Table for one

For the first time ever, I’m on a holiday...alone. No girl friend(s), no boyfriend, no family members. Just me.

I’d been too busy lately to really over-think it, which is probably a good thing, because the things that have distracted me have also suppressed any worries I have about this reality. In the lead up to today, whenever I was asked about going away I’d focus on the positives: beach, pools, pork and absolutely zero work*.

But I’m here now. In Mombasa: 6 nights, on my own.

Just me and all the stuff that’s bouncing around in my head. Eeek.

I was met at the airport by a chatty Kenyan hotel shuttle driver.  His first question to me was “where are you from?”, followed by a comment about how great Celine Dion is and my obligatory nodding in agreement with this apparently near-universal truth. His second question was, “are you Christian?” to which I provided my usual response of “technically”.  (I’ve had this conversation many times before.)

Then he asked if Celine and I were from the same tribe, which was a surprisingly refreshing question. I was initially inclined to respond “probably not” but then was forced to consider my mom’s recent facebook update that lists her hometown as ‘Montreal’ and instead said, “mmm, possibly”.

For the remainder of the 30 minute drive, I was entertained by a long, mostly one sided conversation about Christianity and how it was ok if other people had other beliefs but it was our responsibility to make sure that everyone was aware that Christ is our Lord and Saviour. I nodded.

Then we (read: he) discussed his family and preached about how God is love, how He guides us to our salvation and how he lives to serve the word of the Lord. Then he tried to convince me that his one year old daughters’ first word was “hallelujah” (“even before she said ‘dada’?” I said, “wow, that must have been divine intervention, you must be proud”) and that the God Channel was a truly powerful medium that changes lives.

By this time, I had my hands raised in front of my face, palms towards me, head down like those televangelists do when they are receiving the Lord, interjecting the occasional “hallelujah!” and “testify!” and “praise the Lord!” until he caught my sideways glances and realized I was taking the piss. At which point he laughed and invited me to join him at church tomorrow.

Seriously, I wish I could hire a camera crew to follow me around sometimes.

I actually considered taking him up on the offer, simply for the ‘shits and giggles’ factor, but I’ve been in Sudan without pork products for long enough that the prospect of a long, leisurely interlude with bacon tomorrow morning at breakfast trumps, well, pretty much anything else. A girl has to have her priorities.

Speaking of food, I got to eat dinner tonight on my own. In the big hotel dining room. At a table set for one. I couldn’t help noting how easily the scene could have been transplanted from one of the Bridget Jones movies – me at a table by myself that could have easily sat 6 people, with empty similarly sized tables on either side of me, facing into the room looking at all the other couples, groups and families. All that was missing was for one of those scales that us single girls over 30 have hiding under our clothes to pop out and confirm what everyone was surely already suspecting.

I don’t think it was just because I was already feeling a tad self conscious that I noticed an older Indian couple regularly eye-balling me though. At first I thought there might be something stuck on my face, but I checked and I was all clear. My scales were also under wraps. So I’m not exactly sure what was going through their minds, but the lovely Indian family a table over who were celebrating a birthday brought me over a big piece of cake and it made me feel better– I’ll gladly accept your pity if it comes with cake.

* Ok, that’s potentially a little white lie. Though my boss forbade me from bringing my work laptop with me – “the whole point of R&R is to get away from work and recharge. No, Heather, you may not bring your computer with you” – I may have copied the contents of My Documents onto my portable hard drive. Purely for back up purposes of course.  And if I happen to get bored and/or in desperate need of distraction from myself and some of those files are opened? It’ll just be our little secret…