New way of thinking

Hi, I'm Kosie and I'm from originally from South Africa and I live in Tarradale in the Hawkes Bay. I started them a quite number of years ago our children was fairly small and my wife's sister and husband moved to New Zealand. Eventually we came to visit them in 2010, and my daughter enjoyed it so much, and we knew that we would here be able to still do things our children can't do in other parts of the world. 

So we decided to move here, and that was an interesting experience for us in the way we work, I'm actually just a farmer on my wife ticket here. 

Took us eight months to get all the documents in South Africa collected just so she can apply for being a registered nurse in New Zealand. Five days before it was the latest that we could submit our applications, we got the letter from the Hawkes Bay District Health Board that they'd employ her and we've never been in the country. Everybody else wanted us to be in the country and first interview us, before they would even consider making a job offer. 

Life in New Zealand turned out. There were a few surprises for us because in the beginning we thought we to make quickly friends, that was not the case that took a bit of work but now I'm set, I understand why they are not like us. People may know you but if they don't like you and they don't get over that huddle they are not going to develop the trust and then you need to remember that it's all around relationships. 

The guys who got there and they don't focus on relationships, focus on technical skills and technical and I'm right and you are wrong and that type of thing they don't make it. My wife had a really tough time before nine months she was almost sidelined by most of the people and that was quite a challenge with us, they say the two of us are very relational people and we enjoy having friends at work and everywhere. 

And if we don't have then we feel very lonely, very quickly. Yeah that was a bit of a chance for her. The things that do work that we enjoy was the environment is the positive changes in my children, our son used to be someone who would play computers and that's where he lived, he's now more outside than he is inside either swimming in summer, there were somewhere or out with friends on a hunt or whatever and then the other thing that worked out very well for us was see the children in the sense of the opportunity that are around for them and the support they actually get from to be able to study because the children do get really good support and the classes are nice and small. 

Also the selection of school subjects are fantastic, it's really good and it's nice it's structured, and yeah, so that all worked out very well for us. 

If you're thinking of coming to New Zealand the first thing you need to do is understand what your real motivation is for being here. Don't just come for the job, but come for the benefits it brings to you as a family, but I do think at the end of that you need to make a very conscious decision to be positive about it. 

It's very easy to get here to go and sulk, and no need to go and sulk.