of human life. Returning to the locked up, walled, bolted homes where we step outside in this freedom in the air we breathe. Thanks for coming back! Thanks for trusting your heart. and thanks for sharing!
Hug!
What a wonderful story, so very well written. After being born and spending 50 years in Southern Africa, my heart will always be in the Zambezi Valley.
Thank you so much, Babette. I love that valley too – a magical place. All the best to you!
Unlike Malcolm, I live in South Africa – NOT behind high walls and where I live I never have to watch out where I go! I am sure there are lots of places in the world where you have to “watch out where you go” If you tell me you don’t have such places in your country like this Malcolm – I’m afraid I do not believe you!!
I am deeply touched by your sensitive and most insightful observations….you clearly gave this matter much thought , and in turn , motivated me to also take a look through new eyes…we do live an extraordinary life , and every time I travel abroad, the return home is the hi lite
Hermanus is the real jewel
Thank you so much, Sandy :-)
42 years in S.A. BORN AND BRED. Now live in the holy land, was very tough emigrating, gone now 12 years and happy where we are but S,A, is still holding part of my heart.
Have lived in the UK for 5 years and still long for the suuny, warm daysand those beautiful thunderstorms. We always here of the murders in SA but open any newspaper here and it is filled with murders, arson, rape etc. So where in the World is anyone safe.? Miss you SA.
It is a case of having to turn a blind eye, cause we help where we can, but need to keep perspective…I pay my 43% Income tax as is my duty and 14% tax on about everything I buy. I tythe 10% of my income to the church, who are also totally committed to try and make a difference. If we cannot entrust our hard earned money to the Government in leadership to do the right thing to the people of the country who voted them in, why must we feel it is our duty to ‘fix’ it? It is not the man on the street who is not doing right by the poor, it is the man in power!
You are totally brain dead to give 10 % to a church….spending this money on call girls and pot will be far more beneficial and creative….stop supporting RELIGEON , and get a life??? DEFUG.
ha ha – you are funny !!
We make our own choices, Sandy. People who tithe regularly will tell you that it comes back to them in surprising ways and they always have more than they need. It opens the door for blessings to flow in. If you don’t want to give it to your local church, give it to the SPCA! But do give :-)
A good article.The problems in SA would soon be over if someone would just do all of us a favour and do away with the likes of zuma and malema permanently, they are the cause of all this violence and murder.and them alone.we owe the blacks nothing !
Actually you owe black south africans a lot! Do pretend like you dont know it! Unless you accept this truth and find a decent way to address it – you are on the highway to Zimbabwe. Ask all the whites that once lived there. We failed to address the reality. I must add – at the beginning of it all Mugabe was far better than Zuma and Malema
Kathy please can you tell me were you live..please :) I also want to not be scared… and careful when I leave my house….because you see…. I have such high walls and electric fence :( I’m missing out!!!!! WHERE IS THIS MAGIC PLACE???? We all want to know…We really have such a wrong impression of South Africa….But can you blame me !!! My father was murdered in his Italian Restaurant by one of his faithful and most trusted head waiters.My aunts partner was shot in his restaurant while he lay on the floor with all his customers while the robbers took everyone’s possessions, and then when they had finished they just said… Thank You Very Much and shot him three times in the face. My sister in-law was shot execution style in her home. Can you blame me for humbly asking you to share this wonderful place you call home!!!!
Just discovered your blog. Oh my word. I totally get it. Can’t wait to come home as been an expat for 13 years but definitely need to leave all that guilt behind. Thanks for all the chuckles – so made my day.
Thank you! I wake up grateful every day to be home. So will you.
An interesting read. I left South Africa more than 10 years ago but not a day goes by when I don’t miss Table Mountain, the sea and the wondrous mix of cultures and people. That said however having lived since in Australia and now in Northern Europe, I could not return to the life I had in SA as beautiful as it is.. I remember the good times and beautiful places but also the not so good, living behind security gates, with panic buttons, razor wire and high walls and always having to look over my shoulder. Being burgaled too many times, having family and work colleagues held up at gun point, friends being hijacked and one being left paralysed for the rest of his life. I relish being able to walk in cities and use public transport and not worry as much as I did when in SA. Sure there are problems all over the world but sadly the corruption and the state of SA doesn’t seem to have changed for the better… I can dream of the lovely sandy beaches, the wondrous wildlife and visit occasionally when funds permit but to return permanently would test everything sensible I believe in…. God bless the country and its people, I loved being there but the future seems a tad safer further away.
Thank you for your comment, Fran. All the best to you, and yes, nkosi sikelel ‘iAfrika.
I’ve been in the UK for a just over a year now ……..feels no different . there are plusses . But the crime in Liverpool / Manchester , just as SA . The Cameron Government is directionless . Miss , ocean basket , Spur , and other family type restaurants . The schooling system , tho , not perfect work . Grass is definitely not greener , but fairer .
Wow. Lived in SA for a year as an exchange student and felt like I was just thrown back in history in my own country, after our civil war. It was a year of wonder, fright, pure joy and absolute fear when I found myself in the “wrong” places. SA is now in the “reconstruction Phase, which is tumultuous, but something every country goes through after such an upheaval, before things settle down again. It will be chaotic for a while, until someone comes who will unite the people there, toward the best outcome for all. I think what the writer experienced is kinda like when one grows up in the late 20’s and figures out that they can’t change the world. But she, like many, also sound as if she has become one of the masses that now will do little to nothing to change the world for anyone. Don’t give away everything you work for, but remember not to let the mindset of the masses take over. It’s dehumanizing. Change starts with the man (Or woman) in the mirror, one person at a time. You didn’t cause the problems that exist there, but the person who does nothing, perpetuates them.
Very well written. I am not an expat, and as the years have moved on from the first free election with so little improvement to the lot of the poor, I have been disappointed and ashamed as to the lack of improvement we have made. Corruption is rife, poverty wide spread and the crime rate appalling. We still seem so third world, but as you point out, this is Africa, we are Africans and we dance to the tune of a different drum – we must learn to embrace and rejoice in this. thank you for putting a different spin on it for me 1
Great read..yip..almost 6 years away and 1 more to go then im heading back to sunny shores!
I must have lived in a different South Africa to you. I moved to the UK in December, 2011. I have yet to see a home, house, with either burglar bars, safety gates, spiked or razor wired fencing. My best friend will have been gone a year this November, 5th. Raped and strangled in Cape Town by the people she helped. A mother and grandmother to some, and an angel to most. Who believed ! But I stepped out of the bubble before this happened. And have seen the writing on the wall.
Happy reading all these replies. sad at the negative ones, although understand where you’re “coming from” I too got a shock after visiting home after 20 years away back in 2001, for reasons other than not wanting to come back. Now my kids are grown and i take my vacation every 2 to 3 years. I LOVE SOUTH AFRICA. I too was shocked by the conditions we now have, I might not like the way the country is run, but JO don’t say “we owe the blacks nothing” if you stayed in S.A during apartheid, you owed them your good and easy life, as they were practically treated like slaves. Most countries today are not safe, times have changed. We can only choose our own president if we had a presidential form of government.
I left SA 34 years ago, 29 yrs in Southern California and I’ve been in Mexico, which I love, for the last 5 years. I used to come back to Joberg every year while my folks were alive and I loved it, the energy and people are unlike anywhere else in the world. The one problem I found was that all my old friends in SA spent their lives hiding behind walls and fearful, there are a few exceptions, very few though, I also found that my old liberal buddies had become incredibly racist and elitist.
Malcolm Navias. I concur. Visiting in there weeks and then zooooooom. Back to where its ……..
I found this a interesting read but it’s a bit extreme I lived overseas for 11 years and was always aware of the poverty in SA before and after I left and now when I’m back unless you where living in a bubble I don’t understand you. For me what I found difficult and still do is the lack of good public services and a good affordable Internet and cellular services where prices are fair and not a rip off. The poverty in SA is our biggest challenge and I dream of the day when we as a country will beat it.
Well said. I’ve returned to Cape Town after 34 years in NY and boy, do I hear you. Beautifully written.
Thank you so much, Jill. Wishing you lots of happiness! iKapa rocks.
I have returned to the good Ol RSA after a total of 30 years abroad. It is now a ten week reality.
Third and first world do not abrade each other any more. They learn from each other and sometimes beautifully so. My American wife loves it. Our children choose to be here. Believe me we can be anywhere we choose . Now we are looking to do Thanks giving a great braaii to remember.
Thank you, Geoffrey! May your Thanksgiving braai be a blast of note! Love your outlook. All love and happiness to you and yours! And WELCOME HOME :-)
Thanks Susan…also I love the free enterprise spirit here in South Africa …alive and well .all those robot bootleggers have a dream and they persue it with a better zeal than I ever saw in a recent decade in California. We have a better health system too because the politicians here haven’t got a clue yet on how to mess it up..
Interesting read. I have been living in Denmark the last 9 years and the question of moving back to Cape Town is always somewhere in the back of my mind. I do miss that mountain, family and friends.
Great article ……… I think it sums up how most expats feel ,I dare say that home is where your heart is .We are lucky where we live
in that the population is relatively small so the socio economic challenges is not as bad .Will always miss Mama Africa as she had been good to us but alas we have left home and she has other children to care for .Also just like to add that you could probably be happy anywhere in this world if you had enough money ………. definitely not a category that I fit into ,but just a thought .
Yes, South Africa is a dichotomy. The good and the bad. But living there reminds me of when I was up in Angola. Every nerve tingled with the joy of being alive in the midst of such danger. Your article set out to make a case for the good and you did that well, but other commentators have mentioned the things that you did not. Crime, corruption etc etc; and of course the poverty which is a powder keg, with people like Malema WANTING to light the fuse.
People are adaptable, as your article clearly illustrates. Eskimos live in igloos and it is home, sweet home. But as someone who has only recently entered the debate on South Africa, its residents and its diaspora, I have come to realise that both constituencies will advance their arguments, rational for the latter and emotional for the former, to justify why they left, or why they stayed/returned. Which ever camp you are in, you only have to justify that decision to yourself, not persuade others of why you are right and they are not.
For myself, I will not bore you, if you have managed to read this far, with all the reasons why I am most unlikely to ever to return to SA to live. But it is still a good place to have a holiday, providing one is sensible about personal security.
Very positive reading, where in South africa do you live? It sound’s like you might be financially well off, I guess in that case it would make any country a lot easier to live in, being poor and in SA can be a handicap, poor health services, poor pension, personal security way to expensive, one needs a budget these days to protect your house and family, please don’t get me wrong I have been playing with the idea of going back for several months now, and your article almost makes one make up there mind a lot easier, but what get’s me down is the “security, public health services (here in france one does not hesitate to still go to a public hospital) but I must admit that things are starting to change here as well, too many people are abusing the public services, wether that be healthcare, pension ect. And yes crime surely does excist here. To make a long story short, thank you for your article, loved it.
Thanks, Adelle. I live in Cape Town. We have a hospital plan through Discovery, but my parents can’t afford that and use the public health system. My dad has had serious health and heart problems and they go to Grootte Schuur for everything. It’s a hospital that runs on low funds, but the quality of medical service he received has been excellent. It might be a bit shabby, but it’s clean as a whistle and the people who work there are dedicated and proud. For an old school racist being treated by super competent black, Indian and coloured medical specialists, his views have had to change in a wonderful way. There are reasons not to return to SA, but don’t let that be one of them.
I have had a – pretty much life-long – love affair with South Africa, since the day I first left him in 1994 in my unawakened youth; being neither fish nor flesh. Since then I have lived on four continents, and am about to repatriate – to live in Cape Town again. I cannot be happier and more content with my decision and what awaits; though it may be daunting, it supercedes all forms of excitement I’ve experienced in the last twenty years due to that magical, weird, somehow pityful yet uniquely illuminating quality. Thanks for sharing your wonderful words.
An insightful blog that struck a cord with me because it is an honest attempt to rise above the political bickering and black/white polarization/indifference still prevalent in South Africa in many respects. I have often thought how I will adjust the day I return to the country of my birth, having been Europeanized after more than 10 years of living in the UK. I left South Africa not for political or financial reasons, but to experience living and working abroad, staying longer than I had originally anticipated. I have grown accustomed to living abroad and its comforts.
I get hot under the collar when I hear South African expats bad-mouthing South Africa (it happened just the other day), wondering what purpose it serves, other than perhaps justifying their own reasons for leaving in the first place. I found a guilt/conscience/awareness (whatever it was) had developed over time which slowly galvanized me into a rather meagre attempt to try and do my bit to alleviate chronic poverty in the country, like contributing to charities and so on. I am however acutely aware that I am doing it from a distance! I am aware too of this detachment from day to day life in South Africa in conversations with family and friends, how my attitudes and opinions and theirs have diverged over time as to what is happening in the country. Blaming the other side ain’t gonna solve the problem. I visit annually and so when you do so, you do see changes for the good, particularly a growing confidence amongst black middle class but poverty remains South Africa’s biggest problem.
I remain South African at heart and still care for the country a great deal but I find the thought of returning quite intimidating.
Africa….it’s in your blood!
I have lived here for 52 years and it’s everything you have shared and more, you learn each day and find that we are blessed by the ruggedness of our people.. the humor which we experience is not equaled any where else in the world.. we really do LIVE each day… what an experience..
Interesting article. Thankyou. I have been in Australia for over 25 years. I consider this home. I don’t buy the romantasized version of the RSA. There is nothing romantic about the lack of tolerance, corruption, nepotism, wasted opportunities and a country slowly decending into infra structure chaos by poor administration and leadership. Call it for what is is: The land of missed opportunities. But I for one don’t miss it all all.
Hi Rob, it seems that you have become an Australia…..
Ok , Life in SA might make you hard , which it has to me , but what do you do when it starts making you mean?
Makes me want to go back home. Thank you for the interesting article. Funny how one can never get rid of your roots.
If you don’t get mugged, robbed, raped, shot or killed South Africa can be a very wonderful place to live in many ways. But I was robbed and shot at a few too many times so right now I prefer the safety of a first world country where I can actually walk down the street without a care. However, if SA would clean up it’s act (not holding my breath) I would move back in a heartbeat!
WoW! Thank You. insightful, delightful, emotionally challenging, but mostly genuinely heart based.
We live in Ohio – homesick all the time, but go back every year. Last year in PE I was getting an ID doc – a black man wanted to get an ID so that he could get a job – but he did not have enough money. I paid R100 plus – and he was so happy that he wept – random acts of kindness is wonderful – but be selective. This man did not have money for an ID and could not work until he had one, and could not get one until he worked to make some money. I always buy a supply of pens, shades and small things to give to the men who pump gas – and get terrific service!