Even the air is different

Nairobi/Kenya/Africa is obviously a very different place than Chicago/the U.S. It’s strange to be familiar with and comfortable in both places, which are, in many ways, a world apart. When I was living in the U.S. and traveling abroad for work several years ago, it was always a challenge for my mind to hold together the world of Chicago – home – and places in developing countries, especially remote places where extremely poor people lived subsistence lifestyles, while I lived a life in a huge metropolis with all the demands of city life. Even now it’s still hard to reconcile these two worlds in my head when I really think about it.

After spending a little over a week in Chicago, I returned home to Nairobi on Saturday morning. The first thing I always noticed when visiting Africa is the air. I had forgotten this time when returning from outside Africa that even the air here is different to me. Going back to the U.S. or Europe, I never notice a change in the air. Most of the time I make a conscious effort to notice the air when I step off the plane because it’s always the first signal that I’m in Africa. But this time, for the first time really, I was returning home to Africa, which was strange in itself. But because Africa is home now, it was familiar to me already, and I forgot to notice the air when I stepped off the plane. But it was sure to notice me this time. It was the very first thing that hit me – unexpectedly – on Saturday morning. It’s the smell of earth, of air fed by vegetation of the flat savanna. Sometimes it’s flavored by the body odor of people here, which strangely I don’t mind.

And it was strange in other ways to be returning to home here in Africa, as opposed to a home in Europe or the U.S. I still feel very much like a stranger, an outsider, a foreigner, someone who visually sticks out here. It’s still very easy for me to set foot again almost anywhere in Europe or in the U.S. and be comfortable and know I can blend in and get around. But Africa to me is still an exotic location in the world, a place that people visit only on vacation or temporarily. So here I was after several days of visiting Chicago going back to Africa to live, to return to my family and house – to go back to the place I belong, to go home. It was strange. But if I even forgot to notice the air, then even that ordinary thing has become familiar and comfortable to me.