“I was born in the United Arab Emirates. To be specific, I wasn’t born there,” I correct myself at once, because I remember my birth certificate where Mombasa is indicated as my place of birth. “But I grew up there.”
There, now I’ve said it, and feel much less self-conscious than I expected. It feels good, I am almost filled with relief, as if a weight I have carried for very long has rolled off my shoulders.
“My family is of Muslim faith, and Muslims have a rather controversial relationship with alcohol. For religious reasons they don’t drink officially, but it doesn’t mean that at home unseen by anyone unauthorized, on business trips or abroad, they don’t drink at all. I have done enough trips with my father or my brothers to know that this part of the religion is handled quite flexibl
