I was having an interesting conversation with one of the moms at Skip’s school a couple of days ago.
As many conversations around kids and *this country* go, the talk invariably moved on to “To Emigrate, or Not to Emigrate…that is the question.”
Now what intrigued me most about this conversation, is that it was with a woman from Germany. Married to a Afrikaans South African. Been living here for four years, before that her and her hubby were living and working in the UK (where they met and married).
Her viewpoint is that she misses the UK terribly. Wants to go back. Her hubby is okay here for the moment, because his parents are here, but agrees that the long term view for him as a paleface in these parts is not good. Particularly since he is of the Afrikaans variety. That their son will have better opportunities elsewhere, and being raised tri-lingually – English/German/Afrikaans Europe seems like a no-brainer. For her, the UK means easy access to visiting her mom in Germany, and naturally for her son to see his Oma as well.
We both lamented the quality of food here compared to the UK and Europe in general, things like the size, and flavour of things like tomatoes, fresh fruit, and the simply huge variety of potatoes. Things that we don’t even realise we’re missing, because unless you’ve ever experienced that in the UK and Europe – well you wouldn’t know would you?
Then our chat moved on to her old friends overseas, and about South Africa in general. My viewpoint is that people overseas have generally thought of SA as a fairly exotic, cool place to visit, since we’re a pretty diverse nation, with all the perks of modern living (HAH, let’s not talk about broadband speed here okay?), but with the advantage of having Africa and all it’s wildife available. But then she made the interesting assertion, that well the whole African experience was highly overrated, and frankly, people, her friends in particular, are simply not that interested.
Now it’s been my experience of Europeans in particular that it has always (more or less) been on everyone’s to-do list in life to ‘do a safari’. So her thoughts came as a surprise to me and I asked her to elaborate.
She went on to say that the costs of travel to South Africa (from Europe and elsewhere) vs going pretty much anywhere else in the world was ridiculous. (She is in the industry). That no European in their right mind would come to SA to be ripped off the way that tourists are, because of the ridiculous prices being charged by hotels, tourism operators, resorts and the like.
She went on to say that the distance involved for Europeans to travel was also a major factor in their decision to holiday elsewhere, and that SA could do a lot more in terms of incentivizing foreign inbound tours by being an affordable destination rather than a premium exotic one.
So while I was taken by surprise completely, since I’ve also always held the belief that SA was pretty cool from an exotic point of view, I found myself agreeing with her, that in fact there are many reasons that are touted by SA tourism for reasons to visit SA, that are frankly, quite mediocre when you really think about it.
Try to put yourselves in the shoes of someone living in Europe for a second here.
SA person: SA has wonderful wild life and Safari experiences!
Euro person: Is it as good as seeing the migration in Kenya? Kenya is not as far, the flights cost a lot less, and the tour operators do not charge as much. Plus let’s face it the Masai Mara is the real essence of Africa.
SA: But, what about our beautiful beaches and beautiful coastline?
Euro: Is it as beautiful as the south of France? Greece? Turkey? Portugal? The Med? Even as far away as the Caribbean, they are just as good if not better and again, the cost is not at rip-off proportions.
SA: Okay, but what about the wine farms and places like Stellenbosch and Franschoek?
Euro: Why is visiting places with wineries with pseudo-european culture such a draw card, when you can have *actual* european wineries just a days drive (in many cases less) with REAL european culture right here?
SA: But SA wine is award winning!
Euro: Yes, that’s why I buy it from my local supermarket, for less than it would cost at the *actual* winery.
SA: Our cities are cosmopolitan and cultural!
Euro: As cosmopolitan and cultural than New York? Prague? Paris!? Vienna?
SA: Um, okay, what about our beautiful mountains and valleys…?
Euro: Are the mountains as beautiful as Switzerland? The Alps? The Pyrenees? The Carpathians? Even the Rockies!?
SA: But we have wonderful theatres and musicians!
Euro: Sure, but is it as good as the West End in London? Also, we do see many South African muscians touring, since they can’t make a decent living in South Africa anyway.
SA: But what about the beauty of the Kalahari, the Okavango and Victoria Falls????
Euro: Dude those are in Namibia, Botswana and Zimbabwe!!!
SA: BUT WE ARE HOSTING THE FREAKING SOCCER WORLD CUP!!!
Euro: Yes, I went the last time it was in Europe, it was great! The public transport was seamless and safe! Why must I pay the extra to go all the way to SA, when we have been warned against all the crime and the hotel prices are so high?
When you look at it from this perspective, it’s quite an eye-opener isn’t it?
Look while I agree on a lot of these points, it’s obvious that there *is* still something about SA that people come to experience, and whether it’s a combination of all of the above factors or a certain je ne sais quoi, it’s not easy to try to convince someone who has this viewpoint.
I think if the inbound tourism industry were to take this into account, we might just be able to find that market niche that begins to bring us visitors again.
I mentioned this view point to my husband this morning, wondering what he would say, being someone who was born here, but raised in Europe. He simply said to me that there is simply nothing on Earth like waking up in “the bush” and having breakfast while the lions are roaring, or having a Gin and Tonic on “the deck” in the evening while the hyenas are cackling (or hyena-ing, or whatever the hell it is that they do).
So I asked him, if he (as a European) would be willing to travel triple the distance to experience this, and pay a premium to experience it, and he said that he might do it just once, adding that if someone hadn’t experienced it before, they wouldn’t know that it was something that they should do at least once.
Interesting…
Possibly Related Posts:
- You Are the Sunshine of My Life
- I like Blogging
- Advise me oh, thou great re-readers
- Please Stop with the Ex-Pat Bashing
- The Soccer that Almost Wasn’t
This post will probably only be understood by my local blogger buddies, but I’m putting it out there for everyone to read, and you overseas folk are welcome to ask any questions you like.
So…
Has anyone else noticed a shift in public consciousness that is downright frightening? This whole ET thing (thought the man was ridiculous, not surprised by how he met his end) has me very, very, frightened.
Frightened that the more moderate Afrikaners will become more right wing in the wake of this thing. That *he who must not be named* (he who throws journalists out of press conferences) has such a huge following that we are in for very scary times ahead.
Just this morning I was at the local grocery store, and the attitude in the air from the staff was palpable. I jolly nearly left my trolley right where it was and ran for the exit. But I kept it together.
Two of the checkout staff who are usually chatty, friendly and talking at the tops of their voices, eyed me with suspicion, condescension and a very obvious feeling of dislike. I could sense what they were thinking. Like I didn’t deserve to be buying my groceries. Like somehow, my ability to spend R500 on a few things was somehow an insult to their very existence. Like I had cheated them out of something.
It was *horrible*.
I kept trying to tell myself that they’ve probably just had a bad start to the morning, (like me when I haven’t had coffee). But then I thanked the woman who had packed my shopping bags and gave her a big smile, and she just stared at me. A clear F#CK YOU implied by her silence, and expressionless face as she stood back with her arms folded and I loaded the bags into the cart.
I pushed my trolley to the car and the car guards who are usually falling over themselves to earn some money by helping me were just standing around with scornful eyes.
I caught the eye of a security guard near where my car was parked, and said, “Morning!” brightly to him. Only to have him nod curtly at me, where normally his face would have been lit up by a sudden appearance of a bright white crescent moon smile in his dark face, today, nothing.
I drove home, in a roundabout route, something I do when I’m nervous. This morning my house feels flimsy and easily penetrable, not like the metal buildings or fortress that I have in my mind.
Something has shifted.
I do not like it one bit.
This seems vaguely familiar to those of us who lost friends and relatives in Zimbabwe.
God Help Us All.
Possibly Related Posts:
- I like Blogging
- It’s Just a Friggin’ Octopus!
- Catch Up
- Please Stop with the Ex-Pat Bashing
- The Soccer that Almost Wasn’t
So one of those official looking letters turned up in the mail.
“Ugh.” I groaned. Traffic Fine.
I’m a good driver, I keep to the speed limit (since having kids, it’s like I can’t drive any faster).
But occasionally, the traffic cops sit at one of those awkward spots, like when you’re descending a bridge and the road *just* levels out, and they radar trap you when you’re 0.3 km/hr over the speed limit. Okay, maybe a bit more but still, I’m just saying that I am not one of those frequently fined drivers. But I do get one or two every few years, I accept that.
So I filed away the paper work and forgot all about it.
…
Oops. I got another notification in the mail, and I remembered about it. I just thought, ugh, I really don’t want to have to go to the husband about this, I’ll pay it as soon as I have the spare cash lying around.
Filed away *that* piece of paper work and forgot all about it.
Until hubby found the paper yesterday, and had a minor freak out about it.
We can’t just THROW away money like this!
Can’t you be more careful?!
Open your eyes when you’re driving!
Then he calmed down completely and said that it wasn’t a huge amount of money anyway, and that we should just go online and pay for it, so that it doesn’t become a problem later (in SA you get a court summons and really, we don’t need things to go *that* far over a piddly speeding fine).
So off we tootle online to the website listed to pay the fine in question and lo and behold, the photograph pops up, and I click on the ‘enlarge’ button…
Yes, that would be *two* people sitting in that car.
At this point I’d like to point out to my friends who live in countries where you drive on the WRONG side of the road, that in SA we drive on the left, so the driver is the person on the left hand side of this photograph.
Let me zoom in for you…
Sweet Justice.
Possibly Related Posts:
- I like Blogging
- Random Round-up
- Advise me oh, thou great re-readers
- Please Stop with the Ex-Pat Bashing
- Roast Chicken, Shallots, Roast Potatoes and Spinach
Sunday mornings usually involve all four of us piled onto the bed in the master bedroom, Skippy more or less demanding to watch CBeebies, Flipper just kind of hanging out, or usually insisting on a game of ‘Row Row Row your boat’ during which he sits astride the hubby’s chest and ‘rows’ his boat (manipulating hubby’s arms) until the punchline, right after ‘merrily’ and during ‘life is just a…’ and when the word ‘dream’ should be said, it gets changed to loud repeated shouts of “Bronco! Bronco! Bronco!” and then this is when daddy turns from a rowing boat into a wild bucking bronco and tries to throw Flipper off, and onto the bed.
I swear he deserves an Oscar for his performances, because never before has a kid believed he is so at the mercy of the wild bronco, when in reality the bronco is making the crazy ride as safe as possible, the throwing off of the rider is as spectacular as possible, and the landing of the rider on the bed, is completely gentle. It’s so cute.
Sheesh, where was I (mental note, take medication)? Oh yes. Estonia!
So usually on a Sunday morning the hubby and I are tuned into the travel channel (before one of us grumpily agrees to go and make breakfast…), stay with me, I’m getting to the point… SO we caught this programme on Estonia.
I know where Estonia is, because I’m a geographical smartypants, but for those of you lesser mortals who aren’t, here’s a map!
Estonia, is the country that I gave a little orange tint to. Locals are still trying to get it out of their hair.
Here you can see where it is in relation to the UK, where my in-laws live.
So geographically, it’s close enough to enjoy a relatively short flight to visit them, and far away enough to avoid them entirely if protocol ever demanded it.
As an added barrier bonus the sea is too cold to swim the distance, and really it would take far too long to go around Denmark and then down around Sweden, so I don’t have to worry about any unannounced visits from them.
So here’s why I like Estonia:
When the travel channel paid them a visit, a member of parliament came and had a chat with the intrepid traveller-interviewer, and uttered these words (which forever remain etched in my memory, ready to haul out at a moments notice if I ever come face to face with our philandering, polygamist president), “The job of government is not to be popular, the job of government is to deliver.” Only I would change it to, “The job of president is not to produce more voters, single-handedly, but to deliver services needed by everyone else already in the country.”
Image Courtesy of lyng883 on Flickr under a CC licence
Other perks about Estonia that would suit me include:
- Relative proximity to my family in the Netherlands
- English is widely spoken (and they’re part of the EU so we can legally work there without any paperwork hassles)
- Wireless internet is fast, and free in most public areas (hello! Who’s with me!? Who’s already packing their bags!!?)
- The culture is predominantly Scandinavian, and would be totally so, if not for that whole Russian Occupation debacle thing during the cold war.
- The architecture is beautiful (they have pink buildings!)
- Estonia have won the Finnish ‘wife-carrying’ competition (where the winner wins his wifes’ height in beer) for TEN years in a row. Men who can carry their wives *must* be worth checking out…
- Govt infrastructure (Education/healthcare) is good, taxation is low, and the cost of living compared to other parts of Europe and Scandinavia is low.
- Dudes, Sweden is right next door, so a simply ferry boat ride could take me to the largest IKEA store in the world. (happeh!)
Photo by Jurvetson (Flickr)
Though seriously, it’s the govt infrastructure that interests me the most.
Image Courtesy of jumng944 under a Creative Commons Licence
Photo by Chillihead (flickr) under a Creative Commons Licence
Because, yesterday morning, due to a bureaucratic fook up, the municipality decided to turn off our water supply. Which doesn’t sound that inconvenient, unless you want to do things like wash dishes, take a bath, or say, do the laundry.
As it turns out, we dutifully pay our utilities to the rental agency through which we rent our h0use, and they completely neglected to pay the municipality, who then showed up and without bothering to so much as ring the doorbell (they’re supposed to notify you in person) at which point of course I would have thrown a complete hissy fit and insisted they leave it on while they sort out the arrears with the rental agency, and turned off the supply.
As it turns out, the owner of our house, had been neglecting to turn in the bills to the rental agency. This is just typical of South Africa by the way, people are sodding lazy!!!
So at the end of the day, the people actually PAYING THE MONEY are having their services turned off, because of the stupid lazy assed sons o’beeshes who don’t do their jobs properly.
You would think that one swift telephone call would sort it all out right?
Not so.
It turns out that once the bill has been settled, it takes them 24-48 hours to come over and switch the supply back on.
So, the kids got to swim last night instead of take a bath. They loved it.
Me? Not so much. Thank goodness it was like 32 deg centigrade at 6pm last night.
I just checked now and the mofo’s have still not switched it back on.
Have I mentioned before how much I want to leave this place?
I have been very wordy with our rental agency who ultimately I hold responsible for not having paid the municipality in time. The amount from month to month is very similar so even a ‘slightly under’ payment would have at least prevented them turning it off.
This morning she offered to come and take my laundry to go and do it at home.
I was very tempted to say yes.
Grr.
On the upside it also meant getting take-out for dinner so we didn’t have to do the dishes…
Possibly Related Posts:
- You Are the Sunshine of My Life
- I like Blogging
- Please Stop with the Ex-Pat Bashing
- Roast Chicken, Shallots, Roast Potatoes and Spinach
- All About The Moods
Loading ...
Please Stop with the Ex-Pat Bashing
As usual, I’m taking an unpopular viewpoint here, and I welcome any and all comment that folks might have on this situation.
I am so sick to death of folks here indulging in ‘ex-pat bashing’. Now what that is, for those who are unfamiliar with the term, is people who are living in South Africa now, are poking fun at people who have left South Africa for greener pastures and emigrated elsewhere.
Even my favourite radio station this morning was making fun of Saffers living in Australia, saying that they must be so green with envy as they watch the world cup on television.
Let me tell you a couple of things about the World Cup:
What it HAS done:
What the World Cup has NOT done:
They are not sitting around waiting for something to go wrong at the world cup to validate their own decision to leave.
They’re enjoying free healthcare, better varieties of good organic food (that they don’t have to mortgage their houses to afford), and getting on with every day life, as they will be when the world cup has long since finished, and all of South Africa’s problems resurface into mainstream media where they would have been if there was not this ludicrous need to hide the problems away as if they don’t exist, as always and we are left to deal with them quietly.
Already the warm fuzz surrounding the world cup has begun to dissipate.
Yesterday, my moms flags and wing mirror flags were stolen off her car. Her neighbor had 4 armed men break into her house (in a secure complex) and ransack the place (she thought she was going to be raped when they threw her down onto the bed and tied her hands, but thank god she wasn’t), and just this morning I witnessed folks sitting in the back of a taxi, sitting and laughing, or more accurately, repeatedly POINTING and laughing at a white woman who was riding a scooter in the lane next to the taxi. Even my four year old son asked me, “Mommy, why those people are laughing at that lady?”
I’m sick of trying to put a gloss on things and trying to explain them, and I’m sick of those people who think the world cup has been South Africa’s salvation. GROW UP PEOPLE!
Possibly Related Posts: