Do we realize hoe fortunate we are to live abroad?

Our next international move is upon us

Our little traveling circus is moving to the Netherlands in five weeks time. So of course it’s utter chaos with sorting, planning, school applications, farewell parties, booking holidays (because let’s face it, when is a move not combined with a sneaky week off?), deciding what will come with us now and what will follow in the container, the usual relocation madness. It’s all I can think about, night and day, it’s pretty much all consuming.

Things slip when I’m in this frame of mind. I’m focused yet scattered, on a moving-mission yet utterly disorganized in every other area of my life. I forget treat day at school, friend’s birthdays (at least there’s Facebook to remind me), and I’ve been meaning to send out thank you notes for Pitter-Patter N’s party all week, but if it’s not move-related chances are it’s not going to happen right now. I don’t enjoy being this way, I am not very good at putting myself first, but there are times in life that require such undivided attention, right?

A dose of perspective does wonders

I love a healthy dose of perspective. Life’s reminder that what you think is big is really very small, and that’s what I got in double doses yesterday.

For the past year or so, two or three times a week our gate bell rings and a timid voice, barely above a whisper trails through the receiver, “hello madam, please I need your assistance…” Over time we’ve come to know that the voice belongs to David who is seventeen years old. He speaks English well, and was forced to leave school at fifteen to work. Except that he couldn’t find work and so began begging. For the first few months I’d make up a packet of food, usually leftovers, bread rolls, yoghurt, whatever was about to expire in the fridge, and I’d walk down the driveway to the gate, open it a crack and push the packet and R50 (about £2. That’s a lot of money here) through. I’d always be extremely cautious because in South Africa you don’t just open your gate for anyone. After a while David started working in our garden on weekends, and my boys loved helping him weed and wash the cars. We learned that he had a sister and she had two children aged seven and nine.

Last week David’s sister died of HIV/AIDS. He is now the sole provider for two kids. He is no more than a boy himself, a boy with the weight of the world on his shoulders. The kids don’t go to school. They barely have a roof over their heads. David leaves them with a neighbour while he works or begs. We are doing what we can to help him, money, food, clothes, and he is getting birth certificates for the children so they will be eligible for government assistance of R600 per month. That’s £32.50 or $50 a month, to support two kids and himself. And so I am wracking my brains, how can we help David after we leave? He has no bank account, no phone number. It seems impossible. But we are still mulling, there must be a way.

Last night on the news a Syrian mother fleeing for her life across a dusty border wept as she recounted how her husband had been held at the check point, and in the chaos she had lost her two year old son. She was clutching her four year old daughter searching frantically through the impossibly dense crowds.

And here I was stressing about carry on luggage.

I’m obsessing over which international school my boys will attend. David’s sisters kids don’t even go to school.

We fly business class while refugees crammed onto boats drown on a daily basis.

We get to move to a stable, developed country that produces the happiest kids in the world, whilst millions of people flee the country they love but no longer recognize, and have no guarantee of a better or secure future.

I tuck my children in at night warm and fed, their little toes wriggling in the small of my back, whilst not so far away a mother searches frantically for her lost child.

“Why are you selling my surf board?” Pitter-Patter S asked me today.

“Because in Holland we’re not going to have our own pool” I replied.

“WHAAAAATTTTTT, NO POOL!!!!!!!!” both screeched in unison, utterly horrified.

That’s our reality. And it suddenly seems ridiculous.

An international move seems enormous, but not as big as being bombed or homeless or not knowing where your next meal will come from, and that’s why in the greater scheme of things, it’s no big deal at all.