And for those English speakers of you (i.e. all of you, the only point of typing Kiswahili is my own comfort), I have left Kenya and now I live in England.
Leaving is really difficult to describe. Until you're sitting in the plane chairs with a tiny TV screen in front of you and a British Airways blanket draped over your knees (which you feel would look better placed on Sid's bed back in Nakuru after the long-term borrowing of some in January) and suddenly the plane starts moving and lifts off the ground with a terrific roar, you don't really believe it. The country's sinking away below you and you realise that it's irreversably taking you thousands of miles away from what's been your home, your family, your friends and your children for the last six months of your life.
And although you're extremely excited about seeing your family and friends in England again, the sadness from leaving Kenya is quite overwhelming because you're not only going to miss it, but you're so worried about what could happen whilst you're not there. When you leave England, you're not worried that you leaving will have a bad impact on anyone's lives, but when you leave Kenya you're terrified that if you're not there to help the kids, and make sure they're going to school, and learning, and happy, that no-one will be. Seeing how sad the children are when you leave makes you feel TERRIBLE for leaving.
Anyway, despite that, seeing my family, and my friends, and EATING CHEESE again, was so good. I spent Sunday on my Nan's farm, with my Nanny and Jilly the dog and Mum, Dad, and Ilana, walking across the fields and smelling the beautiful sunny green Devon countryside and eating trifle and cheesy pie, and that was perfect. It was so good to be back there again.
Being in England is SO strange though. Everyone's white, there are no children, there are actual roads with concrete and no enormous holes filled with god-knows-what, nobody understands when you say 'asante', mangoes cost a flipping fortune, the streets are all empty of happy Kenyan women selling fruits or cutting maize or carrying brightly wrapped babies, and your feeling that you're doing something productive and worthwhile with your life suddenly disappears. I feel so unproductive; in Nakuru if I didn't spend all day at school and then all afternoon at the orphanage I would feel awful, and here I'm doing nothing. I'm looking forward to starting work so I feel that, at least, the money will make a difference to the school.
Since getting back I've also been watching a ton of Scrubs (I bought season 1-6 for 6 pounds on my last day in Nakuru, wahey!), sending enormous packages to teacher-friends in Kenya, plotting many many ways to fund everything from a classroom roof to a food programme for Nakuru Workers, and missing Kenya a great deal but also loving being able to see people again.
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