The reality of living in South Africa

I'm off to South Africa in just under two weeks to volunteer with Santa Shoebox, collecting and distributing 10,000 Christmas gifts to vulnerable and disadvantaged children in Pretoria and surrounding areas and to support The Viva Foundation and to visit my friends that I made in the 4 years we lived there.

When I’ve been on holiday in tourist spots in South Africa where you’re likely to meet other foreigners, I rarely struck a conversation with anyone else because all they want to do is tell me how dangerous the country was, what they thought of it and ask my opinion on Oscar Pistorius and Nelson Mandela when I told them I actually lived there. The same applied when I went home to the UK.

When I was going about my daily business in Centurion, Pretoria paying a bill with my South African bank card, doing the weekly food shop or in the post office trying to retrieve my post that South Africans would say ‘what? you live here? you’re English? Followed by how much they want to go and live in the UK and why they think I’m mad to want to live there.

I was asked all the time to compare the two countries and every time I'd answer without fail, that South Africa is by far the nicer country and when asked why, I tell them there is more space, people are friendly, it’s more relaxed and the quality of life here is better than the UK. Of course there is limited access to education, housing and free health care is very basic and not available everywhere and of course gun crimes and the risk of hijacking are high.

Their response is ‘but England is a better place to live, you earn more, cars are cheaper.’ But people don’t realise just how high the cost of living is in the UK compared to here. We are paid in Rand, so don’t benefit from the current exchange rate with the UK, in fact we struggled as we had to send money back for our son’s education and for our house over there.

The perceptions of the opposite country are the same.

To give you an idea of the major differences between the UK and South Africa consider this.

If I drove East from Kent for 6 hours, I'd pass through 4 countries to Germany. If I drove East from Centurion I'd just about reach the coast and Durban.

A 5 hour drive North of Centurion I reach the bottom left hand corner of Kruger National Park that is the same size as Wales. A 5 hour drive north of Malvern where we lived in the UK, I'd probably run out of land to drive on.

If I flew south for 2 hours I'd reach Cape Town. If I flew south for 2 hours from the UK, I’d be in Spain.

There are 52 million people living in South Africa.

There are 62 million people living in the UK.

We’d been victims of crime in South Africa, we’d been victims of crime in the UK.

We’d driven 1000’s of kilometers in South Africa and were stopped many times in routine roadblocks, We were never asked for money from the police.

We have friends who have been hijacked, robbed and held at gun point in South Africa, that is the only part of South Africa, that scared us and we were vigilant every day, everywhere we went.

£10 is equivialnt to R210 with the current exchange rate. R100 goes further in SA than £10 does in the UK.

R100 would buy me lunch, a coffee and a packet of cigarettes.

It costs more to buy a car in SA, because people don’t change them for new plates and labour is cheaper so it’s cheaper to keep an older car going than it is to replace one. Road tax costs R250 a year. In the UK it costs £400 for the same car, a Jeep. Fuel costs were the same, but remember how much further your Rand goes in SA than the £ back in the UK.

When I visited the UK I avoided eating out, as it was so expensive compared to SA, but I could use public transport, there just isn’t any available in SA.

South Africa was my home. I no longer converted the money for our benefit, just for our visitors and the people I bump into when I’m going about my daily business. We discussed the political differences, they were shocked when I told them that in the UK people are sent to jail for not sending their children to school, when they’re crying out for education in SA.

We left SA in December 2014 as new changes to the laws in regards to foreigners were informed. We now live in Dubai and then we'll move back to the UK in a few years. I have blue skies in Dubai, but I won’t have the space that I crave when I’m not in SA.

I can't even begin to compare Dubai to South Africa, I can't tell you where I prefer to live or why. I left a little part of my heart in South Africa that I will never leave behind in Dubai. We fell in love with SA over time and it was a shock to move as quickly as we did, although we had more of an idea over a longer period that we were leaving SA than we did moving there in the first place.

Stolen? Mislaid? Why should we pay extra for our security?

Missing and disappearing things

It seems to be an accepted fact that things go missing in South Africa. I suppose really I should say stolen...but then I don’t have any proof of that, unless of course the one time my lap top and camera ‘disappeared’ from hubbies suit case as he left OR Tambo airport, Johannesburg or the monthly occurrences of envelopes arriving but open and contents missing, including the actual letter.

When I check in at OR Tambo airport I'm asked the usual security questions 'did you pack your own bag, etc?' and then no matter who I'm flying with the airline staff say ’we know stuff will be stolen from your bag, so we suggest you get your bag wrapped at the cost of 60 Rand per bag.

This really annoys me. The airlines know there is a chance items will be stolen for your suitcase as it travels to the plane, the airport must be aware this goes on or they wouldn't allow bag wrappers to operate inside the airport.

WTF? I’m already paying for a service, why should I have to then pay extra to stop my stuff being stolen? I don't have to pay more to leave the UK or Dubai (my frequent destinations)

There is only one solution and that's to employ better security, more CCTV and in the meantime I'd like to see the airlines increase the hand luggage allowance because as an expat, I fly frequently and have to carry documents, electronic equipment back and forth and as I can't put ANY of it in my checked in luggage, I have to carry it all on my person and I'd like to travel lighter, especially long haul flights.


Then there is the ‘lost’ post...it arrives, a slip is sent you collect your parcels and packages...easy peasy, except the slips don’t arrive and the parcels are returned to sender.
Except the parcels never reach the sender and the t-shirt and cap I sent which I declared on the customs form and the three cards I wrote (probably looked like birthday cards with money in them) never reached their destination.


You can't just pay for a stamp you pay to have everything sent with a tracking order, which can add up to 50 Rand on a letter and at least double the value of the gift and then you try tracking your tracking order and if it goes missing good luck getting a reply from the post office.
It's the same for post coming into the country. Why aren’t family and friends told by the UK postal service when they send a gift to South Africa that I have to pay a customs fee if it ever arrives? Why doesn’t the UK Postal Service advise all customers that when sending post to South Africa they should do it by recorded delivery so there is a tracking number so if the slip never arrives I can at least still collect the parcel, once I’ve paid customs clearance?


And why should we all pay twice? Is there anywhere else in the world where so much stuff goes ‘missing’?


I personally think the post office and the airport should tackle the issue head on and stop taking my money twice.