#AtMyTable: A note for new South Africans in the UK

Moons ago I wrote a weekly column for The South African. Called it ‘The Optimist’ in the dance of eternal hope that my life was not over with my arrival on Mud Island.

Past initial euphoria, I became an ugly sight. Ah, hindsight is expensive but back then I wailed, wallowed and blamed the weather/winter for my malady. Walked with the other living dead in some South African store stocking up on clichéd souvenirs from back home – Ingram’s Camphor Cream and Ina Paarman’s something mix, which got stale and died for lack of cooking. Depression does not for cooking make and I was, for the first time in my life, sodding depressed which made me yearn, unresponsive and fixate on my breathing for want of something better to do. All the unfairness was everyone else’s fault for my situation, even Ikea’s.

To those of you newly arrived, I feel for you. The pattern of adjusting has begun. It’s exciting and painful. You will ‘bro’ this and pretend that you are still in South Africa when the planes bound for Heathrow stack overhead. You will spend all your money on Savannas and babble as a refugee to people who literally do not care about your relocation. Unless it’s other migrants such as you. You will form clubs of solidarity with green jerseys and make Bobotie, perhaps for the first time. This is normal. Confusion is normal. Believe me, the delight in finding eight different kinds of potato fades quickly.

But, there comes a time, she says as a sage now humbled and grown, when the epiphany strikes – the decision to be here, was yours. You were not kidnapped. Naïve perhaps, but not smuggled by pirates. So how to embrace this new life …