What I am missing

I miss the accent

British English. I have managed to tune in to the BBC World Service at last. The signal is weak so I have had to attach a piece of wire (the power cable from my walkman with the power plug cut off, in fact, but more of that later) to the antenna to get good reception. Then the buggers switch into Kiswahili every other our in the evenings. But it has made me fell better. I’m following the news more closely now than ever before.

I miss flirting

It’s something I am now programmed to do. I do it with guys as well as girls. Its part of normal life for me back home. But I think its culturally dependent. I don’t feel comfortable doing it here. The country is very conservative and very christian influenced. But more than that, there is something I can hardly put into words. Something subliminal that is warning me off. Body language. Other signals. The foundations of a protocol that leads to flirting are missing.

One of the othe volunteers who arrived with me has started calling me lovely boy in her texts and I am replying in kind, because I suspect she has noticed the same thing and feels the same desire to play a bit (we weren’t really flirting together during the week in Nairobi) and has read me as someone with whom it is safe.

I miss Lindy Hop

OK, it has to be said. This was the weekend of the London Lindy Exchange, an event with which I was closely involved last year (and sick during the weekend so not really able to take part fully) and have missed all together this year. I was with you in sprirt, guys! Please leave a comment below and let me know how it went. Got a great text from Ollie who mentioned Bomb The Bank. And I thought . o O (Hey, I thought up that name).

I did listen to some Swing at the weekend. It’s the first time I have been able to do so without feeling intensely homesick. In fact Swing mushc has been the only realy cause of homesickness for me so far. But on sunday, after the water supply was reconnected and I had done my laundry and washing up, I put on Frank Sinatra and sang along loudly and tunelessly. I even danced about the room a bit, doing odd charlestons and grapevine steps… Its just not the same.

So to all of you — and especially Swingdemon — who have said, over the last fortnight, that you’re missing me

I miss you too

Having said all this, I should explain that I am not really spending all my waking hours missing home and dreaming of Lindy Hop. On the way to work this morning (I have at least a minute’s walk from my house to the college) I asked myself “What would you be doing if you were still in the UK?”. The answer seemed to be working in some college, or doing some IT job, and stressed and complaining. And here I am working in a college, doing an IT job (I spent most of saturday fixing a problem with the Samba server here on the college network) and certainly there are things that stress me, but so far they are to do with the fact that I am adjusting to a new life. It means I am doing my best to live my life to the full. And so far, that is sustaining me very well through the rough patches.

Special thanks also to Mr Mungbean for a fantastic non-swing music collection to explore while I’m out here.