social shocks in social shocks

Picture an eight-year-old African boy who didn't know how fortunate he was. We had a mud hut in the countryside, a house in the city and my father's university gave him the use of a wonderful house by Mombasa beach. I still remember walking up and down these marble steps onto a veranda. On the left, there were a set of glass doors which you'd walk through and then down a few steps into the living room. I spent very little time in that living room. The kitchen was opposite (open plan fashion) and I spent very little time in there too. There were bedrooms upstairs I reluctantly slept in because my real home was outside.

From morning til night you'd see me running after chickens (or away from chickens), climbing trees to eat mangoes, apples, or cashews, or just to see the world from up there. I was this fat little boy with very fast feet, always wore trousers and a t-shirt, hardly wore trainers and just knew that everyone was a friend.

Stranger danger did not exist in 1980s Kenya. Sim sim did. These were little balls of toasted sesame seeds that sold for a fraction of a penny. Corn on the cob was roasted nearby and this would be eaten with salt and deliciously hot chilli powder. Very occasionally a fried fish would be bought but the triumph of street food was always samosas. A triangle of meat and pastry big enough to hold in both hands. The only other thing I'd eat was glucose power and Fanta. This is all that money was for.

Time on the beach was spent hunting crabs, playing with pebbles and making friends with strangers long before I even know what friends or strangers were.

By some inconceivable concatenation of circumstances, I wound up in another country. I remember seeing the vastness of an aeroplane and being unable to imagine that it could move. Then I remember it moving. The fear in my belly was new but Walkmen were also new and food in a plastic packet was new.

Newer still, was the spaghetti of holes under the earth that people moved in. They called it The London Underground. We moved in these big metal toys called “the tube” and a long adventure later, I was standing outside MY outside, in shorts and t-shirt, in something called winter in something called St John's Wood. I didn't know which was bigger.

To a kid that age, the neatness of all the buildings was a fascinating betrayal. Suddenly you're confronted with every kind of barrier. Barriers you didn't know existed regulated your movements. Take traffic lights: how are traffic lights a barrier? Surely that's presumptuous! lights are meant to show you the way, not to make you stop and go. We do have traffic lights in Kenya but they're quite often a suggestion, not a rule.

I remember expecting gold streets. What I got instead was an inexplicable amount of poop. Between that and the lights, the gates and the railings and the buildings all too close just didn't seem very civilised. Also, people had weird coloured skin. No one mentioned it so I didn't either but there it was.

I got bored quick. My mum lived in a small flat with folks who weren't my family. She disappeared inexplicably to do this thing called work (I truly did not understand what that was). When she came back we ate and talked but these streets were too foreign to get lost in. I was not the main character in my own life and I couldn't figure it out.

At school I'd treat my school mates just the same as I did the folks back home but when I got home I felt uncomfortable. I didn't know what friendship or bullying or cliques were. Shoes and clothes in this new place had taken on these intangible values called Nike and Adidas. Out of my classmates had grown these creatures called girls and out of them had grown these protuberances from their chests called breasts which caused havoc in the general population. Suddenly being clever (which I was) didn't matter as much. Being fast (which I was) didn't matter as much either and being silly (which I was) became less valuable. How's that for social shock? Was it like this for you?

I was always a kind of stranger by luck and by design. I read every book in the school and at the local libraries. Chinese, Greek and Roman myths were my favourites. At school I had plenty of friends but for years, they would come to my house and ask me out to play but my parents would say no. I missed every sleepover. I wore the wrong clothes. I remembered these black and white checked trousers that have just gone out of fashion again. Those things were the bane of my existence. It's always the trousers you hate that end up being the most durable pair you own. It was an epic tragedy. Don't worry, I've had a few nice trousers (and sleepovers) since but I still remember friends coming back to me and reporting a sighting of the top of a girl's knickers! It was amazing and the woe-is-my-life of it all nearly killed me.

Also, back home being gay was incredibly illegal at the time but I remember seeing a gay kid on the playground and thinking "He's not the devil?!" And yet "that's gay" was a terrible slur in the 90s. I was very confused. The feelings these changes inspire along with the chemicals just humming in us can make us strangers to ourselves.

What is it that makes you shy or outgoing? Nature and Nurture mean nothing when everything happens to you. What is it that makes you note one thing over another?

Could it be shock? Think about it: Friendship, good taste, beauty, talent, music choice, great sports even, stuff that causes laughter, it all has shock in common.

Maybe shock is where the chemistry meets the self and causes us. It was like that for me. Was it like that for you?