In the best case scenario, it’s all just getting very dull, isn’t it? Well, really, it’s been dull for a long time. There was a hazy and non-specific light flickering at the end of the Corona virus tunnel after that jubilant announcement of a vaccine in November, but with non-committal information about when we may be able get that jab in the arm that will allow us to hug family again – and whether or not the jab will even work – it feels like we’ve just cracked into mile 21 of an ultra marathon: the cramp and fatigue are...
This evening we’re going to a little farewell gathering for some friends who are leaving the island to go back home. This will definitely not be the last time we say goodbye to new friends here, but it is the first. And as I feel the loss of the great energy they bring to our social circle here and the gap their absence will leave behind – it’s getting me thinking about the nature of goodbyes.
In my adult life I’ve said the word “goodbye” a lot as we’ve moved around from place to place. I live far away from where I...
I feel like a bit of a mutt, nationality-wise. My passport and birthplace call me British, my upbringing and my heart say I’m South African. Born in one place, raised in another – and now raising my own family here, there and everywhere – sometimes I’m a bit fuzzy about my national identity, about where “home” is.
I’m fuzzy, that is, until the exact moment, once a year or so, I step off a 747 on to the tarmac at Cape Town International Airport. And then it all becomes startlingly clear.
For me the simple truth is that “Home” is more than...
I have just recently packed up my worldly possessions for the fourth time. My family and I are holed up in temporary accommodation while we wait for visas to come through allowing us to move on to a new country and a new life… There have been a couple of nasty surprises over the last few months – our visas were delayed, our home was let out before we could request to stay on longer, and our new (one bedroom!) apartment has no bath tub and no microwave – two items I would previously have considered relatively indispensable with two kids under...
