Sometimes you just have to accept what life throws at you.

It is late afternoon and I am sitting up in bed nursing my first episode of travelers’ belly! It is a week before Christmas and if, a few months ago someone had told me I would be spending this Christmas in Pakistan I would have been the first one to laugh and say ‘don’t be ridiculous’.

However, here I am.

My life in Kenya is over. A very sudden and traumatic end to a life I thought would continue until literally my dying days. Saying goodbye to family, friends, the people and the places that have been part of my daily life for so long was probably one of the hardest things I have ever had to do.

Why you ask? Enough to say, I guess we never really know someone as well as we think we do.

BUT, with the love and support of the amazing Pasta Mamas (who you will familiar with from previous post), wonderful friends in both Kenya and Australia and of course my amazing and ever supportive family, I have passed through the worst of it.

Most of my worldly goods are on the high seas somewhere between Mombassa and Sydney. Not that they even have a home to go to when they arrive. I will sort out that problem when it comes.

When I was offered a job in Pakistan, 2 weeks after arriving in Australia, I jumped at the chance – great job, beautiful country and it delays the inevitable – having to find a house and a job in Australia.

As my friend Becs said when she heard I had accepted my new job ‘I knew you would be doing something amazing before too long’.

The thing is, I no longer have an African Kitchen Table in fact I don’t even have a Pakistani kitchen table! What I do already have though is a note book full of jottings, frantically recorded and ready to be expanded into posts – bustling cities, stunning country side, outrageously decorated lorries, beautiful fashions, delicious food and incredibly welcoming and hospitable people.

Fate has handed me this opportunity. I am not sure it is quite what the friends who said ‘everything happens for a reason’ had in mind but right now I am grabbing it with both hands. I am one month into my stay here and my senses are already saturated with the experience. Who knows what will happen tomorrow.  

Just in case you are worried that I am lonely, here is proof that I did not come alone. Sitting on my bedhead is the little soap stone rhino given to me by my next door neighbour, Nadia, just before I left Kenya. She hoped it would always be a reminder of the rhinos who came to visit us in shared  our  'front garden' Nairobi National Park