Fusion Stories - 1. From Jo’burg to Germany by Guest Blogger Alex Smit
Following my Open Invitation to my readers to tell me your fusion stories, I am delighted to post a Guest Blog from Alex Smit, telling us her fusion story of being a South African in Germany.
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I’m Alexandra, born and bred African, who decided at the ripe ole’ age of 30-something to make a grand move to Germany, taking my eclectic writer/musician husband, Martin Barbee, daughter, Nicolette (then 7) and our black street cat.
After 10-odd years as a newspaper journalist for various Johannesburg publishing houses, I felt it was time "for more."
We moved to Hannover where my brother had a little flat and for the first month or two, huddled in one room, cat causing mayhem as she scratched my brother’s girlfriend’s furniture.
My daughter redid the first year of school. We were lucky her headmistress admitted her, considering she only knew the colours in German. The law has since changed and no child will be admitted without first doing a language test!
She’s done remarkably well. Her friends are fellow ,Ausländer’ (foreigners) and both teachers she’s had, always preface parents’ evening seminars with, "Despite not being a native speaker…"
Finding a job is not easy. I packed bread in a factory with the other foreigners and learnt how emigrants take the jobs locals find are beneath them. Of my team of about 20, one was German and he hailed from the East which is almost as bad as being a foreigner.
Having lived the birth of our new democracy makes South Africans tolerant of others. It’s strange as an ,outsider’ to see how subtle intolerance is par for the course in Germany. My grandparents and parents are German so, according to German law, I am German but a Turk born in Germany, who speaks fluent German and knows the culture is a Turk, because of his/her parents. That is just nonsense!
At the same time, there are misconceptions about Germans - people automatically think Germans have no sense of humour and that’s way wrong. My new work colleagues hosted a tongue-in-cheek German party in America, with beer and the usual cliches and their visitors were not sure how to take it. Many believed they were being serious :).
The country is clean, intrinsically democratic and a great place to live. Bigotry is not allowed (they are very aware of their Nazi heritage and never want to go there again) and that makes it like a small slice of the new South Africa. As much as I’m inherently African, this is my home. I’m a half-breed, part African, part German and that makes for an interesting addition to this beautiful country.
On the practical side, we love how cheap it is in Germany, from the cheeses and yoghurts and pasta to CDs and DVDs which we are passionate about. Moving back to South Africa is not an option.
Written by Fusion View Guest Blogger: Alex Smit
- Posted on
Thu, June 22nd, 2006 - Author
Yang-May Ooi - Category
- One response
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June 22nd, 2006 at 10:36 am
It’s good to see this series of guest-written articles get under way and kudos to Yang-May for making it happen.
I did research for a ‘verbatim’ theatre play on a small part of the South African community living in London. My focus was specfic to white middle-aged South African men who had left during the 80’s as young men and travelled to England. I was interested to see what the consequences of being ‘uprooted’ from a fairly early age, took later on in life (the men are all in their 40’s now).
During several of the lengthy interviews I noticed recurring statements about how the ‘whites’ living in the Western Cape were ‘guests’, that there was a sense of living on borrowed ‘time and land’ and that sooner or later these men felt they would have to leave. One man spoke of the “isolation and desperation of living on the southern most tip of Africa”. The Apartheid regime was the catalyst that made most of them leave as well as avoiding military service…and tax reasons too!
When I asked whether they considered themselves ‘African’ most said ‘yes’ but that this only applied outside of SA, back home they would not be considered African.
Bear in mind, these are the voices of just a few men and by no means representative of a group or tendency, but I’d be interested to hear what Alex has to say about what it means to be African.