saa ya kinyumbani

It's 2.30am in the UK. A couple of hours ago, I gave up on trying to sleep and got up to rehearse for the Nairobi show. I had to get up at 4am anyway, to get on the coach to Heathrow. Once I'm on it, it's almost continuous motion until I hit the stage at Carnivore tomorrow night.

My plane lands around 10pm Nairobi time tonight (Nairobi is 3 hours ahead of the UK). We'll get home by 11-ish. At 9am tomorrow, I have a phone meeting with Ciru, the wonderfully capable, on-the-spot-with-everything marketing manager of Kwani. Then an interview on Nairobi's Capital Radio at 1pm. Then we head to Carnivore to begin tech for the show. I go on at 8pm. Somewhere in the interstices, it would be nice to fit in a conversation, or even a cup of tea, with my parents :-).

Between now and 8pm tomorrow, I intend to drink as much water as my body can physically hold without actually leaking through the pores. Hydrate, hydrate, hydrate - the magic spell I rely on to generate juice on stage after double-digit hours of travelling.

The East African ran a piece on me today. Capital Radio has done several short spots on Migritude this week. A couple of hours ago, I was jumpy with nerves - they yanked me out of bed. The fear of not living up to the expectations of all those I grew up with.

After 2 hours of working the material, the nerves have morphed into exhilaration. Migritude and I are going home. To an audience that may love us or loathe us, but cannot possibly be bored or indifferent. An audience more intimately connected to what we have to say than any other in the world.

The novelist May Sarton has a line in one of her books: Perhaps, in the end, this is why one is a poet. So that once in a lifetime, one can say the right words, to the right person, at the right time.

Almost 3am now. 6am in Nairobi - sunrise, and trees erupting into bird chatter. On Kenya Airways flights, Local Time At Destination is rendered in Kiswahili as Saa Ya Kinyumbani Ya Mwisho Wa Safari.

Literal translation: Time of the home at the end of the journey.