Chapter 1 - Ouch!
What have we done?
January
16th, 1991. The family farewells were done. The house
sold, worldly goods packed, and pets bidden farewell to. We were moving to a
new country with two suitcases each and three thousand dollars to our
names.
The
heartache was deep. We were moving from Southern Africa, our home for the first
four decades of our lives, to a country, Canada, on the other side of the
world. South Africa, the pariah of the world for decades because of its
apartheid policies, had been isolated by sanctions. Despite having travelled to
UK and Europe, that was the extent of our exposure to the rest of the world.
Our knowledge of Canada was limited. We had seen the beautiful pictures of
forests, mountains, prairies and lakes. I had visited for a few weeks, four
months earlier, on a “look, see visit”, but that was it. Nice people who spoke
English, a massive, beautiful country, but for all practical purposes an
unknown quantity. It was to be an adventure for sure but, lying in bed together
on the night prior to departure, our level of apprehension was high. What was
the next chapter of our lives to look like?
We
awoke at 4am the following morning, at my Mom’s house in Boksburg, to prepare
for the first leg of our flight which would take us from Johannesburg to
Brussels on Sabena airlines and then on to Toronto. The Americans had been
threatening invasion of Iraq for weeks, and as we watched TV that morning the
first bombers had taken off in the early hours of January 17th and
the attack on Baghdad had begun. Speculation had been rife that Saddam Hussein
would be releasing a wave of airport and plane attacks across the globe in
retaliation. We had the cheapest airfare available – no refunds, no date
changes. We wondered if we would be the only people on the flight.
The
hustle and bustle at the airport were a welcome distraction, followed by the
final farewells, to my Mom and Cher’s folks. Then we were in the air
with a handful of other intrepid passengers like us and, ready or not, the
adventure had begun.
Elaine, aged 12, and Julia aged 9 had been
game for the adventure, but they too had needed to bid farewell to friends and
beloved pets. A few weeks earlier our cat, Sandy, and Elaine’s favorite, had
been killed by a car so we were spared the pain of giving her away. Saying
goodbye to Boerie, our dog was hard. He was my special boy. I used to love
taking him to the beach where he would chase seagulls to his heart’s content.
Julia had said to me, “Daddy, you wouldn’t leave one of your children behind
when you go to Canada would you?” I replied, “No, of course not”. She had me
trapped, “Well Boerie is part of our family. Why are you leaving him behind?”
It was like a knife to my heart. I promised Julia that when we got to Canada
and the time was right, we would get more pets. We had arranged to give Boerie
to some folks a few blocks away from our house in East London who were willing
to take him. When we had delivered him, a few days before our departure, to his
new owners, we did so with leaden hearts. Lo and behold the next day, Boerie
was back at our house, sitting outside our garden gate with a smile on his face
as if to say, “Hey you guys, you left me behind by mistake. But don’t worry I
found my way back”. My betrayal of “my best friend” was fully exposed. Oh, my
goodness, this leaving of home is not for the fainthearted.
We
had arranged to stay overnight in Brussels so that we would not arrive in
Toronto totally exhausted. Our plane was touching down in Montreal prior to our
final stop in Toronto. For us Africans the landing was something of a novelty.
It was snowing heavily with whiteout conditions. The ground was invisible. As
we landed, our fellow passengers broke out into clapping and applause. This was
something we had never witnessed before. I guess harsh climates yield up
different reasons for celebration. Before we took off from Montreal, our plane
was sprayed down with pink goop, to keep the wings from freezing. Yikes, this
was an adventure which was beginning to offer a bit too much excitement.
At Toronto airport, the girls were
delighted to be greeted by a sweet little Beagle dog, who came up to say hello,
soon followed by an official who announced that she wanted to know what was in
our hand luggage. We were bemused. It turned out that Cher had kept a couple of
ham sandwiches from the plane for a snack later. We were now branded as
potentially dangerous importers of risky goods and sent off to a different line
up with our suitcases, presumably to be hung drawn and quartered. A family of
Asians ahead of us were having every item of their suitcases meticulously
inspected right down to the squeezing of their toothpaste tubes. We must have
looked innocent because were soon on our way to be met by Rose, my sister, and
Roy her husband. They lived in the forest, about half an hour north of
Lakefield, close to Stoney Lake. It was a three-hour drive or so before we were
able to get our heads down for a much-needed rest.
The next morning, when we awoke, the
outside temperature was -24 degrees Celsius. For the first time, but not the
last, the thought crossed our minds, “Oh my goodness, what have we done?” Our
horror was soon dispelled as we all donned snowsuits and boots and went outside
to play in the snow. Rose and Roy’s kids, John and Joy, similar in age to our
girls, were welcome playmates for the girls. We began to relax. Perhaps we were
going to be ok, but we did wonder how long it would be before we could go
outside without all this extra clothing? It’s probably a good thing we never
asked.
After
a few days with Rose and Roy to get over our jet lag, we made our way down to
Pickering where it had been arranged for us to spend a couple of weeks with Don
and Marg Wulff. John Booker, my new boss at Scripture Union Canada, had kindly
arranged accommodation for us for the first couple of months, to give us time
to find our feet. Don Wulff was an ex South African, so it was a good fit. They
had three or four kids, which gave our girls some built in entertainment. We
stayed in their basement and it was a good location from which to begin to get
oriented. I vividly remember us trying to figure out how our finances were
going to work on what was quite a modest salary. We were getting in a bit of a
panic about it. Don calmed us down and worked through the numbers together with
us. Since being in ministry we had never suffered from superfluous finances.
Having said that, to this day, we have never gone hungry, lacked adequate
clothing, or a bed to hunker down in for a comfortable night’s sleep. God is
good and He promises He will supply all our needs. We had just temporarily lost
sight of what we already knew from experience and were thankful to Don for
helping us regain our perspective.
In
our first few days we had taken delivery of a used Nissan Sentra which we had
bought from a couple of Rose and Roy’s friends who were leaving the country to
work with Wycliffe Bible Translators. It was good to be independently mobile
again.
After a couple of weeks with Don and Marg, John Booker had arranged for
us to move to Lois and Earl Heron’s home in Greenbank to house sit for 6 weeks
whilst they were snow birding it in Florida. This was a gorgeous house on a
large lot. We felt very privileged to be living in such good digs. We were in
the height of winter and being a little north were experiencing winter a bit
more keenly than many. One morning we woke up to find all the trees covered in
hoar frost. It was exceptionally beautiful. We were astounded. Who could
imagine such a phenomenon? So many little things were so different, and we were
absorbing them like sponges.
Another
morning we woke to find the 100-foot driveway covered in deep snow. I looked to
my right and to my left. Both sets of neighbors had obviously got up early and
their driveways were clear. I was impressed. These Canadians are clearly a
tough bunch, to deal so quickly with what looked like a big job before heading
out to work. I took a deep breath, grabbed a shovel, and started digging. About
an hour later I was on my last legs, puffing and panting, sweat dripping down
me and only a third of the way down the driveway. I was beginning to count the
cost of owning a Canadian home and my admiration for Canadians was rising by
the minute. Just then a truck arrived with a big snow blade on the front and
the driver announced he was here to clear the driveway. Phew – what a relief. I
had been dreading having to face that job every few days.
Cheryl
has always had green fingers. We had been asked to keep the Heron’s indoor
plants watered. Cher attacked this job with her normal enthusiasm and was happy
to report back to Lois Heron on her return, that all her plants were in good
shape, especially the large planter in their front hallway. Lois, smiled and
said, “actually that plant is artificial.” We all had a good chuckle about
that.
Within
a few days of arrival, John Booker invited us into the Scripture Union office
to meet the staff and check out the lay of the land. We met Holly Blair, Elaine
Martins, and Irene from the office and Peter Jackson from the warehouse. It was
good to meet the folks who we would be working with. Irene Jones pulled me
aside and said, “Rob, I also am a recent immigrant. Things will be tough for
you at first, but we have learnt how to survive and I’m going to teach you how
to do the same”. She then proceeded to tell us where to find good quality used
clothing, furniture and so on. This was very welcome advice as our dollars were
scarce and we had been trusting that God would show us how we were going to
make it. From then on, we would regularly visit our local Goodwill or Salvation
Army store and pick up good quality clothing and furniture for rock bottom
prices. This survival tip served us in good stead for many years in our early
days in Canada.
One
of the first things we needed to do was to get the girls into a good school. In
South Africa, and East London in particular, we had access to top notch
government schools. They had both been in an excellent Elementary
school for girls, called Clarendon. They had received a top-class foundation.
We needed to find out which were the best schools in the area and then we would
look for accommodation nearby. We asked Don and Marg for their thoughts. They
put us in touch with Alice Chase who had kids the same age as Elaine and Julia.
Alice was extremely helpful but did not really understand what we were looking
for. It eventually dawned on us that most schools were considered about the
same in quality. There were no “exceptional” schools of note. Alice did tell us
though that it might be possible to get the girls into the Gifted Program. This
gave us hope. We eventually decided we would shoot to live in Ajax, not too far
from where the SU office was in Pickering and close to where John Booker and
the Chases lived.
The girls were booked into Southwood Park
Public School where we commenced a love-hate relationship with the principal.
In our first meeting with him we had taken samples of the girl’s workbooks from
South Africa. Their handwriting was copperplate and spelling flawless, as they
had been taught. The principal snorted derisively and made a sarcastic comment
that “this was how we used to teach children forty years ago”, implying our
girls had suffered from an inferior, old fashioned schooling system. This did
not get us off to a good start. The girls got settled into their classrooms,
but clearly for them it was a shock to their systems. Firstly, they had to
learn to work alongside boys. Secondly, they had to get used to a much less
structured classroom set up. It also seemed that wanting to learn was not very
cool. In South Africa, when the teacher entered the classroom, the children
would all rise and in unison would greet the teacher. They were not allowed to
sit down until the teacher said so. Of course, nothing of the sort existed in
this school or any others. Daily they would come home with their eyes wide and
tell us things like “do you know what Johnny said to the teacher today?”. For
us, this was the hardest part of settling down in Canada. We really felt we had
traded in a top of the line educational Cadillac for a rather modest VW Beetle.
Although
I had a job lined up in Canada with Scripture Union, we did not yet have
approval to live and work in the country. South Africa was still under heavy
United Nations sanctions. Accordingly, the Canadian government made it
exceedingly difficult for South Africans to apply from within South Africa to
move to Canada. We had to apply from an embassy outside of the country. For us,
who were living on a thin budget in South Africa, it was costly, time consuming
and tedious. We had decided, rather naively, that now that we had a job lined
up, it would be a simple matter, once in Canada, to make our application for a
work permit and go from there.
Once
we had our feet on the ground and feeling a bit settled, we were itching to get
started at Scripture Union. Until we had a work or residence permit though,
this was not possible. It was time to go to the nearest immigration office and
do the necessary. We hit a brick wall. We could not find the right people to
talk to. We eventually approached an immigration lawyer. All the advice we were
hearing was the same, basically “Go to the nearest Canadian embassy outside of
Canada and get in line with everyone else. Write to us and we will send you and
application form when we are ready”. What I had assumed would be a simple, fill
out a form and wait a few days, process was turning out to be much more
challenging. We were in the country on a holiday visa, had a three-month
non-negotiable return ticket back home. We had sold our house and dismantled
our lives completely in South Africa. We were sure that God had led us to
Canada, but the way forward seemed murky to say the least. Yikes!!
After
a couple of weeks of bashing our heads on blockages I said to Cher. “Let’s just
go down to the Canadian Embassy in Buffalo. Every other time we’ve needed to
resolve a problem like this we have just had to go in person and explain our
situation.”. We left home at the crack of dawn one day to do the two to
three-hour drive to Buffalo. We were determined to be first in line at the
embassy. We wanted to have lots of time to persuade whoever we spoke to that
our request was clearly simple and easily resolved.
When
we arrived at the embassy, we were first in line and waited patiently outside
the door until it was opening time. Finally, they opened, and we were given a
number to wait to be called with. We were tense and a bit nervous. There was a
lot riding on the outcome of this. While we were sitting waiting, Cheryl
remembered that she had left something in the car that she needed for the
girls. She took them downstairs to go and retrieve the needed item. While she
was gone, I was called through for an interview. The gentleman was very
friendly and pleasant and asked me why I was there. I told him our story. He
said to me, “This is your lucky day. There are three categories of people that
we fast track – University professors, journalists and religious workers,
because their jobs often require them to change countries.” He said, “how long
do you plan to stay?” I replied that we had decided that two years would be a
good start and we would know by then if we needed to stay longer. He prepared a
two year work permit and said, “if you think you might need to stay
longer, I suggest you apply soon for Landed Immigrant status and you should be
fine to have it processed within the next two years. The whole conversation had
not taken more than fifteen minutes. I walked back into the waiting room with
the work permit in hand. Cher nearly fainted. We spent the rest of the morning
exploring downtown Buffalo a bit. It felt like God had lifted a huge load of
worry and concern off our backs. Looking back now, we realize that getting into
Canada is no easy thing. People wait for years to have their applications
processed. God had slain a giant on our behalf, and we felt he was confirming
the prior leading that had brought us to Canada in the first place.
Now we had to find ourselves somewhere not
too expensive to live. We had our budget in hand and knew that we could not
afford a lot. We had initially looked at some apartments near Pickering Town
Centre, but John Booker said, “no, you can do better than that”. Eventually we
heard that the Anglican manse in Ajax was empty as the minister had left and
they were looking for a short-term tenant. They were in the process of
renovating the house. As it turned out the timing worked well as we had
committed to staying in the Heron’s house in Greenbank while they were away.
And so, after two months in Canada we moved into our first home at 62 Rideout
Street in Ajax, alongside of the Anglican Church. It was a newly renovated
four-bedroom house. Freshly painted, newly carpeted throughout and the rent was
manageable. Once again, we felt God’s loving, leading hand, guiding, and
providing for us graciously.
Our house was on a quiet street, backing onto an elementary school. We
soon discovered some of the other kids in the neighborhood and the girl’s school
was a few blocks away. We were still in the process of looking
for a church to join. So far nothing had quite fitted what we were looking for.
The girls were needing fellowship and the friends they were meeting on the
street did not seem to have any church connections. We decided to start a Quest
Club in our basement, named after the Scripture Union, kids devotional guides.
We soon had five or six kids meeting weekly and even arranged a sleepover. One
of the girls who joined that was Kim Mills who became Julia’s first friend and
up until recently were still in touch, although life has now taken them in
different directions. Another was Melissa, who is now married with kids. We
occasionally see her around and catch up on her latest news. We pray that we
planted seeds of the gospel in their hearts which will someday take root and
grow.
I
now had to get down to the serious business of looking after our home. We had
an old garden shed on the property which was jam packed with treasures which we
were glad to make use of. We found two bikes for the girls which was a great
find. I got them going and the girls were happy to have them. Life was
beginning to feel that things were getting back to normal. We were getting used
to the very safe living conditions in Canada and, for us Africans, the amazing
honesty of people. Rose and Roy would go away for days on end from their house
in the woods, leaving their front door unlocked. I guess we got a bit careless
and the girls’ bikes were left on the driveway one night. We discovered the
next morning that both had been stolen. This took us back to our natural
African caution. I guess life in the suburbs is not quite as easy going as in
the country.
Speaking
of Africa. For us Southern Africans, living outdoors is considered part of the
natural God given way of things. BBQ, which we call “Braaivleis”, which means
“Cook meat” is a bit more of an art form than it is here in Canada. There is no
such thing as propane. That would be considered cheating. It starts with an
outside fire, which is carefully monitored by the men, whose job it is to come
up with a perfect set of coals for them to cook with. This is the only form of
cooking the men are expected to, and dare I say it, trusted to do. Often the
fire will be started, and the conversation will get going and then regularly
the moment of perfect coals perfection will be missed through all the chatter
and the process will need to be re-commissioned. This is all part of the
occasion of braiing and enjoying the great outdoors lifestyle which people from
Africa value so highly. Now that we had our own home to live in, it was time
for a braai. One of the treasures in our garden shed was an old wheel rim. This
became our fire pit. It was not long before I had rounded up all the scrap wood
I could find, and we had a good fire going in our back yard and the meat was
soon on the go. We quickly got the message from friends and neighbors that live
fires in our backyards, really were not the right thing to do. Reluctantly we
had to let go of our braai model for the much shorter form of propane BBQ.
Having said that I am now a great fan of the quick and easy, convenience of
this approach, and in the light of our often-iffy weather it makes a lot of
sense.
One day, when I was doing chores in the
garden, I spotted a baby squirrel shivering in the corner of the house,
sheltering from the wind. Clearly, it had been separated from its mother.
We called a local pet store and asked if they could take it in. Their reply was
along the lines of, “We have more baby squirrels than we can handle. What your
little one needs is a friend, which we will give you, and here’s how you need
to care for them both”. So, armed with that information we took them in, found
them a cage and proceeded with feeding them milk every three hours. We named
them Squiz and Sambo. This was a great family project. Squirrels grow up quite
fast, we discovered, and although we used to handle and play with them, they
were very skittish, and had incredibly long and sharp nails. They used to love
climbing the curtains. We had been warned about the potential for rabies and
were terrified of being nipped. Eventually we decided to return them to the
wild. We stuck their cage out in the big tree in the garden, with the door open
and left them food in case they could not find their own. After a couple of
days of checking in with us, they took off and we never saw them again. We felt
we had done a good thing and had also managed to dodge the bullet for a while
longer of needing to fulfill our promise that “when we get to Canada” we will
get new pets.
Letting
go of one’s culture is a long and painful process. Most of us do not even
realize how much that we take for granted in life. Our natural assumption is
that this is the way things are done and there is no need to do it any
differently. Only when one moves to an alternative culture where
things are done differently do we begin to realize that all of our previous
assumptions don’t necessarily make sense to the new culture and it is us who
have to adapt, not them. We found Canadians to be genuinely nice people,
but very quickly realized that many folks had a meagre understanding of our
background. The prevailing attitude was that Africa was one country and the
fact that we were from South Africa, meant little to them. They did not
understand our history, geography, or sport. Understandably, folks had
virtually no idea what our lives had been like. All our achievements, track
record and personal stories to date, were of little or no significance. This
was a painful but understandable reality. We realized that we were now in
Canada and all that lay behind, was in the past. We needed to start again
building a brand-new life here. I have found that this has given me a real
empathy for newcomers to Canada, as I see them struggling to hold onto what
they have left behind, but needing to engage in the here and now of Canadian
culture mores and needs.
Shortly
before leaving South Africa to come to Canada, we had been contacted by an
elderly aunt, Flora Haliburton, in South Africa who had been contacted by a
relative in Scotland who had been visited by a Canadian couple inquiring about
Cornish relatives from Scotland a few years earlier. We were given the couples
contact information. Now that life had settled down a bit, we contacted the
couple who, it turned out lived about an hour’s drive away and arranged to meet
them. The couple were Mary and Hugh Jennings. Hugh had Cornish blood in him
from his mothers’ side, who had been a Cornish before marrying. Mary had
researched both sides of their family trees and presented us with the Cornish
one. There was a major gap in her Cornish tree which she had not been able to
complete. It turned out that two of the brothers from a few generations earlier
had emigrated to Canada and one they thought might have gone to South Africa
but had no confirmation of that. As we checked it all out, it was clear that we
were the missing South African link. Over the years we have met some of our
distant Canadian cousins. It was fun to make that connection and to realize
that even here, in this land far away from our forefathers, God had sent
representatives of our shared ancestors.
Something we had set our sights on from
the get-go of being in Canada was that while our girls were young enough, we
had to visit Disneyworld in Florida. Somehow, we had managed to accumulate a
bit of cash and we decided in the March break of 1992 to do a ten-day dash down
there in our newly acquired used van and see the sights. We were still unjaded
Africans, and this was one of the greatest holiday adventures we had ever had
as a family. Disneyworld delivered one of life’s great experiences and I have
since claimed it was the best value for money I have ever enjoyed. We also
found time to visit Cape Canaveral and Daytona beach.
Soon
after returning, on March 22nd, 1992 we celebrated my 40th birthday.
By then we had settled into Ajax Alliance Church, where there were lots of
couples at our age and stage, and we had a good number of friends over. We were
beginning to feel a lot more at home and settled. Just then we were notified by
the Anglican church that they had found a minister and needed us to move out.
Oh dear. Life had been so good where we were. Now we were thrown into confusion
again.
God is faithful and it
turned out that a local Presbyterian church down the road and closer to the
girl’s school, was without a minister and they were looking for a short-term
tenant for the minister’s house. We were happy to oblige and so after 18 months
at 62 Rideout Street we moved into the Presbyterian manse at 4 Hills Road in
South Ajax, with Cher’s Mom and Dad helping as they happened to be visiting at
the time. This was a slightly more upmarket neighborhood, with older homes,
larger lots, and more mature gardens, so we felt we were moving up in life.
This was to be our home for another 15 months.
It
was here that we acquired our first permanent pet in Canada, and this was not
by intention, but rather by accident. One day a cat arrived on our doorstep and
let us know that we were welcome to have her come and stay. She became ours by
default. We felt bad for whoever had lost her, but after a concerted search for
her owners, she became ours. We named her Smokey and she settled down for the
duration. It turned out she was pregnant, and we were the port in her storm.
She produced her litter, which was of course great fun. Amazingly we found
homes for all of them except for one, which we kept and named Tigger. This was
the beginning of a long line of cats which even I, an exclusive dog lover, came
to enjoy and appreciate.
By
this stage we were planning on staying in Canada and our application for Landed
Immigrant status was well underway. We still had the money from the sale of our
house in South Africa. The value of it was declining due to South Africa’s
currency being on a continuous downslide and we were keen to get our foot in
the door with a property. It turns out that, for immigrants, getting a mortgage
is not easy as one has little or no credit history. However, after a couple
years of paying our bills and not defaulting, the bank was ready to grant us a
mortgage. After fifteen months, the Presbyterian church asked us to move out as
they had found a minister. The time seemed right for us to look to buy our own
property. We bought a four bedroomed house a block or two east in Ajax at 73
Cluett Drive. We were ready for the challenges and joys of house ownership, the
never-ending mortgage and permanent list of To Dos.
After
almost three years we were beginning to feel that we belonged in Canada. Work
at Scripture Union was always challenging, but we lived in hope that things would
improve on that front. Rose and Roy were living about a couple of hours drive
just north of Lakefield. We were able to see them regularly. Life was good. God
was good. Moving to a new country is not something I recommend for the faint of
heart. It calls for energy, drive, and determination, to overcome the many
obstacles one faces. Letting go of all of one’s personal histories is very
costly, but a necessary part of bonding to the new country and culture. We had
done it together as a family, God had helped us, and we looked forward to the
future with anticipation.