Oh god!

I have to do some work now. Writing sentences, with words that have meanings, I can't just hide behind my silence and few memes, I actually have to formulate thoughts, and think of what just happened.

Today is the 2nd of January 2021 and it's been 457 days since we left South Africa for another kind of south, the south of France, and I thought it would be a great time to do a little retrospective, I also feel that I owe that to this blockchain, as at the time some of you have supported our project.

One day of May 2018, while we were picking mulberries in one of the big park in Johannesburg, we made a conscious decision that will change our life.
The weather was particularly kind, the dogs and the kids were happy, but a profound sense of discontent was lurking, as much as life was good in the motherland, it could have been better.

It's always a hard realization to make, having the discernment
that allows to judge a situation for not what it's worth at this specific time, but for what it could be.

I've had been in the country for more than 10 years, there is no point in recounting the ups and downs of our life, but what I did know at the time, is that it was time to go.

I always admire people that are self made and thrive in any environments, any situations, I don't think I am that kind of person, I need a network, I need people to thrive.

The harsh economic mindset of the "City of Gold", makes it very difficult to succeed in any industries, as the competition is fierce, and the power is transmitted in within the "circle" of people you know, and in within your family.
In other words, you can succeed if you are established and comes from a generation of successful individuals, and chances of social ascension are pretty rare, that is the way society is built, from its tribes, casts to its infrastructures.

It probably shaped my personality in the long run, 10 years of freedom, or 10 years of imprisonment depending on the context, I accidentally ostracized myself by embracing a new culture, and a life under the grid where I undermined my possibilities.

I guess it was ok for a while, for my wife and I to live this life, but we very soon came to realization that if we have the certainty to provide our family with something better, there is no hesitation to have and it has to be done.

The only trigger, is to get the wake up call which makes you finally see what "could be". We very often get comfortable in our own resignation, stuck in that social ladder, which very soon can you make lose focus. we are being told not to dream, to lower our expectations of life not to be disappointed, and very often fulfil that predestined self prophecy.

I have to be 100% honest on this one, that day with the mulberries, I pulled off an amazing trick. I convinced my wife, who spent her entire life in South Africa, who has never left the country before, even less her family, to come with me and the kids 14000km away from her place of birth, to an unknown continent where she will become the minority, and have to adapt to a culture that can be sometimes very close minded.

I must have given that day one passionate speech, because it fuelled her passion and dreams for years to come, and it helped us tremendously especially in those moments when I was the one doubting that we would ever be able to move, that it was a crazy fucking idea in the first place, and we will never be able to pull that off, she was the one slapping me (it's a metaphor) right across the face and make me keep the focus on our goal, and eventually, after repeating it enough, the 20th of September 2019, we had our plane tickets for France.

I am being very picky in the way the events are unfolding, I for example decided not to mention the hell that we went through in South Africa to get married in the first place, how our wedding papers "got lost" by the administration, how the South African government did not want to give us a birth certificate for our son, because we eventually managed to overcome all these obstacles, and it's probably a story for another time.

Saying goodbye to my friends

I wasn't happy that day. You have to understand: My dogs are my best buddies, and leaving them was probably the most excruciating challenge I faced, I really had to convince myself that we will eventually get them (which we will), and once again flirting with self delusion, as it seems to be the only way to fulfil my prophecies. So, yes, we will get our babies back, it's been more than a year and a half since we've been separated, but lucky for us, we did not give them away, they are with my wife's mother in South Africa, and it's our next project to get them, at all cost.

Now that we have the farm that we always wanted, they can finally come join us in France, it's just a matter of financing it, but we will get there eventually.

Back to our story: The last day before leaving, once we sold our most valuable belongings, we were left with bags, toys and a decade of hoarding that nobody seemed to care about.

I decided to load up a truck and went to the main garbage disposal to get rid off our unwanted belongings.
Everything was gone in no time, there were now no turning back...

We were ready to say goodbye to our life here, onto the new one.

TO BE CONTINUED

(Will our heroes make it in time before the beginning of a global pandemic? You will discover it in "part 2" coming next week)