What is living in South Africa like?

[RubyFakeLips]

Obviously at present SA/Omicron issue is prevalent, but COVID aside what is it like to live there?

Speaking to old South African colleague today, she again mentioned she would never, ever move back. Says life is awful, family have all emigrated. Yet, in the past 10 years I've know a fair few people move there from the UK.

Curious for some real experiences.

My DH has family in South Africa and I have visited a number if times over 15 years. I wouldn't live there for all the money in the world.

We have a DS and where the family is based there is not one park or public space we could take him. All the slides / swings / equipment has been destroyed. The local police station had been burnt down more than once, and infrastructure seemed to be falling apart.

It would be a terrible country to be poor or have ill health. And there is a huge amount of crime. We wouldn't go out anywhere after dark.

It is a beautiful country but not a country to raise a family, if you heve any choice.

Why do people snatch children? Is it to hold them hostage to demand ransom money? Or sell them on to paedophiles?. Or paedophiles themselves?

I used to watch an A&E docuseries set in Jo'Burg, that was enough to put me off ever wanting to go. It seemed so normal to be attacked on the head with a machete, the doctors really didn't seem to think much of it. Seeing children with gaping head wounds just sitting there waiting to be seen was so frightening.

@MissMinutes24

I don't have any connection to South Africa but I am absolutely haunted by this story (massive trigger warning) - how barbaric men can be https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6293729/Two-foot-82lb-rock-used-smash-South-African-student-death-gang-raped.html

Sadly the woman's mother died (people strongly suspect suicide) a few years later.

Horrific.

This is just awful. And then at the end it says 56 people are murdered each day, 110 are raped.

My god

We are comparatively so much safer in this country...none of us even lock our doors around here we take it for granted we aren't going to be held at knifepoint for stopping the car on a rural road or taking money at a cash machine.

When my family were at a cafe in SA, a family next to us were talking and their teenage daughter was saying how she had been robbed at a cash machine as if it was a normal occurrence. As it was.

I met a lovely groom at a stables once and he turned out to be an ex SA police officer. He said no amount of beautiful scenery can ever take the place of the feeling of safety especially when you have children to being up. He said everyday was like heaven in the UK for him after his experiences and he said the beauty of the UK countryside on a gorgeous sunny day reminded him of SA anyway

I stopped moaning about trivialities in the UK after that. We all take peace for granted here as well as the stable economic, political, legal and social systems, and rights for women and the disabled, however imperfect they all may be. Many countries around the world don't have this or it is totally corrupt and life can be extremely brutal, especially for women, the disabled and the poor.

I have family in Cape Town. My mums uncle and family have lived there for almost 50 years now and my uncle has been out there about 40 years

2 of my cousins were born out there but my second cousins were born in the UK and one moved back here about 30 years ago.

None of them have ever lived in a gated community or owened a gun but bars on windows and locked gates on front doors are the norm.

It's a beautiful country but not somewhere I'd want to live myself, seeing people living in such extreme poverty is shocking . Its not something I could get used to .

The first time I went out there I was 6 and I still remember driving past the townships and being horrified that people lived there

A friend has his business there, he has spoken about the corruption which is commonplace and costs a fortune but if you don't pay you don't get contracts. He is resident there but his wife and family stay here, he comes back as much as possible but won't bring them to SA. Because he's known as a big employer he has to have security at all times, from the time the plane lands he has armed guards with him. He offered my husband an extremely well paid job a few years ago, we didn't think about it for long before declining.

My boss is South African...he has said much the same as everyone else on this thread...stunning scenery but way too dangerous to bring your family up there...he also said when driving you have a bank note in the car in case you are pulled over by police...you give them the note and they let you carry on your journey.

We have friends who emigrated from SA two days before lockdown, with their teenaged sons. The older son, poor lad, has really done it tough over here, missing his friends, his beloved rugby (he's done it over here, but it's just not the same!). He's desperate to go back, regardless.

I've worked with many Saffies over the years. It's hard when the country of your heart is not safe or healthy for you, and your family.

I grew up in SA and moved to the UK as an adult. I miss it dreadfully but would never move back.
Someone asked upthread about direct experience of crime. I've been mugged twice as well as sexually assaulted.
My young stepcousin was kidnapped and murdered. My next door neighbour was killed when men broke into his home. They shot him in the back in front of his children.
I know of more than one person who was shot (but survived) a hijacking.
The messed up thing is that it happens so much that you have to think about it and you forget incidents.
I was thinking about it for this thread and remembered the time a friend had men with knives break into his house and tie him up while they ransacked the place. And then remembered the same thing happened to my sister-in-law. And then that it also happened to someone I was at school with.
All South African reunions have someone saying 'Did you hear about so and so?'
SA is crazy.
That said, I do go back to see family every few years. There are safer places than others and you can definitely mitigate the risk. I am always on high alert out there. I love coming back to England and not always waking up at every little sound in the night.

Highest crime rate in the world isnt it. Or is that just Cape Town.

I have a former boss who emigrated to SA in the 70s and returned in the late 90s. I worked with him early 00s.

He had many many tales similar to one's on this thread. His son was almost blown up in a terrorist bomb. His wife and daughter were carjacked at gunpoint.

His daughter at the time I was working for him worked as a counsellor at a further education college. Virtually all she did was rape counselling as almost without exception, every female student had been raped.

All very sobering. But despite this, he and his family loved the place and his kids still live there.

TheGreatATuin may I ask where ? I’m only asking because something so similar happened to friends of ours who own a big farm in the north.
Lucky nothing happened to them as they do have an excellent security system .

I think Pretoria and JoBurg crime rates are higher than Cape Town.

We never felt unsafe in some places like the Karoo or Constantia or the other winelands, Camps etc,
It really felt like a great place to live .

I live in SA. I have lived in the UK as well and chose to move back to SA.

We do live differently to those of you in the UK, but it also does depend on where you live here.

I always find people who have left are very negative about the country. Not everything is negative. I have the option to return to the UK tomorrow if there was ever a need. But I don't want to.

It's all so nice to sit smugly and go on about South Africa.

When you oppress a majority for decades. Trigger happy and brutal policing and government. Proper cruelty is what South Africans have had to suffer. Therefore, this is the legacy that is left by apartheid and colonialism. I'm afraid it will take decades to undo the damage. No matter what was reported you can be sure the natives had it hundred times worse. This is what you get and a pity that those same natives will be the ones to pay the price.

I should know, my parents worked in SA for years, helping the local communities with medical and legal. They were at the thick of it. I went all the time, and still visit township friends and keep in touch all the time.

Strangely enough when I go over there, I live with friends who have no electric fences, - some no fences at all. They go out clubbing in the middle of the night and back with no problems and there are lots doing the same thing, people leave their doors open daytime etc.

All that being said, you definitely pay attention to make sure that my bag is close by and zipped up, I do not leave the door wide open, and watch where I go at night. However, I live in London and do the same here.

What I cannot shake off is the undercurrent hostile attitude of white South Africans towards blacks - alway looking at them with suspicion etc. I have found black people to be very open if you try to speak their language, embrace their culture etc. - shocking how many white people have lived there for years, without knowing a word of the local majority language.

@Mummy195

It's all so nice to sit smugly and go on about South Africa.

When you oppress a majority for decades. Trigger happy and brutal policing and government. Proper cruelty is what South Africans have had to suffer. Therefore, this is the legacy that is left by apartheid and colonialism. I'm afraid it will take decades to undo the damage. No matter what was reported you can be sure the natives had it hundred times worse. This is what you get and a pity that those same natives will be the ones to pay the price.

I should know, my parents worked in SA for years, helping the local communities with medical and legal. They were at the thick of it. I went all the time, and still visit township friends and keep in touch all the time.

Strangely enough when I go over there, I live with friends who have no electric fences, - some no fences at all. They go out clubbing in the middle of the night and back with no problems and there are lots doing the same thing, people leave their doors open daytime etc.

All that being said, you definitely pay attention to make sure that my bag is close by and zipped up, I do not leave the door wide open, and watch where I go at night. However, I live in London and do the same here.

What I cannot shake off is the undercurrent hostile attitude of white South Africans towards blacks - alway looking at them with suspicion etc. I have found black people to be very open if you try to speak their language, embrace their culture etc. - shocking how many white people have lived there for years, without knowing a word of the local majority language.

@Mummy195 my SA friends and I have this debate all the time - and yes, I know people who do the same as the friends you describe. It's very sad - and we know the root cause - but that doesn't change the statistics which is the reason that so many of us would never choose to move back.

There's 100+ years of damage done to SA and her people. Terrible, terrible damage. And that's going to take many, many years to unpick. I just hope it can be done.

@CouldThisReallyBe
I agree, it’s not about judging black people. It’s about being honest about the risks and the reality of life in SA. OP asked a question and people have answered, that’s not being “smug”.

I lived in Jo'burg for a bit and my takeaway from it was a) you have to make your peace with never walking anywhere, because it's unsafe to get out of your car and b) you have to make your peace with drink-driving because there are no taxi services you can trust, so people go out to bars, get hammered and then get behind the wheel to drive home. Oh, and c) you have to make your peace with jumping red lights because the advice I got was never wait at a red light because you might get car jacked. And I was living in the posh bit, Sandton.

They asked me to extend my work contract. I said no. The few months I lived there was enough to convince me it is not a good place to live.

Makes you think doesn't it when we have threads in here with posters bitching and moaning about having to wait a few hours for a free booster jab

We really have won the lottery of life. If only we (collectively) could see it!!

I worked with a man from SA once and he said since moving to the UK it was so nice that his teenage daughters could walk down the street without fearing they would get raped.

I’ve worked there for periods of time (few months here and there over several years) but would never want to live there. It’s a sort of unsafe, hyper vigilance that I’ve never felt anywhere else, and I’ve worked and travelled a lot in ‘developing countries’ including ones with high terrorism and one with an ongoing civil war.

Yes, everyone I know in SA has experienced crime. I helped run an overseas university programme in Cape Town and our local director’s car was broken into in the drive while the police were literally inside giving our students a talk about safety. I’ve been chased before with someone trying to rob us, a few of my students were nearly kidnapped by a dodgy taxi driver and only escaped by kicking him in the back of the head til he unlocked the doors to get rid of them. I once (when quite young, first time working there) went into town with a few staff of the NGO I worked for as I needed to run and errands and then needed to pick up flour from this one particular market. We parked at the market and they got out and said, ‘We’ll be back in 10 minutes. Here’s the keys. If anyone threatens you with a gun, get out and give them the truck. See you in a bit.’ Oh, I also saw a police officer get shot once (in the leg, I suspect he was okay), we just kept driving to avoid getting caught up in whatever was going on.

So no, I wouldn’t want to live there. I’m not even sure I’d go back for work these days, I’m older and have kids and much more risk averse.

Wow.

Not been for 2 years but none of this is my impression. I’ve walked to the shops in a Joburg suburb, walked the dog down the street and driven thousand miles around the country and never witnessed any violence.

@Mummy195

It's all so nice to sit smugly and go on about South Africa.

When you oppress a majority for decades. Trigger happy and brutal policing and government. Proper cruelty is what South Africans have had to suffer. Therefore, this is the legacy that is left by apartheid and colonialism. I'm afraid it will take decades to undo the damage. No matter what was reported you can be sure the natives had it hundred times worse. This is what you get and a pity that those same natives will be the ones to pay the price.

I should know, my parents worked in SA for years, helping the local communities with medical and legal. They were at the thick of it. I went all the time, and still visit township friends and keep in touch all the time.

Strangely enough when I go over there, I live with friends who have no electric fences, - some no fences at all. They go out clubbing in the middle of the night and back with no problems and there are lots doing the same thing, people leave their doors open daytime etc.

All that being said, you definitely pay attention to make sure that my bag is close by and zipped up, I do not leave the door wide open, and watch where I go at night. However, I live in London and do the same here.

What I cannot shake off is the undercurrent hostile attitude of white South Africans towards blacks - alway looking at them with suspicion etc. I have found black people to be very open if you try to speak their language, embrace their culture etc. - shocking how many white people have lived there for years, without knowing a word of the local majority language.

I don't understand the point of this post.

I presume you don't believe in the death penalty.

I also assume you don't believe two wrongs make a r