Thursday, May 04, 2006

I miss home!!

I miss kenyan radio. I miss all the crazy adverts, I miss waking up to capital and falling asleep to capital. Listening to radio on the way to school and on the way home from school, just basically all the time. Today as I was doing a boooooring book review, I was listening to Kenyan radio and oh the wave of home sickness that came over me. See when you first leave home, everything is all so exciting and new, then you hit a wall where you cry, you're homesick, nothing is the same and you just need something familiar to make you feel better, like seeing blueband on the shelves at the supermarket, passing by a kiosk, something, anything... Then after that, you kinda get numb and just get on with what you need to do and then you gradually get into things and hey presto! It isn't too bad! One time you catch yourself smiling. You actually find yourself having a good time and everything is liveable, workable. But sometimes, I get a bout of homesickness. Coming home to homecooked meals everyday, a fruit basket always full of yummy fruit, the way my mum insists on a specific way of folding and storing away clothes and house linen. Sitting on the veranda on a Saturday morning with a glass of juice talking to my mum as she drinks her tea with the sun in our eyes and kiko my dog at my feet. Going to sarit centre and meeting the whole world. Going veggie shopping with mum to the market and talking to the tomato lady, the potato man, the dude who does sugar cane, the old lady who sells beans...basically all those lush people who make veggie shopping such a glorious and colorful experience. I miss bbq's on the lawn. I miss getting ready to go out with all my girlfriends and having a great night full of laughter and dancing. I miss the nonchalantness of kenyans, their smiles in the midst of dust, potholes, bad governance, poverty, insecurity....they still manage to put a smile on their face and a spring in their step and somehow, I still don't know how, they get by. I miss the noise, from matatus blaring music, people singing, laughing, shouting across the road, random kikuyu gospel songs blaring from a kiosk, wycliff the watchman and his little transistor radio covered in crotchet mini radio blanket, shopping at maasai market or just window shopping....i mean stall shopping at the maasai market, I miss going for lemonade at dormans, buying flowers from the florists under the tree in westland...(who are no longer there sniff sniff), the sun, the sun, the sun, did I mention the sun? My family and all the family gossip. The ride home under all the blue gum tree's. October when all the purple flowers come up - agapanthas, jacarandas, for some reason all the purple flowers come out in october! The silence apart from birds chirping and kiko galavanting around the house on a morning when nobody's home...you know those days you were home sick from school. Watching tv under a duvet in the night then racing my brother to bed to get out of putting the sitting room lights off. Hmmmm....I miss home and I had better stop here before I break out in tears and not finish this boring book report!!

5 Comments:

Blogger The.Hanyeé said...

Wah! Mpaka you have made me start missing home too :-(

I could add
- the absolute inability to strut down to Buffet Park and wekelea a ka dry-fry and the cold Tuskers that come along with that :-)
- Matatus (never thought I would ever say that!)
- being able to randomly decide to go down to Naivasha for the wknd and madly enjoy...

Nostalgia has made me stop here and now..

2:55 PM  
Blogger spicebear said...

i miss everything - even my parents' loud music at wierd hours, my arrogant cat and the javs. sigh. your post has just brought so much back, sniff!

6:56 PM  
Blogger Machozi said...

hey no fair! I was doing okay till i read ur blog..now I miss home and my mommy sniff sniff

10:49 AM  
Blogger african girl+european boy=world travel said...

Kipepeo,
I could not agree more with you. you see, you never miss home until you are away. Everyone @ home wants to go abroad, and most of us abroad want to go back home. After being in Germany for 2 yrs and the U.S. for 7 yrs, I expected to find culture shock big time when I went home last Dec, but wapi, everything was just as i had left it, and in my opinion, even better.
The streets going to Westi, Milimani, Yaya, Village Market have all been cleaned up, beautiful billboards hung up depicting all the big Kenyan music scene folk....wow, i was amazed. I am lucky because I am going back this summer to jobbo with the U.N in Gigiri. My mom just cannot understand how I anticipate the dday that I will finally move back home.

6:19 PM  
Blogger Bee said...

You know I love the idea of home but in reality I don't really like it in Kenya :( I'm going home in June and I am happy that I'll see my family but except for them I am not looking forward to it. I will have to do a blog post about this...

8:26 PM  

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