25th April, 2009

Slightly unexpectedly, I’m back in the UK for a few weeks. A family member is ill, and I quickly decided to fly home to be with my family (not that I’m much use, but it makes me feel better) arriving last bank holiday Monday. All being well, I will fly back to Ethiopia next week.

Being home in the UK is always an interesting experience, primarily for the opportunity to do all the things I miss while I’m away - eat chicken fajitas, watch Have I Got News For You, see my friends, walk around without people pointing and laughing, you know the kind of thing.

I’m mostly staying with my mum, but I’ve just spent a week in London which was simultaneously thrilling and confusing. I spent the entire journey there staring out of the window with a lunatic grin on my face, despite being lumbered with a replacement bus service (the joy of weekend UK travel!) and a backpack, and once actually in London I was transfixed by all the different types of people (I know I’ve only been away 5 months but it’s honestly overwhelming!)

I had a lunch and dinner date with a different friend every day, and luckily some of them offered me beds/and or sofas for the night, complete with breakfast the next day. So in between meals I was able to wander around London and do all those things that I’ve been dreaming about during power cuts in Lalibela …

Except, at first, I couldn’t really remember what it was I wanted to do. Ridiculous, as just a month ago I wanted to be in London so badly it felt as if I could transport myself there if I continued to think about it hard enough. I would wake up imagining I was walking to the station near my old house, or going to the gym with a friend, and it would be a physical pain. But by the time I’d made the decision to come home, I’d developed a kind of resigned contentment and was scared that if I went home I’d disturb it and the feeling would disappear as quickly as it had come.

I soon got into it, though. In London I sat in parks and people watched, whizzed around on the tube, browsed for hours in shops and bookstores, and ate all kinds of wonderful food (there goes the ‘becoming size 8’ plan!). It was sooooo good to spend time with my friends, too – although there is a slight danger that some of them may disown me due to the change in some of my opinions since I left … but that’s another blog post!



So now I am trying to summon the energy to be excited about going back next week. Not that I don’t want to go back. In a lot of ways I do – there’s a lot of work stuff I still need (and want) to do, and I don’t think I’ve got everything I wanted to out of the experience - but I’m having trouble finding that excitement and inspiration I had before about living in Africa.

I then did what I always do when I’m looking to shift my mindset – read! I’ve been looking through books and articles on Africa, travelling and expat life, trying to ignite that spark again and I’ve made some progress. But the thing I’ve found really frustrating is that there is so little written by single women living an expat life in Africa (I have found some in Aisa). The majority of women’s blogs I come across are written by women who are living there with their husbands or partners, some working but the majority accompanying their husbands on their journey. Obviously there is nothing wrong with this, and I enjoy reading the blogs, but it isn’t the same when you’re on your own. You don’t have a built in support system which a spouse provides you with, for a start – and I’m sure if you’re on your own you don’t have to deal with many irritating things you may have to deal with when travelling with someone else.

Whatever, it’s different. And I really want to find writing by a woman who is doing something similar to me, also on her own. I think it would be really helpful to ‘jump start’ me!

But hey ho! I shall just try to concentrate on spending my time watching as much ‘Mock the Week’ as humanly possible, gathering books and haribo, and spending time with the people I love.