'Why am I fighting this?' Dr Kirsten Cloete on building a life in South Africa after 18 years in London
In the early 2000s, a generation of young South Africans left home. Fresh out of university, passports in hand, they were chasing something most could not quite name. Adventure. Freedom. The thrill of landing. . .
In the early 2000s, a generation of young South Africans left home. Fresh out of university, passports in hand, they were chasing something most could not quite name. Adventure. Freedom. The thrill of landing in a city where nobody knew them and anything felt possible. London in particular had a gravitational pull. The working holiday visa was a rite of passage. You did your degree, you packed a bag, and you got on a plane. Yes, there were harder reasons too. Crime was rising. Political uncertainty gnawed at confidence. Opportunity felt like it might be easier to find elsewhere. But for many, the honest truth is simpler: they were young, they were curious, and the world was calling. The plan was always two years. It rarely stayed that way. South Africa’s skilled emigration rate hit approximately 11% through the 2000s, one of the highest in the world. Between 2000 and 2020, around 414,000 South Africans emigrated, predominantly to the UK, Australia, the USA, Canada and New Zealand. By 2020, the cumulative post-apartheid emigration figure had reached 915,000. The country did not just lose people. It lost doctors, engineers, teachers and entrepreneurs. The brain drain was real, and it was painful. Two decades on, something is shifting. Recruitment firms have recorded as much as a 70% increase in enquiries from South Africans abroad exploring a return home, with most coming from professionals based in the UK, Australia and Canada. A survey of 173 South Africans with international work experience found that 77% cited spending time with family and lifelong friends as what they missed most. Two thirds craved South Africa’shumour, warmth and social culture. More than half missed the outdoor lifestyle and the climate. When the numbers stopped making senseIt is not just sentiment driving people back. The UK is changing too. The tax burden is on course to climb toward 38% of GDP, the highest level in modern history. The abolition of non-dom status, frozen income tax thresholds until 2031, rises in capital gains tax, National Insurance and council tax are all squeezing household finances. A one-bedroom flat in central London runs to £2,000 (R43 773 at current exchange rates) a month before bills. The arithmetic is shifting. For South Africans specifically, the model of geographic arbitrage is making it easier to go home. Many professionals can now return while continuing to work for UK or international employers,earning in pounds and spending in rands. That gives them access to South Africa’s lower cost of living without sacrificing international income. Schooling is estimated to be 30%-40% cheaper in South Africa than in the UK. For families, that is not a minor detail. The thing nobody puts in a spreadsheetAnd then there is the pull that no financial model captures. Parents are ageing. Nieces and nephews are growing up fast. The WhatsApp videos of family braais and birthday parties start to feel less like a window and more like a wall. Expat grief is real, even when life abroad looks enviable from the outside. A Durban girl in the big smokeKirsten Cloete left Durban in June 2008 the way so many young South Africans do. A six-year chiropractic degree behind her, a working holiday visa in hand, and the promise of adventure ahead. She moved into a house share in Earlsfield with five other South Africans. The plan was two years. It became 18. Dr Kirsten Cloete. Image: SuppliedI caught up with Cloete recently to talk about the decision to go home, what she left behind, and what she found when she got there. She started in the City of London. If you know the city, you will appreciate the setting. Suited bankers, ancient churches, coffee at your desk by 7:00. Not the obvious home for a Durban-raised chiropractor finding her feet. She arrived just as the 2008 financial crash hit, about as rough a welcome to professional London as you could get. From there she moved around SW London, learning her craft, finding mentors, developing her own approach to the nervous system work she became known for. She eventually set up her own practice. Eighteen years of clinical experience, built one patient at a time. The feeling that would not go awayAsk Cloete when she knew it was time to go home and she will tell you it was never one moment. It was a slow accumulation. A longing that sat quietly in the background for years, persistent through a trial period in Mallorca that she hoped might satisfy it. It did not. What she missed was not something she could name easily at first. It was the warmth of South African life. The humour. The ease of connection. The ability to walk into a room and feel at home. She missed family. She missed being present. She missed births. She missed funerals. She missed her nieces growing up. ‘Why am I fighting this?‘The question Cloete kept asking herself, as the decision loomed, is one that will be familiar to thousands of South African expats. She put it plainly in our conversation: “Why am I fighting this?”It cuts to the heart of what holds so many people in place long after they know, instinctively, that they want to go home. She is clear that readiness is a myth. She moved despite the fear. Despite the doubt. Despite not having everything figured out. The Return to South Africa Facebook group is full of people in exactly that position. People who know what they want but are waiting to feel certain. Cloete’s story suggests that certainty rarely comes first. Landing in GqeberhaShe did not go to Cape Town, the default destination for returning Saffas. She went to Gqeberha. And since arriving, she has been doing what she describes as some of the most ordinary and most precious things. Picking up her nieces after school. Spending time with family. Reconnecting with the texture of South African daily life. The move has been an emotional rollercoaster, she says. But her heart is bursting. Both things are true, and she does not try to tidy that contradiction up. One thing that has surprised her since arriving is the sense of community available through the online space. Cloete was never a big social media person. But since returning, she has reconnected with old friends, former colleagues and past patients she had not heard from in years. The digital world, it turns out, does not replace human connection. It just keeps it alive between visits. She still has professional ties to the UK. She plans to return multiple times a year to teach at a clinic in Oxford. The network she spent eighteen years building does not disappear. It just changes shape. For anyone sitting on the fenceCloete is not prescriptive. She does not tell people to go home or to stay. But her experience points to something worth saying out loud. The life you build abroad is real and it matters. So is the pull of home. At some point, for some people, those two things reach a tipping point. When Kirsten Cloete asked herself “why am I fighting this?”, she finally stopped fighting. For anyone who recognises that feeling, her story is worth sitting with. Dr Kirsten Cloete is a chiropractor and nervous system specialist with nearly two decades of clinical experience. She has a special interest in headaches and concussion recovery, and also works with organisations to help teams improve focus, stress resilience and performance. Connect with her onLinkedInor visitkirstencloete. com.