It began in Africa: So long and thanks for all the fish!

I almost thought my previous blog post would be my last but I couldn't go without a final word on the biggest topic of all: Kenya. I could still write for weeks about the country that has adopted us for the last year and a half but it isn't possible to say everything, and even if I did it wouldn't be the same as living and breathing it every day. So I'll just hope I can capture the confusing mix of emotions swirling around at the moment.

It almost goes without saying that the main thing I am looking forward to back home is seeing our family and friends – just sitting down with a proper cup of tea and chatting face-to-face will be fantastic. On the other hand we have met so many awesome people here that have made our time special: having already said goodbye to many volunteer friends I know it is going to be tough leaving those who remain behind.

Fun times with friends

I am excited to see the winding West Country lanes of home, smelling of leaf mulch and cut grass; can't wait to tuck into my first pint of cider; look forward to the easy-on-the-eye Georgian town house facades of Bath, Bristol and London. I will hugely miss the vast open spaces, big skies and sudden sunsets of the equator, where freedom and possibility seem limitless.

Amboseli at dawn

I look forward to washing machines, dishwashers, chilled white wine served in a proper glass, meals served at a dining table, duvets and my mum's beloved cottage garden. I will miss eating choma with my fingers, washed down with Tusker-stoney shandies; will miss the genial handshakes and drunken diatribes of the locals in our neighbourhood pub; will miss “my” vegetable ladies, who sell the best fresh tomatoes, mini aubergines, coriander and limes on the street.

I long to be shot of smog so thick you can cut it with a knife, pavements collapsing into potholes and drains, the terrifying hurtle of a matatu as it overtakes on a blind corner, the way every shower looks as if it might electrocute me. I will miss the hustlin' matatu touts directing gridlocked traffic better than any cop and manouvreing their beaten-up vehicles through the tiniest gap of pavement to keep our crazy city moving. I will miss hopping on the back of a piki-piki, helmetless, fingers crossed, but grinning ear-to-ear.

Matatu mayhem

I look forward to not being hassled by street kids, leered over by creepy guys or having 'mzungu' yelled at me 20 times a day. I long for my anonymity and just to be able to walk down a street without attracting attention. I will miss the expectation that I will become involved in people's business – helping the matatu tout collect coins from other passengers, having someone else's child or parcel dropped unceremoniously on my lap when the bus is full.

I look forward to returning to a world where people share a similar outlook and I no longer need to explain myself at every turn or hold back key parts of my life. I am nervous that the way I speak English and the way I do things has been irrevocably 'Kenyanised' and that no one will understand when I want to be 'picked from the stage', 'take a cold soda' or have someone 'flash me'; worry that I will stand around waiting for someone to assist me in a shop rather than looking for what I want; will wonder why it's so hard to get a 'fundi' to just fix things for me.

The confusing raft of emotions is all the more complex given my place here as white and British: simultaneously I am seen as a possible source of wealth and influence, and also as the despised ex-colonial master. I could live in Kenya 30 years and I would still be 'mzungu' – the outsider – and no amount of Swahili lessons or matatu rides will ever get me past that. At the same time I am a woman and so expected to step aside on a pavement, put up with slimy come-ons, and, if I will insist on leaving home without my husband, to take all that as a matter of course. It is a complex mixture of reverence, disdain, curiosity and sleaze that comes my way on the average Nairobi street.

It is all too easy as a volunteer in Kenya to come to feel that others perceive you as a resource rather than a person: something to be co-opted, used, applied, to the absolute limits of my willingness. At the same time I am guiltily aware of the ease with which I can leave, the choices and chances I scatter so carelessly. When Kenyans ask me where I have traveled in Kenya and I list the places they often say, 'Wow! You know Kenya better than me.” I remain at heart the true 'mzungu' – roving and restless, taking what chances come my way as my due.

And of course, those Kenyans are wrong. I may have traveled but I can never know Kenya as they do. There are so many aspects to this complex country, with its 40 plus tribes and languages, its feuds and corruption, its generosity and geniality, that remain opaque, just occasionally glimpsed, as if through the rush hour smog. All I can do is thank it for adopting me into its sometimes dysfunctional but always hearty embrace and for giving me a chance to see at least a little deeper than most. Kenya, I wish you well.

So long, and thanks for all the fish.