Before You Go, You Need to Know Your Heart Will Always Be In South Africa
Celebrating Heritage Day from a far with a letter: Dear Past Me, before you go, you need to know your heart will always be in South Africa.
My Dearest Past Me,
I'm writing to you from a place you can't quite imagine yet - where public transport runs on time like clockwork, where you can pop over to three countries in a weekend, and where your bank account grows each month (until we book the next holiday ;)). You're about to start a European life, where the path ahead seems a bit easier and smoother. And it’s a good life, a life you can be proud of building.
But I need to tell you about the things you'll miss - the things that will catch you off guard, like a sudden Highveld thunderstorm. You think you know how much, but you don’t. Not yet.
You'll miss the African sun in ways that will surprise you. And more than just the warmth (no, your Durban-thin jeans aren’t going to get you through winter, let alone autumn… or early spring), though you'll find yourself chasing patches of weak European sunlight like a cat moving with sunbeams. You’ll miss everything about it. It’s golden light that makes everything look like it's been painted by God himself: masterpiece sunrise skies and dramatic sunsets that keep your attention until the final stroke, and the variety of blues in blue-sky days. Of course, European sunshine is lovely too. It feels more like a watercolour than bold colourful oils, if you will.
You'll miss the space! Here, everything feels rather like living in beautiful, neatly arranged dollhouses. You'll catch yourself sometimes dreaming of ocean horizons, or inland horizons stretching until they blur into heat haze, or skies so vast they make you feel both infinitesimal and infinite at once. And on calls, you’ll hear the sound of hadedas calling and exclaim, “Ah! Hadedas!” (yes, you'll even miss those raucous, ridiculous birds).
Oh, and those research trips that connected you so deeply to the South African landscape become priceless treasures in your memory box. The way the sand felt between your toes at St Francis, warm and fine as castor sugar. The sound of the waves meeting the rocks while measuring Cape St Francis beach profiles. The salty sea air. The penguins at the lighthouse. And Kruger - dear lord, you'll dream of Kruger. The smell of the bush. The earth that stained your fingernails, and the stories the soils told of its own ancient travels.
You'll realise that European efficiency, whilst undeniably convenient, lacks something vital - that particularly South African ability to make a plan, to find joy in the chaos, to laugh when the power goes off (you still always have candles in the house). The warmth of people here in Germany can be genuine, but it's different from home… more reserved, less lively. You'll find yourself missing conversations with strangers waiting in line, the happy interactions at the petrol station where you know the attendants, the easy camaraderie of shared frustrations and shared hopes. You will deeply miss these warm, open, sometimes darkly humorous people.
The food will taste different too. The different European cuisines are wonderful in their own right, but nothing tastes like home. Not the beef, nor chicken. Not the pineapples, nor litchis. You'll find yourself craving boerewors and pap, biltong (you’ll regret trying American jerky!), and your birthday milk tart from Spar. More than that, you'll miss the ritual of the braai – more than just the food, it’s the gathering, the stories, the way time seems to slow down around the flames.
You'll travel, and it will be magnificent. You'll stand in front of centuries-old cathedrals and walk through Christmas markets that really do look like fairy tales. You’ll take weekend trips to France and Switzerland, or have lunch in Austria. Your experiences are rich and varied.
But even so, sometimes, in the quiet moments after taking in alpine views you’ll find your heart wandering back to Table Mountain and the Drakensberg, or the Mediterranean coastlines that bring you back to summers on beaches with shark sirens and boogie board rashes.
And you need to know your heart will always be in South Africa on days like Heritage Day. Watching from afar as South Africa celebrates what makes her unique, feeling the pull of belonging to something larger than yourself, something rooted in the soils as diverse as her people and the complex history of the landscape and humans… that particular magic of the southernmost part of Africa.
So here's what I want you to know, my dearest past self: don’t take this ache you feel as a sign you've made the wrong choice. See it as proof of how deeply you love a place, how completely you belonged to that beautiful, broken, extraordinary place. You will build a wonderful life in Europe, all the while carrying South Africa in your bones like iron in the earth.
It’s where you ran barefoot as a child, made lifelong friends, and met the love of your life after all. It’s where you learned to be curious about the Earth (there are few better places for Earth scientists than this land of dramatic coastlines, savannas, escarpments, flatlands, deserts, and skies that stretch forever, no?). It’s where you stayed in a cave in the Baviaans, a teepee in the Knysna forest, a stargazing dome tucked away, and a treehouse on a working farm. It’s where you zip lined, picnicked, had wine tastings, road tripped, and saw wildlife. It’s where you were proposed to in a coca-cola coloured river.
South Africa has many problems. You’ve seen them, felt them, lived them. But it is also the place of your family, your stories, your history.
You'll never lose this heritage by leaving because you're not leaving South Africa behind. You take her with you, everywhere you go. The African sun will always be in your smile, the warmth of Ubuntu in how you treat others, the resilience learned from load-shedding and water restrictions in how you face different European challenges.
And you'll return to South Africa for holidays and see loved ones. You’ll return to the beach and bush, but differently. The country will have changed, and so will you, but the recognition will be instant - like meeting an old love after years apart and finding the spark still there.
So, go. Build your life overseas. Love the travel, the newness, the ease. Keep learning the languages, exploring the castles, mastering the public transport systems. Swim in the lakes and climb the mountains. Save money, build security, expand your world.
Know that it's perfectly fine that your compass will probably always point south. Your heart will stretch across hemispheres, and it’ll likely never fully contract again. Your heart will now be in two places at once. And that might be the greatest gift of all. To love so deeply in multiple places that you're never truly away from home, just visiting your other homes. And each time you step off the plane to visit South Africa again, you’ll feel it rush back into you: the knowing that no matter where you live, South Africa will always be yours.
With love,
Your Future Self
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