Visiting SA

[Donovan83]

So I've headed back to SA for a while (for my birthday and also to get a bit of a break and get some perspective again). I'm here for about 3 weeks.

It's weird being here. First off, Perth really doesn't feel all that far away from Johannesburg. Secondly, it's eerily familiar and feels like I never left. If I sit and concentrate I could probably fool myself into thinking that the last 6 months of living there were all a dream.

So far my experience has been different to what I expected. I thought I'd arrive back and immediately feel stressed and feel vilified for my leaving in that everything would look horrible and be super "African" but actually it wasn't like that at all. For the first day or so, I kinda wondered what all the fuss was about? It's quite nice here actually. However, after 2 days of alarms, gates, robot vendors, car guards, rude service, stupid service, traffic, broken robots, potholes, Joburg aggression etc I am now reminded of why I live in Perth and not here. This place has good points, but unless you are extremely rich and are able to live in a security estate and not have to work then it really sucks here. And it's so NOISY! Good grief, the neighborhood dogs just never shut the hell up and nobody does anything about it?! I've heard more yapping dogs in the 3 days I've been here than I've heard in all my time in Perth. Doesn't it annoy anyone else?!

So yeah, it's pretty much how I remember it, but its taken me a while to get back in touch with it all.

One big thing that I also have forgotten is the feeling of almost-guilt for being one of the haves and not one of the have nots. There's nothing quite like the look of hate and jealousy you get when you politely decline to buy some Ranband (fake Raybans hehe) at a traffic light.

Anyway, enough of this rambling. Going to enjoy the nice cheap eating out (a meal out for under $10 including soft drinks? Take away for under $6?!) and spending time with friends and family, but I am not sure I could ever comfortable stay here again.

[bbop]

Thats the best part - going home with dollars!

[Lynnie]

Thanks so much for sharing :ilikeit:

We have been back a couple of times,but we immediately felt the "tension, frustration, anxiety" when we arrived in Joburg... As to the yapping dogs - I truly understand what you mean!!! We have heard a dog bark in our neighborhood maybe 10 times in 2 years... when we go and visit SA - we can't sleep with all the alarms, sirens and dogs

Ag nee wat dankie... ons verlang na ons familie en pelle, maar ek kan my nie indink om ooit weer daar te bly nie - watse toekoms het ons kids daar? Hier hardloop hulle (en ons) vry rond in parke en by die see

Enjoy your time there Donovan and HAPPY BIRTHDAY :ilikeit:

[AlBrough]

Thank you for sharing

[Brad76]

Hey Donovan

Welcome back (for a while)!!

[Mands]

Thanks for sharing Donovan!

Happy Birthday - enjoy your stay

[Bams]

Happy Birthday, hope you will have a wonderfully blessed day!

Thanks for sharing, I sometimes wonder if Oz is all we are hoping it will be and if we not only seeing the bad cause we want out. So to hear from someone coming back that yes it is all we think it is, really helps.

Have a safe trip back.

(P.S. yes the dogs tend to drive you insane and alarms are the new national anthem...)

[HadEnoughofJuju]

Hey Donovan

I must say that the one thing about the suburb we are staying in at the moment that stands out is how quiet the dogs are and the lack of cats. I haven't seen a single feline since we have been here. The one dog that barked last night must have been barking at the 2 possums (which by the way make an awful noise when fighting) having a brawl in the neighbor's back yard and he stopped once the possums were gone.

We were in the inner city yesterday and the lack of noise was actually disturbing. Compared to the number of people that were there, there was very little noise. It was a very strange experience for us.

[Mikej]

One big thing that I also have forgotten is the feeling of almost-guilt for being one of the haves and not one of the have nots.

I can relate, it was always horrible to see poor people suffering while living a comfortable life.

[HansaPlease]

I can relate, it was always horrible to see poor people suffering while living a comfortable life.

This is something that bothers me when I go back. On our most recent trip it struck me that my toddler was playing on our iPad (which she thinks is her iPad) and my mom's part time domestic was bemused as to what it was. It struck me that the iPad was probably worth half her salary. We're considering getting a second ipad so that the kids don't fight over the one and she's probably wondering what her kids are going to eat for dinner. My princess had a mini tantrum because I took the iPad away from her for a few minutes and her kids probably don't have school shoes. At least she has a job though, right? What about all the people that don't...

Most "priveleged" people back home are so used to the huge differences between them and the have-nots that they don't find it strange or absurd at all. "Make sure you trim all of the hedges now Sipho, ok?!"

[Esthee]

I'm going back to Pretoria for my first visit since moving to Melbourne 2 years ago and I'm quite apprehensive about how I'm going to handle being back. One of the main reasons I wanted to make the move was I could feel how I was losing my humanity. I didn't care about anyone else, or the person begging on the street, just so long as my family and I was well looked after. You get taken advantage of so often in SA that you have to stop caring otherwise you will go insane.

I still remember the first time after living here for 3 months when I was watching a story on Today Tonight about a woman who was diagnosed with brain cancer and how the whole community came together and built her family a house for free to make sure that she could spend the last few months of her life without having to stress about them. I was washing dishes and just moved to tears. For this woman in Queensland I've never met, who was going to die and who's family is going to lose their mother. That's when I knew I would love Australia for all my life for giving me back something that I could not put a price on. So I'm scared to see South Africa with my new Aussie eyes. But I'm sure I would probably just slip back into my SA costume.

[PruKitty2]

Funny about the dogs, it's the first thing I noticed when I got here a few of weeks ago, how quiet the dogs are, not just in the night, but in the day too! With my new found freedom I have taken to going for an early morning stroll & walked past some houses with dogs in the side yard & I look @ them waiting for them to bark - the dogs just look back at me as if to say 'haven't you seen a resting dog before?' I mean in SA, my neighbour over the road had a dog & it would bark at me whenever it saw me!

I've seen a few cats here, but they seem to be so much bigger than the South African ones & even they are quite friendly.

Anyway I'm still on the 'Honeymoon period', but I sure hope it stays the way it's been for me since I get here. I've met some lovely people, both Australians & South Africans.

[HadEnoughofJuju]

I get the impression the dogs here don't know what stress is so the are far more relaxed than back in South Africa. If you think about it they are not kept as watchdogs but as pets (the way it should be), their worst form of stress is worring about what bird or possum is going to nab their dinner.

[TQO]

HEJJ - I had to laugh when you said "nab" ... seems you are quite settled already

[HadEnoughofJuju]

HEJJ - I had to laugh when you said "nab" ... seems you are quite settled already

Yup, I think we have gotten into the swing of things pretty quickly and if you don't pick up the local lingo fast people here struggle to understand you but I think we still have a long way to go.

[Donovan83]

So I thought I'd put an update... man does this place effing suck the biggest pair of donkey balls ever. Everything is so race obsessed, aggressive and overcrowded. And the internet is terrible and expensive! Good grief! Sure, you can get a line to your house that runs at 10MBits, but it will not work properly.. so you click to load a page, which half loads, then the connection resets so you have to try again. Cellphones also barely work. My mom just got an iPhone 5 and hilariously Vodacom's network is just plain not working properly with it.

You walk in the shopping centres and just feel like you're constantly having to dodge people. Nobody is polite and when you're nice to someone then you get a funny look as if to ask you what you want. At Menlyn yesterday there was a young boy trying to cross one of the walkways from the restaurants to where his family was sitting - so I stopped to let him cross, the poor guy was carrying like 10 cans of cold drink. He kinda looked confused that someone was polite. The people behind counters are the rudest and most unpleasant people to deal with... you'd think their cheeks would crack of they smiled or even acknowledged you exist besides grunting "eh plastiek" at you.

The only thing counting for SA in my mind is that I get to see my family while I'm here and it's cheap to eat out. That is it. It sucks.

And then, of course, this kind of twak -

. The crime is just something that skews every experience of your life. I go out for dinner and then have to fearfully make sure I don't stop at the traffic lights (if they are even working) because I might get hijacked. I lie in bed at night at the in-laws house and listen to the outside alarm beams beeping and wonder - is it a cat or a murderer? I don't feel the same at my parents house only because every window has burglar bars and every door has a trellidoor on it and that makes me feel safer. After all, an alarm will just give you an early warning, it doesn't exactly scare these fearless criminals off.

Would I move back here? Not unless there was a really, really good reason to. If a family member was ill and I needed to care for them or something, or if someone would pay me a MASSIVE sum of money in a fixed term contract, sure. But under any normal set of circumstances, no.

[vaughanroe]

Hahaha re the Donkey Balls!

I heard a joke many years ago when I left South Africa...

Q: What is the difference between a tourist and a rascist?

A: About 2 weeks!

I have been back to SA to visit twice since moving here and I can so identify with your sentiments. First few days it almost seems tolerable but after about 10 days of the car guards and aggresion, corruption and crap service, not even Jimmy's Killer Prawns are worth the stress.

Enjoy the rest of your stay and i hope the entertainment system on the plane works when you head back.

[HadEnoughofJuju]

Thanks for the update Donovan. It just confirms for me why we are here. My wife and I were speaking about the service and friendliness of all the people here so far and we both agreed that should we ever start moaning about it that we would arrange a trip to South Africa. All we would need to do is land at Johannesburg international and report to customs and that would jog our memories. No need to stay longer than that.

[Cranzy]

When do you get back to Perth Donovan? We should catchup before me & my wife goes back to SA for a holiday...

almost like tag team, you get back and I leave ... hahaha.

[HansaPlease]

Donovan, you have such a way with words!

I felt much like you on the most recen trip. We always have a fantastic time when we visit SA. We go away with my folks, usually to the 'Berg and I often come back wondering whether we're doing the right thing, whether it's possible for us to move back - remembering that I never really left because I hated the place, I left for an experience and met my wife overseas. I just didn't come back because I discovered that life was better in first world countries.

This time though, there were no such thoughts. I was well and truly sick of the place by the time we got to the airport. Sad to leave my family, but could not wait to get back to civilisation.

The whole trip was a battle. Maybe it's because we had my 1 and 3 year olds with us and the whole trip was spent constantly making sure they were safe. I remember getting to the Engen One Stop at Villiers and after fighting my way through holiday traffic, trying to queue up at a petrol bowser amongst the chaos, people yelling at each other for parking like idiots, taxis blocking traffic, music blaring from all directions, trying to control the kids and not let them get run over or stolen, waiting ages in the disorderly queue for a toasted sandwich (which was wrong) that looked like it was used to clean a car engine and then dipped in oil to freshen it up, and then not being able to get phone signal, I turned to my wife and said: "#%* this place, they can keep it!"

Even at the airport, as a final leaving present, some trolley sharks tried to intimidate me into handing over R200 each for pushing two trollies 200m despite me telling them not to. When I refused they got aggressive. Eventually I had no choice but to give them a crisp R100 between them to shut them up because the amoeba at the cling wrapping stall refused to give me change. They snarled a thank you and were on their way.

The local check-in staff were unfriendly and rude, total opposite to what we experienced in Aus when we left.

Got on the plane well and truly cured.

Looking forward to our next trip though

[MsGee]

"The people behind counters are the rudest and most unpleasant people to deal with... you'd think their cheeks would crack of they smiled or even acknowledged you exist besides grunting "eh plastiek" at you"

This is the one thing I will never ever miss. I think I will get high blood pressure from the annoyance when I go back to SA for a visit. The rat race and aggression is the first thing one notices as soon as they step out of the Terminal at OR Tambo,.

[wendym]

Friends of ours are currently on holiday in RSA. They've been in WA for 2 and a bit years. This is their first trip back. They were at Sun City this weekend and a pair of running shoes were stolen from their room. - unbelievable. One positive though is that they were reassured that their move to Australia was a good decision.

[JoleneW]

@ HansaPlease,

Thank you for you for the true and hilarious account of your trip. I think it is even more funny cause it is all so true, even though it is no laughing matter I couldn't help keep the tears back from laughing so hard.

Hope you arrived back to civilization safely.

[Johnno]

This is a great topic. We've been back to SA many times and one thing for sure, the goodbyes never get any easier! In fact they get a whole lot harder! Our folks are getting on in years and we wonder under what circumstances we'll see them again, our nieces and nephews growing up so fast and when we're there it's one big happy family and then we must leave.

Kids in Australia (most first world countries for that matter) grow up never knowing what really poor people face and I personally believe that it's difficult for them to understand and be compassionate when everything in life is just so easy. The example of the iPad is just one example but geez, how true! I remember during one of our first trips back to SA (my kids had no recollection of life in SA) my daughter was about 4 years old and she wanted to know why people scratch through our rubbish bin. I told her tat they were looking for food. Shock and horror on her face and she asked why. I told her that they had no money and in her little world she suggested that they go get a job. I found out just how hard it was to explain the economic hardships and challenges facing SA to a 4 year old but she put 2+2 together and worked out that she needed to help out. Every year we go pack with 4 suit cases bordering on our max luggage limit but in the bags is enough 2nd hand clothes to pass on to those who are doing it really tough. She's 14yrs old now and appreciates the opportunity that she has in life. My son collected all the footy boots from his mates at the end of the season and we packed a suitcase full of smelly boots and socks (my wife did wash them) so that he could give them to a bunch of local kids that played soccer on a field near to be we stayed. It cost us nothing but the smiles and happiness that it brought a group of young kids is imprinted in my mind!

So, if having a slow internet connection, the wrong toasted sandwich, or navigating your way through crowded shopping malls and long cues at petrol stations during holiday season is the biggest problems in your life then I think you're a very blessed individual and should say a very special thanks to your maker before you fall asleep in your warm bed with a fully tummy, safe house and bright future.

Edited June 10, 2013 by Johnno

[Springjock]

Arent we just lucky to be 'blessed'? I mean, 'us' folk are just so 'lucky'. Everything we touch, just turns to to gold.

[Johnno]

Arent we just lucky to be 'blessed'? I mean, 'us' folk are just so 'lucky'. Everything we touch, just turns to to gold.

I wouldn't call living in Adelaide being blessed But yes your privileged upbringing, education and opportunities probably helped you qualify for a decent job and so will the rest of your family benefit.....or were you born to a poor family in a squatter camp with both your parents unemployed?