Kenya!

This Friday I was lucky enough to find out my placement for Beyond Borders in May. I will be going to Nairobi, Kenya and helping out with the Education for Life NGO in the Kariobangi slums of the city. It was quite the moment reading this email, the elation at finding out about what my summer would be like. I could have been located in Kenya, India, Uganda, Ukraine or the Dominican Republic and my first choice ended up being the one deemed to be the best fit by my Professor. I am pleased that it has been selected but all of the realities of the situation are now coming to the forefront. I now have to fully research to make sure I am prepared for this huge step in my life. I will update this blog as I learn more and find out what I will probably be doing. However, one of the most interesting things about finding out where I am going is the contrasts involved.

                We live in a world of contrast: light and dark, good and evil, hot and cold. So I think it will be extremely educational to travel and live in a country that is such a contrast of Canada. I found out on a freezing, snowy day with the wind whipping at all of the bundled-up students at school. Kenya is on the equator, will be the most sustained, consistent heat I have ever had to deal with, dry and the schools that I will help at, the schools of poor slum children, will not be in the same stratosphere as Waterloo. Other contrasts exist that show the gaps between the developing world and the developed. Canada is the 15^th largest economy in the world, Kenya is 82^nd according to the CIA World Factbook while for the comprehensive Human Development Index that ranks how human life flourishes in a given country Canada is 8^th while Kenya is 128^th. I could probably go on for a while, showing the differences between the country I am living in versus the country that will be my home for three months during the summer. However, much like my last post, I want to learn from these contrasts and change for the better. I hope, now that I know where I am going and generally what to prepare for, that time will pass a bit faster. However, I am sure this excitement will be contrasted by total fear in May when I am about to leave for an unknown country for three months. Stupid emotions. Damn contrast.

Until next time,

Conor Brennan