slow motion thought

is how I'd describe my mental activity today. Every hour or so, since I got up, I've wanted to cry. Homesick is too simplistic - it's more my body and mind trying to encompass the multiple worlds they've swum through in the last few weeks.

Less that 50 hours ago, I watched a herd of cows feed on bushes alongside Argwings Kodhek road during rush-hour traffic. The drought has driven herders into the city to search out any patch of green that will keep their animals alive.

Less than 40 hours ago, I stood inside the departure terminal at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, hands pressed against the glass, saying goodbye to my parents on the pavement outside. The post 9/11 security madness is so intense, British Airways won't allow non-travellers to even wait on the pavement outside. They have to stand on the other side of the road opposite the terminal.

When we arrived, the security guard told me I could check in and then go out again to say goodbye. So my parents dropped me off and went to park the car. Once I'd checked in, they wouldn't let me out again. They said he'd been wrong. They wouldn't even open the exit door so I could speak to my parents without the barrier of glass in-between. So I left without hugging them, without proper goodbyes. With only the image of my father's battered, work-worn palms pressed flat into the glass wall from the outside, against mine, on the inside. My mother's face holding back tears, blurred through the faint reflection of my own face in the glass, my own tears.