Jan Hugo: Welcome to The Relocated South African, the show for navigating immigration from South Africa for a better future. I’m your host, Jan Hugo from Lagos in Portugal. Check out our website, www.therelocatedsouthafrican.com. It contains a whole lot of useful information and details of all episodes to date. If you want to interact with us or comment on our discussions or even participate in an interview, please contact me on jan@therelocatedsouthafrican.com.

Jan Hugo: Also, if you like our content, why not subscribe on your favourite platform. Today I welcome from Athens in Georgia in the USA, Danie Brink. Welcome Danie.

Danie Brink: Thank you so much.

Jan Hugo: Well, Danie is a maths teacher who lives in Georgia in the USA with his family. He has told me that they are now living in the US for the third time. I would imagine the final time. But we’ll get to that. So, Danie, maybe let’s go back to the beginning. I always ask my guests, tell us about your history, where you grew up, went to school, university, family and how you got to the US.

Danie Brink: Yes, thank you. Thank you Jan. It’s a privilege to be here. I listen to your podcast regularly, religiously. So yeah, I was born in the Free State, the big city of Steynrus in the Northern Free State and went there all my 12 years of school. Then I went to the army in Pretoria and also then to Tukkies. I studied there for three years and then became a mathematics teacher. I taught at Pretoria Boys High School all my time in Pretoria. My family and I, first Lisa, just Lisa and I came to the US in 1997 and 98. And then we came back again in 2004 until 2007. And then we finally now, I think maybe never say never, but I think this is the final time that we came at the end of 2019, back to Athens in Georgia.

Jan Hugo: Okay, well, a couple of questions. It’s funny that I had a guy on the podcast the other day, you may have heard, Nic Latouf, who went to Pretoria Boys High, and obviously Elon, but…

Danie Brink: Yes, yes, yes. It always comes up.

Jan Hugo: It’s a great school and did you enjoy teaching there?

Danie Brink: It was wonderful. It was absolutely glorious. I remember that. So I taught for four years and then we came to the US and then I went back for another seven years. And when we left that second time, I thought to myself, are you just crazy to leave this wonderful place and setting and environment. It turned out to be a good decision, but we were so happy. We never left because we were unhappy. We stayed on campus. They’ve got about 12 houses there for the staff of the school. And so you walk to school. Obviously in your gown, you have these gowns like judges and the boys are so respectful, lots of culture in the school. I see that the school is 125 years old this year and so this week they started the school with John Smith who was an ex-school head boy there. It looks like he’s something now at Pretoria Boys High School which I didn’t realise but we had a wonderful time at Pretoria Boys High School. I still have some of my colleagues that are still there and it was a wonderful time.

Jan Hugo: And what brought you to the States the first time in 97?

Danie Brink: You know, 97, 98, I think the US had a shortage of physical therapists, physios, physiotherapists. And almost every physio that finished off at Tukkies came to the US. It was so easy to get an H1B visa. And so Lisa is a physical therapist. And so we came basically for her to just enjoy the freedom of coming to the US so easily. And I studied just to keep myself busy. It turned out to not be such a great experience. I mean, it was good, but it was foreign and strange. And we never came permanently. After 13 months, I finished up my studies and we went back. Many of those physios that came in those days are still here. I mean, in fact, three of them, they had a little bit of a reunion the other day. Three of them are within 100 miles from us here, accidentally. You know, they’ve been somewhere in Seattle and so on, but three of them are close by here. That’s just interesting, many of them stayed, but we obviously went back after 13 months.

Jan Hugo: Okay, and 2004?

Danie Brink: 2004, I came for, the main purpose was my studies. By then Lisa and I were married, we had two kids, and at some stage, I just wondered, I had a student in my class in Pretoria Boys High School, Jonathan Jansen, he was, I think, rector of Kovsies or something. His son was in my class at Pretoria Boys High School, and I thought to myself, how do you fund graduate studies in the US and I picked up the phone and I called Jonathan Jansen. I think he was Dean of Education at Tukkies at that stage and I think he had a naughty son and I think he thought I’m calling him because of, you know, stuff with his son and so I got directed to this important man and I said no I don’t want to talk about your son, how do you fund studies in the US and I think maybe that’s the answer that he gave me gave me the confidence to apply and do this, and maybe for your listeners, some of them who are considering immigration, you know, will find it interesting that it actually is somewhat easy to come here and do graduate studies because it is pretty well funded.

And so that was the second time I got a graduate assistantship. So professors in the US, they apply for grants for different kinds of research that they do. And then they are looking for cheap labour. They have money in hand, and they’re looking for graduate students to help them with the research or to take up their teaching position while they do the research. And so built into the application for funding is funding for, I’m calling it cheap labour, but it’s for graduate students. And so people who, you know, who have degrees can definitely consider graduate studies in the US because it is so well funded. And that’s what funded our second trip. So I got a graduate assistantship, which is not a lot of money, but I mean, it funds your whole time. You live in family housing. You’re on campus. You ride on the bus to campus and back. And I mean, I supported my family, wife and two kids on this graduate assistantship pretty easily.

You know, but you do take a step back because I mean you lose three or four or five years of competitiveness in South Africa. It costs, it does cost you money. You know, sometimes you have to supplement a little bit with South African Rand. You have to store your stuff. They get old or you sell it for low value and then you go back and have to buy new stuff. So I think you take, you take it financially and maybe professionally one or two steps back, but man, for the richness of experience, you know, it’s five steps forward. So that was the second purpose with my graduate studies.

Jan Hugo: And it’s still in mathematics?

Danie Brink: Mathematics education. In that interim, after the first time, I became the head of the maths department at Pretoria Boys High School. And I was interested, I mean, 14 maths teachers, they’re the best that you can find in South Africa. And I was wondering what value can I add to their lives as their boss, as the department head of 14 maths teachers. And so my interest coming here was the professional development of already highly qualified maths teachers. And so my PhD was specifically focused on that. And so that was the academic quest that I had. Just an adventure and possibly considering immigration, looking what it’s like.

The first time we went back, I always said to people, I think we can always leave again but things are not that bad yet in South Africa in 98. Let’s go back. I love my country and family and friends, all those things. Let’s just go back and we can come again. So 2004 we came again, 2007 when we wrapped it up and let’s go back again. And people were critical of us saying you’ve got the inside lane now. So this is the other thing that people can maybe consider if they want to consider immigrating to the US. You know, doctors and lawyers and those, it’s difficult to get into the US. And now with Trump, he put a $100,000 fee on an H1B visa. You know, a company here, the first $100,000 they’re going to spend on you is just for the visa. I mean, they can easily just appoint an American unless you’ve got highly super skilled skills that you can compete with. But I don’t think any company here will pay $100,000 just to get you, you know.

So if you do graduate studies, after the graduate studies, you get, I think it’s called a J1 visa. So now you’re allowed to work in the US for a year or two also to gain now practical experience in your field of study. And then the J1 then leads to a green card and then into immigration. I think maybe your listeners will find it interesting that the graduate studies. Oh, and by the way, you know, we do in South Africa degree, honours, a master’s, a PhD. Here you jump straight from a degree and then sometimes you’ll find a student on campus and you say, what do you study? I had a friend at in Radford when I started in Virginia in 98 and he was a youngster like 23. And he said, no, he’s doing a PhD in aeronautical engineering. He only has an undergraduate degree, but then they build the master’s degree inside of that six year process.

So people shouldn’t have to think, ah, I have to have all these advanced degrees. You know, you can from just with your undergraduate work, if you have a competitive application, you can basically almost start saying you’re doing a PhD. First of all, just a master’s degree of two years, submit your work and then roll right over into the PhD, then roll over into the J1 and then possibly a green card and citizenship after that. So it’s a possibility.

Jan Hugo: Yes. I mean, a question that would probably come up in the minds of the listeners is, how do you apply? Where do you start with this? Because there’s so many schools, universities, and they call them schools in the States that it’s probably a minefield. But do you have advice for that?

Danie Brink: Yeah. Look, when I applied, you obviously know nothing about these places. I chose some mountains. So I applied at the University of Colorado. You throw your hat in for some fancy schools and see if you can maybe get in there. So I applied at Stanford. I forgot. Oh, and then I liked rural areas like platteland, you know, because I’m from Steynrus. And so Georgia and North Carolina, I think I applied at NC State and Georgia.

Now you must know, all those professors, they already, they have grants, they have money, they’re looking for good students. So it’s not as if you’re hassling them. So on the website, I mean, there’s applications and graduate studies. In my time, and I still think it’s true, you have to take the graduate record, I think it’s GRE, graduate record exam. It sounds intimidating, but it is not. Really, it’s a maths part and an English part. The English is super tough, but you compete against Chinese and Japanese that cannot speak English at all. So although the English is tough and man, as a Boertjie, you know nothing about that exam. You get a few points, but it is more than the Chinese and the Japanese, you know. And so, and then the maths part, I mean, okay, so I was a maths teacher, but it’s not rocket science maths. It’s kind of school level maths. And if you’re kind of okay with it, or you take a week or two, dust off your trigonometry and some algebra, you will be able to get a competitive score on the GRE.

So yeah, websites, pick a few places, you know, oceans, platteland, city, mountains, whatever you like. And they will be beautiful places and fantastic universities with those characteristics in mind, you know.

Jan Hugo: Danie, and just moving on, so when you went back to South Africa, did you stop teaching?

Danie Brink: Yes, I took a little bit of a detour to Namibia first. My sister at that time was in Namibia and so I went to teach in Windhoek for two years and then went down to Keetmanshoop, the big city of Keetmanshoop. What a lovely time there with wonderful people, so we lived there. I was a school principal of a small private school there, also taught mathematics.

And then some friends of mine from Tukkies, you know, there was a position open in South Africa, went back to South Africa. Then at that stage for about 12 years, I left teaching, but I was still involved with professional development of teachers and started a thing that in English, it could be called the school support centre, which is under the Solidarity banner in South Africa. First I was CEO of Helpende Hand, which is a non-profit in South Africa. So there I was there for about eight or nine years and then did the school support centre. So very involved with conferences for teachers. Again, applying what I learned here at Georgia. How do you take these brilliant Afrikaans maths teachers and make them even better? Add value to their lives, make their teaching more interesting and so I was out of teaching for a long time and I mean I never thought I’m going to be full-time back into the classroom but immigration, you have to swallow your pride sometimes, you have to, you know, I hear your listeners, professionally you take one or two or three steps backwards but you know when you think why are you doing this, it’s mainly all for our children and their futures. So now I’m back in the classroom for the last six years.

Jan Hugo: Okay fantastic. Okay, obviously you’ve, you know, and maybe if you don’t mind that we cover it now. You and your wife have this wonderful charity that you run in the US. Maybe if you want to just tell us about that and how that came about.

Danie Brink: Yes. Yeah, I think so we were in a horrible car accident at the end of 2016, my family and I, and my wife lost her leg and two of our kids passed away in the accident. So she’s been an amputee since the end of 2016. Few people might recall that the Solidarity movement and my colleagues and people in Pretoria and all over the whole of South Africa supported us wonderfully. They raised funds for a leg for Lisa. You know, an amputee has to have this very expensive knee and there were fundraisings and people just contributed wonderfully to the efforts and we got donated to us this wonderful expensive new knee that, the knees are just exactly as expensive as a car.

And so that’s the first part. She’s an amputee and she received a knee. And then we came to the US and through long stories, we came into contact with an organisation that donates these knees and all components in the US. Legislation here prohibits a secondhand value to be had on any of these components. I think it’s a legal thing. You know, you cannot give your knee to another guy and he falls with it and he’s going to sue you kind of thing. So there are these wonderful but expensive components all over in America and PENTA is an organisation that donates that to African countries, Ghana, I think in India. They send crates full of these expensive components to countries where it’s legal to use them again.

And so we just stuck up our hand. We started a nonprofit here called Stepping Into Grace. So Lisa is now the CEO of a company that receives these expensive pieces of equipment. And we link up then with prosthetists in South Africa, some that she knew, her own prosthetists in South Africa. And we are sitting at the moment where the nonprofit has helped almost a hundred people with new expensive, not new used, but almost new prosthetic limbs. So we are hopefully heading back to South Africa in June, hoping to make a celebration of the patient that has received a knee from Lisa. We are thinking symbolically but also practically that this specific knee that the South Africans donated to Lisa will now be donated back in June to the 100th patient back there.

We had it serviced here and just to give people a perspective why I’m saying these things are as expensive as a car. I drive a $2,000 Corolla but the service on the knee was $3,500. We get them for free. So Lisa and I, we’re just basically the facilitators of receiving these and prosthetists can request on Stepping Into Grace’s website, any components that they would like, if PENTA has them, then they send it to us and we send them on to South Africa. A wonderful thing, you know, so easy to do and so many South Africans that are poor are receiving high quality components that takes them out of their wheelchairs back into the employment and just wonderful, excellent stories.

Jan Hugo: Oh, that’s a beautiful story coming out of a real misery, I think. That’s absolutely wonderful. And do you collect funding for that?

Danie Brink: Yes, yes, we do. We basically, my father-in-law always said, “jy stuur ‘n hoed om,” we send a hat around, almost like a collection, mainly to our American friends here. We just had a feeling, you know, we don’t want to burden South Africans to have to fund this. And so we have some friends here that like the cause and I saw with Helpende Hand also, sometimes people will, they support you and whatever you do, if they trust you, they will support you. And that’s why we had to start with our friends, you know, a close circle of friends and they’ve been wonderful.

Some of them donated just one off amounts of money. Some of them write a cheque every end of the year before the IRS come and take their money. And some of them donate on a monthly basis. And we use those funds to fund the process of sending these pieces over to South Africa. Sometimes, and we try not to do it often, sometimes we have to fund a little bit of the work that the prosthetists do in South Africa, you know, because I mean, someone just has nothing and here comes an expensive knee, but the knee must still be fitted. They must get a, you know, lots of work done. So you cannot request, those prosthetists are wonderful people. They’re in the profession to help amputees, but they cannot just help every patient for free. You know, so sometimes we also help a little bit with the medical costs and the cost of getting the prosthetic limb fitted and so on. So funding is wonderful.

Jan Hugo: That’s awesome. What we’ll definitely do is we will put the details at the end of the episode in the show notes. And obviously we do a lot of social media. And I think there’s this Lekker Network that’s now been formed with South Africans abroad. So I think the wider we spread the net, the better it is and the better opportunity there is for you to get more funding and get people to support you. Because I think it’s an incredible initiative. So well done to you guys. Thank you so much. I take my hat off to you.

Danie Brink: Thank you, Jan.

Jan Hugo: Let’s move on a little bit. I assume you guys have the US citizenship by now.

Danie Brink: We don’t have yet. We are in our sixth year. We just completed six years. Everybody that you speak to almost, they came just before or after COVID. We also, it feels like we brought COVID to the US. We came at the end of 2019 and it’s a long process. So we first had an H1B, which is a normal work permit. And about two years later, we got green cards, which, man, I tell you, there were some South Africans in our house that evening. One of them brings these young farmers over, you know on those H2 visas to America so Manuel was here with some other ex colleagues of mine and I see these fat envelopes on the kitchen table as we say goodbye and I say to Manuel, man that looks important and Manuel and everybody leaves and we open that up, man here’s our green card two or three years before. Now that’s permanent residence, now unless you make the people here angry, you can stay forever. And then I think it’ll take five or six years. No more hoops to jump through, but I think, I don’t know, it’s just a process. We will be a year or two from now. We will become citizens.

Jan Hugo: Oh, that’s great. My kids live in Dallas. They got their passports last year, but they’d been there about seven, eight years now.

Danie Brink: That sounds like the turnaround time basically.

Jan Hugo: And they travelled back to South Africa with their US passports now.

Danie Brink: Really? Okay. Yeah. That’s fantastic.

Jan Hugo: So talk to me about living in Georgia and Athens specifically, what makes that special?

Danie Brink: Yeah, look, it’s a student town. It’s almost like Stellenbosch or Potch. I think maybe a little bit bigger. I think there’s 130,000 people here. So I think we have a specific unique connection because on one hand it makes us feel young because it reminds us back to when I was a student. But then just by the way, I mean, I think I was 36 when I came to study here. So people must never feel that they’re too old for graduate studies, you know, you put your life on hold a little bit, but what a wonderful way to spend three or four or five years of your life, you know.

So we were not young, but we were students and younger with the young family and life, you know, hadn’t had its aches and pains so much in our lives. So we, I think Athens carries for us a little bit of that memory back, but it’s a student town with lots of things happening here. There’s about 44,000 students at the university with a big football team. Our football stadium has 93,000 seats. I mean, the town only has 130,000 people, but on a Saturday when there’s football, which happens six times a year, home games, the vibe from Friday. You know, you can just imagine how many people come into town that there will be 90 and it’s sold out all six games, 93,000 people on their bums on their seats. So the vibe in the town is just wonderful. There’s all sorts of, you know, you can watch baseball for a few dollars, but high quality sports, you know. And so it’s a student town. It has all the benefits of a student town. And then in summer, it’s totally quiet, which is wonderful.

Jan Hugo: It is great. Yeah.

Danie Brink: So that’s, and I mean, Georgia is a conservative kind of state. The people, Americans are just like Afrikaners. I mean, I think people know the history. You know, we’ve, we’ve both sets of immigrants from Europe. We both had great treks. You know, they went West and Afrikaners went North. We both fought the indigenous people. We both fought each other, us in the rebellion, them in the civil war. We both fought the British. So we are so alike, we think alike. And it’s no wonder, even though they sound so different to us that they are, it’s easy to become friends with an American.

And as Georgia people, I don’t know what it would be like in a big city, but anywhere you go in a rural area. This guy that speaks this funny language, you know, you shouldn’t be surprised if it’s easy to become friends with him because you think very much alike. They like freedom. They like to be left alone. You know, their history in that regard is maybe a little bit different to us. You know, we had in the old days, 70s and 80s, we had a controlling government, but things like, we always say, we’re either, you know, you’ve heard that I spoke to Jacques du Plessis in Wisconsin. He will just get in his own car and drive there and take courses there, and they count towards high school credits. So, you know, you can do almost anything you like here. You of course have to do four maths courses, four English courses and so on. There are some requirements, but within that, I mean, like Afrikaans is one of these foreign languages, you know, and so that’s pretty easy to him.

Jan Hugo: Yeah.

Danie Brink: When it’s nice and dry, then when it’s winter, then you unsell it. So I split a lot of firewood. Obviously I have almost a hectare of, my yard is a hectare big. So I don’t have other cheap, I’m the cheap labour that, you know, that takes care of this yard. So when I come inside, garden man in South Africa, his name was Jim. So when I come inside, then Lisa says, hey, Jim, come here’s your food. So I do that.

We do some hunting. We have a wonderful friend with a farm, two counties from here. And so when it’s hunting season we sometimes early Saturday morning freezing cold, it’s so miserable, it’s much worse, hunting in South Africa is so lovely and it’s so bad here, but we do it in any case. So we do some hunting.

Twice a year I want to tell you about this little thing which is so easy for expats to do. I have a shooting day on that farm of my friend John. I invite some people and I charge them $50 and we take the money and we donate it to a project that my son and I started in South Africa. It’s called HelpJag, where a hunter can donate some deer animals for the project that feeds poor kids in South Africa. So twice a year, I send out a text message to all my friends and I say to them, it’s $50. You come, you shoot, I braai a steak. Oh, and they love it. I tell you, I make it on the oak fire, on the floor there, I braai like we do. And it’s just so foreign for them. Some of them don’t even shoot. They say they’d come only for the steak. So I say to them, it’s $50 if you come, but it’s $100 if you don’t come.

So I get some people and then I send them money and I pay it over to HelpJag, to the project. So for expats, it’s actually so easy to, I mean, so we collected at $1,400 with the last shooting day, which is a lot of money. I think it was R25,000 or something like that. And it’s so easy to do. And you and your friends have a lot of fun. And so people must just maybe think, you know, what can you do to collect it and obviously get a nice project in South Africa that you can support. I think you’ve had guests like that on. So that’s so easy. Yeah.

So the hunting and the side issue to the hunting is just the target shooting. Lots of farm things, you know, I go to the farm, I help that farmer a lot. He loves the concept of bartering. So one time he had, there was a storm coming through and he had lots of trees down, which then obviously fall into his pastures and farms are smaller. So a big old tree that takes up some pasture is a bad thing for a farmer. So I cut up three trees for him and took them away and he gave me a cow’s worth of mincemeat, you know.

So we barter in that way, we barter, there’s a restaurant here, to eat out in America’s expensive. You will not have money if you go to restaurants all day. Yeah, 20% basic, the minimum, you know. And so on a single salary for a teacher, we don’t eat out much, but somehow I got this fancy, not fancy, it’s just a medium type of Italian restaurant, DePalma’s in Athens. He likes to sit with his wife in the backyard and have a whiskey with a fire. And so he’s heard about our firewood. And so we give him a face cord of firewood every year. A face cord is eight foot by four foot, that amount of firewood, 32 square feet of firewood. And then he gives me two meals at his restaurant a year.

So people love the concept of bartering. Americans also love that because they don’t have to give the money to the IRS, you know, because, you know, you get services and the other one gets services at the price that it’s that you’re supposed to be getting it. So that’s how we keep ourselves busy with some, and obviously housework Lisa does that, I call her Betty because you know that was the lady that did the work there, so Betty works here and Jim works on the outside on weekends.

Jan Hugo: And Danie, in our communication you spoke a little bit about the cost of living and you mentioned it now as a teacher that people sometimes think you have to be wealthy to emigrate. You have a different view. You want to maybe just give us a sense of, yes, talked about bartering, but otherwise just general sense of cost of living.

Danie Brink: Yes. Yeah. Look, it is my, my stance is specifically in teaching now. If you want to know, and I mean teachers worldwide complain that they don’t get paid enough and I don’t think we get paid enough for the impact we’re having in the lives of kids, but it is what it is. It will not easily change.

But my standard for if teachers are paid kind of fairly is that if two teachers, married couple, husband, wife, if they’re both teachers, can they have a good standard of living? And the answer is absolutely yes in the United States. And so, I mean, we get by on a single salary. And so to have two teachers, you know, earning a salary, would make you live really comfortable. You will be able to have three or four kids, you will be able to put them through university, you will be able, some of my colleagues retire now, they’re younger than me and they already retired, you know.

And so that’s the standard of living, but for an immigrant and your listeners are considering immigrating maybe to America, you will take three or four steps back, you know. That’s why I will still have to work hopefully for a long time to catch up these three, four, five steps that I took back in my career because of immigration. You know, I’m busy doing a teaching licence now in the state of Georgia with 23, 24 year olds that are first time teachers and I have to jump through that painful hoop, for example. My mentor supervisor that is now supposedly having to see if I can teach. I think I’m just as old as her, maybe a little older. She’s a retired school principal.

So you have to swallow your pride. You have to just do what you do. You have to convince yourself. You have to remind yourself, why did you immigrate? It’s a constant. It’s not moonshine and roses. I think some of the people, they land big jobs, corporate jobs and whatnot. But most of us, we have to almost basically start at the bottom again, but it’s very doable. And I mean, immigration is not for everybody. And immigration is different for everybody. It’s different to every country. I can just basically speak to America. You can make it. Even if it is not this high flying corporate job, you will take a few steps back. But if the push factors away from South Africa becomes such that you feel you have to do it, it is possible.

Jan Hugo: It’s definitely possible, you have to just grind and maybe work 10 years longer than what you would have if you stayed in South Africa.

Danie Brink: Yeah.

Jan Hugo: And I think, you know, the thing that I’ve said many times in this conversation is when you make a move, you mustn’t look over your shoulder. You kind of have to apply yourself even through those tough times. And I can imagine that for you guys, it must have been a tough experience with everything that you’ve been through. And as a couple, I think that’s the most critical thing is you’ve got to be on the same page.

Danie Brink: Yes, yes. Because one cannot sit and cry about going back every time. Things go wrong and they will go wrong. There’s no doubt that it’s not as you say, it’s not moonshine and roses all the time.

Jan Hugo: No, definitely.

Danie Brink: And I mean, that’s why we went back in 97, 98, because both of us were miserable. And so we went back. Now, at this stage, I mean, we cannot afford both be miserable and want to go back and I mean again it’s possible to be able to go back and I don’t know if all immigrants agree on this but for me the choices I made because of what I saw in South Africa and the things that made me worried, I hope I’m wrong. I really, that’s the one decision, the one big decision in my life that I’m that I super hope that I’m wrong that people 10 years from now will say look at this beautiful rainbow nation, you know, you were a cynical person to emigrate.

Every, we went back last year after being here for five years and every little indication that I got that maybe things are going to go well was good news to me. Excellent news to me. I don’t sit here hoping that South Africa will go to the dumps, but it is tough here. And like you say, you know, if I’m down and Lisa’s up, then she helps me again, reminds me of the reasons why we came and so on. But man, do I hope that we are wrong because we all have family and friends back home. And even just the Afrikaner nation that I am really loyal to, you know, the poorest of our people, they don’t have options to leave. And for them, I so hope that things go well.

I mean, if you look at the rugby team and the stadium when the Springboks play, that little vivid view is a beautiful thing to see. And one is almost envious of that from this side, but we each have our reasons why we left. And we have to stick with it. And I won’t mind at all if I was wrong, not at all. Because then it’ll be good for you and good for everybody back home.

Jan Hugo: Absolutely. There’s not one rule that applies to everybody. I can’t walk a mile in your shoes and you can’t walk a mile in my shoes because we have to make our calls and stick with what we think is good for us. We say we have so few days on earth, we may as well make the best of it.

Danie Brink: Yes. With the information that we have at our disposal and we do what we do. Yes. I just want to maybe mention one thing. I started contemplating coming back to the US and I went on a run in Groenkloof in Pretoria. I have two wonderful dear friends and us three ran in the mornings at 5 a.m. And I didn’t want to, I still kept my cards close to my chest about my thoughts on emigrating.

That one morning, I just said to the two of them, what do you think about immigration? And they, each from their perspective with the variables in their lives, spoke to me and the penny dropped for me that day. One of them had kids at university already. And he just said, I cannot go anywhere. And then I realised Mika is at that stage in standard nine, grade 11, I better hurry up, you know, if it wasn’t for that day.

And so that was my set of variables. David, my friend, confessed to me that he’s worried, but he cannot go because his kids are at university and, you know, he wouldn’t want to leave and they have girlfriends and they want to stay. Then I realised, okay, for me, the Brink family, we, now I have to get out of the country before Mika graduates and goes to Potch or Stellenbosch or whatever, you know. That’s just the uniqueness of the set of variables that we each have, you know.

Jan Hugo: That’s very, very true. And I think, you know, the question in this, and maybe it’s an obvious question, is safety a big issue for you and your family? Was that part of the reason why you left?

Danie Brink: I mean, it wasn’t not an issue. The other day in my maths class, I said to kids, they must sometimes think we’re strange. Well, first of all, it’s strange for them to, for me to call myself an African because they have just one, they have one perception of what an African looks like. And I then say to them, go tell your parents at home, this African says to them, this and that. And you can see their eyes are this big.

But now I say to them, this rule, whatever the maths rule is, you better know this rule. Even if I come into your house at two AM in the morning and I wake you up and I say, what is this? Then you must know what it is. And now they, you know, they have comments about me entering their house. And then I said to them, I explained to them the concept of safety in South Africa. I said to them, we have that wall and electric fence and a dog and beams and steel gates inside and a rifle under your pillow. By the end of it, it wasn’t even funny to them. Their eyes were just this big, you know.

So, I mean, safety is not an issue. We did, obviously, I mean, some people have a traumatic experience. And then for that, they immigrate. We never had that. It’s still, I mean, I try and celebrate the safety that we have here. I had a friend in Pretoria who lived in a dangerous fancy neighbourhood, but somehow it was next to the Moreleta Spruit. And so people entered their yards from the Moreleta Spruit, which they couldn’t keep out. And he told me that when he goes and he puts stuff in his swimming pool at night, he takes his 9mm with him for safety reasons in his own yard.

And every Thursday evening, when I take the trash can to the street, I think of that guy, and I’m thinking, I would have had to take my 9mm with me now that I’m walking in my pantoffels and my pyjamas to the street with no fences in between. Sometimes I go to my neighbour, and I walk right like through the bush into his yard, thinking we’ll shoot you or anything.

So we have ways to celebrate the safety. It wasn’t the main reason for us leaving. For me, it was the corruption. Remember 2018, the Zondo Commission was still going on. And I could see the Zondo Commission is going nowhere. And that was my penny that dropped and said, we better get out of this. If the Zondo Commission cannot lock up people, then I don’t want to be in this place.

And so, yeah, we have to celebrate safety, you know, all the time. We don’t lock any, I mean, America is not like some of the European nations where nothing will ever happen. I mean, now and again, you know, a bicycle could get stolen and so on, but at least you don’t have to put the stuff in your swimming pool with a 9mm at your side. And you don’t lose your life for a bicycle.

Jan Hugo: Yes. You know I’m a cyclist so I cycle a lot out in the country and every time I see a lady running on her own on a country road and there’s nobody around or a lady cycling on her own and you know as you say we almost celebrate it but that’s normal. We never lived in a normal society and I guess that’s the difficult thing.

Danie Brink: Definitely.

Jan Hugo: And just another few questions. With this whole Afrikaner thing with this refugee thing that’s been blown up and getting quite big, have you been exposed to any of those people?

Danie Brink: Not directly. Lisa is on a WhatsApp group with SAWITU, South African Women in the United States, and they care for some of the refugees that come here. And so the leader of that little WhatsApp group has asked for some donations and some needs that people had, but I have not spoken to any of the refugees.

I teach a lot of, I think, illegals. We’re not supposed to ask. I teach Venezuelans specifically with Maduro now in the news and ask them about that. So I rub shoulders with other immigrants, but not specifically refugees. My friends obviously hear it in the news and then I test my viewpoint on it and how do I feel about it and so on.

Quite a few friends at church that we like to discuss political issues. And so we chat about those things. They are aware of the refugee thing. And I mean, I can understand, you know, a country like America has the decision to let in or out whoever they want. And I can, I mean, you and I are both Afrikaners. We don’t think it’s a bad thing for a country to let Afrikaners in, to make the requirements easier for Afrikaners to come into a country. It’s sad again for the brain drain in South Africa, but that’s not necessarily the fault of the Afrikaners.

Jan Hugo: Absolutely. Now, I agree with you. It is just something that’s happening, and I still feel sorry for people who want to leave and cannot leave. I think that’s a very difficult place to be.

Danie Brink: Before we left, on my Twitter account, which is now X. I asked, do you want to leave? No, no. First of all, I said, can you leave and can you not leave? But then I split it up. Do you want to leave or not leave? You know, I don’t remember how people reacted, but I am sad for those that want to leave, but cannot leave. I mean, lots of people can leave but they don’t want to. And that’s perfectly fine. Those are excellent people to have in South Africa, you know. But those that want to leave but cannot, the refugee programme is a little bit of a safety net possibly. I don’t know. I mean, I heard about 70, you know, that it’s going to be a total of 70,000. I mean, there will be possibly a Congress swing later this year. You don’t know about legislation and, you know, Trump’s not going to be there forever. I don’t know how permanent that programme is going to be. So we’ll have to see.

Jan Hugo: Danie, just slowly getting to the end. Just a question. You mentioned friends in church and so on. Do you have a lot of South African friends or mostly Americans?

Danie Brink: We mainly have American friends. We slotted into our church, which is obviously a Presbyterian church. A bigger church, like 700 members. And so there’s one other girl, a lady from Namibia, south of Namibia. When I was principal in Keetmanshoop, they come from, I think, Stampriet and her dad and I spoke once. So, Elna lives here. She was on a tennis scholarship. She married an eye doctor and they live here. So, now they’re South African in church.

Wilma, we met in 2004. She came here immigrating as a nurse in early 2000s with her two sons. So, Wilma lives here. I think there are a few more Afrikaners here, but we wanted to just basically assimilate. We didn’t specifically seek out Afrikaners to have a little volkstaat here or something. I think it’s a good thing to be involved in your community and community efforts and exercises to get to know your neighbours and to reach out to them. They reach out to you. I mean, we do that in South Africa in any case, as Afrikaners. We get involved in our community and our schools and so on. And that’s what we do here. We don’t specifically seek out.

I mean, tonight, Ronaldo Barnhurst is going to come and braai with me. So we have, oh yeah. So he’s a postdoc here at University of Georgia. And so Phillip is in Atlanta. We have a few South African friends that I’ve picked up through university or hunting or church or so.

Jan Hugo: Yes. You took, sorry, I have to ask, do you hunt elk or whitetail?

Danie Brink: I think it’s whitetail.

Jan Hugo: Whitetail deer.

Danie Brink: Oh, there are plenty. People say we’re up to our ears in whitetail here. Yeah. There’s a lot here. They get struck on the roads the whole time. It’s just, and people that live here say like 50 years ago they were almost none. I think the quota after hunting season was one or two deer, now it’s 12. It’s almost a nuisance and we can hunt deer in town. We can hunt in the city, obviously only with a bow and arrow.

But I mean, it’s, you know, the ladies that get their daffodils eaten, they love the deer, but they also are not too sad if you shoot them because they eat their flowers in town. Yeah, mainly, whitetail. We have a little place in South Africa where we went last year. Oh, it’s idyllic. And I mean, the hunting, it’s like hunting in South Africa is a 10 out of 10. And in America, it’s a two out of 10. I don’t know. Maybe a one out of 10. Pretty awful, but I mean, we love hunting, so we do it.

Jan Hugo: Okay, now my son and grandson, that’s what I’m asking.

Danie Brink: Yes.

Jan Hugo: They also, they went, he took him on his first hunt last weekend.

Danie Brink: Okay. What did they go shoot?

Jan Hugo: Also, whitetail, that’s a guy’s farm, so, but I think it’s all about this little guy’s 14 now, so he’s just getting into it, you know, so that they’re loving.

Danie Brink: Yes. He’ll never have money for drugs. He’ll only buy guns now.

Jan Hugo: Absolutely. And in Texas, as they say, they can carry.

Danie Brink: Absolutely. Those guys are crazy about the rifles. But I mean, I tell you, over a year, I hunted on John’s farm here in Franklin County for two years. And I thought, why does this farmer lease out his hunting? He doesn’t hunt himself. And I thought, maybe he doesn’t like guns. He has more than 100 rifles himself. People are crazy about the rifles here, I tell you. It’s so fun.

Jan Hugo: Danie, maybe a couple of last questions. If you think back over the last years, 20 years or so, is there anything you regret in terms of the move that you’ve made?

Danie Brink: No, no, I don’t think so. I mean, it would definitely have been wise to stay, to have stayed now that I’m in the US and I’ve emigrated. I mean, if I stayed the first time, I would have been retired by now, but I would have had American kids and, you know, that trajectory is different. If I stayed the second time, I’d be close to retirement now. And yet I am the third time just starting my career.

But I mean, so it’s not a regret. We had such a wonderful time in Namibia. Fantastic time in Pretoria working for the Solidarity movement, working for a cause that I’m really passionate about and now have the opportunity specifically for Lisa to give back in a big way to our people, you know, and me with the hunting stuff in a small way and maybe it’ll grow one day. Yeah, things would have been different and financially you would be at a different place if you made different choices. For the richness of the experience, I’m not sad. I think we are, God wants us now at this point of our lives. We, you know, the experiences that we had were mainly wonderful ones.

Jan Hugo: Excellent. And I guess the message out of that maybe is what you’re saying to the South Africans who are thinking about it, rather go sooner than later, get it done.

Danie Brink: Yeah, for sure. And I think one of your other people that on the podcast said, you don’t have to pack your bags and say, I am now immigrating. I mean, if that’s how thoughtful you are, that’s okay. Do that. But if you wonder, you can always, if you’re 30, 40 or 50, you can always come and see how it is. And you can always go back. You will take a step or two back. But for the sake of checking that box and being comfortable, it’s for me or it’s not for me, you can come. That’s my main message. If you wonder, try it. I mean, just try it. You don’t have to come forever. You can always go back. Lisa and I are proof of the fact that you can go back two times and come back again and still it’s okay.

Jan Hugo: That’s awesome. That’s fantastic. Well, I don’t know. Is there anything else that you want to share? I mean, we’re getting to the end.

Danie Brink: No, keep up the good work with your podcast. I drive an hour and 10 minutes every day. So I need from you many, many interesting podcasts that are at least an hour long because that’s what I want. I listen to hunting podcasts and when you have a new one, I listen to you. So keep bringing them out. It’s wonderful.

Jan Hugo: Thank you very much. We have a few in the bank. Excellent. There will still be a few coming. Good. So, thank you so much, Danie. I really, really appreciated your honesty and openness. I think you guys have had an unbelievable journey and out of real tough times, building something, this charity is amazing. So, thank you so much. Thanks for sharing.

Danie Brink: Blessings to you also, Jan. Bye.

Jan Hugo: And the charity is called Stepping Into Grace and can be found at www.steppingintograce.com. If you enjoyed my discussion with Danie and would like to hear more about the experiences of South Africans who have left the country, why not subscribe on your favourite platform. If you would like to share your story, contact me on jan@therelocatedsouthafrican.com. Until next time.

This transcript was generated with the assistance of AI technology and has been reviewed for accuracy.