The beginning 1

Our big adventure started in November 2011 when the company that hubby works for asked us if we would consider relocating to Canada from South Africa.
When Kobus (husband) phoned me with the news I immediately fell from my chair in the throes of a violent panic attack, started screaming in my head and answered quite calmly..."O gaats". Roughly translated this means something like "oh boy".

Now one thing you all need to understand clearly is that we had no reason for wanting to leave SA and no pressing desire to do so either. I always said that there is no way that I would want to live anywhere where there is no campfire or an impala within 50kms from me....Ugh, me and my big mouth!
But now suddenly we were faced with the opportunity of going places, opening up the world for our kids, learning to ski, living in a heated house and freezing our butts off.

Very quickly we decided to go over there and have a look. They call this a LSD trip, look, see and decide. During the first week of December 2011 we got ourselves on a plane and landed in Toronto. We rented a Jeep at the airport and then had to make our way to Guelph, our maybe future home which is about a 100km to the west of Toronto. The first challenge was driving on the wrong side of the road. I kept whispering "hou regs, hou regs" ("keep right, keep right") and twice Kobus almost opened the car door in an attempt to change gears. This in itself was funny as it was a vehicle with an automatic transmission and gear changes while on the highway was not called for. Obviously we drive manual transmission cars in SA. Technology was however on our side and the trusty GPS managed to get us to our hotel in Guelph.

We made contact with a realtor (an ex-South African) who took us to view some houses. The first question I asked him was to show me the furnace of the first house that we visited. We descended into the bowels of the house and there stood this monstrous contraption that allegedly ensures that the whole house is toasty and warm. I still have no idea how this thing works!!

I stood there wondering what on earth am I doing here when I saw the washing machine and tumble dryer in the adjacent room. Immediately I started sweating, getting palpitations and felt my knees go weak at the prospect of having to figure out how these machines work. In a tiny voice I told Kobus that if he's looking for me I'll be down here doing the, dare I say it, the laundry.
My overall impression of the homes that we saw were that they were very small compared to our SA homes. I wondered how on earth I was going to fit in all our big and bulky furniture. Then, of course, I was reminded friendly but firmly that I have to keep in mind that I have to clean the house on my own and then, as if by magic, the houses suddenly took on gigantic proportions.

One day we were driving around with the realtor and drove past a school. We drove into the parking area, I wound down my window and took some photographs. Some 7 minutes later a Christmas tree pulled us over, all decked out in flashing lights. A big and very imposing state trooper approached and with a stern face asked us to identify ourselves and explain what we were doing. Apparently some concerned citizen saw me photographing the school and phoned the police, probably wondering about possible terrorists or a disgruntled parent wanting to kidnap a child. I was having visions of being thrown in a Canadian jail and all hopes of being a law abiding Canadian citizen vanished. After explaining who we were and what we were doing he asked us, by this time very friendly, if we were going to photograph other schools in the vicinity, upon which I replied in my most subservient voice “not anymore”. The trooper smiled and sent us on our merry way.

The other big decision we had to make was where to send the boys to school. Canada has very strict zoning regulations and the children must go to the school assigned to the area where you live. This posed a bit of a problem. If you decide on a certain school you have to look for a house to rent in that area. We visited two schools while there, one was a public school and the other a Christian school. Both impressed us a lot but in the end we decided to go with the Christian school, Guelph Community Christian School, the obvious reason being that we are Christians and would like our boys to have a Christ centred education, the second reason being that this is a private school and is thus not bound by the zoning laws.

Eventually we had to make the BIG decision, do we make the jump or not. We came to the startling realisation that Guelph has roads, cars and shops. There are actually houses to live in and people here too have fun and live their lives. We were sitting in our hotel room staring at each other with big round eyes. Kobus said it’s now decision time, after a pregnant silence that stretched to forever we both started to smile and said “Yes, lets do it!!” We both felt that this was just too big an opportunity to pass on. We would rather make the jump and go back to SA if we don’t like it than looking back 5-10 years from now and wondering why we didn’t even try.