Written for SA2Eire by a Member
The beginning
I had begun looking for work in Ireland in January 2020. Then COVID hit and everything went dead. In the interim I had Lyndon update my CV, refresh my LinkedIn profile and sort my cover letter. From March 2020 until January 2021 I had not heard a word back from any of the jobs I had applied for from South Africa.
Around the third week of January 2021 a recruitment agent came across my LinkedIn profile. We had a chat about my intentions and when I planned to make the move. All went well, and then everything went quiet again. I honestly thought there was no chance of ever finding a job.
Then on the 21st of May, a day that is already very special to me, the same agent got back in touch. He had something for me that he had been working on since January. I was gobsmacked. I thought I had been forgotten.
A week later, on another very special Friday, I had my interview with my prospective employers. I was sweating all day. I had been in Pretoria for meetings and had to race back to the south of Joburg at breakneck speed to be on time. I sat down in a Teams meeting with a managing director and financial director, thinking this was going to be a short flop of an interview. An hour and a half later I stood up, walked to my lounge, and told my wife with the biggest smile on my face: I’m going to get this job.
By the Monday following that weekend I had a job offer. And a really good one at that.
Making the decision
All kinds of thoughts started running through my head. Do we? Don’t we? I honestly thought we couldn’t. But my wife, my confidante and true supporter, told me to go for it. Take the job and make the move while we have the chance.
So I accepted the offer. No negotiation, no ifs, ands or buts.
My employers submitted my CSEP visa application within the week I signed the contract. I luckily qualify for a Critical Skills permit. Three weeks later, driving at lunchtime, I got a call from my recruiter. He was so overjoyed he could barely contain himself. My CSEP was approved. In three weeks.
Things just got very real, very fast.
Selling everything
We had two valuations done on our house and immediately put it on the market. We decided to move over with cash and bags of clothing and start our lives afresh. My wife began pricing and listing our belongings for sale to friends and family first, then on Facebook Marketplace. My anxiety went through the roof.
Within the first week we had sold roughly 60% of our household contents. Cash was coming in and furniture was going out, and I was crawling through my skin watching my home disappear before my eyes. My wife put up with my antics, kept her cool, and refocused my energy on the end goal. Ireland.
Three days after listing the house, we had our first offer. The house was essentially sold in three days.
The paperwork marathon
We hit a problem with our marriage certificate. We only had the handwritten copy and not the register version. I went through our wedding album and found a photo that partially showed the details. We tried to contact the pastor who married us. He had moved on from that church and never replied to any of our attempts.
We contacted the church directly. They said that after a period of time they had handed their registers back to Home Affairs, but they had some still left over and would check. An hour later I received a scanned copy of our wedding register by email. I could have kissed the admin lady who found it.
Off we went and applied for unabridged marriage and birth certificates and our daughter’s passport. All within a few weeks of each other.
Getting the birth certificates from Alberton Home Affairs on the Friday was an adventure in itself involving a lot of quick thinking, a cover letter, a visa approval document and a very patient security guard. I will leave it at that. We walked out with everything we needed.
By the 2nd of July, almost a month after getting the job offer, we had all our paperwork. Our house was sold. Eighty percent of our contents was gone. We were waiting for our MapMyMove session with Vicky and Megan to clarify a few last queries. The next day we booked our flights and travel insurance.
COVID, a positive test and a miracle
A week later, after more than 18 months of steering clear of this pandemic, my wife started getting cold sweats and body aches. Seven GPs contacted, none would see her. We eventually got an appointment the following morning. She tested positive for COVID. Our hearts sank.
She recovered quickly, really only sick for the first three days. And on the day she was diagnosed, she also found out she was pregnant.
A little back story on that. Our only child is a daughter who came to us through the blessing of IVF. We had tried for years to conceive naturally. IVF the second time did not work either. We had also had a few early miscarriages. So this precious gift, arriving at this moment, was absolutely extraordinary.
The airport, the flight and Dublin
Neither of us had ever left South Africa before. We arrived at the airport waiting to fly to Dublin with our three year old girl. Checkin was uneventful. We had a drink with friends and family and moved through to departures.
Pro tip for parents travelling with small children: if you have hand luggage and cannot put that bag on your back, check it in. You need every hand you have to get a toddler through the airport.
We flew Qatar to Doha and then on to Dublin. No kids meals on either flight. Our daughter survived on half a muffin, some wine gums, and the in-flight entertainment, which she found far more interesting than sleeping. She is three. This tracks.
We landed in Dublin, worked through the BMU queue with all paperwork in order, and were bussed to the Crowne Plaza Dublin Airport for quarantine. From landing to being in our room was about four hours. The hotel staff were incredibly accommodating throughout.
The next day brought our first PCR tests. Irish PCR tests are more thorough than what we had experienced in South Africa: throat, cheek and nasal samples, all on one stick. Children over two years of age are tested with a cheek swab only.
My daughter and I tested negative. My wife tested positive again, likely a false positive from shedding after her previous infection. The result was that she was separated from us and moved to the isolated floor, escorted by hotel staff in full hazmat suits, while heavily pregnant. It was an incredibly hard few days.
She was treated well and the hotel staff were genuinely kind. But I cannot overstate how tough it is to watch your pregnant wife be taken away in those circumstances, knowing she will be alone for another 13 days.
Looking forward
We did all of this in just nine weeks. At times it was chaos. At times there was heartache, including having to put down our old blind Dachshund before we left. We have been blessed to get here, and we have not had the time to process all our emotions yet.
But sitting in that quarantine room while we were still together, I told my wife: I am excited. I am excited for what is coming next for our family. It is going to be tough and it is going to test us. But we are ready.
Good luck to all of you still on the journey. If even one part of this sparks an idea or answers a question you were afraid to ask, then it was worth writing.
#OurTurn
