My First Blog about Africa!

With exactly two weeks left before I go to Africa, everything is getting settled...but is still so unsettled! I feel like the big details (vaccines, airline tickets, etc.) are out of the way, but there are plenty of little details (do I have everything??) on my list that will either get done or be forgotten. If they are forgotten, I will suffer the consequence when I get to Kenya. I'm not sure how that will work out...

I'd like to give everyone a little background. Last October I started thinking about my summers and how I was almost "wasting" them. I was working, but I felt like I could be doing more. I am in a great district, at a great school with kids who live pretty comfortably. I wanted to help kids who (maybe?) weren't in the greatest schools and weren't living pretty comfortably. I searched around for adventure and found global volunteer opportunities. What a great way to spend my summer- helping out others and learning about myself at the same time. Double whammy. I kept searching until I found an opportunity that felt like the right fit. I found Volunteer Kenya (volunteerkenya.org) and while my search for a place to volunteer had ended, the journey of traveling across the world had just begun. I am still glad to this day that I was just a dumb girl who dove in headfirst to this journey, or else I never would have done it. Funny how stupidity can be your saving grace sometimes.

My month-long stay in Bungoma will include living in a mud hut (a mixture of mud and manure) with 3 other volunteers living in the hut with me. There should be a total of around 20 volunteers. I will be working in the school, Epico Jahns. I am not sure of what exact grade (the school has grades K-8), but I do know I will be helping out in math and reading. I will have no running water, no electricity, and will be going without anyone I know. Literally, this is the extent to what I know I am going to do. (I don't want to give out any false information.) The scariest obstacles in life are the ones that build the strongest character, right?

That is all for today. I promise more Tuesday or Wednesday, but it is late, I have had my last bout of vaccinations today, and I am just a wee bit tired.

"Be the change you want to see in the world." Ghandi