East Africa Day 1: Here We Go!

photo: in the van on the way to Daraja's campus - wearing a Surfrider t-shirt - thanks, Laura Mazzarella:)

I'll be volunteering at the Daraja Academy of Kenya until June 15. It's East Africa's first free secondary (high school) boarding school. I'll write more about my project at a later date. I'm going to attempt to publish a post for each day that I am in East Africa. Here's the first one!

Met up with Pamela, Daraja's new Communications Intern who will be on campus for 6 months, and Andy, Daraja's Onsite Volunteer Coordinator at NBO. Paul, who is from Nanyuki, the town closest to Daraja's campus, picked us up and drove us up to campus in a van. It took about four hours to get from NBO, all 3 passengers dozed - and listened to American pop music on the radio:)

When we arrived on campus it was already dark. We stepped out of the van and were immediately surrounded by what seemed like all 77 of Daraja's current students, who each gave us a hug and said “welcome”. Was shown to the place where I will be living for the next month (photos to come), and ate a late dinner in the kitchen while the students watched “The Time Traveller's Wife” on a smaller-sized color TV set up in the corner of the kitchen. Fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow:)