And so it goes as Kurt Vonnegut (I think) once said.

Re-integration. Five little syllables (Alfred: Not that there are really any very large syllables to be honest). I figured the real challenge would be immediately after returning - the shock of traffic, the first visit to a supermarket, the prices, the pace at which people walk and so on. But, to the contrary, initially things were fine. It is now, after three weeks or so, that life is becoming very strange. Or even difficult.

I think part of the reason is because - unlike most volunteers - I never went home during the 22 months of my placement, so my brain decided it was home for a brief holiday before heading back to reality .i. Rwanda. So the first while was all meeting family and friends, being reunited with my beloved Martine, drinking the first pint of Guinness, eating all my favourite foods I hadn't tasted in two years (Caesar salad, breaded fish steaks, a Big Mac (Alfred: An underwhelming experience but I suppose if you spend two entire years waiting for something, the level of expectation would make almost anything an anticlimax. Except sex, probably. But then, how would I know. I'm just a teddy-bear), pickled baby beetroot, black pudding with fried eggs, paté, cheeses in all their amazing, bewildering, heartwarming profusion (I discovered a new one in France, a soft creamy cheese called Roblochon - absolutely incredible), rillettes, freshly-baked French bread ... and, above all, chilled white wine). Ireland was fine, the south of France even better, maybe a bit weird but cool.

Now I am back almost four weeks and I think my brain has realised I am not going back to Rwanda. Plus I have been receiving many emails from Rwandan friends asking me how I am getting on. So now I know - I am back. I am not going to wake up tomorrow, have a cold bucket shower, eat two hard-boiled eggs with bread and coffee and then head off for the District Office. I am stuck here in a world where I grapple with tax rebates, house insurance, plumbing problems, car tax, electricity and gas provider agencies, strict recycling protocols, where nobody knows me when I venture out of my house - so I do so less and less. I spend my hours on Facebook reading the gossip and chat of my friends back in Rwanda. When I visit the supermarkets I resist the urge to buy compulsively and try to stick to what I need.

My first day back in the office was .. interesting. The teacher who had filled in as Deputy Principal for me while I was away ran me through the changes and other things that had happened while I was away. It was only three hours but it really left me reeling - so, so different to what I have become used to. And so much of it not really practical hands-on work (.i. working direectly with children or teachers) but general administration and bureaucracy.

Monday I head to England - Edinburgh Monday (Martine), Tuesday and Wednesday Bristol (Hayley, my sister and my sister's kids), Thursday Birmingham (Els) and Friday and Saturday Nottingham (Thom, Andy and the First Test Match between England and Pakistan). Meeting all these people I was in Rwanda with is really important to me. Not that I want to endlessly relive all that happened, but I know that just being with them is a sharing of what we all did and experienced together.

But I do miss so many things. I miss my friends, I miss my office, I miss the avocados, I miss riding on the back of a motorbike, I miss (and, I swear to God I never ever ever imagined I could possibly ever say this) being stared at, I miss Mutzig, I miss wandering down the main street of Butare and people calling me 'Joe Cole', I miss being able to wear my Chelsea jersey without worrying that some Neandearthal supporter of some other team will take it for a deadly personal insult (Alfred: He hasn't worn it since he came back; he did wear it in France but things are a lot more civilised over there about things like that) , I miss brochettes, I miss the slow-motion insanity of the early Monday morning meetings in the District. I especially miss the weather and the light: I still can't get used to its being so bright so late ... and so early. So here I sit at 0300 on Saturday/Sunday because it only got properly dark a few hours ago and I am waiting to go to bed - but I need to be up in about .... hmm, five hours. OK - more tomorrow. Night all.