Settling in…

Greetings, people.

I don’t even know where to start. I have so much to say and no idea how to say it. Things here just keep getting more amazing with each passing day. My first week at work was quite “lekker” (despite having to re-attend endless training modules I had already completed when I first started with my company). I’m starting to have some major responsibilities dumped on me here, which is both terrifying and amazing 🙂 I’m excited for the challenge, but I know I can anticipate some long and sleepless nights ahead of me.

Aside from boring work stuff — I’m starting to immerse myself in the culture here a bit more. For example, last week I went out for a meal with two colleagues at a traditional African style restaurant. We ordered a starter plate of mopane worms.

As adventurous and exciting it is to eat worms… I have to admit, they kinda sucked. I mean, they weren’t horrible, but they weren’t great either. I would recommend at least trying them to anyone. Hey, when in Rome… right?

On the same note, I travelled to Pretoria this weekend with my new Botswanian friend to visit her old friend from Nigeria. It was an interesting experience learning about how her friend went from growing up in a tribal atmosphere to being a mother of 2 educated, and incredibly intelligent, teenage girls and living in Pretoria as an event coordinator. She cooked us a traditional Nigerian meal… A combination of Ila Asepo (Okra Soup) and Ogobono soup. The okra and ogbono (a type of ground seed) are kind of “pureed” to make the base of the soup, which ends up being a super goopy and thick soup. It was complimented with some beef and super spicy flavors! The soup is served with a pile of semolina “fufu.” This is a type of starch (looks like mashed potatoes) but you can pick out little pieces, roll it around in your palm to form a bite sized chunk, and dip it in the soup before you bite into it. Pretty amazing!

I also took some photos of the wild life around the office park. I can leave the office any day and see these just about every day. I feel so lucky!

A family of Egyptian Geese.

A herd of Springbok.

A beutiful male peacock chillin on the hand rail of some office steps.

One of the male peacock’s many wives (you know peacocks are polygamous, right?)

A huge tortoise that has literally been in that same spot for days. He’s not dead, because I saw him move a centimeter or two…

Muscovy Duck. This thing was almost scary. It will walk/run right up to you as if it’s asking for food or something. Maybe it just wants some love… I don’t know. I wasn’t about to find out…

Just a pretty orchid. These are also all over the office park.

In other news, as I’ve mentioned, I’ve been diligently searching for places to live around here, and I think I finally found a winner this weekend. The place is a “garden cottage,” which means it’s just a detached little house on someone elses property. This one in particular is located in Parktown North, which is one of the more affluent and trendy suburbs of Johannesburg. It’s also (appropriately) named for the various parks in the area (other suburbs in the area include Parkwood, Parkview, Parkhurst, Craighall Park, etc). So this place is within walking distance to the Rosebank Mall, a local PlanetFitness, a Bikram yoga studio, various cafes, bars, and shops. And best of all, it’s only about a mile away from a VERY IMPORTANT event coming up in Johannesburg:

Yes, a craft beer festival in Greenside (another trendy burb of Joburg) and only a mile away from my soon-to-be living quarters. How amazing! Hopefully I can arrange to move into the new pad before this event goes down 🙂

While we’re on the topic of beer, I met a new colleague today who also brews his own beer. I guess the homebrewing here is done slightly differently than in the US. They only do small batches, but almost always all-grain. He hasn’t ever had the chance or equipment to do a nice hefty 5+ gallon batch. So, we’ve agreed that he will teach me how to do an all grain batch (since I have yet to do any all-grain brewing) and I’ll show him how to brew a 5+ gallon extract batch. Oh, and I’m glad I didn’t bring my homebrew kit, because kits here are pretty cheap…. much cheaper than what I would have paid to ship my supplies over here.

Oh, same colleague also invited me to join him and like 13 of his friends on a 5-day hike this December in northern South Africa. It’s a hike along the Magoeboskloof (I can’t for the life of me pronounce that name) trail in the town of Tzaneen (Limpopo Province). You stay in huts along the way so it’s pretty cushy hiking, but only costs R530 for all 5 days, which is about $50 in USD.

Additionally, I have been more actively planning my trip to Tanzania to hike Mt. Kilimanjaro. I’m more than likely going to complete the hike over Christmas. The trek I’m looking into starts on Christmas day, summits on New Year’s Day, and then ends on January 3rd. The route I’m planning to take is called the Northern Circuit, which is a lesser travelled, more scenic, and longer route than some of the other options. It follows the “Lemosho Route” for the first 40 km or so, but then takes a detour around the northern rim of the mountain — a highly untravelled path. It’s a bit more dangerous since you’re hiking in areas where medical aid and rescue won’t reach you as quickly, but the scenery and serenity of the trails along the northern edge are allegedly breathtaking. I’m just hoping now that I can organize everything without breaking the bank 🙂

I will leave you with a taste of one of my annoying idiosynchrasies: a foodie pic! My two colleagues (who are staying at the same B&B) and I decided to cook a meal the other night. We went for a beef stir-fry with a Chinese barbecue sauce and wild rice. It felt good to finally cook something again!

So obviously I am having a great time here, but I do miss all of you back home ❤

More news to come soon!

The Rainbow Nation

OK OK OK… I know blogs are no fun without pictures. I promise I will have some soon. I’ve just been so busy enjoying myself that I haven’t had time to take any. But I had such a fantastic day that I couldn’t go to sleep without recording my first day on the job here!!! First of all, what an amazing welcoming experience I had at the office here in South Africa. The people were so warm and friendly, and genuinely excited to have me on their team. Any apprehensions I may have felt about [more or less] starting over at a new office have completely vanished. And I am so amazed with how culturally diverse the staff are here. In the Johannesburg office alone today, I had the pleasure of meeting a gentleman from Scotland, two dudes and a lady from England, a woman from Poland, a lady from Botswana, a guy from The Netherlands, another from Australia, several Nigerians and Indians, a Frenchman (and soon to be another French-woman!), a few nationals with tribal descent, and of course quite a few other native South Africans… And now lucky for them — they have an American to add to the nationality list. Ha! No wonder they call South Africa the “Rainbow Nation”.

Now I have to make special mention of the office park here. There are several cafes, a gym, a few medical/sports medicine specialists, and a salon all within a stone’s throw from the office building. Additionally, the office park was constructed with the intention of leaving an abundance of natural surroundings for the wildlife inhabiting the area. Just on our walk today, we saw the annoying bird I mentioned before, the Hadeda ibis, a few peacocks, a wild looking duck (which actually walked right up to me begging for food), a tortoise, several springbok (South Africa’s version of deer), and a whole bunch of small white squirrels who also seemed quite comfortable walking right up to us and sniffing our shoes (nothing like the skiddish little rodents we have in the US). And it was so sunny… and warm… and DRY! I didn’t perspire even a drop! (Kelly/Gabby/Sameera, you know this is a milestone for me). I can tell I’m going to be happy here. Still waiting for that moment of “OH FUCK” to hit me, but so far I’ve been astonishingly relaxed about this rather dramatic life change… knock on wood.

This evening I spent some time with my new friend from Botswana as well as the Australian fellow (who has been living here in Joburg for over 1.5 years). The Aussie had some great tips and relevent advice for living in Johannesburg. I’m also gradually getting used to the lingo here… Some of the common words I’ve learned today include:

Traffic light = “robot”

Good/nice = “lekker”

“Now now” = like, right now…

“Just now” = soon, but not right away…

“Howzit” = hello, how are you?

“Sharp” or “Sharp Sharp” = great!

In other news, I’ve been diligently searching for apartments, and will likely spend this coming weekend viewing several of them. I’ve even been invited to go on a hike with a friend of a friend of my mother-in-law (Thanks Julie!) on Sunday. If that all pans out, I’ll have had a chance to explore the outdoor wonders of South Africa in as little as 1 week of being here. And I hope to have the chance soon to meet my Dad’s cousin, Chris, who has been living here in Joburg for several years now I believe. There may or may not be a tentative trip to “The Lion Park” one of these coming weekends, where you can literally sit down and snuggle with little baby lions and cheetahs. HEAVEN! OK must go to bed because I’ve been so excited lately that I haven’t slept a wink. G’night!

“The only difference between fear and excitement is your attitude about it.”

First Impressions

The long awaited moment has arrived… I have officially arrived in Johannesburg, South Africa, where I will be living for the next two years (at least…). I arrived at O.R. Tambo Airport (named after Oliver Tambo, a politician who played a large part in the anti-apartheid movement with Nelson Mandela) last night after a long 16 hour flight from Atlanta. The flight wasn’t horrendous, but it was still 16 hours of very little movement. Needless to say, I became incredibly restless at certain times throughout the flight. I did manage to watch 4 movies though! 🙂

Upon collecting my luggage and sluggishly dragging it through customs, I arrived at the international pick-up terminal, where I was greeted by a lovely man holding a sign with my name on it. This man’s name was Reginald (the driver who was hired to “collect” me from the airport). Our trip from the airport to the Bed & Breakfast I am scheduled to stay at for the next month (Lavender Cottage B&B in Paulshof) was more or less uneventful. The sun was setting and I couldn’t see much of the surroundings. I did happen to notice an ENORMOUS warehouse sized building dubbed “Makro Liquors.” I couldn’t even fathom the amount of liquor contained in this giant building. But I later learned that, although the store title contains the word “liquors,” it sells groceries and wholesale household items as well (basically South Africa’s version of Sam’s Club or Costco). We also drove under several structures on the highway with bright purple lights beaming down on us, and every time we drove under these structures, the car beeped several times. It turns out these are South Africa’s version of “EZPass” readers. A pretty startling form of technology if you ask me, but I suppose more efficient than the one lane toll booths we are forced to merge through in the U.S.

Upon arriving at Lavender Cottage, I was greeted by the couple who own the B&B — Simon and Ziggy. Incredibly friendly and welcoming people! I can already tell I’m going to like it here… The remainder of my evening consisted of unpacking my suitcases, letting family and colleagues know that I arrived safely in Joburg, and resting. I somehow managed to fall asleep by 11:00 pm JHB time (which is 5:00 pm EST), and more or less slept until 8:00 the next morning. I needed that.

Today, one of the partners at my company picked me up for a little “welcoming” tour of Johannesburg. He showed me where the office was located, took me to a local restaurant for lunch, gave me a brief driving lesson so I could get used to driving on the left side of the road, and stopped at a local grocery store so I could pick up a few necessities. All in all, a great welcoming experience. Driving on the left isn’t as tough as I thought it would be… but then again, I haven’t really hit any of the major roadways yet. I still have a lot of learning to do! And although I previously read that drivers are terrible out here, they are a hell of a lot more courteous than East Coasters out there in the U.S…

Now I’m back at the B&B, recording my first impressions of Johannesburg. After having the chance to see a bit more of the city (or at least the northern suburbs) today, I can say that Johannesburg seems like a friendly, sunny, and lush city. The only negative impression I have so far is the obnoxious sounding bird outside of my window. I think it’s called a Hadeda ibis. And the most positive impression is the cute little furry feline that lives here at the B&B. Her name is FiFi, and I adore her.

Whelp, time to go occupy my time by playing with kitties and practicing my yoga. Tomorrow is my first day at the new office, so I’ll need my beauty rest. More interesting and adventurous things happening soon!

 

Today I close the door to the past, Open the door to future, take a deep breath, step on through and start a new chapter in my life.

Unstoppable…

I’m exactly 1 week away from my departure to Johannesburg. Had I known how grueling the process of relocating to a new country is, I might have reconsidered my decision to go. But I’ve never been one to give up on my dreams, no matter how stressed I become. Let’s go over some of the things I had to do in preparation for the move:

1.) Estimate my departure date and give apartment landlord 2 months notice to terminate lease.
2.) Go through stuff — determine what to bring, what to sell, and what to put in storage while I’m away.
3.) Hold yard sales (at least 2) to attempt to sell unneeded belongings (which included A LOT OF JUNK).
4.) Post unsold stuff on Craigslist, Facebook Community Yard Sale pages, etc.
5.) Determine how to terminate the lease on my car. Can apparently terminate lease by selling car and using money obtained to complete payoff on lease. Easy enough… right?
6.) Renew driver’s license so that it doesn’t expire while I’m gone.
7.) Speak with credit card companies — determine if I will incur any foreign transaction charges while living there.
8.) Speak with student loan holder — determine best way to pay bills while I’m gone. Turns out I can’t make loan payments from a foreign bank account, so I will need to keep my U.S. account open and wire money to it when I need to pay bills.
9.) Speak with bank — determine if I can keep account open while away and wire money. Determine if I can use debit card in foreign country.
10.) Visit dentist — get tooth cleaning and chipped tooth repaired prior to departure.
11.) Medical visit — determine if I need shots or vaccinations prior to departure.
12.) Begin process of getting permit to work in South Africa… This included:
-Visa/work permit application
-Getting letter from U.S. Human Resources stating reason for transfer
-Getting letter from South Africa Human Resources stating reason for transfer
-Getting police background check on myself to prove to South African consulate that I’m no criminal
-Getting chest x-ray and medical exam to prove to South African consulate that I won’t bring any diseases into the country and that I’m fit for work.
-Obtaining college transcipt to prove to S.A. that I’m educated and that it’ll be worth their time to let me into the country and work for them.
-Provide a bank statement to prove that I’m not broke (even though I kind of am)
-A payment of $280 bucks
-A trip to NYC to hand deliver work permit application and associated documents
-4 weeks of waiting for the application to be processed/worrying that my passport will get lost in the mail when they deliver my documents back to me.
13.) Get eye exam and order enough contacts to last me the for entire duration of me being in South Africa.
14.) Cancel gym membership. They cause a stink about my wanting to cancel…
15.) Argue with gym about right to cancel membership and personal training contract.
16.) Obtain letters from Human Resources describing my intention to leave the country so that gym will allow me to cancel my membership. They finally folded.
17.) Cancel rock climbing gym membership.
18.) Schedule electric to be shutoff when I vacate apartment.
19.) Schedule internet/cable to shutoff when I vacate apartment.
20.) Find out that my visa application will not be processed until AFTER I’m scheduled to move out of my apartment.
21.) Ask landlord if I can stay at apartment for 1 more week.
22.) Reschedule electric to be shut off after my extra week at apartment.
23.) Find out that application will not be processed until even later.
24.) Find place to stay while waiting for application to process. Move back home with parents in Allentown.
25.) Attempt to sell car back to dealership from where I leased. Dealership assures me that car is hot seller, worth a pretty penny; I’ll likely get out of my lease with no penalty; might even make some money from the sale…
26.) Dealership completes appraisal of car and offers $4k less than payoff amount. I’m now apparently obliged to cough up $4k to pay differential between their appraisal and payoff… Jerks…
27.) List car on Craigslist and Autotrader to attempt to sell private party.
28.) Get several calls about car — no serious inquiries from private parties.
29.) Ask other dealerships if they want to buy car. Other dealerships offer up to $1200 less than payoff… better than 4k, right?
30.) Finally find dealership who wants to buy car for only $1031 less than payoff. Sell car to said dealership, cough up the $1031, and be without transportation.
31.) Visa application finally approved. Passport sent back.
32.) Discuss official departure date with HR team in South Africa. Agreed upon date is September 1, leaving me 2 weeks to finalize everything.
33.) Pack items that I plan to ship to South Africa. Organize shipment and schedule pickup. Pay $800+ to ship 80 lbs worth of clothing, shoes, climbing gear, etc. Fingers crossed that belongings don’t get lost in transit.
34.) Find out that Comcast cable company decided to charge me for unreterned equipment. Attempt to settle dispute before departure since I won’t be able to call and bitch over a long distance phone call. Dispute still not sorted out but fingers crossed that universe works in my favor.
35.) Find out that electric company charged me twice for last bill. Dispute charges.
36.) Close EZPass account and mail transponder back to EZPass so I’m not charged out the ass for more unreturned equipment fees.
37.) Get rental car so I can get to work while I’m without transport. Commute 60 miles (approximately 1.5 hours) to and from work each day until I leave.
38.) Transition major responsibilities at current office to others. Try to stay “billable” at work while dealing with all other relocation related stressors.
39.) Make effort to see all friends and family members before I leave.
40.) Determine what voltage South Africa runs on. Determine if I’ll be able to use my electronics out there. Purchase plug adapters AND voltage converters as contingency.

OK, that’s not even all of it. I’m just too tired to try and think of every other seemingly trivial yet actually incredibly stressful factor related to my transition to South Africa.

I don’t really expect you to have read all of that, but I wanted to write it all down so I could remind myself of everything I had to go through in order to make this happen.

Tonight is my final night in West Chester, and hence the last night I’m going to be seeing my friends down here. I’m currently at my favorite coffee shop, getting my fill of the most AMAZING coffee in the world before I’m forced to be without it for the next 2 years. Soon to be heading to my favorite bar, where I can see my favorite people and drink my favorite beers 🙂

Sometimes it seems so easy to focus on everything I’m sacrificing by embarking on this journey. But other times, I’m able to see clearly just how amazing and enlightening this entire experience is going to be. I expect that my initial experience out there will be tough — dealing with new work environment, new culture, new surroundings, new currency, driving on opposite side of the road, feeling lonely, etc… I expect there will be several nights where I cry myself to sleep dwelling on how much I miss home. But in the end, a few sorrowful nights and stressful days will seem like nothing compared to the MANY exciting adventures and educational experiences I’ll get by living in a foreign country for an extended period of time.

I’ll leave you with a couple of quotes that have helped me put things into perspective…

“If it’s both terrifying and amazing, then you should definitely pursue it”

“If you do what you fear most, then you can do anything”

“She was unstoppable. Not because she did not have failures or doubts, but because she continued on despite them”

I. Am. Unstoppable.

Early Days

I’ve never been great at creative writing, so don’t expect this blog to be anything eloquent or poetic… The brute strength of my words and crude tongue may be enough to thoroughly entertain you. But frankly, this blog is merely going to serve as a journal to document what I imagine will be two of the most interesting years of my life thus far… So here goes…

My name is Kirby. I love yoga, rock climbing, drinking craft beer, and travelling the world. I currently live in West Chester, Pennsylvania (a suburb of Philadelphia). I grew up in Allentown, which is about 50 miles north of West Chester, and then came to West Chester for college 9 years ago. After graduating from West Chester University with a bachelor’s degree in Geoscience, I decided to stay in West Chester and look for jobs locally.

After a grueling 1.5 year hunt for jobs in the midst of a severe economic recession, I eventually landed myself a position at a big name environmental consulting firm. I’ve been working there for almost 4 years now, and I feel I’ve grown immensely from a professional development standpoint. I love what I do, I love the company I work for, and I love the opportunities I have as an employee with my company. But I’m bored to death with eastern Pennsylvania.

We have offices all over the world… from just about every U.S. state, to China, England, India, Australia, Sweden, Kenya, Peru, Japan, Brazil, and so many more… I think the last count was 40 different countries. With that being said, an e-mail recently went out saying that our Johannesburg, South Africa office was looking for some internal recruits to help manage a major contract we won with one of our biggest clients. Needless to say, I jumped on the opportunity. The positions they were looking to fill were exactly what I was suited for. I pursued the opportunity with vigor, enthusiasm, and confidence, which I believe must have impressed the bigwigs in charge of this particular project. After several interviews and some supervisory referrals, I was offered a position.

However, the offer was less than satisfying. The cost of living in Johannesburg, or “Joburg” as they call it, is generally less than that of Philadelphia, so my salary was “adjusted” according to the standards in Joburg. After calculating my budget, considering the bills I would still have to pay in U.S. dollars (i.e. my student loan payments, the cost of a storage unit to house my furniture for the next two years, credit card annual fees, etc.) as well as the bills I’d be paying in Joburg, I determined that by accepting the offer, I would literally be putting myself in debt. There was no way I could put myself in a situation like that….

I was bummed, depressed, disappointed. I had been so excited to embark on what seemed to be an amazing adventure, only to be let down by the most evil entity in the world — money. I reconfigured my budget, made several sacrifices to lower my expenses, and still I didn’t think it would be financially feasible. I was preparing to decline the offer….

BUT… I couldn’t decline unless I at least tried to negotiate first, right? So I did. I didn’t get quite what I asked for, but my company was willing to work with me on this… After said negotiations, I determined that I could afford to do this, but I’d have to sacrifice my ability to put money into savings for my future. The value of experiencing living and working in a new country outweighs the value of stuffing money into a savings account, right? Yes!

So it’s happening. I accepted the offer a few weeks ago, and now comes the hard part…

…actually going through with it.