1 Home Coming

She looked out the window as the plane began its descent. She couldn't see much of the city below but she was so impatient, so starved for the feeling of home, she willed her eyes to see more than they could. She could see the Indian Ocean stretched out below her like a blanket of blue. The plane circled through the city area tilting towards the airport. Soon she could make out the unplanned haphazard neighborhoods below.

Lower and lower they went until finally the plane touched down, the seat belt sign went off with a beep and the passengers started getting up and opening the overhead compartments looking for their bags. She stayed in her seat until the plane was almost empty. Excitement had paralyzed her for a few minutes. She was still starring out the window. It was over, she thought, school and all that came with it was over. She was finally home, a fresh graduate and she could not quite name the emotions coursing through her.

She switched on her phone and quickly sent a text to her father 'Just landed!'

Her father responded to her text almost immediately telling her he was already at the airport waiting.

She got up from her seat and reached up on the overhead compartment to get her pink Ralph Lauren carry-on bag. She checked her seat to make sure she had left nothing behind and she walked out of the plane with a murmured "thank you" to the air-hostess at the exit.

The humidity hit her like a slap on the face and she smiled. She knew it would soon annoy her, this heaviness in the air, but not today. Today, nothing could ruin her mood. She had forgotten how thick the air could be in Dar-es-salaam. She had forgotten the stillness in the air. There was no wind and the pilot had said the outside temperature was thirty three degrees. It felt like forty. She breathed in deeply and smiled. She was home.

There was a new feeling of belonging as she heard the workers speak in Swahili. She had not heard anyone speak her native language in so long. These were her people. Never had she been more pleased to see strangers speaking her language. It was as if it took three years of being away from the familiar for her to truly appreciate it all.

She got in the shuttle that was to take them to the international arrivals gate. All the seats were taken so she grabbed on to one of the yellow bus handles and waited for the shuttle to get moving. She looked around her at the other passengers trying to commit details to memory. She would, after all, document everything that had happened this day with great detail in her diary.

When she got to the arrivals gate she held back as the foreigners with their connecting flights and their "I'm always in a hurry" attitude to go on ahead of her. She was home. She had no place she needed to be in a hurry. She plugged in her earphones and played "Castle on a Hill" by Ed Sheeran. She fancied that she understood the lyrics more at that time than she ever had before.

She walked over to the passport control and there was a dark short man with a goatee who smiled at her and said "Karibu nyumbani" (welcome home) as he stamped her passport.

She smiled back as she took her passport saying "asante" (thank you).

She got her luggage from the carousel and wheeled her way to customs. She had so much luggage – she had had to pay for excess and was sure they would give her a hard time but they didn't. She got out of the airport looking for a familiar face and murmuring "hapana asante" (no thank you) to the over eager taxi drivers.

She finally spotted her father and she felt that feeling she could not name swell in her again. "Daddy!" She called even though he was already moving towards her. She hugged him, smiling and crying at the same time.

"Welcome home Rebecca." He said.

"Thank you Daddy. It's good to be back."

He helped her carry her bags to the car. He paid for the parking ticket and they drove off heading towards the airport exit into the roads chocked with traffic.

"Your mother has all the family gathered and is cooking up a storm." Her father said in an amused tone.

She could already picture it. Her mother loved to make 'events' out of the smallest things. And her homecoming would not be considered small to her mother. She would have invited all her aunts and uncles and cousins to join in welcoming her home and congratulating her. They did, after all, have a new accountant in the family. Her mother was not about to let anyone forget it.

Her phone buzzed. It was Jude. Her long time boyfriend. 'Hey beautiful. You home?'

She texted back. 'Just landed. Heading home with papa.'

Her father glanced at her and said with a knowing smile, "I met Jude the other day. He was running errands with his mother."

"Did you really?" She asked with a smile too. "He didn't tell me."

"I didn't think he would. The poor boy looked like he had seen a ghost. You might want to tell him that I don't bite. But I do own a shot gun. As long as he stays Jude and not Judas he has nothing to fear."

"Daddy."

He laughed at the expression on her face and turned up the volume of the radio. He eased into the traffic as they sang along to 'Barry White you see the trouble with me'.