We’re Keeping Our Roots—But We’re Building an American Life

Moving didn't mean leaving our Afrikaner roots behind. It also didn't mean trying to recreate South Africa here.

There’s a strange question underneath moving countries: how much of your old life are you supposed to bring into the new one?

For us, the answer is becoming clearer. We’re Afrikaners. We always will be. But we’re also building our life in America. Those two things don’t have to compete.

Our girls will know where they came from

We still speak Afrikaans at home. Our girls will know the foods we grew up eating. They’ll know what a braai is, eat biltong, know rusks and know the family values that matter to us.

Our roots didn’t disappear when the plane left South Africa. But roots aren’t supposed to stop you from growing.

We’re not trying to recreate South Africa here

We knew we were moving to a new country. America doesn’t need to change into South Africa to make us comfortable.

There are things we’ll learn, things we’ll do differently and things we’ll probably let go of. We can make biltong one weekend and try an American recipe the next. One doesn’t cancel out the other.

We’re about to experience a lot of firsts

Our first Thanksgiving. Our first proper American winter. Our first Christmas in the Northern Hemisphere. For us, Christmas means summer and heat. Now we’re living somewhere where Christmas might involve snow.

There is so much of America we haven’t seen

There will be road trips, places we’ve only seen on television, new foods and new traditions. New York is firmly on my bucket list.

That’s what this website is about

Life After the Leap isn’t supposed to be a museum of the life we left behind, and it isn’t six months of culture shock repeated forever.

Our life will change. The girls will grow. We’ll work on the house, travel, discover things and create traditions that don’t exist yet. Through all of it, pieces of where we came from will still be woven into everyday life.