Country Living in Southern Africa

Meet Linda Oosthuizen, stay at home mom of two little boys ages 3 and 1, from Voorburg in the Netherlands. 

Raising kids in Kruger

Linda and her family

Taking walks inside camp

Linda and her family live in the Letaba staff village. She recently started blogging and her blog is full of adventures and wildlife experiences.

How did you end up in South Africa, in Kruger National Park of all places? When people find out that I am from Holland, they often ask me what brought me to South Africa. The answer is Love! My job as a flight attendant brought me to South Africa for the first time, and during that first trip to Madikwe, I fell in love with this beautiful country and its game reserves. Years later, I fell in love with my husband Steven, who loves the bush even more than I do! And he lived in Kruger National Park!

I commuted back and forth for about 6 months at first, spending each flight leave with Steven. But after my oldest Alex was born, I resigned from my job with KLM and sold my apartment in Voorburg to move to Letaba permanently. And that is where we have been living for almost four years now!

Steven and Linda on Barry’s Rock where they later got engaged.

Steven and Linda’s Wedding

Tell me a little bit about your daily life; what is a normal day in your life?

A normal day for us is what a normal day is for most stay at home moms with young children I guess. For the most part at least. Only living as far from the ‘outside world’ as we do, the ‘normal’ things just take a bit longer than usual. It takes us an hour to drive to school or the doctor or to go grocery shopping.

We usually wake up very early. I try to take the boys for a bit of a drive every day and early mornings are my favourite.

While the boys have breakfast when we come back, the monkeys are usually doing their rounds so I spend some time chasing the monkeys away; Much to the entertainment of both the children.

Then after their afternoon nap, we usually spend the afternoon outside playing. And before you know it, it is time for dinner, then bath and bedtime.

Nothing spectacular or exciting on our normal days, which might be a bit surprising to some people.

 What is your favourite part of living where you are currently?

What I love most about living here in Letaba is seeing wildlife from our house. We live in such a beautiful spot in the staff village, which is located a few kilometres away from the rest camp. And we have almost unobstructed views of the bush around us. I just love seeing bushbuck in my garden while I am busy cooking or elephants from our stoep. It is wonderful to have the animals so close!

And we have seen quite amazing stuff right from our doorstep: a herd of buffalo walked past the house during the drought. We have seen a leopard from the stoep and a while back lions were sleeping under the washing line of the park home across the street. I have seen hyena, hippo, jackal, honey badger, giraffe, zebra and all sorts of antelope like impala, kudu and waterbuck all around the house! And then the monkeys and baboons of course, but I could live without seeing those with the problems they sometimes give us 😉

Any stories you would like to share? 

Living in the bush has been a bit of an adjustment for me; As has motherhood. And being a new mom in the bush has certainly been challenging at times.

Growing up in Holland, I was pretty much scared of any flying insects and spiders. That got a lot better spending a lot of my annual leave in Kruger, and now, after four years, I can honestly say that not a lot fazes me anymore. Scorpion on the lampshade while I am nursing Jack, having to chase a snake out of the garage with a broom, being bitten by sac spiders, I can pretty much handle everything. There is one thing though, that makes my skin crawl and that is a red roman. The nocturnal solifuges, that run around here in the summertime. And they run so incredibly fast! Steven and I call them Kalahari Ferrari’s.

To follow Linda on her blog and Facebook page you can click on the links below for more enjoyable and entertaining Kruger stories.

Website/Blog: http://ourlifeinkruger.co.za

Facebook: https://web.facebook.com/ourlifeinkruger/