Last month this time I was in Canada, and I’m still humming “Barrett’s Privateers”.

And it was nearly a year ago that I was in Halifax, where I learnt the song, Barrett’s Privateers. I’m back from Canada now, back in old Sleepy Hollow, back with the folks, back to the real world, back out somewhere in the lumbar region from all the bad nights spent on buses. I AM still humming Barrett’s Privateers, which is an old  Canadian sailor’s tune sung in time to fingers tapping on pint glasses. And it’s not only a tune that I’m humming: some bits of Canada rubbed off on me, and I’m back in my homeland a changed man, a sort of hybrid Afro-Canadian, with a head full of dangerous new ideas and perspectives as fresh and a pair of fabric-softened socks. Well, it’s either me that’s become a new man, or South Africa itself that changed while I was away. At any rate, I’m seeing a different country to what I saw when I left. South Africa is, as I see it now, lousy with opportunities, good will and the hallmarks of economic success. You’d have to be seriously blinkered not to see it – as I was when I left looking for greener pastures. Something else weird has happened while I was away: before, white people never watched soccer. Now a) it’s called “football”, b) white people wear Bafana jerseys, and c) everyone sings the national anthem in its entirety. Even the fiddley bits in the middle.

South Africa has changed, and so have I. So off I go, heading towards that grubby gem on the highveld, Jo’burg, to find a job, make new friends, and pursue a career in medicine.

I think I like this new country.

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