Run with the Kenyans

Something that has always been a big part of my life is community service.  In high school, college, and then not so much in adult life.  How does it happen that you become a grown up and forget to do things you use to love?  I wish work didn't take up so much time every week.  They want you to come in every day, and then they expect you to stay the whole day!  I remember my first week of work realizing that the eight hour day did not include lunch ... That it was in fact a nine hour day.  Lucky for me ... I have the option to take some time off before I go back to school.  I was recently presented with the opportunity to spend a month in Kenya this summer.  The travelbug inside me is literally dancing around it's so happy.  I use to love love doing things like this and always came back refreshed.  I will be teaching ... which will be interesting for me.  Whenever I spend extended time with kids ... It is exhausting.  Something about it just overwhelms me.

Last summer I spent 10 days in El Salvador building a cement road that brought food and medical supplies up the side of a mountain.  Most of the people there live on two dollars a day, and those commercials with flies fluttering around the kids that you always thing are made up ... Well they are actually real.  They spend so much time trying to find basic things like food, medicine, and work.  When my dad gets sick, he will wait a month and a half until he can't watch an episode of Maury with out a coughing fit to go to the doctor.  It's funny how happy everyone there was though.  They just played soccer, shared everything and were always so welcoming.  For some reason they kept giving us Coke ... I think they thought Americans love Coke.  I think If I spend a month in Kenya, it'll give me some perspective that I've been looking for.

I mentioned to a friend that I was considering going ... and her first question was ... Will you be running with the Kenyans? I haven't thought this through completely ... I think they've won quite a few Olympic Medals.  I am so excited.

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