Thursday 13 January 2011

Diving right in {5 Year recap} & a Scrappy Interview!

****{Photo post on it's way here in the very near future - just need to upload an entire memory card first!}

I hate long blog sabbaticals.  I always come back to the blog feeling so disorientated & am never sure where to start.  Bear this in mind as I try to unscramble my thoughts here before my real year begins.  I know it's already mid-January but we have been away for a couple of weeks & only just returned today.  Now when I say away I really mean it.  Away from everything.  No phones, no internet, nothing.  And believe me I am not accustomed to that these days.

There was the occasional glimmer of signal & the occasional connection (as you can see from my previous post) but for the most part I was very much offline.  I don't travel a lot & don't own a laptop.  Of course I would love one but I prefer a powerful pc with lots of space/memory for all my images & had to choose one or the other.  I've done my best to pay all my recent commenters a visit since I've been back today & hopefully now that we are back home I'll be able to catch up on all my blog reading & provide some interesting fodder for you to read here too!

Right now though I still have to unpack all my luggage, sort through mountains of laundry, get to grips with my home once again & get out to the shops & buy us some food!  It feels like we have been away for ages.  Perhaps because we were so remote - I'm not sure why...But something interesting I have noted is that we were all dying to come home!  Not because we were miserable on holiday or didn't enjoy our adventures, but because, for the first time in a decade, we actually looked forward to returning home.

You see, 2000 - 2005 in Zimbabwe (for us - as we left in 2005 - for others, longer, for some perhaps still) I call the "fire years".  I hated them.  They were truly awful.  Going back "home" filled me with dread.  Living under that oppression, with that fear, in that squalor, was terrible.  Then we moved away.  Problem solved!  Not quite.  We faced every possible obstacle you could imagine when we first arrived in Durban, in fact, more than we had ever imagined.  We were robbed at every turn & in 6 months had suffered 7 instances of crime & I had had an accident that would change my life forever.

People thought we were crazy leaving Zimbabwe because we had invested our whole lives there & built a beautiful home, but I was prepared to sacrifice it all for the hopes of a "free" life.  I knew it wouldn't be easy but I knew that if we stayed there was no hope.  The situation would only deteriorate & it has.  Some say we have moved "from the fryng pan into the fire" by leaving Zimbabwe for South Africa.  They may well be right, but believe me it's a hell of a lot more pleasant in this fire than it was in that pan!

As the last 5 years have rolled by so we have re-established ourselves.  From sweltering through our first summer here we are now living in a home with 8 air-conditioners!  The good Lord has blessed us beyond measure.  We have struggled.  We have worked.  We have despaired.  We have triumphed!  Finally, now that we are living in our very own home, our first "real" home here, one that we now own, instead of the rented dives we have had to endure, we can all honestly say we are delighted to be back!!!

 I know I have wished you all a "Happy New Year" already but it is only really now that we are all starting to get into the year, returning to work, getting kids back off to school, thinking about what we want/have to achieve & how the heck we are going to fit it all in!  I have tons of plans & hopes for my year.  Goals coming out of my ears, eternal optimist that I am.  I won't bore you with them all but I do need to get them writtten down so perhaps that may make it into a post this month.  To all my bloggy friends, I wish for you blessings in abundance & the answers to all your prayers this year.

For now I'm leaving you with the link to a local site where I am featured this month.  I finally got to complete one of those scrappy interviews!

Take a look here if you have the time.  I am going to screensave it & publish it here at a later stage.

7 comments:

Vicki said...

Welcome home Helen.

Diana said...

Yay so glad you're back.
I must say I find your all you have to say about Zim and leaving, etc. very interesting.

Stefanie said...

Great insight into your life.
It is wonderful to be truly "home" isn't it?
Looking forward to reading your goals and seeing more of your beautiful home.

Kirsty Vittetoe said...

Hey, good to hear from you again, now I can't wait to see your new creation!!!

tania said...

so you are back!! welcome back:)
i went over and read your interview! congrats on getting featured:)
hope you are finding your feet quickly,so that you can start sharing your ideas again!!

Lynette Jacobs said...

So glad you're back...missed your posts.

Bente Fagerberg said...

Welcome home Helen.Must have been very special to have gone back.So interestig to gain some insight into life 'down there'. i think I told you I went to Tanzania and Kenya many years ago and those memories are very precious to me.