Leaving Home to come Home

Well, this blog couldn't last forever. I am out of stories and it is time to move on.
I had a wonderful time though, as you can tell from the stories. I enjoyed sharing them with you just as much as I enjoyed living them.

So as I plan future travels, I think about how I have to go back. Yet there is still so much of the world to see, making it that much harder to choose.
Although I reckon that Poznan, Poland, is one place that I just have to go back to.
There's just something about it. ;-)

I am finally being forced by circumstances to do my final bits of unpacking and I keep finding more and more of those keepsakes that make me just want to stop and...and then I can never figure out whether to laugh or cry.

A note I found at the back of the book one of the host families gave to me as a souvenir...this one just takes the prize!

 One day, when the winds are right and the stars align, visit I shall.
Till then, till future travels...Do widzenia!
Ha ha!
  

The African Effect

Where to begin...this has got to be my favourite post!!

Do you know what it is like to be different?!
Oh yeah...I was different!

I visited a park where traditional Polish homestaeds were being showcased and one of the caretakers gave me a free pot. Here's what happened, she was showing us around and mentioned how traditionally some people made pots! I asked if I could touch them, she said sure. I picked it up and took a look at it and as I went to put it back...she said, "Keep it! Take it back to Africa with you!"
They weren't even on sale!!!
So I quickly stuffed it into my bag and thanked her. Taking it back to Africa indeed!!

Then there was the time a few people and I were positioning ourselves for a picture, and this one lady positioned herself behind me, I was seated, and let her hands run wild on my head. Impromptu head massage right there....and she kept muttering, "Ohhhhh, sooo different!!", while feeling my hair. I just sat there in mild shock and smiled. This came after someone else stopped me on the streets and asked to touch my hair so it was not that new. There was also the girl who could not take her eyes off me on a tram, so I turned to her and smiled, and she blurted out, "Your hair is so cool!" (flips hair in slow motions, says thank you!) Ha ha!

Not to mention the fact that in most situations other interns would be introduced and their nationality would be part of their identity. For example...Crystal from Singapore, Vir from india, Hannah from China...but me, no, not a country for me. Of course this was not always the case, but I was Kathleen from Africa. A whole continent! I was Africa! Hilarious!

Then there were the people who had other friends from Africa. They would strike up a conversation with me, ask where I am from, then tell me all about their friend from Nigeria or Ghana or Namibia and expect me to know all the places and events associated with the story...when really I have not been anywhere in Africa except Kenya, so I probably knew more about Poland than I did about these other African countries at that point.

Then there was that guy at a souvenir shop in Prague. I walked in with a couple of friends and first thing he says to me is..."Miss, we are from the same continent!" I would not have guessed so because he looked Arabic, but he was from Tunisia...I think. For the next 30 minutes or so, he just went on and on about everything under the sun! Yeah, one of those guys but he made my night.

Of course not forgetting the reaction when you meet other Africans...okay, non-North Africa Africans. We can spot each other from a mile away and depending on the situation...a glance, a smile, a conversation, perhaps even saving of seats for a 5 hour bus ride.
I met a couple of Nigerians, as I was traveling from Warsaw to Poznan, at the bus station. From across the waiting hall, they called out to me, "My sister, come sit next to us!" Could not hold the laughter in, so I obliged. We had the most delightful of conversations. They had me cracking up for a whole 5 hours on the bus.

Then of course there were Aunt M. and Billy Boy, the two other Kenyans I was lucky enough to hang out with. They of course take all this attention in their stride, living in the diaspora I suppose. The attention did bother me at first, but Aunt M came to visit and we hang out, and she silently reassured me that it is okay to be different. (Wonder if she knows this...) We were headed back to our hotel one night, and there was that bunch of teenagers who kept staring and giggling. Then when they got off, they shouted and waved. I personally was at a point where I was just tired and fed up, I just wanted to not be the centre of attention for two seconds, but Aunt M. smiled back at them and waved, then turned to me and said...well, I do not even remember what she said but she said it in a Luhya accent and she made me feel so much better. It is okay to be different, but we really are not that much different, are we?
Billy Boy gets a kick out of attributing the stares to his dashing good looks...that is another approach.
To think, just Kathleen, was someone's first taste of Africa.

I almost forgot, craziest thing anyone ever asked me... There was this one teacher at a school where we went to make our presentations. When it was time for questions, she asked...
"You dance a lot, back home?!"
"Yeah, Africans dance a lot, especially at weddings."
"Have you ever danced naked?!"
...huh?! :-o
I was so confused, ha ha!
 

Your Home is Where You Are

We have all heard the cliche phrase...'Make yourself at home, right?'
Well, when you really have no home, this phrase takes on a very literal meaning.

We tend to treat the unfamiliar with great trepidation. As a guest in someone's house, you will not exactly saunter into the kitchen and start looking for the sugar and tea bags to make yourself a cup of tea. There is a social convention which just dictates that as a guest, you have to behave in a certain way. Wait for the sugar and tea bags to be brought to the table, then make your own tea.

I think I got to a stage where it really did not matter for me.
For my last 2 to 3 weeks in Europe, for many reasons, my place of residence went from semi-permanent to...where my head hit the pillow.
Not that I'm complaining, these were the best weeks of my whole stay!

I stayed with one host family for a week, and then stayed with another host family for another week, after which a couple of friends and I decided to visit several different cities before heading home. So I literally had a new bed every 2 or 3 days in a new hostel in a new city.

There really is not that grace period that allows you to be shy and reserved in a new 'residence', hoping that your hosts will walk you through everything before you get comfortable enough to start doing everything for yourself.

Sometimes there would be no one but me home, and I had to fix up my own meal. Sometimes everyone was busy doing their work. Then when it came to the hostels, really, it is no one's home while at the same time being everyone's home!
I just had to fit in and get comfortable because there was no other option.
When I get to a host family and they say...'Make yourself at home, I would take it literally!!'

Find me...opening the fridge and scavenging for a snack just as I would at home.
Find me...propped on a sofa at a hostel living room, warm and cosy under my blankie, laptop on my lap watching a movie oblivious of all the strangers around me.
Find me...trying to fix myself a meal, opening every single cupboard and drawer looking for the knives and spoons, cups and plates and the likes.
Find me...going through the movies and books collections looking for a good read or a good movie to watch.
I learnt to make everywhere as comfortable as home.

Fast forward to me being back home, the other day we had a guest over, a friend from school. He was hungry, so we went into the kitchen to see if there were any left overs from lunch.
Instinctively, I pulled out a plate for him, took off the covers from the dishes that held the food, gave him a serving spoon, showed him where the microwave is and then started to head in another direction.

I would not have thought anything of it, except he said to me...'Wow, no such thing as being a visitor in this house, huh?'

Why I Said YES to Hosting an Exchange Participant

I said YES to hosting an exchange participant!!! Yes, I did.
I'm sure you already gathered that much from the title, so let's keep moving...

While on my trip, I spent two weeks with two separate families. Having a host family was not a foreign concept to me, last year, 2012, I spent 3 months in Australia and I stayed with a host family there as well.

Before I meet my host family(ies), there is always so much I hope for and expect, about the kind of people I want them to be, the composition of their family, perhaps that they have similar interests with me...that kind of thing. Well, none of what I ever expect happens, ironic, but I have never been disappointed. Not in all my 3 times of being hosted by a family.

I always find that even though I imagined and hoped for something different, what I get is normally exactly what I would pick if I had the chance to do it all over again.

I imagine it is very difficult to open up your home to strangers and invite them to be part of your family. It must be, right?
But others have done it for me, and I was not out to cheat or steal or anything of that sort, but they did not know that and they still did it. How is that for trusting in the goodness of mankind?!

Well, with my first ever host family...I went with a friend of mine, Mwende.
We had a wonderful time with them...they literally made us part of the family. We got a sister and 5 brothers, since then a new little brother has been born...yay!!
They cleared out their garage and had it beautifully furnished and converted into a self-contained guest unit. A few weeks down the line, they told us how they had expected to host 2 German girls but instead 2 Kenyan girls showed up at their doorstep...we had a good laugh about that.

At my second family, I was once again seamlessly integrated into the family despite the fact that I could not communicate with 50 percent of the house hold due to lack of a common language...
The parents spoke Russian and Polish, one of the kids Polish and English, the other Polish and French. That was an interesting week...imagine the conversation at the dinner table...in a minimum of three languages!!
My host sister gave up her room for the week so I could have it. My host mum would wake up and prepare breakfast earlier than she usually would because I had to leave for work really early, then everyone would come and have breakfast with me before I left, after which they would return to bed, and then wake up at their normal hour.

At my third host family, I was just as warmly received. My host mum would not go to bed before I got home, (they lived a bit far from where I worked), and on one occasion, she came to get me when I was stranded at midnight!

At each house they would do little things like take note of my favourite foods then buy or prepare more of that, they tried to give me my own space and also made sure I had company.  They taught me about their culture by giving me that insight that you can only get by living among a people and experiencing their day to day life. They helped in every conceivable manner they could while still not making me feel suffocated.
 
At the end of the day, I was most thankful for the fact that I could say that I belonged somewhere despite being so far away from home.
Then someone asked if I would like to host an intern and if my mum would be okay with it...and of course I jumped at the opportunity of enriching someone else's experience in return and sweet-talked my mum into agreeing.

I figured, it is not as hard as we imagine. Pretty basic actually, a bed where she can lay her head at the end of the day and a community that she can feel a part of, everything else will fall into place.

It has been done for me, now I shall pass it forward.

Excited!!

De Paris avec Amour: Part 2

Let's pick up where we left off...stranded in Paris!

I cried to my heart's content after all the bad news and wished a thousand times I was at home with mum, but of course none of that did me any good.
I got up and decided I would call someone, question was...who?
Lets start at the fact that I had zero credit on my phone, and the only place I could buy credit for the sim card I had was in Poland, a country that was now miles away. Of course the only person that could help me was Aunt M, but I had no idea what line she was using.
So I got to a call box and decided I would call my mum, took out 2 Euros, which was the amount indicated for making a call and then dialed.
Sigh, enter foreign country problems...language barrier!!

Yes, I did French in high school for 4 years, but I could not make head or tail of what the operator said on the other end, then the line went dead.
No call happened, but the machine did not give me back my money...what a rip off!!!
So I moved to the next call box and tried again, same story. Another 2 Euros gone.
This was an airport for goodness sake, why the call box did not have an option to change language to English...is beyond me!!!

I turned to a lady nearby and asked her if she spoke French, then handed her the phone hoping she could decipher what the operator kept saying. She explained to me that I needed to dial the number before putting in any money and that whenever I heard it beep, I needed to insert another 2 Euros.
Thieving machines!! I must have spent about 30 euros trying to call my mum that day...and in the end fine, it went through, but she could not hear a thing I said!
I heard her voice, and she just kept saying 'Hello?!', over and over again. The fact that I could hear her voice, she was that close but still so far away just got me crying again.

'Mum, please ask Aunt M, to call me. Can you hear me? Just get Aunt M and ask her to call me!!', I kept wailing into the phone, yes, I was wailing, and everyone in the vicinity kept staring. I imagine they were thinking to themselves...'Poor girl, who let her go traveling all on her own.' Ha ha!
So i finally ran out of change and I thought it was not worth it to keep trying.

Once again in between sobs I thanked the lady who had helped me, she looked like she was going to start crying as well...and then I went back to my earlier spot, took out my pack of tissues again and cried some more.
 Pathetic, right?

I got another bright idea and decided to go online, on Facebok. There had to be someone online who could tell my mum to tell Aunt M. to please call me immediately, right?
So I took out my laptop, and connected to the airport wifi, first 15 minutes is free so this was do or die!!
I got online and I find none other than Aunt M there, God answers prayers!

So I immediately tell her I missed my flight, and at first she thinks I am joking. Then it really hits home...what to do?She had me check with other airlines if anyone else would be flying to Poland, but no luck. Once again all flights were booked. (What in the world were people going to do in Poland anyway?!)

Long story short, Aunt M who had already gone through customs and had been about to board her flight had to 'come back into the country'. I can only imagine the drama it was to try and explain why she was not boarding the flight and that she needed her check-in luggage taken off the plane. Then she came and found me...and I felt safe again!
Airports can be scary!

So we searched high and low and finally got a flight that would take me back to Poland albeit not to Poznan, my city. But that was way better than being stranded in Paris. I flew to Warsaw and from there took a train and finally I was home(away from home).
We had another night in Paris, she loved us so much she just could not let go...that's the story ;-)

She finally let us leave the next day.

Traveling Alone, You Never Know Who You Might Meet

When I was about 15 years old, I took part in a two week audio-visual children's workshop with a friend of mine from school called Wangari.
There were of course loads of other kids from different schools, different backgrounds but unfortunately I really did not get to know any of them.
From the moment I knew Wangari would be there as well, that sealed the deal for me. I had no use for other people, I already had a friend.
So I just skipped that whole awkward phase of trying to get to know other people. I would just be silent and passive in group sessions, then the moment I was with Wangari, I'd say all the things I had been thinking and wishing I could tell someone.

Fast forward...
A few weeks ago, I was in Warsaw all on my own. No Wangari to be my company. What to do?! I looked up a couple of free and cheap touristy things to do...perhaps learn something about the history of the city and see all the important sites. At the hostel where I stayed, I came across a flier of a walking tour of the market square in the city centre...these are traditionally the oldest and most beautiful parts of Polish cities so I thought that would be a great way to spend a few hours. The other great thing about these tourist activities is that you get to meet other foreigners as well, because locals would generally not be attending tours of their own home ground, now would they?

So there we were, me on my own, a couple of groups of people, and a few other lone travelers...of course I went up to one of the lone travelers and made friends.
(You would be amazed the boost of confidence it gives when you know the likelihood of ever meeting these people again is one in seven billion, heh heh)
Besides jokes are always funnier when you can laugh with someone else...beats saying them in your head and then smiling suspiciously, so I had to find a companion!

After the walking tour, we had lunch then visited a museum.

Roderick(the other lone tourist) and I had this conversation about traveling alone. Sometimes you just want to be alone with your thoughts but apart from that, you really never know who you might meet. Sometimes you meet people, and are with them for the shortest of times, perhaps just a day, but you just connect on a whole other level and it feels like you have known them for years and years.
You might find they awaken an interest within you that lay latent, or they suggest a solution that seems perfect for something you have been struggling with for a while...or perhaps they just give you that one day of company amidst a week of solitary travel...
Whatever the case, your paths cross for only an instant, but in the long run this instant comes to mean a lot.
More often than not, since the setting within which you meet is 'on the road', it is unlikely that your paths shall ever cross again, but at least you had the time you did have. Swap Facebook user-names and keep on moving.

You know what, we really are all the same, regardless of who we are, where we are from, what we do for a living, what our dreams and ambitions are, we really are all just the same.
Traveling alone really puts that into perspective.

De Paris avec Amour

I really am my mother's daughter, you know?!
:)

Okay, lets get into the story.
Paris, the city of wine and cheese and love.
I got to go to Paris, with my lovely Aunt M... ;-)
Paris was a dream come true. I had read so much about this city, French culture, tourist attractions, the language...I was like a highly caffeinated monkey...buzzing around wanting to touch everything and go everywhere. It was a lovely weekend...every meal in Paris is a feast too!



So while spending time with my aunt, we happened to mention an incident that took place a few years back where my mum had missed a flight because of how she interpreted the time of the flight. It was an early morning flight, something like thirty minutes past midnight(say on Monday morning), but she interpreted it as a late night flight on the Monday night...get it?  This 24-hour clock, heh heh!
It is one of those little things that just never occurs to you and then when you realize, you can't imagine how you could have missed it.



Fast forward, say, 5 years later, here comes Kathleen, my mother's daughter. While booking my trip to Paris, in my head I knew I wanted to arrive Friday afternoon and leave Sunday evening. So when I saw a trip that had a return at 0630hrs on Sunday, I quickly took it, "Good price, how lucky," I thought. In my head, that 6.30 was automatically pm and for the other 100 times I looked at my ticket to double check the time, it never occurred to me to think otherwise.
"Departure at 6.30pm," I kept telling myself.


When Aunt M. asked if I had checked and doubled checked the time, told her I had even triple checked it. So we checked out of our hotel early enough, took a shuttle to the airport. Our terminals we totally different so the shuttle dropped her off first and we had a somewhat sentimental goodbye, wondering what soil we would be standing on when our paths once again crossed. Little did we know...ha ha!


I got to my terminal and as I checked departures, I noticed there was none headed in my direction at 6.30pm. The butterflies began, but I kept telling myself to relax, I was two hours early, whatever was amiss could be fixed. Tried to check in at the self-check in kiosk, but the machine kept telling me that boarding time for my flight had already passed. I could not understand how, since I was two hours early.
At the counter of my airline the lady took one look at my ticket and then looked up at me and said, "...Miss, why are you coming to the airport at 4.00pm? This flight left at 6.30am!"
I would have burst into tears right there and then, but I still had some strength in me. So I asked the lady if I could be put on a different flight to my destination and she dropped the second bomb-shell, "Sorry miss, your ticket is non-transferable. You will need to purchase another one."
PANIC!!!!!!! I kept going though, kept my cool and asked her when the next flight to Poznan was...she checked and said that the next flight with a free seat was in two days time. Keep in mind I had to be at work at 9.00am the next day. There was the third bombshell...and if you thought that misfortune only comes in threes, there was a fourth...the only seats available on that flight were first class tickets, about 3 times the cost of a normal ticket and I could not buy a single trip because I was not an EU citizen, I had to buy a round trip(technical something with immigration laws.)
 
And in that moment I ceased to be the mature, responsible young lady that had been looking after herself all alone in a foreign land and I was once again my mummy's little girl, I could not stop the tears. In between sobs I thanked the lady, dragged my suitcase to a nearby bench, took out a pack of napkins and just sat there and cried for a few minutes wishing I was at home with mum, wondering what would become of me...

SUSPENSE!!!!
Did Kathleen ever get home?
Or was she forever stranded in Paris, lost and alone in the most beautiful city in Europe(2nd most beautiful I think...)
Part 2 coming soon.

Notre Dame Cathedral

Our breakfast joint!

Eiffel Tower!!!!!

Add caption

People would rather help you than hurt you.

Traveling is a bit scary. Well, very if you sit down and really analyze all the things that could go wrong. New place, perhaps foreign language, everyone a stranger...all the things that could go wrong, just think about it!

A lot of times, we expect the worst, fail to realize that people would rather help us than hurt us and that our fears are probably the extremes! They are the exception to all the other good things that may come of it.

I spent a few hours in Wroclaw, a Polish city. I was just passing by on my way to another city, but since there was some time between the train I had arrived on and the bus I intended to catch, I decided to explore the city center a bit. Now, since I only had a few hours, I decided to not bother buying tram tickets.

I was going to risk it and just take one tram to the center, walk around, perhaps buy a fridge magnet for my mum's fridge then move on with my travels. At the tram station, I stood there for a while trying to decipher the timetable, but that was getting me nowhere. The fact that it was in Polish did not help.

I turned to a tiny little lady standing next to me and asked what tram went to the center.

She was very kind to me, I don't even remember her name unfortunately and I regret not asking her to stop and take a picture with me, but not only did she tell me what tram to take, she insisted to come along with me since she was heading in the same direction.

Then as we waited, she asked if I had a ticket, and if my complexion would allow me to turn pink and blush I would have, so I feigned surprise, acting like it had been my intention all along to buy one, but she stopped me, went into her purse and gave me two tickets. One for the trip into the city and one to come back. At this point I would probably have turned even pinker...

Here I was, plotting and planning how I was going to evade paying for a ticket, then this sweet lady comes and gives me two out of her purse, how mortifying! I declined and headed to the machine but she insisted, said she knew what it was like to be foreign and was happy to help, and finally I accepted.

We had a nice chat on the way to the center, then when we got there, she pointed me in the direction of where I was headed before heading to work, and that was it! Gone forever. All she had to do was show me what tram to take, but she still went that extra mile.

On another occasion, my friends and I got lost in a very rural-like neighbourhood. The thing about rural places, if there are only older people around, it is unlikely they can speak English. We had no choice since people were scarce and hopelessly asked an old lady if she spoke English, which of course she did not. However, she did not just walk off and leave us stranded, she took out her cell and called her daughter, then explained to her daughter that we looked like we needed some help but she could not communicate. She then gave me her phone and had me talk to her daughter.

Now, in the end, that did not come to anything either, because the girl on the line did not understand our predicament, but I was still extremely touched!

I have about a dozen other similar stories...truth is, at the end of the day, people would rather help you than hurt you.

Of course I do not mean to suggest that it is 100 percent safe, I am now just more willing to believe in the kindness of people than perhaps I was before.

Why I kept ticket stubs from the cities I went to...

I kept ticket stubs!!

Imagine that...I kept ticket stubs from every single city!

Well, except Paris, Aunt M was baby-sitting me then, so she had the subway tickets...(Should have asked for them...forgot.)

Why did I keep them?

I knew a few weeks or months later I'd be sitting here writing this blog post, and I'd need them for all the pictures...

More likely is the fact that...I am just wildly sentimental!

If I could I would have kept everything, and believe me I tried, as you shall come to see with time.

Thing is, I knew it was coming to an end, sooner or later. Right from the beginning, I knew it would end, it was always coming. So I held on to the ticket stubs...my little way of immortalizing the experience.

Some people collect postcards from their travels, some collect sand, some collect the seeds of plants and trees and take them home and try to grow them, some buy fridge magnets and others tshirts as souvenirs...

I always wondered what my thing was, well, I have just discovered it.

I keep ticket stubs. Be it train, tram, subway, plane, boat...I just kept them all, almost.

This was for my trip coming home.

From a Polish city named Lodz(Pronounced Wudge) Heh heh!

Don't ask me how.

From Wroclaw, Poland.(pronounced Vrodswov, I think)

POZNAN, Poland!!(My home away from home)

From Warsaw(Polish capital)

PolskiBus...ideal intercity travel companion!

Berlin, Germany.

My trip from home to Poland...kept even these ones!

France to Warsaw(This one has a whole other story behind it!)

The travel wallet I got the day I bought my ticket at Emirates offices.

Trip from Poznan to Paris.

Prague, Czech Republic.

The Beginning

I just came home from an amazing trip, I spent 7 weeks in Poland. I also got to briefly visit 3 other European countries...France, Germany and Czech Republic.
Nothing in my so far...19 years 6 months and 12 days in this life has made a greater impact than the time I spent away.

I got back home, and everything I thought matters most, I came to realise does not. It is the most beautiful feeling in the world!

So this blog is about taking you through my journey. The people I met, the things I learnt, the things I did.

This blog is also for me, first because it is a great way to index all my memories, and I hope it shall one day be a portal to further travels.

Let us take a trip!