another two gingers in the house

 

My boys have been begging me for a pet for ages. Living in a rental that can be a bit of a problem and on another level, I didn’t feel ready for the cost and responsibility of becoming a pet owner. Because you know it’s never the children that takes care of the pets is it?

When we recently started looking around for yet another new rental (I will post about this as well sometime), I took the first part of the plunge and specifically only looked at places that would allow us to own a pet. Once we moved in, the race was on. The boys kept on asking when this pet-thing will happen. In a bid to make the whole move easier on them, they were (very loosely) promised this pet, and they were not letting it go.

A mere two weeks later, I found myself driving to the cat shelter, just to go have a look. Feel free to laugh now at my naivety. Less than 15 minutes later, I had signed the papers to adopt two cats. It was a rush back home to go buy cat carriers and all sorts of other paraphernalia and late that afternoon we arrived home with Comet and Sparkles. They are 2 ginger tabbies, brother and sister, about 7 months old.

I had hoped that the acquiring of pets would do my boys well, but I have been overwhelmed with the reaction. They are just over the moon and the novelty did not even wear off after day 2.

Yes, basically all our furniture are now scratched. Yes, I have been woken up a couple of times with a cat tail in my face or even with one nibbling my ear. Yes, there is hair everywhere. And last, but certainly not least, the litter tray is driving me CRAZY!

The return on this investment is two very happy boys and it has been so worth it. My boys really hungered for a sense of permanence in there lives. We have just had our 3rd move in as many years, my oldest is sometimes still not sure whether Australia is now his forever home and nothing else over here really belongs to us. As much as I love this new country, I am not yet comfortable saying it’s MY country. I do not yet own a house that is MINE. But we have two cats. They are ours. We don’t have to give them back.

The first week my youngest kept on asking me over and over again: “Are you sure we can keep these cats forever and ever mum?” My heart just broke. I realised that he hasn’t seen a lot of forever and ever in his short life. Everything has been temporary.

I still hate the litter tray and my heart bleeds for my brand new dining room chairs that now sport a cat claw design, but I am so grateful to another 2 gingers that has brought a great deal of healing to the Pienaar family.

today my heart bleeds

I still remember the exact spot I stood in the day I heard of the 9/11 attacks. I remember how the rest of the day was wasted, how all of us in our res (I was at Uni at the time) just sat in front of the television and watched the news in horror. I didn’t know anyone close to New York, had no relatives in the US, yet it shook me to the core those attacks. The immense number of lives lost, the tragedy of the world becoming such a horrible place that things like this actually happened. With each subsequent “terror” attack, I always experience the same feelings. There were so many in the last couple of weeks, each as senseless as the one before. But my emotions quickly recover. After a moment or two of shock I move on. I’ve never had a vested interest in any of the places being attacked. It’s bad that it happened, but it doesn’t really “touch” me, so life just goes on.

Today though, my heart bleeds.  My day has been frozen. Everything I had on my to do list just paled in comparison. Aidan was almost late for school, my house is a mess, make-up washed off with fresh tears that fall every now and again. A little corner of the earth for which I care deeply, is in crisis. Fires are raging through two towns that I am emotionally connected to in a big way. A big bunch of people I care for are living through a nightmare. Evacuating homes, having to decide what to take and what to leave. Someone I know have already lost her house. Had I still been living there, I would’ve had to evacuate already, my house in the path of danger.

I know this is not another crisis I will be able to just “walk away” from. As I am writing this, the fires are still raging with no sign of stopping. Lots of homes in danger, and many completely destroyed. It’s a frantic feeling being 8000km’s away from people you love and care for, knowing there’s nothing you can do to help. Even if I could jump on a plane right now and go there, it wouldn’t change anything. I can’t stop the carnage and the destruction. I can’t protect their homes.

So to all my dear friends in the most beautiful part of South Africa; just know that I haven’t stopped thinking about you for even a minute today and  I am sending a steady stream of prayers your way that will not stop.

 

remembering the early days

I’m not exactly sure what brought it on, but over the past two days I have been recalling our early days in Australia. When we were still “fresh off the boat” as they jokingly refer to it.

Moving to another country is a bit like getting married. The first year or two you just take it day by day, thinking you are on this big adventure and just enjoying the ride. It’s only when you’ve been married for a while that you look back and think to yourself: “Those first years were kind of hard!” While we were in the thick of things, trying to start a new life and sorting out all the logistics, we just took everything in our stride. There was no time to stop and think that it’s hard, we just had to go, go, go.

Now however I can recall some pretty tough days! And some funny things too. Like the first time I got into our new automatic car, after only driving a manual one for years, and it was dead! No matter how many times I turned the key, nothing! After a frantic phone call to my husband I was gently reminded that it has to be in “PARK”, otherwise it wouldn’t start.

One of my worst days was one I refer to as black Monday. It was the morning of Aidan’s first day at school.  We had been here for less than 2 weeks. Just as we were about to get in the car to leave, I received a phone call from Anton, saying that he forgot his Transperth card and he is stuck at the train station. We were still paying for everything with a South African credit card and I happen to have it with me that day. He had no cash on him and no other way to pay for a train ride into the city. I frantically got the kids in the car and sped off in an attempt to go and drop off the credit card somewhere close to the station. It was rush hour obviously and there was no place to stop, but we got lucky with a red light. As he approached the car, I put my hand in my lap to pick up the card I left there for easy “handover”, but it was missing. Just vanished! Panic!!! Anton got to the window and I had to give him the bad news. Traffic started moving again and I had no choice but to drive away, leaving him just standing there. My poor boys! There were so much shouting and swearing and panic in that car that morning. They sat there like two little mice, not a peep. I was frantic! My husband can’t get to work, my child will be late for his first day at school and to top it all, I just lost our credit card, the only way we had to access money as we didn’t yet have any dollars in a bank account over here. And all the while the GPS lady is shouting at me too: “Proceed to the route, proceed to the route” By some miracle, I remembered that I could get off at the next intersection, do a loop and get back to Anton again. I stopped at the first place I could find, got out and started looking for the credit card, which I found stuck between the door and the carseat. First relieve. Phoned Anton, organised another “drop-off”, got lucky with another red light, problem solved. Next mission was to get Aidan to school on time, which I managed (but that was also the day of my first speeding fine…) I think back on that day and I still feel a bit queasy.

A trip to IKEA, buying a whole house worth of flat packed furniture by myself with two small children in tow is also not something I remember with fondness. More nausea. Filling out a school enrolment form, feeling totally lost as I had no emergency contact, no doctor, not sure if we had ambulance cover or not and couldn’t remember our suburb’s postal code also didn’t exactly put me on top of the world.

I can recall countless incidents like this, from something a simple as learning the ropes of putting in our own petrol or figuring out the public transport system to big things, like moving into our first rental and “camping” out for a while with precious little furniture. And when I think about it, it was TOUGH. Yet here we are, more than two years later and we are better and stronger for it.

I am very relieved that those early days are over, I certainly do not want to relive them again. But I am grateful to be able to look back on them and see how it made us stronger, brought us closer as a family and gave me a couple of funny stories to tell.

 

breathing space

I am not a city girl. I grew up on a farm, attended school in a small country town and before we moved to Perth, spent 12 years in a small seaside town that came alive every year around December and January, but was rather sleepy the rest of the year. Just the way I like it.

Cities are noisy. There is constant commotion of some sort, planes overhead, trains braking   as they approach the station, and my personal pet hate, police sirens and helicopters (it seems that they are forever chasing after some or other criminal) Add to that a constant presence of people, the feeling that it doesn’t matter where you go, someone else will be there too and you are creating the perfect environment for me to feel stifled.

Granted, Perth isn’t the biggest city in the world, one of the main reasons we moved here. I would’ve been crazy by now living in Sydney or Melbourne for sure. It’s still big enough though to overwhelm me at times.

Luckily there is an easy cure for this. Just give me some time in nature, even a drive around the Perth Hills is enough. Better still, a hike through the bush. First prize: a weekend away to the countryside. The area south of Perth has stolen our hearts (and the hearts of many others I am sure!). On the coastal side you have some pretty amazing beaches, a lot of which reminds me of the beaches back in the South Cape of South Africa. A bit more rocky and rugged and wild. The colour of the ocean look like those pictures you see of beach resorts. Inland it’s greener, not as flat and of course I totally fell in love with the amazing forests.

We usually take the back road there. It might take slightly longer, but it’s far more scenic and interesting. Driving through the countryside of Western Australia feels a bit as if you’re traveling back in time. If I have to think of a fitting soundtrack for a road trip on the South Western Highway, Creedence Clearwater Revival always comes to mind. So much more fun than the highway. And with every kilometer we travel, I imagine myself breathing easier.

This past weekend we were fortunate enough to spend some time on a farm close to Busselton. Not a big commercial one, but “farm” enough for me. Fresh air, dead quiet, starry skies at night. Space. Peace. Boys running around freely. Heaven. Of course they wanted to stay forever. So did I. But for now weekends will have to do, though moving away from the city is definitely on our long term planning list. Until then I will savour any time I can get away from the hustle and bustle and while there fill up my tank with “country air”, feast on the beautiful surroundings and enjoy every minute!

 
PS- if you are keen to take a trip yourself; we stayed over at Hithergreen Homestead. Here is a link to their AirBnB site: https://www.airbnb.com.au/rooms/17115835

 

what happens after two years?

In January this year we crossed the “magical” 2 year mark. The one after which everyone says you start to feel at home in your new country. I very naively had high expectations of waking up the next morning and all of a sudden feeling different. I don’t have to tell you that it didn’t exactly pan out that way. Instead I was floored by a crushing wave of homesickness. Instead of seeing it as something to celebrate, it became a mourning of the fact that I haven’t seen “home” in 2 years. That it’s been 24 months since I last saw a mountain, gave my friends a hug, lived in my own house. 104 weeks since I last traveled on roads so familiar it feels I can do it in my sleep. 730 days had passed and my live still felt far more unraveled than I would’ve liked it to be.

I know there are some people in the world with an eternal wanderlust in their souls. They pack their bags ever so easily and jump on a plane on their way to the next adventure. I am not one of those people. Travel and exploring I love, but I want to put down roots. Deep ones preferably. And pulling out those roots and replanting them have been hard. Nevertheless, they are in. That much I can say. And with each passing day they are getting deeper. Sometimes the process frustrates and tires me. Sometimes I get impatient. Some days I feel like I have simply had enough. And even though I am one of those people who just always keep soldiering on, some days I do feel like stopping. I entertain grand plans of buying an endless supply of ice-cream, sending the boys to school with an Uber every morning, shutting myself inside the house and watching Grey’s Anatomy all over again, right from the very first episode. Luckily I know with the rational part of my mind that I can’t stay there. So I feel sorry for myself for a couple of days and then I move on.

Anais Nin said to not allow one cloud to obliterate your whole sky. I’m taking her advice and I will not allow the longing for a place I once called home to stop me from noticing the bright blue Australian skies. I will not allow the times I have felt like a total outsider to cast a shadow on the times I have experienced true Aussie generosity and acceptance. I will not stop noticing the amount of lessons learned, and the new opportunities for growth I have been exposed to and most of all I will be thankful for all the beautiful new friends I have made.

The first two years have been tough, nail-biting at times, emotional, brutal, challenging and exhausting. Still, there has been lots of joy, love, growth and  miracles, big and small. I will continue to take the good with the bad and be grateful every day for this journey.

enough with the guilt!

 

The day you become a mother for the first time, another thing seems to happen simultaneously and almost automatically. The ugly birth of mothering guilt. A guilt that grows bigger as your kids grow bigger and gets heavier and heavier. Talk to any mother and she will be able to quickly share her “guilt” stories. That time she lost her cool with her kids in a way that still makes her cringe when she thinks about her. Or the time she told her daughter to just ‘shut up’. The time she allowed a child to do something reckless and they ended up in the emergency room. The time she looked away for too long or the time she forgot to fasten the car seat and only realised it by the time they arrived at home.

If I think and reason about it intellectually, it is such a ridiculous concept. Yet, we continue to walk around weighed down by all the guilt we carry. I used to feel guilty about being a working mum. Leaving my boys in the care of someone else at the age of 4 months broke my heart and just felt wrong on so many levels. And the guilt almost consumed me. Then I stopped working, stayed at home with them and fully expected the guilt to disappear. It didn’t. I found something new to feel guilty about. If you look, you will always find something you could be doing better. And in the modern age we are living in, where people are so used to freely sharing their opinions on a public platform, it has become so much worse. For crying in the bucket, I ran into an acquaintance the other day while out grocery shopping and when her 4 year old saw the pack of frozen oven chips in my basket I got a lecture on the fact that it’s unhealthy and kids should never eat it. There is literally nowhere to hide anymore.

Two events recently made me decide to make more of an effort to let the guilt go. One was on a “reminiscing” afternoon, while sitting down and watching old video clips of the boys. I looked at how happy they were. At how many memories I recorded, how much joy and happiness was captured. I realised that despite the fact that I worked, I was still there for a lot of things. I would’ve loved to be there more often, but it just wasn’t possible at that stage. And you know what, my boys are still alive, still emotionally stable (most of the time), they still think I’m the best thing since sliced bread (most of the time) and they still love me.

On another occasion I was helping out at the school canteen. I’ve almost never ordered Aidan anything from the canteen and was surprised on that day to see how many parents use the service. The next thing that followed was guilt. I stood there and felt overwhelmingly guilty for never ordering a canteen lunch, but rather packing one myself everyday. I felt as if my child was missing out and I was at fault. But then I stopped for a minute and realise the absurdity of feeling guilty about the fact that I pack my child a healthy lunch every day. That I spend the time every night doing it. I realised I had to get a grip and STOP.

So I appeal to all you mothers. Stop the guilt. (And as I have asked before: please stop the judgement too, that just perpetuates the guilt in others.) Whenever a guilty thought comes up, have a quick think and replace it with a good one. I can guarantee you for every one thing you do that you think you should feel guilty about, you are doing 10 other things that should make you feel proud of yourself.

Despite all the experts telling you that you should never do/say this, that and the other, despite the amount of chicken nuggets and chips your child consumes, despite you losing your cool, sometimes more than once a day, despite you working, despite your divorce, despite the sugar laden breakfast cereals, despite all of that, your kids will be ok.

I’ll end with a lovely quote from Rachel Macy Stafford from handsfreemama.com

‘Because of you, there is a human being walking around this earth who doesn’t have to ask for love- it is just given. It is just given. Let that soak in for a moment’

 

 

a first time for everything

This may come as a shock to my readers, but this past weekend I finally had my first proper swim in the Australian ocean. Which is actually still the very same one I used to swim in, seeing that both Perth and Plettenberg Bay share the Indian Ocean. But it was a first nonetheless.

Why did it take me longer than 2 years I hear some of you ask. Well, for the simple reason that I’m not really the world’s keenest swimmer. Be it in a swimming pool or the sea. It’s a combination of getting flashbacks to an absolutely horrible Phys Ed teacher I had in primary school, always ridiculing me for my inability to swim and a plain dislike for getting wet. (Don’t even get me started on heated indoor swimming pools, it’s the stuff of nightmares) Maybe the fact that you have to put on a swimsuit (or bathers as they call it here) for this activity also contributes to my dislike. Parading near naked in public has also never been my favourite activity.

I do love the beach though. For a long time I have lived only brisk walk away from it and spent many hours of my life either walking or going for a run on the beach. Swimming, not so much.

So yes, this might be something that will only happen once every couple of years, but a first time should still be celebrated. As per usual, I have photo’s of the boys enjoying the water, but none of myself, though I am sure I will remember this one. And you never know, we’re in for another very warm weekend, I might just take another dip!

a man named Deng

I have just finished the most incredible book. One that stayed with me long into the night after I read the last few pages. One that haunts my thoughts and brings random tears to my eyes. The story of a man called Deng Thiak Adut.

In short: a man born in South Sudan, taken away from his mother to go fight in a war that had no real winners and have been raging on and off for years. He became a child soldier at  the age of 6, the same age my oldest son currently is. He was marched off to Ethiopia for training, a journey that took 33 days. Many boys died along the way. The rest of his story reads like a nightmare of unspeakable horrors. At the age of 14, through superhuman efforts of an older half brother he arrives in Australia as a refugee. He could barely speak English and the only schooling he ever knew was military training.

Let’s face it: the odds against him were stacked up higher than Mt Everest. Yet he overcame those odds by teaching himself to read English, did various TAFE courses and eventually enrolled in Western Sydney University and received his  law degree in 2010. These days he runs his own law practice with a partner, does numerous pro bono work for refugees and immigrants and started the John Mac Foundation, in memory of his brother who rescued him. A charity working to educate and empower refugees and people whose lives have been interrupted by war. He has recently been nominated for the coveted prize of Australian of the Year, 2017.

His life still isn’t rose coloured. His mother remains in South Sudan and he fears for her safety on a daily basis. He barely sleeps and when he does, there are always nightmares. The war still follows him around. He experiences racism regularly. People struggle to look past his blackness and accept him for the amazing human being he is. But it doesn’t stop him from getting up every morning and changing lives.

Deng’s story touched me in more than one way. Firstly I was reminded again of how grateful I should be that I have always been able to raise my children in freedom and away from war. That I can go to bed at night not having to fear someone will come and grab my child and force him to become a soldier. That my boys don’t need to know just yet what an AK47 is. That they haven’t been on a battlefield, haven’t seen death.

I was also inspired by his sheer determination. Nothing could stop him once he knew what he wanted. Like me, all of you reading this have been born into “privilege”, so if a war boy from Sudan could realise his dreams, surely we can too? Surely we can silence all the negative voices and look past the excuses and boldly go in the direction of our grandest dreams? His hard work and determination is an example to all of us and I know it has inspired me.

Lastly: let us not forget to have compassion. Let us try to make everyone feel at home. Just because people have skin darker than anything you have seen before, or wear a headscarf or speak a very foreign dialect doesn’t mean they are to be feared or pushed aside or judged. Break out your biggest smile for them and just try to look past your preconceptions.

In some ways I could relate to parts of his story, simply because we are both immigrants in Australia. I really liked what he said in one interview: “You aren’t an Australian because you were born here, but rather because Australia has been born inside you”. Just as this Sudanese man now feels more at home in Australia than in the country of his birth, I trust the same will be true for me and my family one day. That Australia will be born in all of us and that we will call it home with no reservations whatsoever.

ps. if after reading this you feel touched at all to donate money to the John Mac Foundation, follow the link: https://johnmacfoundation.org  It will take less than 2 minutes, it can be as little as $10, but collectively it can make a difference in someone’s life.

the spiderweb crusades

Australia and spiders are almost synonymous. You can’t think about the one without thinking about the other too. I must admit, even though I have had my fair share of spider encounters in the past 2 years of living here, it wasn’t half as bad as expected and certainly not more than I would’ve had in South Africa.

Until recently, when spring started. (Which was actually and technically summer, because quite honestly we just skipped spring altogether this year I think. But that’s a story for another day or one that will go unwritten.) I have never before lived in a place where spiderwebs are so abundant than our current rental. It’s everywhere. And it appears in the blink of an eye. Don’t think because you cleaned it all up yesterday, they won’t be there again today.

I’m digressing a bit, but I also realised at the same time that I haven’t seen a single frog since moving to Perth. And I registered that while checking my shoes for spiders one day, a very necessary exercise, but one I used to perform in order to check for frogs. Maybe over here the spiders eat all the frogs?? Nevertheless, I am quite happy with this little arrangement as my amphibian phobia runs far stronger and deeper than my arachnophobia. I know it’s quite irrational and it’s far more practical and almost necessary to be afraid of spiders, but those little slimy friends and I have just never been close.

Back to the issue at hand: the fight again spiderwebs. I tried to be all earth lover and just cleaned it up as I went along, but I’m sorry, yesterday the man of the house was ordered to go to Bunnings and get us a BEEEEEG can of spray that will most probably destroy the ozone layer even more and kill small birds and all sorts of other evil side-effects, BUT it will do it’s job. Mainly to not only get rid of all the webs (I’m such an optimist aren’t I…?) but also get rid of the makers of all those webs. Because this brave immigrant is tired of walking around with crawling skin at the mere thought of all those little eight-legged monsters responsible for coating the outside (and inside!!) of my house with their sticky deathtraps.

The fight is real and it will continue!

boerewors

 

There are few foods in my opinion that personifies South Africa to me as much as boerewors does. Wikipedia describes it as follows: 

Boerewors ([ˈbuːrəvors]) is a type of sausage which originated in South Africa, is an important part of popular in South African cuisine and is popular across Southern Africa. The name is derived from the Afrikaans words boer (“farmer”) and wors (“sausage”). Boerewors must contain at least 90 percent meat – always containing beef, as well as lamb or pork or a mixture of lamb and pork. The other 10% is made up of spices and other ingredients. 

On one of my first visits to one of the big supermarkets, Coles, I was quite excited to see that they had their own boerwors. How convenient I thought. That was until I tasted it. Sorry Coles, I don’t know where you got your recipe from, but trust me, it won’t win any awards in South Africa. Then I tried out the Woolworths one. Again no award winner.

Now just to clarify; in the northern suburbs of Perth (which we jokingly call Pretoria by the sea…) there are plenty South African shops and butchers where you can buy as much biltong and boerewors as your budget allows. For us living in one of the suburbs just south of the CBD, the situation is a bit different. And as much as I love our traditional food, I was just not prepared to make an hour plus long round trip just to stock up on some South African food. Not with two boys that both hate traveling in the back of my car!

Then to my absolute delight, I found some boerewors in a local, smaller independent grocer just around the corner from us. Totally at random I discovered it in their fridge one day. I was a bit sceptical, but it looked like the real deal and as soon as it went onto the hot bbq (remember no hot coals),  I could smell we had a winner.

It’s hard to explain, but I can not tell you how much joy the smell of boerewors cooking on the “barbie” brings me. Everything is a bit better and on days when my heart gets a little heavy, it is an instant pick-me-up.

Recently a South African shop opened up just downstairs from my husbands office, so now we too have easy access to our beloved meaty favourites, the South African trifecta: Biltong, Boerewors and Droëwors. I can tell you he quite often gets a text message on a Friday afternoon telling him to bring home some Boerewors, because what is a weekend without the smell of South Africa hanging in the air?

So to all those wonderful people who faithfully continue to make strings and strings of boerewors, so homesick people like me can feel a bit better, a huge shout of thanks. I can go without Niknaks, Peppermint Crisp chocolate, Oros and even milktart and koeksisters, but I need boerewors!!