My Life in the East of England

By Justin Arendse, East Coast College

My life in the East of England in Suffolk- An autobiographical account.

Arriving in the United Kingdom from South Africa, I felt oddly calm and not scared. My only prior visit had been when I was 3 years old and I couldn’t remember anything about it. My mum, on the other hand, was very stressed and wanted to make sure we got out of the airport nice and safely. Once we finally landed, we met up with the rest of the family and drove in my grandfather’s vehicle. We were driving for five hours on the road while stopping at a couple of shops and restaurants. Once we got past a city called Norwich, we were getting close to our destination called Lowestoft. When we finally reached it, we stayed at my grandparents’ house for a month. During that month, we explored the area of Lowestoft. We went to the parks, shops, other houses, explored ruins, old churches, and more.

When the month was over, my mum rented a house from a company on a one-year trial contract. So now that we had a house, I needed to find a high school. It took three months for a high school to accept me. High school lasted only three months because I was in Year 11 and had to sit my GCSEs soon after. I was bullied in high school but made a few friends. When I started college though, I gladly left that life behind. I achieved a Grade 1 in most of my GCSEs which was acceptable given the circumstances.

Starting off in college I soon made one friend who had a very long name! Shockingly enough he was two years older than me and, slowly overtime, I discovered that many students were eighteen and over. A month after beginning college I had a random aerogram show up at my doorstep. It looked to be a message from my dad asking how I was and telling me how he was doing and what’s been going on in my home country while I was away, and more information of the chaos there too. It turns out life in England and life in South Africa are two completely different things; it’s so weird. After reading my dad’s whole message I sent him an aerogram myself as well but mine was twice as long as his. I told him about high school and college. I told him about the currency and how it is stronger than the currency used back home since one pound is twenty rand so going to South Africa with just a few pounds would make you rich instantly.

Over the course of time, we all become so busy with daily life that unseen family may become deep memories but aerograms help to resurface these thoughts and remind us of loved ones who we do not see anymore but still care about deeply.