A South African Goth in the Food Courts of Australia

[Tim & Abby]

Having been scorched by previous 'forum' experiences (elsewhere). I very rarely post, prefering to leave Abby to do all the talking, but when she showed me this, I reckoned it was time to plow through the barriers of my misanthropy and actually leave a reply; which is this:

Fantastic post!

I really enjoyed reading it, and it has made me all the more excited that come 15 March we'll be over in Melbourne and beginning our new lives also. Thanks for taking the time to tell us your experiences!

Tim (of Tim & Abby)

Edited January 10, 2009 by Tim & Abby

[AllisonW]

Thanks for sharing with us. It is great to hear the comparision of the different cities. Melbourne sounds great.

[Ladyfingers]

My only successful shot of the New Year's fireworks due to being an idiot and forgetting to bring a tripod.

[MANDIBRENT]

Wow Ladyfingers - superb shot - tripod or no tripod. Hope your New Year proves to be as spectacular as those fireworks.

[AllisonW]

WOW, great photo!

[kobus2]

uitstekende skryfwerk

Ek het dit terdeë geniet.

Nou is dit tyd vir die opvolg...

[chalmers family]

Thanks for the life story!!! haha

its great to read things like this, gets us ready to expect the unexpected....

Thanx

[Ladyfingers]

I keep meaning to write an update, but I feel like I need to do something a bit more significant before I do. I'm just going to write a little bit about how my feelings have developed in the meantime.

Anyway, life's going on. Things are slowly falling into place career-wise and although I'm living it up and being relatively irresponsible by my rather Scottish standards, the money's slowly accumulating.

After a year and a little bit, I think the most profound change in me is the sense of feeling at home. When you arrive, even though things are great and going well, everything feels like a fake, illusory version of the things from the place you grew up in. It's silly, right down to the bird songs, electrical plugs and the brands in the supermarket, but it precipitates a certain inexpressible disconnect, a feeling of unreality that can make you despair. This has finally gone.

I find it amusing that the annual repeat of seasons has caused palpable nostalgia for a period only as long as a year ago. I'll be walking in a neighbourhood I was in last year, and suddenly have that feeling of memory and connection. I suppose it's because that period was so intensely formative and there were such strong feelings of career uncertainty and simply being uprooted that merely finding a nice tree or bird to look at could mean the difference between being happy and worrying if I was going to make it.

I don't know if it can really be said that I HAVE made it, as such, but I feel pretty confident about things regardless, and will feel a even better when I have citizenship.

What I have been doing is keeping up with South African news, and noticing that every day it feels slightly more distant and irrelevant to me. Reading what the ANC is saying about white South Africans still raises some bile in me, and I worry about the people I left behind, but good grief am I ever glad to be out. Even though I was fairly happy before leaving, the emotional and nervous hell of South Africa now seems like a bad dream.

I have learned by experience not to tell people back in SA how much better I think living in Australia is than living there and it's not something I want to rub in people's faces, but since this forum is about leaving SA for Australia: it's better here.

[buzzbee]

wow, ladyfingers. thanks so much! a fascinating read and so engagingly written. we are off to north sydney in december, so i particularly enjoyed the sydney bits. please post more!

[Ladyfingers]

wow, ladyfingers. thanks so much! a fascinating read and so engagingly written. we are off to north sydney in december, so i particularly enjoyed the sydney bits. please post more!

By North Sydney do you mean just over the Harbour Bridge or a bit further up the coast?

[Eva]

After a year and a little bit, I think the most profound change in me is the sense of feeling at home. When you arrive, even though things are great and going well, everything feels like a fake, illusory version of the things from the place you grew up in. It's silly, right down to the bird songs, electrical plugs and the brands in the supermarket, but it precipitates a certain inexpressible disconnect, a feeling of unreality that can make you despair. This has finally gone.

Great post!!

You summed up exacty what I was trying to say about everything being different in my journal!

I look forward to when all those little things feel "normal", but still have a long way to go if your time frame is anything to go by!!

Thanks for sharing....

[AndreaL]

What I have been doing is keeping up with South African news, and noticing that every day it feels slightly more distant and irrelevant to me.

Exactly!

It seems like news from a foreign land-could be Southern Africa or Southern Afghanistan.

I still have family there, but have forgotten what it is like to live there.

[Ladyfingers]

Great post!!

You summed up exacty what I was trying to say about everything being different in my journal!

I look forward to when all those little things feel "normal", but still have a long way to go if your time frame is anything to go by!!

Thanks for sharing....

Things seem to happen over periods of about three months, I've found. I seemed to have regular little tri-monthly breakdowns that lessened in severity as time rolled on.

The general consensus on how long it takes before feeling completely at home is about two years. First year's gone and I feel great. Of course there are regrets, but no major decision is easy.

One of the things that really made me feel uprooted was that my father had arranged to get some boxes of books, instruments and toys shipped over in a friend's container, but that fell through, so I've been without a lot of my most precious worthless junk for ages now. Porbably a good thing, since I only have the one room to myself.

[Ladyfingers]

Exactly!

It seems like news from a foreign land-could be Southern Africa or Southern Afghanistan.

I still have family there, but have forgotten what it is like to live there.

I still have absolutely scary attacks of homesickness for the most trivial stuff. The slightly sweet musty smell of petrol and sawdust in my parents' garage, that late afternoon sound effect in Cape Town where the noise of the city seems to be reflecting off the mountain, a certain quality of light.

Just one of those things. It doesn't really hurt any more, mind you. Now there's just fond memory and a slight sense of longing, and I'll probably visit in a year or two to take care of that. My friend who's been living here for a few years now says that going back was actually something of a shock and coming back to Australia was a welcome relief.

[Michele R]

Thanks for sharing your experience with us.

Am currently living in Newlands, will give the mountain a wave hello from you. Had beautiful waterfalls off the mountain after the rain this weekend and everything is just so lush and green with the river flowing strongly creating the most beautiful sounds...will really miss it once we're gone.

All the best!

[MichelleO]

Wow, you have such a way with words! What a beautiful read.

[D&S - Perth]

Hi there .............. in the begining........... I thought the hell is this about ............ and by the end of the topic ...........

Im enthrawled ............ what a fantastc account of your start in OZ

Here is wishing you a fantastic life

regards

simone

[Lyn]

Simone, I wondered the exact same thing - whats a goth called ladyfingers have to say ??

ladyfingers, thank you so much for sharing this. You explain so clearly exactly how I feel somedays. And I hope and pray that these feelings will eventually leave me too. I feel like a fish out of water. Lost !!

good to hear you are settling and I hope all your worthless junk finds its way to you soon.

[Donne']

Great post ..............Thanks!I hope I feel like you after a year !

[Jill]

Thanks for sharing, you certainly have a knack for writing, please give us more.

Jill

[Alida]

Pleeeeeezzzzz keep writing !!!

[Ladyfingers]

My first encounter with the Australian Law.

My mother was visiting Sydney and I took her out to the Blue Mountains for the day. Upon exiting the station, a sniffer dog went for me and the cops gave me an unpleasantly thorough going-over looking for my concealed stash. I don't use anything and so naturally I don't carry anything, and so they let me go. It wouldn't have fazed me much, since I'm used to cops being goons and thugs, except it rather traumatised my mother and really spoiled the day.

For what it's worth, this is a very uncommon thing in Australia, and the people I've told have been mildly shocked. In SA? This kind of thing happened plenty, and the cops were generally rude, rougher and far more intimidating. All my encounters with Australian cops so far have been very pleasant.

I wrote a rather sarcastic letter to Kevin Rudd via the PM's website, so we'll see what happens.

Edited August 17, 2009 by Ladyfingers

[rozellem]

I think its time to change your aftershave to something different.

Good to see you posting again, what ever the circumstances.

[Ladyfingers]

A bit homesick the other day, and then another thread got me thinking about why I'm glad to be here and why nostalgia is overrated.

While I miss my little spots under the mountain in Newlands, and driving through the southern peninsula of a weekend, I have no desire to be an unwelcome alien in my birthplace again.

I don't ever want to be called "eurocentric" or "middle class" as a pejorative again. I am what I am: it's not better that what you are, but it's not worse.

I have no desire to engage in political debate with people whose understanding of global history is either non-existent or so selective as to be dangerous.

I have no desire to fight for the scraps of an economy plundered by selfish, avaricious "Proudly South African" egotists who rabbit on about "opportunity" while they kick the legs from under everyone else using their filthy money to buy protectionist legislation in their own favour.

I don't want to to have sudden pit-of-stomach terror that my girlfriend (theoretical) is taking 15 minutes too long to get something from the shop.

I don't like being told that everything in my country is the best in the world when I am sophisticated enough to see that it's mostly pretty damn mediocre. You can keep Freshly Ground. Please keep them. Far away.

I'd like to (eventually) write a book on the subject of my choosing instead of having to write agenda-driven, guilt-first, hand-wringing tosh.

I don't want to hear about quality of life being so great when I as a 32 year-old can't imagine scraping a salary that allows me to afford a house in a suburb that isn't infested by verandah-fouling vagrants and criminal transients. I may not be rich in Australia, but I'm certainly less poor than I was in SA.

I'd like the driver of the car that hits mine to pay for the repair.

I don't want to have to bite my tongue for fear of "insensitivity" when confronted with cultural values that are themselves as sensitive as a blood-frenzied shark. Ubuntu is a lovely little myth, but the machetes do pop out ever so quickly, don't they?

Call me a materialist, but I'd like to simply own a few nice things (and I now do - my TV is a glorious obscenity) without the contractual subclause "subject to home invasion".

I don't want to share a democracy with a majority of people who believe in a tokoloshe.

I'd like to simply enjoy the scenery without chip-shouldered, kneejerk patriots informing me how amazing it is compared to everything else in the world.

I like to enjoy things for their own worth. SA is status- and materialism-obsessed. A nice meal should be a nice meal, not a rung in some imaginary ladder.

I'm rambling, but that's a few thoughts I had rattling about.

[Willa]

Oh, so well said!!!!!!