How are youni?

            I have now been in Kenya for 2 months now! I have a little less than 8 months left. I will be leaving late June with Amy and David. Amy said that we came together and now we will be leaving together!

            The past few weeks have gotten a lot better since my last blog post! I am still homesick, but Nairobi is starting to feel like home.

            Last Thursday and Friday I was able to go on a team building retreat with Across. For those of you who don’t know, I am working with Across in the afternoons now. I am working with the ID department where I have been critiquing their website, looking at lots of pictures, and editing articles. During the team building retreat I was able to get to know everyone that works at Across. We did a bunch of different team building activities from getting everyone on a plank of wood and making everyone go from tallest to shortest without touching the ground to following a line in the woods at night! We did all of those activities on Thursday and on Friday we went white water rafting! It was so much fun! I would have to say that this rafting experience was by far the best I have been on. After those 2 days I really feel like part of the Across family.

            Apart from working at Across in the afternoons I am also working at a Lutheran church with their nursery school and junior youth program. This past Sunday was the first youth group meeting. I was a little nervous at first because I was told there would be about 30 youth! But come time for youth and there was only 5! (I am told that it will get bigger once it gets more organized!) The 5 youth that showed up were all great! They really loved the bible study I did! They can’t wait to have more. I was also told that when the last YAV was here they met on Saturdays to just play sports and have fun. So it sounds like my weekends are going to start getting really busy!

            Next weekend Tricia and I will be going to Ratta, where Amy and David are teaching at a secondary school. I am really excited to see their site and to see them. Even though it has only been about a month since we last saw each other it feels like it has been years! The trip will take about 7 hours to get to Maseno and then a short ride to Ratta.

            I am really starting to get use to life in Kenya, with being far from family, friends and other YAVs to the random black outs that occur! There are still the days that I really want to go home, but then I just think that I am here for a reason and I am right where I am suppose to be.

            In my next blog post I will be posting about my reactions to some of Kenya’s cultural aspects. It will have some serious things like discipline in schools and some funny things like phrases that they use!

            Lastly here is an update on my fundraising. I am not 100% sure how much I have at this moment but I know that I have at least $4,000. So that puts me at the half way point! Please donate! Even if you can only donate $1, every little bit counts! Here is the link to donate: https://gamc.pcusa.org/give/make-a-gift/E210301/