First.

I feel like for years I have been saying I'm going to Africa. Never with any tangible plans, only a desire. Sick of all talk and no action in a growing number of aspects of my life, I forged ahead and here I am. Roughly 2 weeks from takeoff.

To catch some up to speed, I leave on July 1. I will be volunteering for 2 months in Bungoma, a rural village in Western Kenya, teaching HIV/AIDS prevention education. The Community Development organization with whom I'll be working provides room and board courtesy of a sugarcane farm and very kind villagers (that's my hut pictured above). But all that's just the technicalities.

I have prepared myself as best I can, knowing that no amount will truly prepare me. I am ready to make the world a little better. I am ready for the world to make me a little better. I've slowed trying to have answers; rather, I am embracing all that comes with finding questions to ask. I have (somehow, strangely, unexpectedly, but gratefully) shed most self-doubt. I am opening my heart and my eyes and my mind. I have that feeling very similar to pondering existence- when you realize it's probably just too big so you might as well just go through it and soak it all up like a sponge. Don't always try to explain, just learn and grow and your own personal understanding of it all will come in time. I am ready to jump in head first and that's all I can ask of myself.

While things like electricity, running water, and mosquitoes that won't give me malaria will be hard to come by, the nearest town does have internet access or so I'm told. Welcome to my adventures...