Tony | Westgate
“I’ve always been with my wife. We’ve come here from South Africa. We’ve been here 20 years. We don’t have loneliness in our life because we’ve got family and friends.
The only people we miss are those that we’ve left back home in South Africa, and we also have family in Portugal. So that’s, you know, that’s the only type of loneliness we feel, I suppose. Yeah, not really any loneliness. Always got someone with me.
I work in retail, so I’m always active. I do quite a lot of physical stuff. We also run our party hire business from home. So, 24/7 seven days a week we do our party hire, and my wife runs the order side of things, and I do mainly the physical delivery side of things, but that’s how we keep active, and it’s just the two of us. So, we’re pretty busy. A lot of picking up and delivering and cleaning and stacking away and packing, and you now, lifting. So that’s how we keep active I suppose. We have, we also have two two disabled children. So, we’re pretty busy with that, too.
From my experience, our neighbourhood is pretty friendly, and pretty well connected. So I know everyone in my street, but I would think maybe new people, new foreigners I would say. New immigrants to New Zealand probably don’t feel connected, or straight away they don’t feel part of the community I think. I think a lot of the Asians I would say like to keep to themselves. They don’t want to mix or blend in withthe rest of the street, I would say. That’s what I’ve experienced. They’re a bit reticent with regards to meeting others of other cultures. Kiwis are pretty friendly. I’ve noticed in my experience, and they connect well with us, but the other cultures I find a bit difficult. So I would think that’s probably where the loneliness that comes from. I don’t know. That’s what I’m thinking.”
