Things You've Imported to your Home Abroad

It's the holiday season and so the scene is being played out in airports all round the world. Flustered expats affecting to look nonchalent as they check-in seven bags over the limit, each of non-standard contents.  I remember checking in to go to Madagascar, bemused by the man trying to check in two kitchen sink units, not flat pack, as carry on luggage. Now I know better.

Before we moved to Kenya one of Tom's colleagues came to stay with us, six foot plastic slide from the Early Learning Centre under his arm. 
'Well you can't get them in Kenya, so it seemed the only way....'
His willingness to set out on a commuter train and two tubes in the rush hour from suburban Hertfordshire all the way to Heathrow with a six foot slide gave me an inkling of the expat urge. But only an inkling.

While Tom was commuting regularly between Kenya and London interesting parcels would be delivered to our doorstep for him to carry in. A Landrover engine on one memorable occasion. I bought three months' supply of babymilk for friends whose newborn would only tolerate one make of milk, a make they couldn't then get in Nairobi.  But many visitors don't understand quite how much it matters. A friend of mine still speaks bitterly of her boss who refused to carry in the black-out lining for the curtains for the newborn. 
'Six months we had to wait till someone would bring it. Six months of broken nights because she was too idle to check in her suitcase. Talk about support.'

A Burundian mate of mine extolled the virtues of fresh Burundian fish.
'My Mum gets them fresh the day I fly back. We wrap them in newspaper in the middle of my suitcases. As long as the cases don't get lost they're fine....'
My brother-in-law is a beleaguered cheeseaholic in Rwanda. Last stop for any family visiting both us and him is the trip to the supermarket, to stock up on a suitcase-ful of Kenyan cheeses.  And we aren't on the sidelines here. Friends of ours have imported out 48 mincepies, a Christmas cake and chocolate coins for stockings. Or five packs of marzipan, chocolate chips and some marmite.  I've brought back 300 extra-strong teabags to this tea-producing land.

As we've been here longer I've got more daring. In our first year a skateboard ('offensive weapon, not carry-on baggage') was my least traditional import, though Tom managed a whole electronic drum kit, without the accompanying nine year old for whom it was intended, realising.  SecondBorn has got into juggling this summer, and has been wheedling on the subject of a unicycle and juggling clubs.  This year I'll be hoping to pass off a bigger size cello (hold baggage on which excess baggage is paid, which also runs the likelihood of getting battered to smitherines) as a guitar (may be carried on if it fits in the overhead lockers, no excess baggage payable - spike in the suitcase.)  Together with the unicycle and clubs I'll look as if I'm about to busk my way round Africa.  Wish me luck.

What have you brought out, and how did you go about it?