By Susan Hayden (Susan is a well-known blogger, a true writer, proud of Saffer, she was discouraged, she went abroad, that’s what she had to say when she came back: it’s a smart read)
Why I took a gap year
As you may have noticed, I took a long gap year off my blog. He had several reasons: it takes time; messages can take me a full day and I don’t make money from them, so paid paintings have to come first. Then trolls abound in this thing called the web and it’s provocative and exhausting to be the recipient of gratuitous evil. But most Commonly, and this is hard to admit, I began to get carried away by the bad things and negativity surrounding our country, and I’m no longer sure I agree with myself. And that’s a problem.
One thing about this area is that I am not accountable to anyone; I write what I believe and tell the truth. That’s why, over the years, other people have learned to accept me as truth and are looking for an agenda-free edition of what life in South Africa really is. “Is it smart to come here to study?” foreign scholars ask me. Yes! I tell them, and they come (and rarely ever leave). Or, South Africans come back from Australia and write to me to tell me that the blog has helped them make their resolution and that they have never been happier with anything in their lives. .
which made me sad
But the burden he lost was the collective psyche. Covid has been an economic crisis for us, not to mention the madness of some of our lockdown laws. Cyril and his bed let us down (where are his words, this Scorpio?) Crime, corruption and unemployment are rampant thanks to our dead government. How to live with all those truisms and maintain a positive attitude without looking for absolute fools has a challenge. Some time ago, while having coffee, a friend told me, “You wrote the first blogs almost ten years ago. Would you say the same thing today?” And I had to honestly answer no. And answer that it didn’t make me sad.
Europe in – a Ruk registration experience
But then I went to Europe on vacation. I perceive that going on holiday to Europe is the domain of a privileged few, and if I didn’t have a husband whose circle of relatives and paintings is founded in northern Europe, we certainly wouldn’t be able to do our annual walk. But I did, and we did. And my word, it worked well for me in about 14 seconds. It’s so easy to get bogged down in the mess this country is facing. And I don’t need to minimize how complicated life is for many people. so many wonderful things about life here on earth and we do them because we are used to it and we tell ourselves that outside everything will have to be greater because there is less crime.
make kakking
But that’s not the case, guys. Oath to God. Especially now after Covid. They’re really leaving, just like us. It’s easy to lose your attitude and start envying other people in other parts of the world, however a month abroad opened my eyes and replaced my mindset (thank G‑d). As the Buddhists say, two other people can walk the same path and have a completely different experience. This is what you decide to watch. And you have to step back a bit to realize how rich, happy, sunny and privileged our lives here are.
some – schooling
Yes, many things do not paint, but many things continue to paint and we do not concentrate on that component of the narrative. I’m not going to tell a full story, but I will say that I learned important things in speaking. to my friends living abroad: that schools in many parts of Europe are struggling to cope with the large influx of young foreigners from war-torn countries who do not speak the language and are traumatized. Teachers and school staff do their best to integrate. However, during this time, the young people of the community inevitably have the straw cut. A friend’s 8-year-old son still couldn’t read. Some schools in the center of Malmö (southern Sweden) have categories where the students are one hundred percent foreign. , regularly Arab. Swedish families do not need to send their children there because none of the young people speak Swedish. So they move away from certain cities. Like here.
Healthcare
Health systems are overburdened and no longer functioning as well. Friends in Sweden (who pay a tax premium) have to take out personal health insurance at a wonderful cost because you wait a long time to see a doctor, even longer to see a specialist and years to have surgery. Trains are overloaded, expired or not working at all because staff have been laid off during Covid and have not been rehired. It’s a difficult time there, not just for us. Europe is fantastic, it has much more cash than we do and a buffer to deal with crises like our recent pandemic, but this is not the utopia that many South Africans imagine. I love Scandinavia deeply and miss it and love to come back every year, but it is a mistake that everything and everything that happens outside our borders is better.
The other day, outside the gym, I met a friend I hadn’t seen in years. It is very negative about South Africa. I understand your reasons. He is a public servant who discovers himself in the aspect of history. Her daughter has just done a school exchange in Germany. He needs to move to Germany. . “” She can,” I agreed. “You can take public transport at night. But then you have to live among the Germans. I have nothing against the Allemands. My grandmother was German. I am completely a German neighborhood. I love Berlin, it’s one of my favorite cities of all time. I love Rostock and its market Noël. Je Alphaville plays in my car.
What happens when you move
germany
But what other people don’t realize is that when you move to another country, you gain some things but you also lose a lot of things. More things you don’t perceive when you’ve never done it. You don’t move south. Africa without the crime, you move to Germany with the German climate, German traditions, German regulations and German Germanity. The cultural surprise is genuine and it is the lone AF that is the intruder. Never perceive the joke. And I don’t need to be rude, but my God, I’ve visited it many times and haven’t eaten a single smart meal in this country. Even eisbein is surprising. They boil it, out of love. They do much better at the Dros in Stellenbosch for a fraction of the price.
France
Paris too. We were right there. We stayed in a very stylish and expensive apartment in Montmartre. To call it compact would be an understatement. The total was about 25 square meters in diameter. You climbed a steep and frighteningly narrow staircase to reach the seventh floor. You went up to a closet to use the bathroom. Everything was in miniature, like a Barbie house. At 2 a. m. de on a Monday morning the noise of the street made him sleep. It was hot (and expected to be much hotter in the following months), but if you opened a window, mosquitoes would eat you alive. Paris is each and every edition of magic. ; the whole city is like a movie set, but it’s loud and busy, and the food is rich and, frankly, disappointing. You have better French food on Bree Street and at my friend Marlene’s house. But we live well ici. , croissants taste the same as anywhere.
South Africa
Here you go to Gallow’s Hill to renew your driver’s license and other people say salaam and molo, sisi. You might wait a bit, but the other people in line will be friendly and chatty and share their grandmother’s masala bird recipe with you. Or you go to the Labia cinema on a Sunday afternoon with your mom who has a conical knee and can’t walk much but there is nowhere near the parking lot, so you tell the parking lot manager your stage and 3 seconds later he beat some cones on the road and asks you to park on the sidewalk a few meters from your show. I mean. That’s one thing. Try this anywhere else. Despite all the things we deal with, there is a word friendly; a smile in one position. A joke. A sense of humanity that makes you feel like you’re part of something. You are with your other people. They are crazy and dress weird, but they are yours.
And beloved things are affordable. To get your hair done or teething or buy a fancy steak in Paris or Denmark, or order a bottle of wine (or whatever) in a restaurant and you’ll pay for your stopper. Yes, there is smart public transport. You will be waiting for your bus in a small dank cabin with smokers, your big shoes in a bag as you will have to walk a bit from the bus to your destination. It probably wouldn’t be cheap. You will have at least one prevention along the way where you will repeat the process. It will take you a decade to get there. In the end, you prevent leaving. Or we did, especially when we had small children. It’s too difficult. Here, an Uber on a Saturday night will cost you R30. Or you drive There will be no traffic and plenty of parking spaces. A bottle of smart wine costs the same as a glass of bad wine in Sweden. The food from the place to eat is better and incomparably cheaper. Things in South Africa are simple and available in a way that they are only in Europe (or Australia or the US). We don’t know how much we have.
Your people, your tribe
I’m sure after a while I’ll be in a bad mood with Eskom again, but right now I’m so happy to be at home that it doesn’t even sync me. I light candles, read with the light of a kerosene lamp and spend a moment considering through my window the darkness of the African night. There, in all those houses and buildings, there are other people who know who Riaan Cruywagen is and who love Marc Lottering and are dissatisfied with fish paste. you don’t know how valuable this is until you don’t have it anymore. Your other people, your tribe. There is something very comforting about knowing where your house is. Anyway, I’m back. Thank you for your patience.
Steuart gave some 500 interviews on South Africa’s progress since 1994 and SA’s long-term prospects.