A small step from Boden Industrial Park – a big step in life

“Sometimes it feels like – is this really true? Can life really be like this?” says Dirk, who has seen countless large construction projects around the world and left behind a South Africa far removed from the safety and freedom his family now experiences in Boden.

He is part of the project management team at Stegra, which is now building one of the world’s largest hydrogen plant and Europe’s first newly built steel mill in 50 years. He is also one of many employees who, for the first time, have chosen to bring their families—here, to Boden.

The Laubscher-Pretorius family has been in Boden for almost exactly a year when we visit. A remarkably eventful year.

Dirk and Marina had only been a couple since 2022 when the question of Stegra and Sweden entered their lives.

The decision involved not only Dirk and Marina, but also her three children – and a supportive attitude from the children’s biological father in South Africa.

“It has been a major adjustment for all of us. But we saw an opportunity to experience a different life here, for the children to see the world, without fences around the house, gates and alarms. Here they get to experience freedom, and we all get the chance to create opportunities for the future.”

Dirk and Marina had only been a couple since 2022 when Stegra and Sweden suddenly entered their lives. The decision involved not only Dirk and Marina, but also her three children—and a supportive attitude from the children’s biological father in South Africa.

“It’s been a huge adjustment for all of us. But we saw an opportunity to experience another life here, for the children to see the world without fences around the house, gates and alarms. Here they get to experience freedom and all of us have the chance to create opportunities for the future,” Marina summarizes.

AN EVENTFUL TIME

The decision to seize the opportunity and move to Sweden was made rather quickly. After an initial visit to Boden in May 2024, for Dirk to meet work colleagues in person for the first time, start looking for accommodation, meet the teachers at the International School (and getting engaged in a park), Marina and Dirk married on their return to South Africa, started packing and was back in Sweden on 25 August.

They lived for a while in an apartment and searched for a house. In a mild panic about ending up without a place to live, they finally found what they were looking for—a spacious villa, perfect for family life, friends, music, work, and leisure.

The house had previously been rented to workers and was move-in ready, conveniently close to Boden Industrial Park where Dirk works. The children can catch the bus nearby or cycle to school and friends.

The eldest daughter is studying at Stockholm University—just over an hour away by plane. Noa, 16, attends Boden’s international high school program, while Iddo, 14, also goes to International School of Boden, at the municipal Stureskolan. Marina is an organizational psychologist.

She left her private practice in South Africa but brought parts of her business with her to Boden. They have set up an office in their villa where she works remotely with South African clients a few days each week, alongside her Swedish studies at SFI.

A NEW LIFE

The family describes their new life in Boden with many superlatives: warmth, kindness, a fantastic welcome, wonderful nature, everything close at hand, and an easily accessible wealth of information, opportunities, meeting places, and “the Boden tour” for newcomers.

“I probably had quite a stereotypical picture of Swedes, that they would be quiet and hard to connect with. But we’ve met so many wonderful people! Just the other day, an older man stopped by when I was in the garden—he simply started chatting, and I tried to respond in Swedish,” Marina says with a smile.

FINDING NEW CONNECTIONS

Building a new social and professional network, learning a new language, and becoming part of a new society and culture has been challenging but interesting, Marina reflects.

As an outgoing, energetic career woman in midlife, she suddenly found herself a part-time stay-at-home wife who didn’t speak the language, alone during the days with household chores—an experience in itself for an analytical psychologist who likes putting feelings into words, and vice versa.

On a personal level, the move has also meant, as for so many accompanying families coming to Boden, starting completely from scratch. Finding a new balance and dynamic—in the family, and in life.

And even though it feels wonderful to sit with apple trees heavy with fruit outside her office window in Boden while talking to South African clients on the screen, she is now ready to find a job and take a larger role in the growing Boden community.

A WIDE RANGE OF OPPORTUNITIES

Marina and Dirk often attend the popular international afterwork events regularly organized by Boden’s relocation service. Stegra’s staff also has its own afterwork gatherings, and some of the South African families meet outside of work as well. A great support and close friend has been the wife of one of Dirk’s colleagues, who also came from South Africa, but before Dirk and Marina. She could share advice and open doors to everything from where to find things in local stores to quick entry points into, for example, the work-integrating social enterprise Yalla. There, Marina has participated with women from many nationalities and backgrounds in activities such as an international food market featuring rich flavors from her home country.

She has also attended business breakfasts and cultural breakfasts to become part of local life in Boden.

“When you arrive in a completely new country and culture, you need help translating your own culture into the new one. Someone to take your hand and show you the way,” Marina says.

FREEDOM AS A TEENAGER

Sixteen-year-old daughter Noa comes home with a school friend. She shares enthusiastically about attending the international high school, quickly making friends from all over the world—and Sweden—some in the same situation as herself, with parents working at Stegra. Last summer she got a job through Boden’s youth program Sommarhäng, where young people create activities for children and teenagers in central Boden.

“It was so much fun,” says Noa, who loves music and plays several instruments.

At Sommarhäng she had the chance to do just that. She also got in touch with a photographer, which in turn led to the opportunity to have her own photo exhibition during Boden’s late summer festival Kulturnatta.

Her circle of friends expanded further with more Swedish peers. Through one of Stegra’s Swedish employees, Noa also got private riding lessons from a professional competition rider just around the corner.

Iddo really loves cycling and being able to take the bus wherever and whenever he wants. He also really appreciated the internship week they had at school.

During their first year in Boden, Noa and Iddo have tried climbing, skiing, and much of what Boden’s nearby nature and changing seasons have to offer.

“I can really see that the children appreciate life here. Being able to feel the freedom that exists here means a lot when you’re young,” says Marina Pretorius.

PASSION FOR HUNTING

Dirk also brought with him a strong interest in hunting and was eager to experience hunting in Sweden. It’s not easy as a newcomer to join a hunting team or take the Swedish hunter’s exam. But through the Swedish Hunting Association in Boden, Dirk this fall joined his first Swedish moose hunt and made contacts with local hunters.

“The hunting day was such a privilege. In many ways the same as in South Africa, in how the hunting team all shared a deep appreciation and respect for nature. Also the discipline, patience and silence that one experiences only on what Dirk calls ‘loud meditation’.

“But in other ways so different. The concept of sharing and caring got a whole new meaning in how the hunting team celebrated companionship as an annual ritual and shared fairly in the eventual harvest from nature. A principle that seems to underpin the Swedish culture in many ways.”