the road to home away from home

Five years ago today I was able to have the experience of a lifetime...well not just today...it was 21 days worth of it! My sister Amanda used to say two words describe me...Skydiving and Kenya...and since I wasn't quite 18 five years ago it would have to be the second...

I don't know why I am telling whoever reads this blog about Kenya five years after the fact, I think it is because I don't want to forget about it myself- I said that I would be back within two years...and five years have passed and I still have not made my return.

When I was a sophomore in High School I was determined to be a foreign exchange student, I found a program through Rotary International (thanks to the help from my dad) I was going to go to New Zealand for 16 weeks during the summer. I had all of my paper work in and all I was waiting for was the approval in New Zealand to find my host family. A couple of weeks before I was to find out about my host family my dad received a call from the head people in Salt Lake telling me that they had forgotten to submit my paper work and that I wouldn't be able to be a foreign exchange student anymore...I was crushed.

My dad being the amazing guy that he is found a different program for me to travel with during the summer through Rotary International. I was going to go to Peru with YouthLINC a group from Salt Lake that does humanitarian projects around the world, but first it starts in your local area where you have to log a specific amount of service hours half of which have to be in one place. I was so excited to go to Peru, I had only been out of the country once and it was with my family to Mexico. It was November of my Junior year of high school, I already had a scholarship to go to Peru to help pay for the costs, when my dad (the youth rep for Rotary) got a call saying that I had been approved for Peru, however the program was full and that I was the one getting bumped. They did have a solution- there was an opening for the Kenya group, there were more service hours and the planning had already been going on for months. YouthLINC told my dad that he needed to speak to the girls parents and see if it would be ok that she went to Kenya instead of Peru. My dad goes oh I don't think that would be a problem. She accepts. They didn't want to take his word for it until he said he was the parent and that she would go to Kenya instead of Peru.

I got a call from my dad at school. He goes you aren't going to Peru anymore. I was about to object and get upset when he quickly followed with, You are now going to Kenya in July. Your first meeting with the Kenya group is on Saturday. I was thrilled! I couldn't believe it! I was actually going to be getting in a group to travel for the summer!

The next couple of months, things were all about Kenya- I had meetings, school, volunteer hours (most of which were with my Uncle Vince), shots- allergic reactions, and packing for Kenya. Before I knew it I was about to start the summer before my Senior Year. (the summer I was only home 2 weeks)