he curtains closed in the year 2022 as its casts took a bow for the last time, much to everyone’s delight. It had been quite a year, full of mostly downs than ups. The new year has possibilities of new beginnings, letting go of who thought you were, and tapping into the best versions of yourself. Packing your bags and rediscovering the world is the best way to find oneself.
Martha Kongo is a vibrant, artistic, adventurous, and ambitious twenty-year-old young lady from Colombelles, France. She currently attends the University of Caen (Université de Caen) as a first-year Law Student. She moved to France in September 2017 from South Africa as a grade 10 learner. Perfect timing or divining timing is a spiritual phenomenon that many people try to channel and believe that moments in life happen when it is their time- no sooner and no late. It happens at the appointed moment. Martha recalls how she and her family’s move to France happened at the perfect moment.
Martha sitting outside the Louvre Museum, sightseeing
“My dad had a work conference in France in 2017 and when he got to France, he saw how much better life was than in South Africa. He asked us what we thought about moving (to France) and we all mostly agreed and now, here we are five years later,” Martha recalls.
Moving from city to city can be a huge change for family and friends but moving from one continent to the next feels the same as leaving a chuck of yourself behind, holding onto familiar moments while the other part of you prepares for what waits ahead of you. The unknown, the uncertainty, but at the same time the pulsing and flickering hopes of a better life. A new beginning and most importantly, a second chance at happiness.
Martha, her two brothers and Mother sightseeing after getting adjusted to their new environment and new beginnings
Happiness is such a broad and complex definition, and Martha, being the optimistic person she is, was able to recreate her own version of happiness. However, leaving her friends behind was not an easy task. “I honestly feel like I was numb during the time of my farewells. My friends and I had a farewell party and I think at that moment it didn’t really sit in me that I was actually leaving my friends. It was until one of my friends and I took the school bus. We hugged to say goodbye and she started to cry and that’s when it hit me. I was leaving everything and everyone I knew behind,” Martha states.
Losing and rediscovering who you are
Martha recalls how she had to adjust to a new environment and language. It took her three anxious months to start high school, unlike her younger brother, who started school immediately. She felt an astronomical level of loneliness, something that she never felt back home, or what she now calls her former home. High school in France was truly an adjustment, she went from being a bubbly learner in South Africa to the quietest learner in her new high school, which many foreign learners can account for.
“I felt like I lost … me. I lost Martha,” Martha states.
According to the UN Department of Economics and Social Affairs (Desa), 914 901 South African citizens emigrated between 2015 and 2020. Many Africans move overseas for better economic opportunities, some go to be with their families, while some go there to experience what life is like on the “greener side” of the world.
Bad times only last a night, and soon, Martha and her family were exploring their new home through their new family and neighbours. One thing about people who move permanently, or for traveling, especially the youth, is that exploring your new horizon will help you find yourself, or even rediscover just who you are. Through traveling, the youth is exposed to new ideas of how the world works and through this, they try to adjust themselves in a competitive world in which they had once lost themselves.
“France is exactly how they portray it in the media. Exactly the same. It feels like you’re living in medieval times. There is an antic beauty to everything, both inside and outside. Before we could settle in, we had to go to home affairs, and the doctors and make sure that our documents were in order. When I left South Africa, I was in grade 10, so instead of going to grade 11, they put me back in grade 9. I was put back two years! Which is not fun at all, and it is another reason why I am only doing my first year of university now,” Martha says.
Martha taking a picture of the Eiffel Tower and enjoying the scenery and benefits of moving abroad
Adjusting to the education system
Learners who aspire to study abroad have to welcome the educational changes in their academic life as the educational system differs from that of South Africa, and any other country that has different time zones and education systems. Martha was quite grateful for the fact that she did not have to wear a school uniform as she did back in South Africa, and as a high school learner, people are free to express themselves through their aesthetics. For high school learners, one of the positive sides to moving is having more liberty and school does not feel like a chore, just as Martha gladly elaborates.
“Our school year begins in September, and we were at school from 9:00 A.M. to 5:00 P.M., sometimes. What was nice in high school is that we didn’t follow the strict timetable I had in South Africa. Students had free periods just like the teachers do. Another factor that derailed me from going a grade up was language. We were learning in French, I understood French completely, but I could not speak it, read, or write it to save my life. My younger and older brothers were not held back, they had a better experience than me. My entire grade 9 experience was horrible. I remember spending my free time in the bathroom because my one friend was not at school. ” Martha states.
A chance at happiness and rediscovering yourself is only attainable once one gets over the enduring process of adjusting to the new environment. Not only the youth or families, but individuals should give themselves a chance in life. A chance to laugh more, love more, and most importantly, live more. Through her experiences, Martha encourages people to take that leap of faith, to jump into the deep end and swim their way to safety because that is the only way people will really know the meaning of life and living, exploring discovery, and rediscovery.
