I have so much to say about my trip home… but I am procrastinating. Painting the bathroom and potting plants rather than getting back to the computer.  Blogging, at least on a blog like this one, is like giving away a piece of your soul. Writing about my trip home presents a kaleidoscope of emotions: sadness, happiness, fondness, and loss. I feel as unsettled returning to Kenya as I did Visiting the UK. Every visit home highlights how temporary my life is, how little I fit in anywhere. How everything I hold dear can one day slip through my fingers… often by my own choice.

Family bonds that stretch over years and miles

It’s tough visiting family… you can choose your friends and all that. I was at a Family party with my mum, brothers, sister and their kids. At one point I thought, were we not family there is no way we would have come together today. My brothers and sisters are as diverse a group as can be found, all completely different from each other. We love each other as families do, but share little in our lives, thoughts or opinions. The party could have been fraught with tensions, but in fact, it was a gentle reminder of how time, distance and completely opposing tastes in music mean nothing when it comes to the bond that families share.

Quality time spent with family

I spent lots of quality time with different members of my family. Myself, my dad and his kids, who I have only ‘popped in’ to see for the last 8 years, went camping. We went to the beach. The cold English beach with its beach huts and piers and buckets and spades and fish n chips. We cooked bangers and marshmallows on a campfire late into the bright summer night. This time with my father and my children touched my very core: a time reminiscent of my childhood. My kids spending time with my dad whom I love so much and who they know so little was utterly invaluable to me.

A time to make new memories

I spent sunny summers evenings in my mum’s garden. We rented a house nearby and went over most days. We drank fizzy wine in an exquisite English garden whilst mum hunkered down on the floor making up games with the kids. We visited my darling sister in law, who was my closest friend when I lived at home and whose incredible children I love with my whole heart. We stayed up late into the night catching up on 8 years of lost occasions. We visited my in-laws and got tipsy by the beach, making new memories to hold on to.

Leaving home and breaking hearts all over again

But we also visited grandparents that might not be here the next time we come back. We had to say goodbye to all those people who are so dear to us. To watch our families hearts break as we told them it might be two years before we see them again. To hold my daughter in my arms as she cried for her grandma. We had to leave without seeing friends and family that we still hold close in our hearts. Time and distance harden you to the fact that you are living 4000 miles away, returning home reopens the wound.

An alien in…

Every visit home is bittersweet. The feeling of being an alien in my own country is exacerbated by my children's awe at simple things I used to take for granted. Heated houses, carpets, perfect vegetables wrapped in plastic without a speck of soil.  I’ve only been gone 18 months, yet now there is ‘tap and go’ payments, Ringo parking, empty pubs, and my favourite stores absent from the high street and moved to online. Everything is digitized, analysed and computerized. My friends gasp in horror at the idea of not having access to Amazon shopping and next day delivery. I don’t know how to navigate this world. I spend the first week or two floundering and blundering about. Faced with this environment coming back to ‘real-life’ Kenya is a blessed relief. I am comfortable with the slower pace, and a system that I understand.

Au revoir, Hasta la vista, until tomorrow

Visiting home is always as stressful as it is wonderful. Trying to pack 18 months worth of relationships into two weeks is an exhausting non-stop whirl, of packing, driving, too short visits and cups of tea.  Navigating emotional hellos and tearful goodbyes within two hours slots, in a world that is both familiar yet strange.

It's a life that could be mine if I chose it and it makes me question why I am still away. But when I come back to Africa this life settles around me like a comfort blanket. I know England but it's Africa that knows me. It reminds me of that Ed Sheeran song – England raised me, but Africa has made me who I am today

“One friend left to sell clothes

One works down by the coast

One had two kids but lives alone

One's brother overdosed One's already on his second wife

One's just barely getting by

But these people raised me and I can't wait to go home

And I'm on my way, I still remember These old country lanes”

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