The Locals Impressions

I want to start by saying that I am so Proudly South African, and that we must never stop being the friendly, warm, wild and welcoming people that we are. 

I was chatting to a young girl at the bus stop last week, she was raised here, and as we were talking about what she wants to do now, she began telling me how she wanted to go and study in Germany. She said that this country is too quiet, too conservative and too closed minded - she wanted to get out. When she heard where we were from, her jaw dropped and she could not believe that we would leave there, no matter for how long, to come here. She literally was speechless and it is one of her "bucket-list things" to visit our home city. It was strange to hear a local say that they struggle to make conversation with other locals because everyone is so reserved - this in contrast, she says, to Germans who will be welcoming and easily strike up a conversation.

We went into a shop to buy pre-paid sim and a young girl came and tried to promote a product with us in French. We told her that we had just arrived and only spoke English. She was very helpful anyway, and as we were talking, My Man asked about English channels on TV, to which her reply was "if you live here, you learn to speak the language". Of course she is right, and I said to her that we will, but give us a chance! I don't think she understood that part - but the sting was there in her comment.

Interestingly she didn't speak the local language either!

In another chat with a local guy, our age, he also said that this nation is quiet and reserved. He made no apologies for it, and why should he have to, it is their culture. We must be such a rude shock to this neighbourhood, where they are conservative and softly spoken - we are loud and gesture wildly. 

Everything is quiet. I swear even the cars and buses are quiet! 

Maybe God is trying to get me to be quiet?

I can't say I am not enjoying it though - I really am.

Enjoying our wine and the backs of lots of people watching some performance in the Square.

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Not big on "Goodbyes"

Had to stick My "Little" Girl on a plane today and send her home.

Her "holiday" time with us here has come to an end. I know that she was ready to go home, she is missing her BF and her friends, and her life. Knowing that she was ready to go home made it easier to say Goodbye. I must confess that I thought I kept it together pretty well at the airport, but when I could no longer see her I couldn't help having a little cry, and another little cry when we saw her bus taxi-ing to the plane, and another little cry when her plane took off...

... and another little cry as I am writing this.

We waited at the airport until she took off and I wouldn't leave until I could no longer see the plane.  After that we promptly found a bus back to the city, did some early morning shopping, and came home. The dogs were happy that we were back. I think the suitcases and strange activity yesterday freaked them out a little.

Now, I just have to keep busy until I know that she has arrived, is safely with her friends at home, and I know there will be lots of noise and hijinx.

I am going to miss her but am so thankful for the time we did have here before she left.  I wish we could have given her more of a "holiday" - so much of her time with us was admin-ish, and we were able to do very little in terms of spoiling her (or us) at the moment, but anyway, it's nice to know that if we talk about places / sights / house etc, she knows exactly what we are talking about now.

Anyway - we are off to find something to keep ourselves occupied with for a few hours.

This has been a tough morning.

How not to introduce yourself to the neighbourhood...

Last night we had friends over for supper. (I was so chuffed because I managed to find not one, but two bottles of Mrs Balls chutney, which my dinner REALLY needed.)  

The weather was gorgeous and we moved our couch onto the balcony with our two newly acquired "very basic" chairs and there we sat until well after midnight.  If you had ANY idea how quiet this area is, you would understand that even our talking would have reached the periphery of the valley, never mind the laughing and joking. I am sure that the neighbours were not thoroughly impressed with the late-night noise.  (That is if anyone actually lives here?!)

Then this afternoon we headed back from the city after a few hours of walking around, a glass of wine, and watching some of the Summer in the City festivities. Walking up the hill I mentioned that there were now two dogs in a garden that we usually walk past that usually had just one. At which point My Girl pointed out that they were OUR dogs!  

My Man promptly climbed over their fence, and proceeded to pass first Tigger to me, then Jack, and we marched them up the hill toward home. On the up side to that, at least we now KNOW that people do LIVE here. A young man popped out of a house, he was really pleasant and told us that the dogs were actually in the road. It's a miracle that they survived since we live on a very busy main road. How they even got into the garden we found them in, is miraculous. A lady walking down the road said that she had kept an eye on them and given them water. She was really kind and concerned.

I guess that's one way to meet someone.  Not the best introduction to our new neighbourhood - but hey, I think even God was desperate for us to meet someone!

Now, the fence is fixed where they managed to escape from, we have a cup of tea and are half-watching the first soccer match of the season from our balcony.

* * * 

Settling In

We have been here 8 days. It feels longer because of everything we have achieved in that time. We have not had time to act like a tourist other than a very brief 3-hours on Day 2.

So far we have:

• Registered in our village as residents
• Received our temporary papers (which means I can work now too)
• Moved into our home
• Put up a fence
• Found the correct bus routes from home to the city
• Opened a bank account
• Applied for internet at home
• Got a Cell phone no.
• Have a Mobile Wifi for home (until internet is installed)
• Welcomed our dogs (last night)

The language thing is still fun. Some days I understand a bit of what is being said, and others ... not so much and we have great fun playing charades!

Shopping is another adventure.  For all I know I am washing my hair with dog shampoo...  (Don't say what you are thinking!!!)    There are vegetables I have never seen before.

We were laughing about this last night, saying it was like being newly married. We have to build up our food cupboard - things like spices, tomato sauce, mayo etc, you kind of take for granted that you will always have them... try suddenly cooking something that you have bought all the ingredients for, to suddenly realise that you don't have SALT!  Yip, we lived with no salt for about 5 days.

Until we get the car, we have to take a bus to the nearest shop.... you can't just walk there. Even though its not far, about 1km, its through a part of a narrow winding forest road with no pavements - so its impossible to walk there.  The result is that if you forget to buy something, you go without until your next trip, you can't just pop back to the shop.

We have also met stinging nettles. Well, My Girl met them first, and a day or two later, while busy with the fence, My Man had an epic encounter. Apparently not much fun at all - so I have decided to avoid them at all costs. 

Our furniture has not even started the journey here yet - disappointing, but there is nothing we can do about that. We have bought 2 beds, a couch and a cupboard and that is pretty much what we have in this rambling house at the moment.  It echoes like crazy and all of our voices seem to be magnified hugely!  

The agent that I was corresponding with, and his wife and son, have been amazing and helped us with so many things and I think, (I hope) are becoming friends. They popped over on our 2nd night in the house, bringing with them meat, a braai, champagne, cutlery, plates, and great senses of humour, and we sat on the balcony, braaiing and chatting till almost midnight.  He is a local and she is from Cpt - it was such a lovely evening and good to be able to have company so soon in the move.

The next step is to paint. The house is not in great nick inside with lots of holes in the walls and grubby patches everywhere.  So I figure that the best thing to do while waiting for furniture is to paint the most used areas and get it ready for when our stuff does come.  So that is on my agenda for when My Girl goes home.

There is SO much going on, I wish I had blogged more beforehand, because I feel as though I am leaving tons of stuff out.... but so far, it's been pretty amazing and I am so thankful for the opportunity for us to live this adventure!

It's a Dogs Life

How much smoother this move would be if we didn't have dogs...

How much smoother it would be if we didn't feel that we really WANT our dogs there.

You would never have heard that last sentence come out of my mouth 5 years ago. If anyone had suggested spending the amount of money it's costing to get the dogs there, I would have laughed at them and told them they were daft. They are providing us with HUGE challenges since it seems that no-one there wants people to have pets in a rented house, and if they say "Pets Allowed" - suddenly it's only a "mini-pet"....

Truth is, our dogs are "home" for me now, and while we are away, and My Girl is not home, and My Man is at work, they are my company often - I can't imagine them not being there. I love them. They have their own characters and quirks, and they are our "kids".

We have pretty much run out of options for houses to rent there. We basically have ONE house left as an option. It's been there a while, and we have avoided it because frankly, it's been there so long - I am wondering what is wrong with it!

We have an agent there who has been - honestly - an angel. He is going to look at it for us this afternoon. I don't know what we would have done without him.  Funny story, we started speaking to him there in February about property, and it turns out he is married to a Capetonian lady, and we got together when they were here on holiday and had supper together... How amazing is that? Such cool people!

Annnyywaaayyyyy.....Too late to make a long story short - I know He knows what we need as a family, so I need to breathe and clean cupboards.

"It will all be alright in the end, and if it's not alright, it's not the end!"

Hitting Home Time

I've known at arm's length for ages that it was coming, but last night it hit me. Hard.

I suddenly realised that in exactly one month's time we will no longer be in our house, in our city, in our country or even on our continent.

It was as though a fog descended on my thoughts. "What the heck are we doing! I am terrified. Is this a mistake?"

I don't know if I am the only person that this happens to, but the middle of the night is not the time to start thinking like this. The enemy seems to love to take a small thought like that and drag up every mistake you've ever made and replay them to you. This makes the night long and miserable.

Eventually I just had to sit up a bit, open my eyes, give myself a good talking to and remind myself of precisely how present God has been in this whole event and that even the Main Manne in Scripture who were asked to move must have felt scared at some level, whether physically or emotionally - the fact that they were scared didn't mean that God didn't lead them, nor did it mean they didn't trust him, and nor did it mean that what they were doing, was a mistake.

As a friend said to me the other day "Fortune favours the brave" - I need to be brave this month.

I think being a little scared is probably human, and if I wasn't a little scared..... maybe that would be more worrying.

As scared as I am, I am completely at peace that this is not a mistake but a gift - a gift from One that knows how often we have dreamed of doing this and who is kind enough to help us do it.

Yes. Scary.
But good.

Cool Runnings....Peace be the Journey.

Funny Mom Memory

I was driving with my mom along the highway this afternoon and the raining was pouring down.  I had this flashback to when I was probably about 9 and we were driving along the same highway, my mom and the then 3 kids, and it was also pouring with rain but her windscreen wipers decided to pack up en route.

I reminded her of this while driving this afternoon and commented that I remembered how scary that was and that she had reassured us that she could see fine and that we were not to worry.  

After telling her the story today, she laughed and said she vaguely remembers and she was pretty scared herself.

*****

In 2005, My Man, My Girl and I went to Europe for the first time and My Girl was about 11. Due to a bit of a planning glitch we ended up in Alicante later than we expected and couldn't get to Calpe by train as planned. We had to find a taxi driver to take us. He spoke no English and we spoke no Spanish. After vigorously pointing at maps we got into the taxi and off we went. Driving on the wrong side of the road (to us), at a million miles an hour (it seemed), during some festival, my daughter sitting next to me asked anxiously "Are we going to the right place? Does he know where to go?" I reassured her that he lived there and knew exactly where we needed to go and that everything would be absolutely fine.

At the same time I was busy sms'ing my mom back home "Mom, I don't have clue where we are and if this bloke even knows where to take us and he drives like a lunatic!"  Within a minute I had received an sms back from Mom saying: "It's going to be fine Lis, he knows the place. These are the stories that make great memories one day. Don't worry about it, everything is going to be fine!"

It was fine and it did make for a great memory.

PS. I have to add that My Man, as always, took everything in his stride and wasn't in the least bit concerned about anything.