So, I’m a South African girl (Go Bokke!) and I have joined my American Husband in the state of Georgia.
Georgia is the Peach State. I haven’t seen or tasted any yet (been two months?!). Also famous for sweet tea and biscuits and gravy (those I have tasted and as much as my husband denies it, our scones and the Southern biscuits taste the same). I am in a Bible-belt (churches everywhere) and we have the sweetest people you have ever met (it must be from all the tea). We life in the city, Valdosta. It’s a Military base Town, home of the Flying Tigers. My husband is in the 75th Fighter Squadron, flying the A-10 Thunderbolt 2 or Warthog and is a Tiger Shark. Attack! I’m here to support him, am learning to clean a large house (wait, what?) and make him laugh at the end of stressful days (success).
Fast Valdosta, GA facts // aka Azalea City
The city is part of Lowndes County (yes it has old-school church signs with black lettering like the movies);
54 518 +2 as the population (my former city, Durban, was 595 061 -1.. a little different in size but similar climate);
January means Winter, but not here, it’s warm out (thank goodness).
I am not a mom and currently not working, so… the famous question that every.single.person. asks: What do you do all day? Um, awkward head scratch. I’m busy, I swear.
Do I watch a lot of Netflix? Yes!
How far is the distance from the couch to the fridge? 20ft- see what I did there, who needs the metric system?
Girl-Scout Cookies don’t only exist in the movies, they’re real, don’t last as long as you think they will and I currently have one of my paws digging into a box of Samoa’s (Thee best).
Okay I’m kidding, kind of.
I have also been baking and cooking A LOT (I can feel the eye-roll, all stay-at-home house-wife things to do right?) I’m trying to make up for all those months living apart from my husband where I couldn’t physically care for him AND it makes me happy, creating. So hush. I’ve managed to learn that when measuring, 1 cup is 8 oz and 180 degrees celsius is 360 F. That’s all you need to know right? The rest is a guess, let’s be honest.
I have been taking pottery classes and making crockery for our home. My first three, wheel-thrown bowls were beautiful, until I glazed them (back of the cupboard they go).
I have been trying to beautify the house with projects:
Spring Wreath
Herb Garden - oh my gosh have I watered those in the last two days?!?
Hanging succulent and kale pot outside front door
Am learning to use the tools and machines in my husband’s workshop (we’re making shelf storage units for our loft)
Charcoal Drawing (The Guest Room is African themed and those naked walls need to be clothed with art)
The Squadron Wives have a cooking club, basically dinner club, one evening a month. It's a bring and share according to a theme and February's was Cajun Food (New Orleans Mardi Gras). I was assigned a dessert and tried my hand at beignets (BIN-yays), the love-child of bread and a doughnut. The food was fantastic, the host welcoming and we shared many laughs.
I have been attending Bible Study Fellowship (BSF)- a group of women (250+) gather to speak about, learn from and share the book of John - and there’s homework (Spiritual life growth).
What else, uh, friend-visits, grocery shopping, exploring town trying to map it out in my head (mostly the hobby shops) and whatever else one does on their own all day, use your imagination ;)
Weekend trips //
Savannah, GA (east)
Jacksonville, FL
Destin, FL
Tucson, Arizona
Suwannee, FL
South African things that Americans find entertaining //
I need not actually give any examples, just the eye-raises and eruptions that result from me opening my mouth and Southerners hearing I have an ‘accent’ is enough hysteria for the day. But for those of you back home reading, without such experiences, here are some things Saffas (South Africans) say that amuse the crowds:
STROKING THE DOG
I miss my pets. My mom has a gorgeous chicken, labrador and cat at her house and I am a dog-person. I cannot resist stroking the dog. This is when eyes start to widen in the US. You what??
Everything I seem to say has a hilarious, crude connotation and am corrected to refer to it as ‘petting the dog’. It’s not a formal pat it’s a.. a stroke? you mean to say stroke? More laughter.
MISPLACING MY TROLLEY
In a grocery store, buggies to Southerners are what trolleys are to South Africans and Shopping carts to, seemingly, the rest of the US. I’m forever misplacing my.. trolley, buggy?
HI EVERY ONE, I’M KATE… FROM SOUTH AFRICA
Announcing your arrival to a group of chattering women is apparently not the norm?! Even when it’s accompanied with your birth country to avoid an influx repeated questions. #cantwin
SHAME
When offering sympathy, it’s ingrained in me to respond, intermittently, to a story being told with ‘shame’. A shortened ‘I’m so sorry to hear that’ or ‘oh no’ or ‘how terrible.’ In the South, upon hearing the words ‘Bless’ or ‘Bless your heart’ NO sympathy or encouragement is being offered but rather a ‘shake your head in embarrassment FOR you’ cringe. Let’s not confuse them.
PLAYING FETCH
'Hey, I'm driving right passed on the way to the squadron tomorrow, shall I fetch you?' Raised eyebrows. 'Oh oh, pick you up, I can pick you up.' Growing up, I never asked my mom to pick me up from school, only to fetch me, from sport's events, parties, who knows what else. Apparently, Americans only do this with animals. Fetch is for animals, we pick up people. So, it has come to this.
COMMON MISUNDERSTANDINGS
We all know the traffic light/robot, band aids/plasters, later/just now and the john/loo (toilet) confusion. So, what about pronunciation? Forget toMAYtoes TOmatoes… let’s get onto herbs. What a riot.
SA : USA
Herb : Erb
OriGAno : OrE[h]gano
BAsil : bA[y]sil
What about the fruit and vegetables? I find myself in stores googling items (hello life in Korea) and pointing to staff members, who have never heard of chickpeas, gnocchi or cream of tartar.. sigh. Hours of seeking ingredients and exhausted, ‘where can I find this?’ and ‘you don’t have caster sugar, HOW DO YOU BAKE? oh, premixes, sure!’ I leave the store determined to improvise in defeat.
Hilarious conversations with sweet, old ladies have resulted from, ‘uh, excuse me but what brand of eggs do you use?’ and ‘um, I don’t see any chili but these peppers have heat ratings, which is the hottest yet still edible’ (you know it’s the real deal when instructed to wear gloves when handling recommended pepper).
Saffas, can you tell me what these are?
Americans, can you use the SA names for these?
I thought not. Cool ;)
My husband and I are picking one unusual vegetable (some may be common veg but we just aren’t used to cooking with them) and trying to use it in a recipe that week. We’ve had acorn squash, artichokes, tiny radish and leeks, spaghetti squash and star fruit.
Moving on down the aisles- I’ve been lost in cereal aisles (who knew so many options existed) and introduced to the world of chips and salsa. Festivals and holidays are celebrated on a large scale with helium heart balloons for Valentines or every kind of bunny home and carrot table decor item for Easter. Let’s not get into throwing a birthday party.
DAILY LIVING
Having a hobby is expensive to fund here but you can find any tool or material you would ever think to dream up, it’s completely overwhelming and I walked around Hobby Lobby for nothing short of 3 hours.
For the lactose intolerant out there, almond and cashew milk is widely available (I mean at EVERY coffee shop- wake up Durban back home).
Filling up gas is something you do on your own. Yes, in SA we don’t fill up our gas (petrol) tank on our own. Shock, Horror (job creation, just sayin'). Chris gave me a brief demo of clicking open the gas cap from inside the car, unscrewing said cap, inserting credit card, entering zip code, selecting fuel type and taking nozzle, squeezing until gas comes out and waiting on the click to finish. Sounds like child's play.
He told me all this as I arrived. Then one weekend he flew down to Florida with his squadron and I had been in the US less than 3 weeks and suddenly had to drive a 4.5 hour journey across states to meet him. I had never driven on an interstate on the ‘wrong side of the road and of the car’ on my own or for such a long time before. I was nervous. I went to fill up the gas on my own for the first time. He was flying so there was no way to reach him until I got to FL.
Back to the gas, it’s easy right, every one does this. The gas station was a little run down but I didn’t know where I was and pulled in out of desperation. Okay I can do this. I look at the gas.
Last time, Chris told me it was the black pump. Here, they’re all black. Shoot. What number does he use? No idea. I’m going to guess. Wait, the card. I insert it and it asks for the zip code. Here’s my first grade moment, not knowing my phone number or address yet. Disaster. Think think think. Hahaha nervous laughter, I rack my brain and somehow remember the zip code. Now, selecting a random gas nozzle (which was miraculously the correct one, thank you grey matter), I take off the nozzle and insert it into the gas tank and squeeze. Now what? Nothing is happening. I cancel my transaction and try again. Still nothing. No one is around. Why is this so difficult? I’m doing everything as I should, right? More than 30minutes passes and I’m late to leave, which means I’ll be driving in the dark. Panic! I rush into the store and the lady tells me, in broken English, to go back and life the lever. The what? I go back, do the same thing and squeeze the handle. I don't know what she’s talking about.
OMG epiphany- this gas station has an extra step (naturally), a lever you lift underneath where the pump stands before the gas nozzle is lifted. By now my transaction has been cancelled too many times and I have to go into the store to complete it, feeling like a dumbass, yet relieved. Let’s get on it. Hopefully I won’t be pulled over by a cop, ever (it’s scary, they follow you, lights and sirens screaming to catch you for speeding fines rather than have roadside cameras set up that send your fines in the mail). Finger’s crossed. Oh, by the way, there's an image to show I can actually fill up a gas tank (my husband thinks it's hysterical and makes me do it every single time now, just incase #facepalm).
People will keep asking, ‘are you surviving?’, ‘settling?’ and ‘is it everything you ever wanted?’
There’s no replacement for a family you have grown up with and the Indian ocean (the standard of living in SA is pretty fantastic) but we have embarked on a new adventure and are making the most of where we are and who we are with- this is what we are about. Chris and I are a team and will tackle everything we come up against together. Say hello to kayaks and shooting ranges, Vietnamese Pho and wood working projects AND living in the same house as my husband… this is life in Georgia.
When I think of more examples on how things are interpreted so differently, stories about life in the USA or reactions to Saffas, I’ll holla/hit you up/let you know?!
Much love, Kate x