#2 Moving to the USA

Blog #2

MOVING TO THE USA

1985

When I was 18 years old my Dad announced to the family that we were emigrating to America. In 2 weeks. Little did we know, but he had been planning it for 2 years. He had been searching for ways to get a business opportunity outside of South Africa because he knew our country was falling apart and he wanted us all out before we all got married and settled. The problem for me was, I was practically engaged to Jonathan (who I had known for a couple years) and suddenly we were desperately trying to figure out what to do. We had talked about getting married, and we were so in love, but I was still very young!. There was no way he could just up and move with us, but it was too soon for us to suddenly plan on living together in a country without my family. We had no choice but to separate.

As a family we sold everything. My Dad gave away his cars to people he felt needed them, and we sold most of our possessions. We sold the house and had to give away our pets. That was so hard. To this day I think about my dog Tandy, and wonder what happened to her.

Next thing I knew I was on a plane flying away from home, to a country I had never been to. All we could take was 2 suitcases. We did pack up a crate with some furniture, my piano, and some family heirlooms. That crate took MONTHS to get to us via ship across the oceans.

We arrived in Provo, Utah, late on a Saturday night. Exhausted from being in the air for 24 hours, I just wanted to have a hot shower and go to bed.

We spent the first week or so at the one and only hotel in Provo. I remember waking up on Sunday morning and looking out the window and could not believe what I was looking at. There was not ONE person on the street. It looked like a ghost town. Everything seemed so surreal.

My Dad then found out about a fully furnished house for rent in Orem, so we moved into that home until he could buy one for us.

If any of you know anything about emigrating, you will know that you get to take practically nothing with you! We were each allowed to bring R2000.00 (in those days it was worth about $800) and 2 suitcases. Talk about a big culture shock!. My parents gave up EVERYTHING to move our family to a safer country for our future.

My Dad bought this ugly brown car, called an Aspen, for $800. This was our new family car. I will never forget my brother sitting in the back seat with me while we were driving down the freeway and as cars passed us up he would sink down in his seat so that no one saw him in this brown thing. When we stopped at a light we had to put it in neutral so that we could keep one foot on the gas with the other one on the brake, just to keep it from stalling.

So I bought a bicycle and went everywhere on it, including the Orem Community College to get my GED.

Nights were hard. I dreaded the dark, quiet, lonely nights and spent hours crying under the covers. All I wanted was to go home and be with people who knew who I was. The hardest part of my day was knowing that no matter where I went, there was no chance of me ever running into someone I knew. That was a very, very lonely period for me. I would light a candle under the sheets and sometimes I would hope that it would catch fire and put me out of my misery.

HEAR PEOPLE'S WORDS, NOT JUST HOW THEY SOUND

Every time I opened my mouth people would be astonished at my accent and ask where I was from. If I was asking a question in class, the teacher would look at me with confusion while he tried to figure out what I had asked. Most of the time people got so wrapped up in my accent that they forgot I was even asking a question or making a comment.

Sadly,  I still deal with this, 30 years later. Some people might think it’s fun to get the attention, but every day for thirty years, it gets to be too much. Often I will say something in my old accent, and it causes laughter and compliments (which is awesome), and then my comment or question is forgotten. That’s the part that is frustrating. I know they all mean well, but if I can make a suggestion to anyone, I would ask that when someone opens their mouth to talk and they have an accent, listen first to the question or comment, and respond to it. Let them be heard. Then afterwards feel free to talk about their accent. Compliments are awesome! But people need to be heard first, not laughed at. And that is just my opinion of course. I think of my self-esteem today, and how much I don’t like being laughed at or made fun of. Even if it’s nothing to do with my accent, I just can’t handle someone making fun of me, and I think it stems from 30 years of being laughed at or made fun of and not actually being heard.

That is my advice on how to treat a foreigner when you first meet them :)

Coming up in #3…CRAIG IS GOING ON A MISSION!

This is where my story starts to get pretty interesting.

Blog #4 will have some very disturbing content in it, so I promise to warn you. It really is not going to be an easy read for most, but absolutely crucial to the behavior patterns of, sadly, a psychopath.

Please share my blog with EVERYONE! I promise you there are a lot more people who will start to identify with behaviors that are huge red flags!

See you on Wednesday with the next chapter.