Top five things to think about, ask yourself, or investigate before you decide to move to Cape Town.

     Most of these things to consider are related maintaining the quality of life you enjoyed in your homeland.  Before we moved here my wife made it a point to read expat forums and travel blogs.  I got the impressions that there were two types of commentaries.  The first type came from people who obviously loved Cape Town and for the most part only had nice things to say.  The other type only focused on the negative and tried to convince you that if you came to Cape Town you would most likely be robbed, raped, and then murdered.  I’m not really in either camp, I think Cape Town is beautiful and has much to offer but am not so in love with it that I will ignore the negative parts.  

    1. Can you really afford to live in Cape Town?  

Simply converting the salary from Rand to American Dollars, British pounds, or Euros or whatever your currency you’re used to is not enough.  Even though you can buy R 6.65 with $1.00 American dollar, that doesn’t mean that R 6.65 will buy you $ 1.00 dollars’ worth of goods.  When it comes to food or wine, I would say the R 6.65 would go farther than the dollar you’re used to.  When it comes to almost anything else it will not go as far.  Evaluating cost of living is tricky for many reasons.  Before the move, I partially relied on the cost of living page provided by my university’s human resources webpage.  These are the figures they give for rental prices for middle income housing in Cape Town.

Renting a house/flat

3-bedroom flat (unfurnished) - R5 000 upwards
4-bedroom house with pool - R6 000 upwards
3-bedroom townhouse - R4 000 upwards

    

     Although we have found housing close to these prices, there were times when we went to visit those houses and we just kept on driving.  We would call the person to tell them that we were not interested.  The reason for this drive by is that I wouldn’t have felt safe unless I had a squad of my Army Ranger buddies with a combat load accompanying me.  Most housing which we found to our liking is either beyond our means, even on a lecturer’s salary which would go very far elsewhere, or would take an unsatisfactory commute on the parking lot which is Cape Town’s road system during peak hours.  Personally I like walking to work; it’s good for my health, my wallet, and the environment.  In order to walk here I will have to relinquish well over half my paycheck once I’m kicked out of temporary staff housing.  Other things related to this question deals with how much everyday things cost.  Things produced in this country seem reasonably priced; anything originating elsewhere is amazingly overpriced ranging anywhere between thirty and one hundred percent higher prices than what I paid in Tucson.  There are also all kinds of hidden costs we are just finding out about.  For example, did you know that there is a television tax you must buy if you are in possession of a television, even if it is broken and gathering dust in a closet?  WTF? 

    2. What kind of Visa will you have and what will that mean to you and your family?

    

     Even though the job I took in Cape Town is a permanent position, I moved to Cape Town on a 3 year special skills visa.  Although this type of Visa allows me to work, it does limit what I can do in this country in ways I didn’t anticipate.   I don’t have personal wealth to speak of, so I am relying on my salary to live in South Africa; therefore any significant purchase requires a loan. Although a friend was nice enough to lend us a car for now, I really don’t want to abuse this kindness.   For the last few weeks my wife and I have started looking for a car.  We thought we would use the money we got when we sold our cars in the U.S. as a down payment on a car we couldn’t afford when I was in graduate school.  After all, I now have a “real” job with a “real” income.  It turns out that we will probably end up buying an older crappier car than the ones we drove in Tucson, even though back then I was bringing home a teaching assistant salary.  There are two reasons for this, first, cars are expensive here, and second, I can’t get a normal car loan here.  Well I guess I could but I would have to finish paying it off three months before my visa expires.  This short time frame and relatively high interest rates in this country combine to make unaffordable monthly payments.   The other option was to take a personal loan from the bank.  They would lend me three times my monthly take home pay, have the same timeframe I just described, and charge something comparable to high credit card interest rates.  This still leaves me with unaffordable payments.   I don’t know what we are going to do.  I think I might start bringing this up to my superiors at work.   

    3. Do you want to ship or do you want to buy household goods?

   

     My suggestion is that if your employer is paying for the shipment, send everything you might want.  For example, I regret not shipping my grill.  My wife suggested I call it a braai since that is the local word for it, but I don’t care, I’m calling it a grill because I’m in a sour mood today and not totally in love with everything South Africa at the moment.  This mood is partially due to the gloomy weather and experiences I had this last week trying to get a loan.  Anyways, I ended up giving my old one to my sister, thinking I would buy one when I get here.  Grilling is one of my favorite ways to cook and mine was getting old and I could use a new one.  I have been here for over two months and have resigned myself to the idea of not having a decent grill any time soon.  The affordable ones are made very cheaply and the only other option is the extremely expensive six burner, brushed stainless steel variety I couldn’t afford in Tucson much less the inflated prices found in Cape Town.  If your employer is not paying for shipment, you still might consider shipping some of your more expensive items. 

    4. Public transportation

    

     For those of you thinking that some of the problems I mentioned so far can be solved with public transportation there are things to consider.  Of course there are trains, and buses which are available but they aren’t up to par with the major cities I’ve been to like New York, San Francisco, or Vienna.  The public transportation here isn’t as reliable, comfortable, and I’m pretty sure not as safe.  I have the impression that the infrastructure is overburdened and not well thought out.  My wife and I had to rely on public transportation for a few weeks and can’t imagine having to rely on it long term I’ve heard stories from colleagues who have waited for hours for a bus, only to find out that the next one is already full and cannot take any more passengers.  Another option, I described on a previous post, was riding the minibus cabs (I’m not sure what their official name is).  We rode them for a few weeks and they were fun for a while, but they would not replace a car.  We couldn’t find a map describing their routes and didn’t know where they went.  We were confined to one or two routes and life sucked.  We tried the trains, and we found the wait times between trains surprisingly long for a major city.  Once we got on the train it was overcrowded and I felt very unsafe. More than once I felt like someone was trying to pick my pocket and I didn’t like the looks I was getting from people.  

    5. Security and Crime?

Security is a big concern here.  I don’t want to scare people off with this; I think it is manageable but still something to consider.  The first thing I noticed when I came to interview was the bars on my windows and the concertina wire  placed on top of the fence surrounding the bed and breakfast the university placed me in.   I have now been here for over two months and I still feel like security is a major concern.  For example, I used to dislike when my wife would call me at work back home in Tucson. Mostly because I HATE talking on the phone and I didn’t like the distraction.  Here, I ask my wife to call me when she goes anywhere.  I want to know where she is going and I ask her to give me updates when she is coming home and when she is home safe.   Although this probably will not prevent anything from happening to her, it gives me some piece of mind when I know she is home and safe.  As for crime, everyone I’ve talked to on the subject has had some personal experience dealing with being burglarized, held up at knife point, or threatened with bodily injury.  For example, one man described an incident where a man was panhandling and when he didn’t have anything to give him he became very aggressive and pleaded with him to not make him do crime.  Luckily the person escaped into a public place before he was robbed, beaten, or killed.    Thankfully we haven’t experienced any of this.  I truly hope this is not only due to dumb luck but due to something we can control.  Some personal attributes such as our careful behavior or my physically intimidating physique (lol).   


If you want to see my wife's point of view, not necessarily on these topics, you can read her blog.