Wedding in South Africa

This December holiday was a busy one for us. Not only were we going back to South Africa but we were also getting married whilst we were there. We left home with our big jackets on got on the plane and 17 hours later (we did the via London to Johannesburg via Dubai) we stepped into the boiling heat in sunny South Africa.
You do almost immediately get the "This is what I gave up" thought popping up in your head as your drive down the wide highways, trough the hilly outer reaches of Johannesburg. I barely managed to make it to the house before passing out from the long flight, but I managed to wake up around 8 that evening for dinner outside on the patio in the cool 20 something degrees nighttime.
Unlike the UK we didn't have neighbours one or 2 meters away, we were blissfully unaware of them, you only have your present company taking up your attention.
For the next couple of days I spent the nights at my parents, they live on a particularly hilly area of Johannesburg. If it wasn't for a annoying apartment block behind them blocking the way they would have a beautiful stretching for miles to the horizon. The dogs are constantly running up and down the garden looking for their next game and the pool water is luke warm after baking in the heat.
As luck would have it (depending on who you talk to it was very lucky) the day of the wedding started out as boiling as the ones before it but by the time we were getting ready to start a thunder storm broke loose and rain came pouring down. If you've never been outside of UK I doubt you know this kind of rain. Huge drop come pouring down to hard that it takes you only a moment or 2 to get sopping wet. We were lucky though that as my lovely bride was about to make her entrance the rain slowed to a drizzle and she could make it down the isle without trouble.
By the next morning the rain was gone and we made our way to the Drakenburg for our honeymoon. The stunning scale of the green mountain country gets you wondering why you'd ever really want to be anywhere else. We were also treated to a lighting storm the one night that turns the night quite literally to day from time to time, but again as before the clouds can't stand the sun for long and soon the sky is blue again. The rain dries in an hour or two after the sun comes up and the dusty (its a good dusty) African air takes its place again with just a touch of the cool freshness that came with the rain.
After the honeymoon we made our way to my parents in Pilans berg, a game reserve just outside Johannesburg near Sun City. The heat was so intense when we arrived that my mom and grandmother as well as my one sister couldn't do much more than sit and wait for it to cool down, however as it usually happens after the heat comes the storm and after a frantic couple of minutes trying to hold on to the tent we were rewarded by a cool fresh night. The following day turned out to be nice too as the worse of the heat had been broken by the storm the night before and we were chased back to camp by the game wardens that night when we got stuck at a beautiful sunset scene.
Needless to say when it came time to climb back to the plane to go back to the freezing temperatures of the UK I felt a fair amount of resistance. Not just from leaving the 24 degree afternoon to land the next morning in 1 degree but also because of the friends and family I was leaving behind.
The crime aside, South Africa is a stunning place and if it would just sort it self out, and I can trust the source that tells me its better. I'd be on the next plane back. The problem is of course the brain drain causing the remaining skill in the country being worked to death, the crime stopping me from finishing a round of golf because there was a mugging at the bottom of the 16Th hole and the need to lock yourself up wherever you go. These factors are very hard to miss when you live there and I really hope it could become a peaceful country again were one or two men's greed and lust for power won't destroy it as has happened with some of our neighbours.
So where we are back in the safe, cold and wet England. Which for all its faults is a good place and safe place to live if you can avoid the frantic central London transport systems. I think I might be good waiting staying here and waiting until South Africa sorts itself out. I may not be the patriotic type that wants to stick it out there and risk becoming part of the statistics but I do love the place and I hope that one day I can return to my home country.