The grass is greener where you water it

We have no grass left on our lawn, tufts of green grow in the soil where the guttering drips but the remainder of the lawn is a brown grey mass of dead grass on sand.  It has been like this since we moved to Paarl in January.  It has been said that Cape Town and it’s surrounds have been experiencing their worst drought in over a hundred years. 

It is now over 3 years since we arrived on South African shores and in that time we have experienced load shedding and rolling power cuts due to limited electricity.  The water restrictions on us now of 100L per day per person make me realise once again how much we in the first world take for granted.

As a New Zealand girl, it is the lush green grass that I miss the most.

We came here for 2 years but with an open mind into staying longer. The decision to keep it open was a conscious one from the start.  We wanted to become locals and you can’t do that if you and everyone else knows that your time in a place is temporary.

So we have lived year by year, invested in friends and churches, become locals, brought furniture, hardly talked of home and instead watered the grass in our new home and tentatively put down roots. And make no mistake, we have lived a good life, we have no complaints about life in the winelands of South Africa.

But in the end it was me who had to put the stake in the sand and announce that come January 2018 we will be back in New Zealand.  It turns out I am no good at fluid timelines. I am no good at the unknown.

To be honest, 3, going on 4 years, I am more scared about our roots here going too deep. Anxious that our 3 young saplings will be permanently damaged by us pulling them up and replanting.  They were so young when we left that they didn’t really have a cultural identity as New Zealanders.  In South Africa, love it as we may, we have been foreigners, visitors to this continent. Studying the history of this country as made me even more aware that we aren't part of it. So when I realised that our children didn’t know the words to either country’s national anthem it dawned on me that we couldn’t continue being lily pads floating between two lands. We needed to pick. Either start raising our kids as South Africans or return home.

Home, such a tiny word that holds so much emotion.

And it’s so true that saying of “the grass is greener where you water it” because as soon as that decision was made, we stopped watering here (hiding behind drought restrictions but knowing that we had stopped investing in our hearts too.) I stopped buying furniture, stopped actively making new friends, stopped caring about the politics and problems in our adopted land because hey “not my monkeys, not my circus.” And as a result New Zealand started looking really good. The answer to a lot of problems, free schooling, free medical care, fast internet, being back among family, no water restrictions, lush green grass…..you get the picture.

South Africa has been beyond amazing for our family.  Surprisingly these 3 years have been some of the best years of our marriage. I guess it has something to do with walking an adventure together.  Marcus thrives in his work and I’ve been so lucky to live the life of a stay at home mum with the added luxury of home help. Ekkk I’m going to miss that.  

This country is stunning and colourful and diverse and full of people that love this land passionately.  I have learnt patience, and the skill of slowing down. I have learnt to let go of the small things and those that you can’t control.  I have experienced generous hospitality from friends and strangers. I have sampled staying in luxury lodges and dined like royalty. I have stood in a line of 10 people all speaking different languages, having distinctive different cultures but united in being South Africans. I have been awed by nature, the wild animals and the landscape. I have been forever challenged with what are needs versus wants watching how many people survive in extreme poverty. I have witnessed the frailty of life and as such to treat each day as it is your last. I learnt that a history of a land is complicated (so much more than I ever imagined)and decisions made decades even centuries ago have major repercussions through generations.  I have redefined my previous definition of poverty. I have enjoyed hot days around the pool and summers that last for 5 long months. I love this country and its people.  But it is not my home, and I ache for that feeling of belonging again. Of being a part of a country’s problems and solutions and not as an outsider looking in.

And while our kids are still in their childhood, I want our kids to learn Te Reo Maori to compliment their Afrikaans. I want our boys to learn a haka. I want for them to get as excited about finding a feijoa tree as I did. I want for them to run barefoot through long grass and not to have to worry about snakes.  I want for them to be able to bike to their grandparent’s house and have school holidays with their cousins.

And if it’s not too much to ask, I want them to do all this while munching on biltong and reminiscing with each other and our wonderful South African friends who come visit.

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