white flag

[nola74]

Well, well, well

I really opened a hornets nest. Jaybang lets not resort to name calling!! This debate has been very entertaining. SB-Angel thank you for your facts and figures and depressing as they might me. My parents still live in South Africa and I pray for them everyday. I want to come back home cause I am really homesick but I have just been reminded why I left. I have become really independant for the past five years and if I had to look over my shoulder ever second it would drive me nuts. This makes me very sad because I will never by an American always a Durban beach bum at heart.

[karl_uk]

Realty Check

Most of us have fond memories of things done when young and we can never get back to that place no matter what country we are in.

Be thankful you are in the US where you and you children can have a bright future.

[Jaybang]

Nola you are right, there is no need for name calling sorry.

Other then that, I am counting the days till i get home, 21 to go, then it will be surf, sun and family!!

At the end of the day, you live where your heart is, you live where you are happy. If south africa doesnt feel like a place you can live happily in, then you have done the best thing for yourself by leaving.

I know so many people living in South Africa who would never leave, I know so many people who have left and who have returned home, and they are loving it, so i guess you just have to do what feels right for you, and then be happy with your choice.

[Jaybang]

I’ve traveled around the world on my own for 10 years, and I would hate to think of the amazing places I would have missed out on had I been deterred by the instability or crime of some of those countries.

[karl_uk]

Many that "Love" SA do so as what else can they do.....? Many would love to leave but have neither the means nor the will power......

Like you I have travelled to many parts of the world and found many to be far more beautiful than SA.

There will always be a special place for the place you grew up in but there are many more specials places out there waiting for you that are safer and that have more opportunity for you and your family.

[nola74]

Howzit guys,

Thanks for the replies, Jaybay you right about home is where the heart is. I came here when i was 25 as a journey of self discovery. What a journey it has been. I believed in the white picket fence and the American dream.
But I have realised the grass was not greener on the other side and everywhere in the world has some sort of "problem" And basically scuse the comparison "everybody sits on the loo the same way"

[Jaybang]

Nola,

I hear ya, and i agree with you. Everyone has a different reason for leaving, and we all have our own reasons for coming home.

I left home ten years ago, not because my grandmother or 3 yr old niece was raped, or because of the political instabiltity, or because i was a racist who feared how things would proceed in the future.. I left simply to travel, to see the world, to know what was out there for myself.

I always thought I would travel the world and meat some girl and fall in love, and I thought that where ever the girl was from that I fell in love with, I could adapt to live there, not for any other reason then for love itself.. and yes I have fallen in and out of love and it just so happens that after 10 yrs, Im single and free and for once instead of letting the girl of my dreams decide where my future will be, I have chosen to pull the dynamics of my life back onto myself, so that after 10 yrs, I choose where I live, and where I settle, and the life I will lead. Not many woman out there, would be able to make the change to move back to South African with a guy they met and fell in love with, and not many of us could blame them for that.. but the way things have worked out, I have a chance to go home and start over, after all my travels around the world, and there have been many, there is no place that draws on my heart as much as south Africa,. But its even more then that now… it not just about having left South Africa and grown up., whats happened in the mean time is I have purposefully gone out there, and learnt both sides of the story, I have red what it is like to suffer, to be a second grade citizen, yes I may not have experienced it for myself, but I have tried to put myself in the shoes of the disadvantage, and I come out thinking how lucky we are to even be living there in the first place.

Home is where the heart is. My mom’s heart, my sisters, and her family, my friends.. all of them, and many more, there hearts are in South Africa, just like mine, and they love it, just like I do. What a person needs to do, is weigh up all the factors that are a part of being a south African, and living in south Africa, and then see if it is worth it for you personally. For me, I know, that no other place can full fill me, I know, I have been traveling around the world for 10 yrs. No country can offer me enough security, that makes leaving the country I love, and my family, and the people, and our history worth while to leave… never. I never left home in the first place for security, and its not the reason I am returning either… it a lot more deeper then that. I am not afraid to die, maybe that’s a big part of it. Fear of dieing is not part of my influence at all, and being that I am 30 and single, and still have the world to do with as I want, my motives and reasons are different to most people, some leave because they are thinking about there family, and that is a mighty fine reason, but for me it is different, Im just thinking about what I can get out of life, and right now, I just want to contribute to South Africa, I want to go home and give something back. Life is what we make of it. No one forces us to live in a certain place, we chose with out own free will where we live.

Ive just been out with a few ozzie friends, and I can tell you, when I talk of going home, I feel like I light up the room, I am that excited, and I guess I can only be that excited based on the years I have been away, and the countries I have seen, and the memories I have accumulated… and as amazing as they are, I feel that I am still south African, and if I am to be a true south African, then its time for me to contribute, and make things right. What happens to me in the process, is left up to life itself.

Im not here to tell you what is right for you, or to judge your motives or your choices or your decisions, and Im sure that you are not here to have you choices validated, why should you? There is no joy or benefit in me trying to win others over to my point of understanding, just as it would be pointless for others to come on here and try to ‘convert’ others to there way of thinking. We are all different, with a different perspective and experience. Who am I to tell a family who’s daughter was raped, to be Proudly South African, and who am I to tell some African who’s brother was shot dead by a racist cop to be proudly south African.. I cant do that, I can’t cure or heal there pain, I cant change the past, I can just be me, and do what I believe in, and follow my heart, and my heart says “come home”.. and that’s what I have to do to be true to myself.

As long as we are all true to ourselves, then we are making the right choice. You, and everyone else knows.. deep deep in there hearts what is true our selves. It may be a different answer for each of us, but for ourselves it is our truth, how we each face up to our own truths depends each one of us as a separate person. It cant and shouldn’t be judged by others.

I hope as you find your way through life, you will always be able to see what is true for yourself and act accordingly. Not out of fear or anything else, but simply by acting from your heart. If we as mankind are to make it out the otherside alive, we all need to reassess the way we approach life.

Of course thats just my opinion :-)