NTS

Hi karenwhe

I hoped to get from this website was the views of Brits who have moved here, not a debate on whether the crime levels make it too risky to live here.

(By the way I also do not belong to a proaganda organisation)

What area do you live in, what restaurants do you recommend?

We are now based in Parkhurst, just moved there from Morningside, and so far we are really pleased with the area. There are cafes and shops on the pavement and it is a pleasent change from eating in Sandtons shopping malls.

We are going to Umhlunga for the bank holiday weekend. Have you been there, is there any places you would recommend to go, while we are there..??

Karenwhe

Pleased to meet you too and thank you for telling me, I had no clue Sean was there. And I don't know of that forum or board of whatever it is. But now, I will ask him and check it out, since I’ve already been accused for working for them. Do they pay well? Just kidding.

I regret not keeping and scanning that article. It was about 2 years ago that I read it in a Technology Magazine. I don't remember, I didn't even know that one day this figure would be so important. I saw it just as a "good news" type of thing, never thought it was a big deal.

Karenwhe

I live very close to Parkhurst, in Northcliff.

Northcliff is a great place and the schools we found are also exceptionally great (state schools) like Cliffview etc.

About restaurants, people these days love Melville and it has a very outside nice type of environments (e.g. street restaurants as opposed to shopping center restaurants).

I work a lot and don't go much to restaurants for pleasure but when I do, I go a lot to Cresta simply because it is so close by. People also love Broadacres gardens, also outside type of lovely environment, but that a bit way out towards Forways.

There is the Alfredo in Honeydew way along Beyers Naude towards Honeydew. Their food is excellent.

Once exceptionally great place is Rodizio, in the Leaping Frog Shopping center in Forways. It is a Brazilian restaurant, a huge experience to go there. Of course you must love loud music, it is Brazilian after all

I can't recommend much in KZN as I don't know. But I can ask my husband he is originally from DBN and we also visit a lot, but not enough to remember.

whalewatcher

LOL!

whalewatcher

Bank holidays! You're making me homesick for England...

Head on down to the Ushaka marine world and water park, it's brilliant.

Karenwhe

That is fundamentally why I don’t watch the media anymore. There are problem in SA but is far from one of the most dangerous countries in the world. I would put Iraq on the list there as first. Even Israel before I put SA first. Lets get real please.

Yes there is a brain drain. But when you read media you also have to read within context of what the media is trying to achieve with the stories they publish.

Because previously not all people where allowed free travel, now that people can go, they learn at universities, get education and want to experience the world and they leave. That includes all races and colors and shapes and forms. This will take a while to stabilize, as people want to see the world after they felt they could not be free to do this. I don’t think that this is mentioned a lot in the media but when you live here and get the CVs and talk to people you see what is going on. Some want just to get experience here to move somewhere else to experience the world.

However, if you know where to look (in what corporates I mean), they get visas to import skilled labor, and you can get into SA with visa organized and with a job. Of course you have to be skilled with experience. All you have to do is look in the papers at executive and corporate rental market to see the enormity of the phenomena. This you won’t read in the papers about because of the issue of being politically correct about AA and BEE.

You can always opt to get a job before you come here. But it will take some research to get the right company and so on. As I said this is not publicly known to the extents that it is practiced.

Starting a business is best. You don’t need in SA a lot of money to start a business, but that of course depends what business. I started 3 without any money.

But you will need research into your market and industry and finding a niche. You don’t have to even be here to conduct such research. If you have money to sustain you while to get started that is what you need. It also depends what industry you are in, since I don’t know I can’t comment about the industry.

Karenwhe

Northcliff. But you should have seen this in my previous post.
2. NO. I don’t have any of that. I have a wall that is my height (average) I can look over it if I want to. The wall is there because the pool is in front of the house, not at the back.
In our street only one house has all those things you detailed.

YES I do. And I invite you to travel with me. I do it daily. Oh sorry, my mistake with one of the cars the doors are lock because they lock automatically when you start driving (Chrysler) the other car they don’t lock. And my windows are always opened, due to the fact that I am smoking (bad habit, sorry).

TouristTrap

I truly don't know what to say about this post - it is so fishy - all the red herrings contained within it.

Let us look at SOUTH AFRICA for the moment, which is the country we are discussing.

1. Over 52 'official' murders per day - unofficially the number is much higher. The highest in the world per capita outside of a civil war. They are tortured, strangled, raped, shot, in their FORTRESS like homes, all over the country, from Louis Trichardt to Cape Town and all towns/villages/cities in between, including Hermanus which seemingly has no crime according to some. They are not your average gang banger murder. They are vicious murders of babies, men and women - often accompanied by using hot irons or boiling water. Car hijackings are rife, with many drivers left badly injured or dead. Plain daylight, driving down any street anywhere and you are a target. No exceptions. Thinking positive as much as you like, but face reality number 1.

2. Highest rape statistics in the world. A world leader in fact, of a very S.A. phenomenon called baby rape. It can happen to anyone at any time all over the country. Reality number 2.

3. Restaurants and shopping malls are routinely attacked by groups, note, groups of armed gunmen, carrying automatic weapons. First class restaurants in Cape Town, to malls all over the country, leaving bystanders dead, routinely. Not once in a while. Routinely. Reality number 3.

4. Cash heists conducted with military precision, occur routinely, every day, all over the country leaving bystanders dead in many instances.

5. Local stores routinely attacked by armed gunmen. Not a once every 20 years event, routinely. Bystanders left injured or dead. Happens all over the country. Not just in the larger cities. Everywhere.

6. No justice system at all. Rapists and murderers told to go home on the President's birthday, given a reprieve. Every year. Conviction rate less than 2 percent. This in the official figure of 20 000 murders adds up to 200. Out of those 200 convictions, many will escape from prison and never be seen again, only to carry on murdering.

7. A government who denies that there is a crime problem. Saying that it is the white people of the country who are racists for even mentioning it. Instead of confronting the issue, the government tells those who are unhappy with the way that the crime issue, which is a very real issue and affects MILLIONS of South Africans every year, that they should leave the country.

Meanwhile, the very PRESIDENT of said country, who tells the world that crime in London is worse than in S.A., is building himself a 90 Million security wall around his house which none of the previous presidents, including those who in the apartheid regime when the country was in a state of emergency felt the need to do. Amazing.

8. Start your own business you say. Well, don't try to get ahead and expand it. The moment it starts to show some promise, you're confronted with BEE. Give over 51 percent of shares to a black person, or you won't be able to do business with larger companies. Lose control of your company. Invest loads of pounds or dollars. But rest assured that the day might come when you're told to do it. As has happened to thousands of S.A. businessmen.

9. Work for someone? You had better be a black South African man or woman, or you'll find the jobs basically non-existent. Affirmative Action.

Those are some of the realities of living in South Africa. Those are the reasons why over 2 million south africans have left in the last few years, and are leaving the country in droves. The majority of those who return, leave again if they can. Often, they're stuck in S.A. as the paradise which they have been promised they're returning to, turns out to be over the river Styx instead. Thousands might go back, but the majority are not here a year down the road. They've left after having their eyes opened, yet again.

Those are some of the realities of South Africa at present. If you want to go and live there, fine. But don't come and try to paint a picture which is not realistic. You're not fooling Brits who have just watched 'A Place in the Sun' over in the UK. These are the realities that ALL South Africans live with. You can go all new agey and think positive all day long, but reality will come around and bite you in the behind.

Homecoming Revolution se voet.










So again where you live in SA does make a difference, but so it does in other countries. What about the shooting in the school in the US now that is all over in the national televisions? How safe was that? Who could have predicted that? (by the way, that is not the first time it has happened in the US).

Then maybe you want to live in West Hampsted in the UK where one day I went to the dentist and that exact day the shop I was working for was robbed at gun point? I was supposed to be in that shift, not the kids that was there (the way the kid that replaced in the shop for a couple of hours was only 17).

Or maybe you want to watch AU TV, I was there as well when a banked was robbed and some people got killed.

Or maybe you want to watch Israeli TV and live in Kiriat Shmona where they get bombed occasionally, but you never know when the occasion occurs. Or maybe you want to wait for that bomb in the shopping center to go off, or the bus station or anywhere else as you never know.

Ah, by the way, bombs, you get them in US as well and you get them in the UK and Spain and may othe places for that matter. Just that you can't really put wire and high walls to protect yourself from those, can you?

I don't expect you to become a positive thinker. But as a logical human being, I prefer to look at the big picture. And there are problems everywhere, just watch TV. If you watch SA TV you get plenty of it as well, just like everywhere else.

So, where do you want to focus again? On the negatives of life or make a life and focus on the positive wherever you are, because you are not safe anywhere, safety is in the mind not in the world.

The world is created by our collective thinking, and if all we can os is focus on negative, well then that what we shall see. But if we focus on the positive then we can live a better life with less paranoia.

That is why I said, I prefer to live my life and focus on the positive because in SA there are plenty, and there are plenty everywhere where else for that matter.[/QUOTE]

TouristTrap

David Bullard didn't have a fence around his property either. And he was extremely positive about the country. Until a few weeks ago when he was shot in his own home. He's now living in a fortress.

Amazing what being personally affected, or having your loved ones personally affected will do to your mind. I assume you've never been the victim of a crime, or had loved ones the victims of crime or close family members etc?

I wonder what your tune will be the day you are attacked. Not an if, but a when.

TouristTrap

I believe it. I was living there when the massacres were going on.

I've lived it, twice. The optimism. The euphoria. The expectancy of great things to come. Only to be let down by the governing bodies a few years down the line. And like I've said before, South Africa will be a much bigger problem than Zimbabwe due to the fact that there is so much racial/tribal conflict in S.A., none of which Zims has ever had to any large extent (barring uncle bob and matabeleland)..

Karenwhe

No. That is the media. They are paid by people like you buying the papers and read this stuff. Lots of money and you keep making the media rich and they keep feeding you exactly what you are looking for. It is called "media" they do it in every country.

The people who live here have the right to express exactly the way they live their lives. It is VERY REAL because they are doing it – living here.

On the other hand, all the "run aways" that keep having to convince themselves that they did the right thing leaving and are looking at the media to justify their decision. Otherwise they might just find out they made a mistake and SA is turning good and they are missing out. If by any chance they come to that conclusion it would be “bad” because they have no one but themselves to blame for. Something they just can’t live with.

So, end result you get the expats (living somewhere else) trying hard to convince people living here that the good life they are living is not true, and they (living somewhere else), know better.

That doesn't make sense even for a 9 year-old logic.

Get real.

whalewatcher

My impression of the South African news media is that they considerably downplay the level of violence in the country.

I think most SA expats get their news from sites like www.iol.co.za, and www.news24.com, and rarely get a look at the printed newspapers. They may not realise that the websites, probably for reasons of space as much as anything, carry considerably more detailed stories of violent crime than the print versions.

People actually living in SA are more likely to read the papers than browse the web, they don't get so many horror stories. Draw your own conclusion.

whalewatcher

To add - the print newspapers tend to be very local / provincial, whereas the websites cover the news nationally. Thus a websurfing expat Capetonian will probably be aware of a violent crime wave in Pretoria or Limpopo whereas someone actually living in CT who reads the Cape Times every night will probably be oblivious to it.

TouristTrap

The media does not report even one percent of what goes on in South Africa. They downplay the crime in a mega way. Tegwyn's nephew was shot in an armed robbery at his local Spar two or three weeks ago and it didn't make the papers as haven't ANY of my family's car hijackings, muggings, burglaries and friend's armed robberies, etc. the last few months.

So that is utter bollocks.


Yes, but through long long experience, both of Zimbabwe and South African boards over the many years, I've not been proven wrong when it comes to those who post positive to the exclusion of the realities. If someone came on and said, yes, this is my life, but you are at an increased risk compared to Europe or Australia or the USA of being murdered, raped, shot, carjacked, etc..I'd have more respect.


Here is comes...this old and tired red herring which always crops up from the very 'positive South Africans'. I could be wealthier than I am by a few million rands if I had a rand for every time I had read this on the same tired email which keeps popping into my inbox every week at least.

That we only say these things about S.A. because we are bitter and twisted expats who made a mistake running away. Trying to discredit the poster - not a very good attempt - seen much better before. Utter bollocks in fact, and could not be further from the truth.


Get real.[/QUOTE]

What absolute bollocks. Going by your very positive post, which includes the fishy trails of pointing fingers at countries and situations which you have only seen on TV, obviously, whilst denying the very fact that life in South Africa is not the bed of roses that you might try to portray, but a very real thorn tree which will bite you at some point whilst you go around pretending it doesn't exist and have to walk past every day.

Do any of your businesses cater to expats or tourists in some form or another?

TouristTrap

Very few South Africans can even afford to go online, the costs of DSL being so exorbitant, with the most expensive telephone costs in the world, and those who have it at work, are often blocked from surfing and only have it for emailing. Which is another downer.