Despite a painful and ongoing battle with cancer, Yvonne has always shared glimmers of hope from her life in the bush. Her latest reason to celebrate comes in the form of an ID boekie!
KwaNgwanase, South Africa (07 October 2025) – For years, Yvonne Spierenburg has been sharing her life from the heart of rural KwaNgwanase.
Online, many know her as Yvonne in the Bush, a woman who left the Netherlands in 2012 to build a life in South Africa. Her musings mix everyday stories about wildlife and village life with raw honesty about her biggest battle yet. Cancer.
She has never sugar-coated what treatment feels like. She’s written about the bone-deep tiredness, the nausea that never seems to ease, and the long, draining days spent at the hospital. She’s also shared the nerve-wracking uncertainty that comes with living with an invasive illness.
But alongside the hard truths, she’s always offered glimmers of light, and we have a soft spot for the hope that she spreads.
The days when she feels a little stronger, the joy of a walk outside, or the comfort of family and community or time in the bush often turns into inspiring reads on Facebook. It’s this mix of vulnerability and strength that’s made so many people follow her journey and quietly cheer her on. (If you don’t follow her already, we recommend you do!)
Now, she’s got a reason to celebrate that has nothing to do with hospitals or treatments, yay!
After seven years of patience, and many more living in South Africa, Yvonne has finally received her South African ID.
It’s a massive milestone after yonks of waiting. When she first applied for permanent residency, she was pregnant with her son Owen. By the time she got an answer, Owen was already a busy school kid!
“According to their website a permanent resident application takes 12 to 24 months. I waited a tiny bit longer, only 84 months,” she said. “Only (exactly) 7 years after handing in the paperwork I heard back, how totally insane is that,” she shared, celebrating the anticipated moment that she’s waited just about forever for.
Yvonne and her husband Leo went through seven temporary visas in the meantime. Each came with unimaginable mountains of paperwork. Medical and TB reports, police clearances from every country she’d lived in, documents that had to be freshly issued every few months.
“After the 3rd time or so we were getting pretty good at it and by the 7th application we were absolute pros,” she said.
At one point, she even spent about a year without a valid visa because of the backlog.
“At least you could in South Africa, your application slip sort of became your visa,” she laughed.
Now, Yvonne can finally feel like the bush is truly her home. She’ll pay the same conservation and entrance fees as her husband and son. She can swap her Dutch driver’s license for a South African one. And, she’s free to work, and having that as a possibility is exciting to her.
For someone who’s been fighting so many battles, this is a victory worth clapping for.
“I don’t have much else to share about this, but I am so happy I just wanted to share it with you all.”
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