Why wait so long?

I can't tell you exactly what the situation was at that time regarding the politics of the country, violence, corruption, apathy, etc. but I do recall that I was very keen to get out! However, there were a couple of practical issues as well as personal issues that kept us in South Africa so long. For example: my daughter had just started a 2 year program with an orthodontist to get her teeth straitened. We were contractually bound to pay the guy the full amount for the two year treatment and, and, and. We could probably have gotten out of it but dental work in Australia was much more expensive than here. Furthermore, my wife wanted to spend more time with her Mom (82 years old) as we are the only family she has in SA. She also wanted co-ordinate our leaving with her Namibian sister's sabbatical coming up in 2009 so that her sister could spend a large part of the year with her Mom during the first year that we would be away.

I look back at these reasons and at the currency that has lost about 25% over the 2 years, the downturn in the economy and housing prices, which lead to us losing about another 25% of our house's value and 15%- 20% on our cars, and it was definitely a bad move financially. We should have left the country at the end of 2006. But on the other hand that would have been an insane rush. We have had 6 months to arrange the move and it's getting hectic. Three months would have been crazy. But, some people have done it, so it's not impossible. Since October 2006 many things have happened, especially on the spiritual side of things and I am actually glad that we did not leave then.

None the less, I could not help looking at the past two years and thinking “Why did we not leave then?” The circle from then to now was closed when we attended a church service the other Sunday (5 October). The theme was “Preparation time.” When God is about to do something big in your life He needs to prepare you for it. It was amazing to tie up things mentioned in the sermon to what we had experienced during the past 2 years. One of the scripture texts for the sermon was Ps. 40:1-3 (taken from the Good News Bible):

1 I waited patiently for the Lord's help;
then He listened to me and heard my cry.
2 He pulled me out of the deadly quicksand.
He set me safely on a rock
and made me secure.
3 He taught me to sing a new song,
a song of praise to our God.
Many who see this will take warning
and will put their trust in the Lord.

I had marked this scripture on 20/10/2006. It was the same day that we got the letter from DIMMIA stating that we had been granted the PR visa! Seeing the thick underlines under verses 1 and 2 reminded me of the anguish and detest I had for the situation in the country at that time. Since then I've just grown accustomed to the worsening situation and that is nothing more than the frog in the pan syndrome. Put a frog in a pan of water and slowly heat it up and the frog will not jump. It will eventually cook in the pan, but it will not jump (so I hear). The point is: When you start feeling uncomfortable (and the reasons are right!) then find the opening and jump! Here, almost at the end of our stay in South Africa, God took me back to that day when He opened the door; as if to say: “You wanted to leave back in 2006 but you weren't ready. I needed the past two years to prepare you.” Thank you, my Lord!

This is the end of this saga. I hope to continue this blog from Australia in 2009 when I will be reporting on just how much greener (or not) the grass is on the other side. :-D

So long and thanks for all the fish.
(Doughlas Adams: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy)

How did it come about?

I remember distinctly that during the time of the, now famous September 11 attacks, I was negotiating with a local “head hunter” and practically had a job for an IT contracting company in Sydney. When it came to accepting the offer my wife got cold feet and decided that an English country, far away from her family was not her kind of thing. The next December, at the family Christmas get-together, her sister from Tsumeb, Namibia, announced that they had applied for an Australian visa with the intention to emigrate.

Perhaps there is a bigger picture, a Divine Plan. One that goes back a long time, even before 2001. I recall back in the early 1970's my Dad wanted to move to Australia and farm rabbits. Perhaps that was before the Aussies realized that rabbits were a pest on their continent :-) In the 1940's one of my Dad's brothers ended up in Australia (apparently) when their family was torn apart by the Nazis during the Second World War. Whether any of the above is relevant or indicative, I'm not sure, but I do believe in Divine Plans. The fact that my wife's sister moved to Brisbane in 2004 prepared the way for her (my wife) to eventually agree that we apply for a PR visa (Permanent Residency).

One day, on my way to work, I was listening to Radio Pulpit (in those days they still had an FM frequency, now they've been relegated to AM) and they played an interview with Bruce Wilkinson, author of The Dream Giver. This was my first “Divine encouragement” to go ahead with the application. Based on what Bruce was saying through his book, I really felt it was Ok with God for me to go and look for a better life. Please understand that I was not living a bad life: The Lord was looking after us very well. It was all that I described in days 1 to 3 that I detested. Do yourself a favour and get this little book. It's a true gem! Short and very easy to read.

My wife and I spent a lot of time in prayer about this issue and the greatest milestone was to actually obtain the PR visa. I was not about to pay some company R30 000 to R40 000 to do some paperwork, so I set about handling the application by myself. With the help of some friends (and family) who were already in or on their way to Australia, I tackled the mountain of paper work! The first hurdle was to get a Skills Assessment. This involves (mainly) obtaining letters from your university and employers for the past 10 years detailing your position, responsibilities, duties and achievements at each company. This application came back once with a request for more information. Finally the Skills Assessment came back positive and I was then, and only then, eligible to apply for a PR visa.

The obvious route is Skilled Migration with a points test. I quickly came to realise that, while I would have qualified on the points basis in 2001, I had now aged myself into a new bracket (worth less points) and the requirements had been bumped up by 5 points. This left me short about 10 points. So I started looking at Afrikaans and various other little things to score more points. However, all those doors closed. For example: Proficiency in Afrikaans can count a couple of points but they cannot test it. So you need to prove that your university/college education was conducted in Afrikaans. Although I have a 1978 and 1979 Taalbond exam certificates stating that I am fully bi-lingual it did not help me.

I was getting desperate! Were my dreams to be dashed? My wife would never agree to go on government sponsorship because that would mean the Australian government would place us wherever they wanted; probably in the Kimberly or other similarly deserted place. :-) I was not keen on that idea either. Wading through the 57 pages of Book 6 I eventually stumbled upon a little thing called a Designated Area Sponsored Visa with Assurance of Support. It had a small note that I had to read about 3 times, slap myself and read again and still I doubted it. It simply read: “This category is not points tested.” Freak-out!!! Can you imagine! I was going to Australia again!! What else was required? The usual English competency, Skills Assessment, family member in a designated area, sponsorship by family member, and to crown it all, my wife's sister had moved into one of the designated areas around Brisbane! Fantastic!! All sorted.

Not quite. Closer inspection revealed that the family member living in the designated area has to be direct family as in mother, father, sister or brother. Does in-law qualify? Nope! Well, I could carry on for pages, but it turns out my wife is actually the primary applicant and, because I am the breadwinner, my Skills Assessment was accepted. On 20 October 2006 we got a letter from DIMMIA stating that we had been granted a PR visa. PRAISE THE LORD!!!

It's not all that bad!?

In 1983 I came down to Cape Town from Namibia and was astonished by the beauty. For me it was a dream city! I enjoyed jogging on the contour path at the back of Table Mountain in the forest, I enjoyed the sea and SCUBA diving, I enjoyed the outdoor life, the sun shine (well, in summer; in winter there was none), the fresh air and the excellent infrastructure. I returned to Namibia in 1986, got work, got married, got frustrated in my work. Then my wife and I moved to Cape Town in 1989.

Cape Town is still a fantastic place to be and we enjoyed it very much. However, over time the air has become so polluted that many days you can taste the sulphur in it. There is a very high incidence of allergies and respiratory problems amongst the people living in and around Cape Town, esp. amongst infants and the elderly. Most days there is a thick brown layer over the city, the density/transparency varies but it is almost always there. I always say “It's a nice day in Cape Town when the sun shines and the wind is blowing gale force.” If the wind is still for a day or two you get that thick layer of pollution hanging over the city again. It fills the entire basin from the Paarl mountains in the north to the Gordons Bay mountains in the south. You can't get away from it unless you travel 50 to 100Kms and go over the mountains. Here is a pic I entered for a photo competition at the hight of my disgust at the state of the Cape Town air.

When it is a clear, sunny day, why not take a walk on the world famous Table Mountain? Well, because you are very likely to get mugged there! Even cyclists have been stopped and mugged by people living in the bush on the mountain. Being an amateur photographer, I'd love to walk about Cape Town and photograph the old buildings, the sunsets over the city, the unique people of the Cape, but you dare not walk about with your mobile phone in hand or you are likely to get mugged. What if you take a leisurely stroll with R10 000's worth of hardware hanging around your neck?!!

With news of all the above (this & the previous 2 entries) raining down on you day after day, interviews with security specialists, mates emailing anti-hijacking precautions and target cars of the month, you eventually develop a bunch of preconditioned responses. I have a set drill for when I leave the garage, another drill for when I approach my house and pull into the garage, another for when I drive in town, another for when I approach my car in public parking, another for when I approach a stop street or traffic light, I avoid certain places after dusk (and I'm not talking about back streets and slums!), etc. etc. And so we adapt our life style around the threats we face every day. What we don't realise is that the persistent pressures take their toll, both on our health and our mental well being! Now you can say: “Stefan, you are being paranoid and ridiculous.” You may; my wife does every now and then, but I am not willing to take any chances! Just one violent encounter will change you life forever! I am not willing to take that chance!

To prove the point

Just to prove the point, today (27/10/2008) the two top stories on IOL read:
1)
“Watching his father shot dead in front of him, a teenage boy, his mother and his brother, then watched as armed men ransack their home.”
(http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=13&art_id=vn20081027054922686C276306)

2)
What are the politicians doing about it? They are building their kingdom:
“Changing your allegiance and getting swept up by the momentum of the breakaway ANC faction is something ANC members will regret, says senior party member Cyril Ramaphosa.”
(http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=13&art_id=vn20081027054806718C351601)

What about the people who were brutally murdered this weekend!??! Shouldn't you be more concerned about them than losing your power base?? You are still in power, you know. You can still do something about the situation in this country!! Then it will not matter how many fat-cats desert you, you will win the hearts and the votes of the people!!!

Why? (continued)

Writing the previous piece brought back many more memories; memories that I'd rather not recall! For example, the little girl that was raped and set on fire survived. She is scared over her whole body and suffered severe damage to her internal organs, underwent about 4 operations to try to repair her body and who knows what psychological damage what suffered. That will only become evident in a couple more years and by then there will be another set of violent incidents and political upheaval to capture the attention of the press.

Today (15 October 2008) there was yet another three year old girl found raped, murdered and dumped in the veld.

Current statistics say that there are 2 ATM machines blown up in South Africa every day! There is about one cash van robbery a week. These are always violent. Those people are of the underground, organised and ruthless. Rumour has it that the syndicates are run by Nigerians. Same as the car hi-jacking syndicates. They are usually after hi-demand models but have “a little fun” while they are at it. But not all. One member of our house church survived an attempted hi-jacking by your regular Cape Town locals.

Every year the Police publish statistics that show that crime is on the decline. That may be so, but the levels are still unacceptably high! I deleted the latest crime statistics document in preparation for leaving the past behind me, but you can get hold of it on the web if you really want to check the figures. One comment I heard on the radio was that the average police inspector in SA has about 100 cases on his/her desk at any given time. In the UK there are 3 inspectors to a case and they deal with at most 3 cases at a time. The issue is that the police here are out numbered, out gunned, underpaid and powerless. Even if they wanted to they are not able cope with the situation. Until a short while ago our wonderfully liberal constitution protected the individual's rights to such a degree that the police were not permitted to stop a person in the street and ask to see what was in the black plastic bag they were carrying. This just opened up the door for the casual burglar to break in, grab a bag of stuff and walk out of the house. If he was not caught inside the house he was untouchable. The other thing of course was that the moment you shot anyone, even a burglar in your own house, holding a gun to you wife's head, it was standard procedure to charge you with murder. You may eventually be acquitted on self-defence, but boy they will first drag you through hell.

Conviction rates in SA for murder are 12.5% (www.news24.com). “South Africa has one of the highest crime rates in the world and one of the lowest conviction rates” (www.usaid.gov/sa/uss01.html).

To compound the situation on the ground (paragraph above), the politicians are either too corrupt or too busy building their own kingdoms and lining their own pockets to pay attention to the problems of the country. I'm not sure how it works in civilized countries but here politicians don't deal with traffic and transport issues (btw. Public transport is mostly unreliable and in some cases fatal: many a person has been robbed and thrown off a moving train; in case you were wondering, you die when you hit the ground at 60-70Km/h). The politicians just put on their sirens and scream down the shoulder of the highway or between the lanes and the public just have to make way. There is no political will to address the problems of the country. I take my hat off to some of the politicians, for example the Minister of Finance, Mr Trevor Manual, the Cape Town Mayor and Leader of the Democratic Alliance and, of course, ex-president Nelson Mandela. There are many other issues which I did not even mention (like the power crisis, entirely brought on by lack of maintenance and planning on the part of those running the utility and those in government, who, in the hight of the blackouts, gave themselves millions of Rands in bonuses!). If you live in South Africa you have your own list, I'm sure. If you don't, then just google “crime south africa” or open up www.iol.co.za or www.news24.com and on any given day you'll read about a number of the issues mentioned above.

For the sake of those who stay behind, those who still have hope for the country, and there are plenty such people, thank goodness) I sincerely hope that the end of the “honeymoon” period of the New South Africa will bring an earnest focus of attention and resources to effectively address these problems, but I'm not gonna wait around for it to happen.

People often say to me “What was it that pushed you over the edge?” About 4 years ago I was at work and my wife called, her voice thick with panic. She said “We've been burgled!” That brought the reality of the situation in SA home to stay. For years after that I was highly suspect of anyone walking around the streets in the residential area. You feel violated and nauseous when you think strangers can just break the window, bend away the burglar bars, enter your house and take what they want. To this day I go cold when my mobile rings and I see it's my wife calling. The next scare was when they started inducing some or other gas through the bedroom windows at night to knock the occupants out. Many a house was totally cleaned out while the occupants were blissfully asleep and unaware. I consider them lucky because if you woke up and confronted them there was a good chance you would be killed.

Later a small business owner a block down the street from us was shot in the leg and stomach. He obviously fell to the ground but the gun jammed when they put it to his head. By then the neighbours started coming out to see what the shooting was about and the robbers sped away with a couple of thousand rand. In another incident a nurse three houses away from us came home one morning from night shift and was held at knife point. Two men broke in, caught her, ransacked the house and found ATM cards and warned her not to give them the wrong pin numbers else they would kill her. So while the one went to empty out the family's accounts, the other held the woman hostage.

More recently our neighbour diagonally across the street from us had his van torched one night. We awoke around 00H45 to shouting in the street, an eerie yellow light and sounds of glass crashing and explosions. I got up and looked out the window to see the car engulfed in an inferno, flames liking the roof of the house. About 15 minutes later the fire brigade arrived and put out the fire. It's very effective, that machine, I must say. But the car was totally gutted and the outside wall of the house was black, the window shattered and the house full of black soot.

The final incident close to home was when I heard of an armed cash van that was robbed a block away from our house, so I called my wife to warn her to stay away. She said she knows about it, she and the kids were driving down that same road on their way home minutes after it occurred. Two bystanders were shot, not fatally as far as I know.

These are the incidents that fed my resolution and determination to get out of the country. You have got to ask yourself whether this is the kind of environment you want your children to grow up in. If you feel happy that you can shield them from what's going on around them then fine. What about competing for a place at university? What about fair competition for jobs? What about a non-biased foundation for their lives ahead? If you reckon it's pretty much the same in SA as anywhere else in the world, the fine. As for me, I visited Australia and saw that life was SO much better over there. One cannot imagine that a civilized country can be so different if one has not experienced it oneself! Yes, Australia also has paedophiles and murderers and corrupt politicians, but over there crimes are followed by public outcry, full scale manhunts and merciless prosecution!

When I was a kid we used to play “cow-boys & crooks,” imitating the western movies we saw in the drive-in. When my kids were around 5 years old (10 years ago) they played “Burglary & Kidnapping.” That is just too close to reality for comfort!

Why?

My family and I are leaving the country in about 90 days time (11 Jan. 2009)! Isn't it a bit late to ask this question now? :-)

Well, it's not that I am only asking myself this question now, but rather that I am feeling pressed to document my reasons. Perhaps someone will benefit from it. Perhaps, when times are really tough and all I can remember are the “good old days” I will be able to remind myself of why I left South Africa in the first place.

Every day, for years on end, you heard (and continue to hear) the following on the radio, TV, newspapers, local news web sites: Affirmative Action; murders; rapes; abortions; Black Empowerment; robberies; car hi-jackings; violent assault; children abducted from schools; children abducted from street in front of home; people murdered for mobile phones; 3 year old girls raped and set on fire or murdered; mutilated bodies of young children found in bush; drivers killed by rocks hurled at them on the highway; etc. etc.

Over time the following was added: corrupt government officials; corrupt police officials; corrupt vice president; Chief of Police good friend of head of organised crime; 10's of babies died in public hospitals; Nurse fired for public condemnation of pathetic conditions at public hospitals; Presidency applied pressure to get Minister of Health replacement liver; ATMs blown up for cash; continued violent hi-jackings; school boy stabbed with scissors; latest crime stats show crime is down; policeman murdered off duty; policeman murders entire family and then self; robbers steal luxury cars, ram armoured cash van, open fire on bystanders and get away with all the cash; woman raped daily; school violence highest in SA; another policeman commits suicide; district magistrates strike for better pay and working conditions; magistrate declares she is tired and closes court; policeman is dismissed for arresting allegedly drunken judge at accident scene; allegedly drunken judge drive car through residential home's wall; allegedly drunk Provincial Head of Police crashes car into wall at high speed (has firearms in boot); Public pays millions for Provincial Head of Police's court case; etc. etc.

Yeah, you can't say life is not interesting in SA! All through the above violent crimes increase and get closer to home while Police release stats proving crime rates are dropping and they are winning the battle. But just today (16 October 2008) IOL had the following: “South Africa's 'skyrocketing' violent crime rate and lack of vital policing skills is forcing police management to rethink their crime-fighting and training strategies. It's not getting any better!

I got this email the other day:

Can you imagine working for a company that has a little more than 500 employees and has the following statistics:

29 have been accused of spousal abuse
7 have been arrested for fraud
19 have been accused of writing bad cheques
117 have directly or indirectly bankrupted at least 2 businesses
3 have done time for assault
71 cannot get a credit card due to bad credit
14 have been arrested on drug-related charges
8 have been arrested for shoplifting
21 are currently defendants in lawsuits
84 have been arrested for drunk driving in the last year
373 in total or approximately 70%

Can you guess which organization this is?

Give up yet?

its the 535 members of the SOUTH AFRICAN PARLIAMENT -

(The same group that cranks out hundreds of new laws each year

designed to keep the rest of us in line!)

One can only handle so many babies being abducted and found days or weeks later in the veld with their genitals cut off, because you know the perpetrators are “witch doctors” who use the body parts in their dark rituals. One can only handle so many 3 year old girls being abducted and brutally raped, because you know the same witch doctors tell their patients that if they have intercourse with a virgin they will be cured of AIDS, the younger the better. One can only hear of so many violent car hi-jackings and burglaries before your stomach turns and you say enough is enough.

I distinctly recall five brutal incidents: The first, shortly after 1994, involved a woman on a Cape Town beach who was gang raped, had her her throat and tummy slit open. Hours later she regained conciousness and, holding her intestines with one hand and her head up by her hair with the other, she struggled along to find help.

In another incident the father of a family had holes drilled into his legs with his Black & Decker.

In another the family was tied up in one room and the burglars took the, I think 12 year old, daughter and repeatedly raped her in another room. The family heard her screams time and again. If I recall her brother, younger than her eventually jumped up and rushed to her aid but was shot dead. Last I heard the girl was in a psychiatric hospital, so traumatised she just sat there silently staring at nothing, like a vegetable.

Yet another incident was where a woman was pinned down and tortured by repeatedly throwing boiling water on her back over a period of 3 hours. They insisted she had weapons and money and wanted to know where it was. This woman died a couple of days later of the burn wounds.

The last incident was when a couple of men went from house to house in Gordon's Bay breaking into houses, raping women and killing people as they went. Survivors said they spent hours at a time in each house terrorising the occupants.

Excuse me, I have to go now, I'm sick to my stomach...