Agree we have a beautiful country, but not because of our government or criminals. Concerning the sport, I think we all make way to much about our limited success. Check smaller countries (population-wise) like OZ or NZ have way more sporting achievements than RSA. When it comes to being world champs of murder, rape, AIDS, racism and corruption, no one can touch us. And the worst thing of all is we have no leadership in this country that will even admit that these are problems, let alone address them
Well, you can't really look at the general population. As 97% of South Africans aren't interested in rugby. (If we look at rugby for a second) You have to compare the number of rugby players, not the number of people. In which case, we are doing great compared to Aus and NZ. As a side note, interestingly, Japan has the highest number of rugby clubs in the world. I would have never thought that.
Disagree: New Zealand Population: 4,115,771 (smaller than Johannesburg), Been World power in rugby as long as the game has existed. In Australia, Rugby comes a distant 4th behind Cricket, Aussies Rules and Rugby League in popularity. And they have been Rugby World champs twice
Jacquesb My wife and i are using a Kiwi based Agency called Protea pacific www.proteapacific.co.nz Well answering what i do for a living depends on how much time you have I am a scuba instructor that owns his own television company that services MNet/DSTV with pgms like SASurvivor,SA Idols,Nokia Face of Africa...that type of stuff...but i also do design work in Solidworks for an engineering company in the south (jhb).
Just to get back on track here - SA vs New Zealand - One thing that I found, after spending 6 years in Europe - was that the main problem is, all one's family is still here. THAT's the main reason why we came back (and also to travel within our OWN country - to see as much of our own country as we can, before we die)... IF you are lucky enough to take you whole family (folks, brothers/sisters, etc) WITH you when you leave SA - then fine. You won't really have anyone to miss.... BUT life if short - living your whole life without contact with your family is BAD.... Also - at a certain stage me and my wife saw MORE of the world, than we had EVER seen of our own country..... therefore the decision to come back to SA. We decided we would rather have crap in our OWN country and be close to our family, than have crap in a foreign country where people treat you like foreigners (they MAKE SURE THAT YOU DO NOT FORGET THAT YOU ARE FOREIGNERS! - and do not really "belong" there)....
Cool! Thanks ReefDiver - if you do not mind me asking - who do you "contract" for as Scuba Instructor? (I also SCUBA dive - used to dive with Peet of Scuba Scene, and some others)..... OK - so having your own business definitely helps - and then having saved up some capital to invest also helps... I am in IT - and do receive requests for work in Europe, at least every single month (if not weekly).... I am undecisive at this stage about leaving the country again. We just returned about 3.5 years ago..... I will have to wait and see if something REALLY bad happens before I will most likely take the plunge again... We can get into Australia as well - once I have been able to land a job there.... (need sponsorship from a local company), but I am not too keen to go through the stress of relocating again.... Getting a bit "old' to really move around again - but we don't have kids - so...... therefore......
I hear you..as to the Folks scene...well my folks live in the UK my boet lives in CPT my folks in law live in East London my sister in law lives in switzerland and my other sister in law also lives in London and i live in JHB..we all c one another once a year maybe over xmass so missing one another does not have that big yern to it...we will still c each other once a year so its not too much of a biggie...i am sustaind as a NAUI instructor and help Kevin Graham from Diving in africa (Welcome to Diving in Africa - Scuba Diving Club & Scuba Diving Courses) out now and again. I now usually dive only for peasure of my own or for research sake.....i used to instruct in Malawi and when i returned i vowd and declaired i would never be part of the sausage machine again. My next stop however is Marine biology studies the minute i have my PR for NZ RD
OOoooo - Marine Biology studies - I wanna do THAT! Where and how you going to do that Reefdiver? I know the dive-shop "Dive in Africa" - never dived with them, though.... Also - you know that NZ is COLD WATER diving, hey ;-) - Like Cape Town!
yeah..well,northland has warm water...further down you go the colder and colder it gets....because i cant slot into the universaty there is an independant company that you can study marine studies whom will accept me as a "mature" student.:blushing: where i can go from year 1 all the way up to my bachelors and masters and eventualy my phd...in about 6/7 years. I have done 1800 hours underwater and dedicated a large portion of my life to the ocean and in particular the scuba industry. The only reason i didnt study Marine biology or icthyology as a kid was cuz i was advised against it on a trip to the durban aquariums where i met with the biologists there....gratefully NZ is a whole differant story RD
Cool! I also always dreamed of becoming a Micro Biologist - PURELY that I can work underwater. Now I am contemplating doing my commercial diving training.....
Make sure you do plenty research...i did quite extensive research and enrolled with the dudes in Saldanah...there advice was this...you work your ass off with little pay and before you even considered worthy of getting in the water you first need to spend years acting as a "Rigger" before you "graduate" into the diving....sometimes even required to dive in "toxic" environments (like repairing the pipework in "shitfarm" tanks while the full of first stage sourage! :nono: lol...yeah..they recon it takes about 7 years for you to work your way up to earning ok money...otherwise after all your hard work you are looking at earning about 5k a month and after about 7 years moving to 10-15k Hmmmmm...im a waternut :yeahdude:but that where my interest in commercial ended. Please,dont let me rain on your parade or let me influence you in any way...just thought i would share my research with ya. I dont remeber the organisations name..but at that stage it was the best in cpt. Good luck RD
