Is it everyone or just me?

[Savayla]

When they arrived in South Africa 90% of them sought out other expats formed their own little groups, and complained about everything in SA and became 'when we's' !!  After a while though, as you start to feel secure in your new surroundings, and have made friends this dissapates and we carry on our lives in harmony.

I used to belong to the When We's soccer club , even had it printed on our T-shirst     And then in 1997, we almost moved back .  Whew     But now I look back at Zim and say "Thank Goodness we are out of there "  .  I am hoping we don't have to say that in 10-20 years time with SA, due to friends and family and a lovely country.  But still today, I read articles and say "thank Goodness I am here " 

Zatexnz, that was a very good post !!  Very well put and very true. 

[frodo/maya]

excellent post zatexnz!

[ChristyL]

Thank you so much everyone for all your honest and very encouraging posts! I'm really relieved to hear it's not just me!

Both mine and my Hubby's families had to make the move from Zim, and with the insight they have from that, they are also seeing why it may be necessary to leave SA.

Zatexnz - thanks again for your post, I love your honesty! It's so important, because you don't want to arrive in a new country and then go through the "hate" stage and say "why didn't anybody warn me??"

You're a fantastic bunch!!   

[Departed]

I was just wandering about something.... 

When you all started thinking about immigrating, was it difficult to find anything good about SA? I know it happened to all my friends who have immigrated - they just started to complain about everything all the time. I have to admit, I found it very irritating at the time. 

The problem is, now I find myself doing it! I wander if things are really getting worse or is it just that I'm looking for reasons to leave? I don't want to be a drone to the friends that are staying behind, but the sad state of the country seems to come up in every conversation.

Just interested to hear if it happened to anyone else? 

Thanks
Christy

Sadly, many South Africans (and other immigrants FTM) find the same happening to them again after a few years of living in NZ and once they decide they'll have to migrate again. And I think the same happens to the handful of South Africans who decide to return to South Africa after having lived abroad for a few years. Once your heart's set on something your mind, your objectivity per se, tends to take a back seat.

Perhaps it's human nature.