Ex-pat Meme

I found another meme that I couldn't resist joining in with at Charlotte's Web. It is the Ex-pat meme. I don't particularly label myself as an ex-pat, with no language barriers and a lot of similarities with English culture here (though before I offend a whole bunch of South Africans, also a whole lot of unique qualities too!), South Africa doesn't have the feel of a Foreign Country to me. Since I have started blogging, though, I have found a huge community of like-minded bloggers residing in countries other than their native ones and the experience does seem to give us all a whole lot in common, especially that of bringing up our children in a different culture to the one we grew up in. If anyone would like to join in consider yourself tagged.

5) Name five things you love in your new country

• The views of the mountains and wide, open spaces.
• The sunshine
• The wonderful fresh fruits in the shops and the gardens. Trees loaded with lemons for the picking, though not in our garden yet unfortunately.
• The pioneer spirit and maak'n plan attitude and that it, as yet, doesn't suffer from the European overburdening of rules and regulations on every single aspect of daily life.
• The variety of people, language and culture.

4) Name four things you miss from your native country

• Old buildings and the sense of history and continuity
• Green fields and hedgerows, spring flowers - primroses, daffodils, bluebells, cowslips
• Family
• The proximity of Europe and its diverse foods, languages and cultures

3) Name three things that annoy you in your new country

• The lagging behind in telecommunications, we've just got a 24 hr wireless connection but the international portal is still so slow. This is why I still haven't really got to grips with You Tube.
• Banks, though that applies to most countries.
• We're talking annoy here, which implies minor irritation, so I won't get into the major political issues of which there are plenty to rant about. How about picking a mild one - that in a country with year-round sunshine and an electricity shortage, too dependant on an elderly nuclear power station for most of it, solar panels are still not widespread and are expensive… could Eskom, the only national power supplier, have useful contacts in the government?

2) Name two things that surprise you (or surprised you when you arrived) in your new country

• Seeing people crammed into the open back of bakkies (pick-ups) driving down the fast roads.
• That major supermarkets run out of ordinary things and don't have more in the back. At the moment it's Cadbury's Hot Chocolate, which has been off the shelves for about two months, they have other brands but the children like Cadbury's..! Maybe what you're after will come in a couple of weeks later, maybe it won't.

1) Name one thing you would miss in your new country if you had to leave.

• Our lovely house and farm with its view of the mountains.