Cheryl Goodenough, Journalist, Brisbane

Where do you live and how dif­fer­ent is it to your pre­vi­ous sub­urb in South Africa?

I live in Calam­vale, a south­ern sub­urb of Bris­bane. There is a lot of devel­op­ment in the area, includ­ing many town­houses. In South Africa I lived in Assagay, which had lots of big prop­er­ties, includ­ing small­hold­ings and small farms. How­ever, we were close to Hill­crest which was also under­go­ing a lot of devel­op­ment. So there are a few similarities.

How long have you been in Australia?

I arrived in Aus­tralia in Decem­ber 2008. I stayed in South Africa with my three chil­dren for three months after my hus­band Phillip left to start his job as a finan­cial plan­ner in Brisbane.

What do you love most about liv­ing in Aus? like least?

I really enjoy the range of things that there are to do in Bris­bane and the sur­round­ing areas. We’ve had a lot of fun ven­tur­ing out to dif­fer­ent places and expe­ri­enc­ing the parks, won­der­ful walk­ways and other things to do. There is such a range of things that fam­i­lies can do in Bris­bane, includ­ing many that are rel­a­tively inex­pen­sive or free. There is noth­ing that I par­tic­u­larly dis­like about liv­ing in Aus­tralia, although I do miss my fam­ily and friends still liv­ing in South Africa.

What do you miss most about SA?

Fam­ily and friends. I also miss being famil­iar with the things around me. But the longer I stay in Aus­tralia and get used to every­thing, the less I miss just know­ing what prod­ucts to get in the super­mar­ket, where to look for cer­tain things, going to the same doc­tor that I’ve been to for years, hav­ing friends to ask about things and other things that we tend to take for granted.

Tell us about your work with Sabona.

I write for the Sabona mag­a­zine (http://www.sabona.com.au/), which aims to help South­ern Africans set­tle in Aus­tralia. I also answer emails that we receive. A large num­ber of those are con­cerned with peo­ple who have been made redun­dant, look­ing for employ­ment or are fac­ing other work-related dif­fi­cul­ties. Other emails can include any­thing from some­one look­ing for gem squash to ask­ing for a South African doc­tor, and from ask­ing what cur­tain hooks one finds in Aus­tralia to queries regard­ing visas. We gen­er­ally try to link up peo­ple with oth­ers who can help. We tell and share the sto­ries of those who are look­ing for jobs, or oth­er­wise in need (we assisted a fam­ily whose two boys who seri­ously burned in an acci­dent on a farm) and hope that oth­ers will be able to assist and find solu­tions for those in need.

You worked for the Helen Suz­man Foun­da­tion in SA — what did that involve?

I worked for the Foundation’s mag­a­zine KwaZulu-Natal Brief­ing in 1997 and 1998. Many of the arti­cles that I wrote focused on the polit­i­cal vio­lence in the province. We tried to explain the back­ground and pro­vide an analy­sis of vio­lence in var­i­ous hotspots around KwaZulu-Natal. Dur­ing that time we spent quite a lot of time focus­ing on the town of Rich­mond, which was the scene of many mur­ders and inter-political violence.

You deal a lot with newly arrived SA migrants — what would you say are the most com­mon strug­gles?

Many migrants are bat­tling to make friends, miss­ing their fam­ily and friends in South Africa, and pos­si­bly strug­gling to find a job or expe­ri­enc­ing chal­lenges in their work envi­ron­ment. They also feel very alone in these strug­gles. We have started a cof­fee club in Bris­bane as an oppor­tu­nity for peo­ple to meet oth­ers and to chat and share in an under­stand­ing envi­ron­ment. It is a great booster for any­one who is feel­ing a lit­tle down, and an oppor­tu­nity to meet peo­ple who are under­stand­ing or avail­able for a cup of cof­fee etc when one is hav­ing a bad day. This is not an exclu­sive club (we wel­come Aus­tralians and migrants from any other part of the world), but rather just an oppor­tu­nity for peo­ple to come together for a chat and a cup of cof­fee, meet new peo­ple and hear about other people’s experiences.

Any newly dis­cov­ered spots or hol­i­day destinations?

There are so many won­der­ful places to visit in this area. My chil­dren love going to the whale park in Wyn­num, the Ipswich Work­shops Rail Museum, South Bank and New Farm. We’ve also had great camp­ing week­ends at Coolum beach and Mt Mee.

What do you do for relax­ation? Any hobbies?

Since we’ve been in Bris­bane we’ve spent our week­ends expe­ri­enc­ing a few of the many things that this city and the sur­round­ing area has to offer. There is so much to do and see. We usu­ally take a pic­nic with us, the kids often ride their bicy­cles or scoot­ers and we just explore.

Where to next?

I have worked for myself for almost 10 years doing a range of writ­ing, edit­ing and research work. I plan to con­tinue that in Aus­tralia, writ­ing for Sabona, as well as doing other work, includ­ing writ­ing of web­site mate­r­ial, ebooks and other doc­u­ments. I have my own blog http://brisbanejourney.blogspot.com/ through which I share some expe­ri­ences and thoughts and our life in Bris­bane. I believe that there are so many oppor­tu­ni­ties for myself and my fam­ily here in Aus­tralia and the com­ing months and years are going to con­tinue to be excit­ing for all of us.