What I loved about living in South Africa, pt2

Following from my previous two blog posts in this mini-series about my recent decision to leave South Africa, country of my birth, and return to Australia where I had lived for many years... Here is the list of the main things I loved about living in South Africa (again).

The first three are also the reasons we decided to move back there in the first place....

1. Family and friends

Of course. It goes without saying that it’s much nicer to be closer to family and friends and have the opportunity to see them more often. The opportunities I had to reconnect after 10 years living out of the country I grew up in were much treasured, and I have so many happy memories – including our wedding on Noordhoek beach; my best friend from school days flying down to help before my wedding, and again to meet my newborn daughter a year and a half later (this could not have happened if I was still living overseas); my surprise baby shower with family in the Eastern Cape; a Christmas in our rambling Muizenberg house with my in-laws and my mom (closest thing to a real family gathering I have had at Christmas time since I was about 10); and a number of lovely visits back and forth between Cape Town, Durban and the Eastern Cape.

However, as those of you who know the country will have noticed – those are not exactly in close proximity to each other. Cape Town is quite far from the rest of the country, in a sense, and flights within South Africa are very expensive. Bus journeys of about 24 hours or more are almost too horrendous to contemplate, and anyway this eats into the amount of leave or time you have to visit... So. Again, not as many opportunities as I would have liked, to see my now far-flung family. And when I did see them, it was often for just a day, before dashing back to Cape Town. Ahh well, such is modern day life it seems.

     2. Contribution

One can ‘contribute’ anywhere of course – everywhere in the world there is need of some sort. However, in South Africa there are needs right on your doorstep and just around the corner, and on your way to work, and just about everywhere you go. In other words, you have the opportunity to do something every single day, even small, to make a difference in other people’s lives.

In many other countries, the ‘needy’ are so far removed from people’s comfortable lives, their clean and respectable neighbourhoods, that it’s easy to think everyone in the world lives like you do. Those who do give, do so via international charities to ‘those poor people’ (out theeeeeeere somewhere)... Suffering or poverty or inequality don’t even seem real to most people.

In South Africa, much as the privileged would like to deny it, they cannot really truthfully say they do not know about suffering and poverty in their very own city. Which of course means they are responsible to do something about it – if they have any conscience at all, or even just want others to believe they are good people. This sort of challenge to one’s conscience is good – good for our own personal growth, good for the growth of community, good for the people who need help.

I am not saying everyone responds positively to this challenge, but it is at least there, and doing something about it is an immediate possibility. Even small things like giving away from our own excess can be immensely rewarding when people sleeping in your local park will benefit before your very eyes. This is living and giving in true community – being able to give to ‘THESE people’, right HERE. It often demands a lot more of us than giving money in a faceless transaction via an international charity (important too) – but again, soooooooooo good for us to be stretched beyond ourselves, beyond our comfort zones. Daily.

This is one of the things I miss (and yes, feel relieved not having to face daily) as soon as I leave South Africa. No one here in New Zealand has yet approached me to beg, or tried to sell me something I really don’t need, or followed me down the street haggling over this thing I really don’t need... I have not had to cross the street to avoid an awkward conversation with a drunk/ ‘ice’-d up person; and I no longer size everyone up as they approach me, wondering if they might try to mug (or rape) me, and if so can I run faster than them...?

But I also haven’t had any of those beautiful moments that sometimes randomly transpire between you and (after all) just another human being – the car guard, the homeless beggar always at your local station, the public toilet cleaner, whoever... when just a few kind words, or a generous tip, makes a visible difference to their day, their world. And all it cost you was what you would have spent on a cup of coffee... Even better when there is a simple exchange between you and someone from a completely different ‘strata’ of life, yet your shared humanity shines through, and forces you to pay attention to this fact.

3. Afrikaans roots

Ouch. It hurts even to try to write about this. Yes, I am bilingual, and spoke Afrikaans first actually. I grew up in a very sleepy, conservative part of the world – with mostly farmers’ children in my girls-only private (English) boarding school. I was so very happy when we moved away to the coast in my teenage years, to a co-ed school (surfers, what trouble they were!) and a somewhat more liberal community.

Too liberal, I would say in retrospect – wife-swopping and ‘swingers’ parties were some of the favoured local activities... Whereas the Afrikaans family values I had left, and the salt-of-the-earth people in those much-mocked ‘conservative’ communities, are the sort of people I would now prefer to have my child grow up around...

Of course I am very much going out on a limb saying this – since unadulterated ‘liberalism’ is so trendy these days, no one questions the links to our disintegrated family units and the general dysfunction of our society. I am NOT conservative, in general (or to use the Afrikaans term, I am NOT ‘verkrampt’). But I do believe in the ‘old fashioned’ values of commitment, fidelity, modesty, hard work, saving (not wasting, nor living beyond your means), hospitality and being part of a community of faith (accountable, teachable, contributing). 

These are the sort of values my Ouma, amongst others, imparted to me and my cousins along the way – and I see the joy and fruit of these values in their lives already. (Not to say these are not upheld in many other communities and cultures!)

South Africans may not realise this, but there is still a much stronger sense of what is now called ‘family values’ compared with other Westernised countries today. I don’t think many would disagree that this is a result of the strong Christian and mostly Afrikaans roots of the country. However, there are sadly the negative aspects of this, which led to ‘apartheid’ and other obviously undesirable outcomes! 

I just wish people could see there is a LOT more to Afrikaans (and Christian) culture than this. It should go without saying that all Afrikaners/ Christians/ South Africans are NOT racist. And even those that are, are no more so than many Americans/ Australians and others I have encountered worldwide. People are just people. Everywhere.

[For any of my readers who may be feeling quite nauseous by now, just consider for a moment how often everyone has to listen to what you believe - or rather, the long list of what ‘shouldn’t be believed in anymore’... and try to read this, alternative perspective for a change, too.]

Sadly, most of the people I interacted with in Cape Town were English, so I didn’t get to speak as much Afrikaans as I have been yearning for while away. However, Afrikaans music and literature have come such a long way since I grew up in South Africa! No longer just for our parents and grandparents generations – there is a lot of great music now and cutting edge literature, poetry and intellectual commentary (e.g. Antjie Krog – read her poems or critiques of SA if you can, even in English).

I feasted upon all of this – feeding that part of me that simply cannot exist or express itself properly outside of Afrikaans. Bilingual people will understand what I mean...

4. African ‘vibe’

Cape Town doesn’t really feel very African. Go to places like Durban (and Johannesburg, of course, but I am loathe to ever tell anyone to go there!) and you will experience a ‘vibe’ that is hard to explain or define, but undeniably AFRICAN. And I love it. I mean I don’t love it so much when it is the taxi driver trying to kill us on the road with his dreadful driving and aggressiveness; or when it’s the street urchins who would as soon steal your bag as throw a well-meaning sandwich in your face because they want MONEY! But there is that something magical and lively about Africa that gets under your skin, into your blood (hopefully not literally! Watch out for that HIV, that bilharzia, that malaria...)

I won’t carry on too much more about this here, but those who have visited or lived in Africa will know what I mean. Many find returning to other countries a bit ‘vanilla’, a bit dull and sterile, in comparison. I must say, I actually enjoy living in a place where ‘stuff WORKS’ (e.g. public transport, hospitals, local government...); I enjoy safety, a reasonable amount of peace and quiet, and even (god forbid!) cleanliness; I crave European literature, intellectual critique and culture, and love the Scandinavian mindset more than most; but even I really enjoy and miss the chaotic, colourful, crazy African vibe. Sometimes.

5. Beauty

Cape Town, and the rest of the Western Cape, is one of the most beautiful places in the world. It is also one of those rare places where you can live in a city, yet have very easy access to mountains, ocean, forests and winelands – all within the city limits! You can hike, walk, climb, swim, dive, sail... surrounded by breathtaking views at all times. 

It is impossible not to fall in love with Cape Town, or nearby Stellenbosch and Franschhoek, among many other picturesque towns nestled in highly fertile wine and fruit yielding valleys at the feet of yet more majestic mountains... And this is just a small sampling of the variety of beautiful landscapes to be found in the Western Cape, let alone in the rest of South Africa! It really is ‘a world in one country’, as the tourism marketing slogan used to say...

This beauty feeds my soul, my poetry, my writing... It was very, very, very difficult to say goodbye to. There are many other beautiful places in the world of course, but for some reason we humans tend to respond in a deep way to some places – they become our ‘emotional landscapes’ (to use Bjork’s term slightly differently). 

Yet alas, as in any relationship, beauty is not enough. If you were dating a stunningly beautiful woman, who frequently gave you the cold shoulder, wasn’t really interested in getting to know you, blamed you for all the pain inflicted by her previous lovers, chipped away at your self-esteem and identity (sometimes for the sheer fun of it), stole from you, even tried to kill you... You would eventually feel the time had come to break up and go your separate ways.

6. Space

Space! This one is somewhat particular to our situation I think. We lived in a house on the side of the mountain in Muizenberg (a suburb of Cape Town, but slightly removed, on the peninsula) – which meant we had sweeping views across False Bay, with mountains covered with fynbos surrounding us on the other 3 sides. Wonderful. Not over-developed and suffocating as I usually find urban living.

This is especially important to someone like me (I grew up around farms and fields of sunflowers remember!) - and much missed now that we have terribly noisy people living right on top of us, hardly any privacy and the noise of construction nearby all day long. And this in a semi-rural part of New Zealand, 20km out of Auckland!

The ‘space’ I enjoyed in Cape Town was of course the result of the mountains and other natural spaces referred to above, which most cities do not have, or have not preserved. Cape Town has the same greedy property developers and complicit local government as everywhere else; and is overdeveloped in other areas – or underdeveloped, as in the overcrowded ‘informal settlements’; but the mountains form a physical barrier in some places that no one has any choice but to respect!

7. 'Bietjie wyn virrie pyn!’ 

('bit of wine for the pain', a ‘Cape coloured’ saying) 

I cannot tell a lie. I will miss the Western Cape’s ample supply of good quality, affordable wine... a LOT. I have had good wine in Australia and New Zealand, but they are far more expensive... Of course I have also had French and Italian and Californian wines – which everyone raves about. But again, far more expensive.

Honestly, the Western Cape wines are severely underrated. I have no idea why this is. There is such a huge range, and so many world class estates and wines (many consistently winning awards worldwide), so I can’t understand why they are so little known in this part of the world. I especially miss my favourite organic wines, as there is nothing like the range and quality of organic viticulture in Australia or New Zealand yet. Again, I have no idea why?

This is perhaps the most superficial of reasons to miss living in a place, but this is my list, and I think wine (in moderation) is a perfectly legitimate contender in a list of things that make me happy!

And so, in closing, I can only say with the ooooooold Afrikaans song:

“O Kaap, o Kaap, o mooiste Kaap, Jy maak my hart weer baie seer

Jou Ghantang kom mos altyd weer en weer” 

- Waterblommetjies, Laurika Rauch

[Translation really kills this, but it’s along the lines of:

 “Oh Cape, oh beautiful Cape, you make my heart very sore ...with a longing that comes time after time...” 

– see the full song at http://www.laurikarauch.com/?song=waterblommetjies and risk the (dodgy) google translation if you must]