Immigration - when 'home' changes

As of today, I've been in Canada for 3 years, 2 months and a day. And getting here was a mission. But, all things considered, I have no complaints... Except for the French. I can't wait to actually speak/understand the language, but it is a pest getting there. And it's compulsory, as we're in the province of Quebec. Go figure, we didn't read the fine print.

And, in a very real sense, I was prepared for all of it. What I wasn't prepared for was back home changing. I try my best to talk to my family several times a week, and so I've been up to date with the changing political landscape back there. And, truthfully, where politics and economy are concerned, things are pretty much changing in the direction I had been expecting all along. After all, we didn't leave for a whole new country on a whim. Nobody emmigrates/immagrates for the fun of it. It is stressful and tedious, and Canada had better be the place I rest my head one day.

Yet, while talking with my mom the other day, she mentioned a thing she bought in the store. It's a random thing, but a thing I've never heard of before being sold in the old-old country. But here she is, talking about it as if it were an everyday product, and in that moment I realized there really isn't going back, is there? Even if I were to get myself kicked out of Canada somehow, the place I'll be returning to will never be the place I left. Not really. And it's weird thinking about it. Leaving the place where I was born had always implied change - for me. But back home should still be the same, you know? Except it could never be, and somehow I feel suspended in a place between where I'm going and where I started from. I'm not legally Canadian yet, yet I'll never be South African again. What does that make me?

It makes me a Saffa - an expat South African, that's all. That's all, with all the weight that implies and carries. Do you know I probably won't see my family again for years? If my parents were to die, will I be able to go to the funeral? And, on the other hand, I'll never not sound like a Saffa. Granted, few people recognize my particular accent, but the moment I open my mouth, they know I'm not 'local.' But the 'local' I left isn't the same as when I left it, and so I have to scratch out a place for myself that is neither here nor there, in the in-between...

...kind of like this Canadian spring. Seriously, why is it still snowing? I love snow, but maybe we should save some for next season, you know? If you were to write a book about Canadian weather, you could straight up call it 'A Song of Snow and What-Is-This-Now' and everyone here will understand, even newbies like me.

All the best

A Saffa in the snow (again, because it never stops snowing, apparently)

Not an actual picture of me