There's a black cloud over my head today that I can't shift. Normally I try to be the most positive person I know, but it's hard today.
Want to know why? People insist on asking the most STUPID questions about my time abroad and I can't even try to sum up how amazing the experience was in the small window of time people have for me to answer. I feel like I'm on COUNTDOWN.
If you really want to know what it was like to live in Kenya, give me at least an hour. Let me sit down somewhere with a projector and speakers and play you a video. Let me wax lyrical about the people, the food, the weather, the transport, the music, the nights out, the days in, the hangovers, the highs, the lows, the food poisoning... all of it.
But whatever you do, don't ask me any of the following... I am allowed to punch you if you do.
1. "Where's your tan?" This is my number one shortcut to punching you square in the face. Look at me. I'm English. I'm not Spanish, Italian, Greek. I'm English. In short, I burn, I peel and then I go back to this same pasty, pale shade you're looking at right now. Me and Nicola Roberts are the same. You know, her from Girls Aloud.
I am SO over it. What I'm more interested in is how the experience has changed ME INSIDE. You really think I care about getting a tan when I'm surrounded by the most interesting people I've ever met? Oh hold that thought, let me instead go and lie on a beach bed and stare at the sun while it attempts to cook me alive and miss out on other experiences.
All the above comes from the fact that I'm bitter about the fact that I can't tan of course, but it really is such a stupid thing to say to someone, especially when skin cancer is such a risk from sunbathing. I'd much rather come home paler than be at risk from skin cancer thank you. *reaches for fake tan*
2. "Is it safe there?" It's 2013, Kenya is not run by SAVAGES. They have MALLS, CARS, WIFI (albeit, shockingly slow...) PIZZA OVENS, MOBILE BANKING. Most of all, they have community, people talk to each other, people know each other (gasp!) and I feel a hell of a lot safer on the streets of Mombasa than I do in Leeds. Yes there is crime, but show me somewhere that there isn't and I'll move there right now, you watch me. Help me carry this box of wooden souvenirs.
3. "What are you going/do you want to do now you're back in England?" OH I DON'T KNOW. ALL I WANT TO DO AT THE MOMENT IS SIT AT THE WINDOW AND HOWL AT THE MOON AT THE INJUSTICE OF IT ALL. I miss my cat, I hate that he got put to sleep, I hate that it's cold, I hate having to wear TIGHTS over my new tattoo while it is healing. I hate going to the supermarket. I want to go back to Kenya. THAT'S what I want to do now I'm back in England. Instead I have to get a job and shiver.
So, like I say, settling in back home is going pretty well. You have been warned, I WILL punch you square in the face if you ask me any of the above.
