My name’s Phil and this page gives a little background about our family and our personal motivations for moving to Canada.
We’re a family of 4 originally from Cape Town, two grown-ups hugging 40 years of age and 2 kids under 8. We decided that we wanted to make the emigration experience about pull-factors (all the good reasons to go to Canada) rather than focus on the reasons why we decided to leave SA.
If you are South African and you are reading this, then I need say no more. It’s a conversation that’s been covered at many kitchen tables and braai-side huddles. We’re familiar with the reasons why people may wish to leave SA because we’ve had these discussions ourselves, so we’re going to focus on why we chose Canada and in particular, the province of Nova Scotia.
We see this as a great adventure late in life. Heather and I never travelled outside the borders of South Africa as young adults. Around 30 years of age we crossed the border into Mozambique for a memorable week just on the other side of the border. Two years later we went up Sani Pass into Lesotho, in and out on the same day. That was the extent of our international experience. A decade later we find ourselves in Maritime Canada.
It still feels unreal at times, thinking that we are approximately 12,000 km from Cape Town and that we are here in the Northern Hemisphere. We’re just 655 km from Boston and 960 km from New York. We could catch a bus, take a train, plane or just drive to those cities in a matter of hours. At night we look up and realise we’re walking under different constellations. The birds and trees are different and there are lakes everywhere.
We are still in touch with family and friends from SA on a daily basis via Facebook and Whatsapp. The hardest part was leaving our parents behind, as much as they understand why we made the move. I still help my mother with the occasional email problem she may be having all the way from here. We text about our experiences here, send photos of ourselves, the kids and places. It’s much easier to bridge the distance because we can keep in touch.
We’re not wealthy by any measure. The cost of emigrating to Canada was significantly less than what I’ve seen reported on some Australian forums, but for us it was still a lot of money. Before we left South Africa we were forced to make some hard decisions to enable us to stay afloat financially such as cancelling our private hospital plans and life insurance. We had not been accepted into any country and had no idea at the time we would be able to emigrate.
I had done a lot of research on various paths for emigration. For South Africans, popular choices are Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the UK due to cultural similarities and of course because they are English-speaking countries.
I spent a lot of time on Facebook and various forums learning more about emigration and reading about the life experiences of other South Africans who were in the process of moving or had moved to one of those countries.
It’s hard to think about giving up the things which make us South African. A crackling fire, the sizzle of Karoo lamb on the grid, a cold Castle Lager in the hand, friendly company around the fire or kitchen table, a rugby match for our side to win or lose and some homely music in the background.
To emigrate we had to focus on the things we would gain for the future of our children and ourselves, not what we stood to lose by leaving SA.
One way I reasoned this in my head was to think about a world where I might have grown up in Canada, Australia or NZ. I would not miss the South African lifestyle because I would not have had the pleasure of knowing it. These are all great countries for our children to grow up in and they probably won’t miss SA very much while they grow up in their new country.
In a new country our kids would be involved in different social circles and customs, cheer for different teams and speak with different accents. South Africa would be over there on the map, somewhere else, with a whole bunch of people getting on with their lives. Africa and South Africa will always be in our blood, it is what has shaped us into the people we are today and we’ll pass these good values to our children, albeit in a new country. They may not have the deep memories of South Africa that we have, but they will carry forward our values and perhaps in some way will still a feel a connection to South Africa, particularly our eldest.
It is the sense of wanting to retain as much as possible of the old lifestyle that I think causes South Africans to gravitate towards Australia and New Zealand. They have the rugby and many South Africans have already gone there, so perhaps there is more opportunity to meet up with and get involved in expat groups.
We decided on Canada because rugby no longer mattered and because we wanted to reinvent ourselves as future travellers. We would gain an amazing new country, great resources for the future of the kids, new sports, meet new people and experience new weather. We don’t see it as a betrayal of our homeland, but rather an extended adventure in a new land. We love South Africa deeply but we also love life. Life is about new experiences.
When we received the invitation to Canada we could hardly believe it. I read the words several times over and could not believe this was even our letter. Yet there were our names, all four of us on the invitation. An invitation to a new life.
We decided that we wouldn’t try to actively seek out South Africans in Canada. Turns out there are already lots of South Africans here and some of our best friends here are South Africans. So far we’ve met and befriended people from the UK, SA, India and of course Canada itself. Most importantly our children are making new friends and life here is feeling quite normal. Next week we’ve arranged a play-date for our eldest and a French Canadian girl.
Had we never left SA, we would not be meeting these wonderful people and sharing these new experiences. Emigration as a family can be tough but it can also be very rewarding because you are all in this TOGETHER. When I stop to think about it, as I write this, I realise that our family unit has become stronger for the experience and we are closer than ever.
I asked Heather if she could remember her morning routine in South Africa 7 months ago, because I’ve forgotten mine. I know I got up, ate cereal and made coffee but I just can’t remember myself doing the exact motions in my kitchen in South Africa or even which cereal I would eat. I used to make morning smoothies, but was it every morning or just some mornings? Did I check email before or after breakfast? I can no longer remember any exact details, yet it was my routine for many years. I guess it’s a sign that my routine in Canada is now the new normal. I’m OK with that.
