Where is My Handbook?

The process of moving to South Africa was not easy. It was logistically challenging. The visa business was frustrating and caused a lot of angst. However, when I think back to that time, right before we left the USA and came to South Africa, my most prominent emotion was excitement. We were about to embark on a new life and I couldn't wait to get started. We laughed off the delays and challenges. It was all a big adventure.

Leaving South Africa does not feel like an adventure. It feels awful. I would love to put a positive spin on it for you and say something like, "onward and upward" or "change is good" but I can't. What I can say is, "I'm sure it will be fine." That's the best I can do. But I'm not a huge fan of fine. I prefer amazing. 

Intellectually my sadness about leaving makes no sense. How can it be harder to leave a country where I've lived for just over two years than it was to leave a country where I'd lived my entire life? How can it be harder to leave a place where things don't work all that well for a place where everything works? What could possibly be so difficult about going back to America where everyone will understand me when I speak and where I can eat tacos and drink Starbucks with reckless abandon? Not to mention being closer to family and friends.  Side note, what is wrong with me that I listed tacos before mentioning family and friends? 

When we arrived in South Africa, our relocation agent gave us a book called "Living in South Africa." Of course I never actually READ this book, but the point is there WAS A BOOK about newly arrived expat adjustment. So where is the handbook that details best practises for expats trying to depart a place gracefully? Because I have a lot of questions. 

Some of the questions are trivial, yet real. How will I survive without the constant sunshine, palm trees and smiling security guards who greet me every morning and then ask me to buy them a 2 litre Coke and loaf of bread? How will I manage without my clean house and my perfectly ironed and folded clothes made so by the world's kindest and sweetest person? What about the kids that I teach? Will they forget about me after five minutes (answer is yes being that they are eight years old.) Most importantly, how am I supposed to say goodbye to all the people here who I love...my second family, some of whom, if I'm being honest with myself, I may never see again. 

Mr. Deep has gone already. He is in Geneva working on a project for the next few months. While I am here alone for what simultaneously feels like forever and not nearly long enough, he was "ripped out of here."  Maybe that was the way to go? To leave quickly. Maybe I should have gone with him? Maybe I should have insisted on being an excellent wife and standing by my man, literally. I wonder what the non-existent expat departure handbook would have suggested I do?

I have watched other expat friends leave over the years. Some were life long expats and some were not. All were very stoic and said things like, "here's to the next adventure" which leads me to wonder, is that how they really felt? Maybe they were ready to leave and could barely contain their excitement? Maybe South Africa was getting to them and they were tired of trying to find spare change every minute for car guards, constantly sitting in traffic because of broken traffic lights, and having to visit three stores each time they wanted to buy kale? Or maybe it was breaking their hearts to leave and in the privacy of their own homes they cried a lot and got drunk every night under the guise of having to drink all of their South African wine before the movers arrived? It's hard to know. 

The thing about expat life is when it's time to go it's time go whether you want to or not and conversely for some who wish to leave it's not time to go and they have to stay. This is what we all signed on for. I guess if there were an expat departure handbook, that is what it would say. It would be a very short book. 

Good News Bad News

Mr. Deep and I have arrived back in Joburg. Things here are dryer than ever. Only this time it's not due to lack of humidity.

Good News: 
The flights were smooth and we were able to fit all of our luggage in the Uber.  The massive amount of luggage was due to a tremendous amount of shopping while in the U.S.A. Also, many friends made generous donations of items for the less fortunate here in Joburg. We received puzzles and books for the library at the Diepsloot Combined School and donations of goods for the Santa Shoe boxes. We were also given lots of kids clothing that I will find good homes for. 

Bad News: 
There was no water at our house when we got here. Meaning when we turned on the taps nothing came out. 

Worse News:
As I write this over 24 hours later we still have no water. 

Not having water when you return from flying half way around the world is right up there with not having any electricity on Christmas. It's poor timing. The only thing you really want to do after such a long trip is take a shower and unfortunately that was not in the cards for us upon arrival. 

Good News: 
We belong to a gym and we were able to shower there.

When you live in South Africa and you don't have water or electricity you assume there is some kind of outage that affects more than just your house. So I checked with our neighbors is to see if they had water. 

Bad News: 
They said they had water. This is obviously good news for them.

Good News:
Our neighbor kindly offered that we could come over and shower. As mentioned we went to the gym but it is still nice to have good neighbors who offer such things.

Bad News: 
Yesterday was Sunday so getting a technician out to examine the situation was unlikely.

Good News: 
Even though it was Sunday Joburg Water said they would send a technician.

Bad News: 
They didn't.

Similar to the Christmas situation Mr. Deep and I wondered if the lack of water had anything to do with an unpaid invoice. We pay the landlord and she pays the utility BUT sometimes the utility forgets to send out invoices and without an invoice people can't pay in a timely fashion. 

Good News: 
The landlord followed up with Joburg water and was told that they did not shut off the water due to lack of payment. 

Bad News: 
If they had shut off the water they could likely quickly and easily turn it back on. Now, we are left to wonder what exactly is wrong? Why is this problem only affecting our house and how long will it take to fix? 

Good News: 
At 1:00 p.m. (about 26 hours after we arrived home) security called and said Joburg Water was at the gate! I quickly buzzed them in and then went outside to wait for them. 

Bad News: 
Ten minutes went by and no one arrived. I thought maybe they were examining some issue in another part of the complex. But then security called again and said one of the guys in the bakkie (truck) did not have ID on him and therefore Joburg Water was not allowed to enter the grounds. 

I would certainly be willing to put my safety (as well as the safety of everyone else who lives in the estate) aside if the man without ID has knowledge in the art and science of how to get water running again.

Bad News:
Security does not see it that way.

Good News: 
We normally have running water. There are many people who don't. I have to be careful about who I complain about this problem to because I don't want to seem insensitive to those who live in shacks and who NEVER have running water and electricity. 

Bad News: 
We still don't have water. 

Not for Sissies

First, I want to apologize for my use of the word sissy. I am sure it is a derogatory word that should not be used. 

The reason I need to use it is that here there is an actual phrase here, "South Africa. Not for sissies." The first time I heard it was when Gavin, our guide at Madikwe said it.  It means just what you think. That in order to live here you need to be patient, you need to be flexible and you need to be strong. 

In some ways living here is ridiculously and almost embarrassingly easy. Especially for me because I don't work. I will quickly, to avoid annoying you, list the ways that living here is easy. First, to us as Americans it is inexpensive. Housing, food, wine, hotels and many other things cost must less than what we are used to. I am careful not to go on and on about this because to many people who live here the devaluation of the rand is making it more and more difficult to make ends meet, but if you are from America and you come visit, you will be shocked when you order a glass of wine and it costs less than $3.00 USD. Second, it's warm and the sky is almost always blue. And there are palm trees. Even in winter when it was chilly it was nothing like the tundra where we used to live. Third, we live in a nice house. In fact, it's the nicest house I have ever lived in. And someone comes to clean it for me twice a week and someone else comes to work in my yard/garden once a week. If we were living in America these luxuries would not be possible.

I realize that paragraph was irritating. And the good news is that's the end of the cushy life talk and I am instead going to instead focus on the ways that living here is not easy. Living here is challenging in ways that I've never experienced before.

I wrote before about load shedding. That's when the electricity is purposely cut off to save the entire grid from going down. That's hard. But the good news is we haven't had load shedding in a while, over three months. The latest problem though is a severe lack of water. For two weeks Mr. Deep and I had no running water in our house. About 75% of the time absolutely no water came out of the tap at all. Sometimes, there was enough to brush your teeth or hand wash dishes or flush the toilet. But in two weeks there was not enough water to take a shower, do laundry, run the dishwasher or water the yard/garden. While we are having a severe drought, the reason for this situation is we have very old infrastructure in the underground pipes around our neighborhood. This scenario might push some sissies over the edge, but we dealt with it o.k. It was not the end of the world. We showered at the gym and we drank bottled water. Not to say we weren't annoyed but we handled it. 

The other thing that is hard is seeing destitute people every where that you go. South Africa is one of the most economically unequal countries in the world. It is not unusual to see a man in tattered clothing, without shoes, with a bucket hand washing a Mercedes or an Audi that is parked in front a large and beautiful home. It is not unusual, when stopped at an intersection to see people begging in the streets, pointing to their mouths to let you know they are hungry. There are also hundreds of thousands of people who work every day and earn a living yet they are still hungry and many of them live in the kind of place that a lot of us wouldn't want our pets to have to sleep. 

But the saddest thing of all is much more personal. I found out last week that the 2 year old granddaughter of Christine, the woman who works for us, might have kidney cancer. That type of devastating news isn't specific to South Africa. Any family anywhere in the world could receive that horrible information. And many have. But the day that I heard it, when I was sitting in my waterless house, having recently returned from a Christmas party where Diepsloot kids in torn uniforms with missing shirt buttons chose to put the Christmas Happy Meals that we handed out into their school bags, because they might need the food more later than now, that was the day when I had to try really, really hard not to be a sissy.