Well, it’s been fun and unfortunately it’s time to say goodbye to Kenya once again. My last week in Kenya has been crazy. Erin and Travis and I have been spending time with two of the squad leaders from K Squad. They’re wonderful people. We spent a day visiting the elephant orphanage here in Nairobi on the way to check out a spot for our squads to debrief. It was awesome seeing the baby elephants!
The next day, Erin and Travis left because their parents came to the Parent Vision Trip that Adventures hosted here in Kenya. The PVT allows parents to come and experience a little of what the Race is like. Tess was far away with her team, which leaves me. It ended up being super expensive to go and reunite with my team for only one day so, K squad was nice enough to allow me to go and visit a team with them.
It’s kind of funny actually because I’m a new squad leader and I haven’t even visited a team on my own squad yet. The team did a great job and welcomed me with open arms even though they probably thought it was a little weird. The day we showed up, the team was supposed to go to dinner across the street. They said it would be ok if we came with them so we crammed in to this little house. The food was great (even though there was no power!).
We left the next day and headed for our debrief location to make sure everything was up and running and ready for the squads. We had a couple of down days, which was nice. Before I knew it, debrief was starting and all the teams had arrived safely. Debrief flew by and was filled with great conversations and time with Seth (our squad coach), and Carly (our squad mentor). The time that we were able to spend as two squads together was amazing.
After debrief, Erin, Tess, Travis, and I decided we wanted to stay in Kenya for a couple days to “unwind”. We sent our teams to Uganda and as they left we experienced an emotion that we feel is similar to how you parents felt when you said goodbye to us for the Race. It was really weird to just send them on a bus and tell them that we’d see them later.
The two days in Kenya were very restful and we were able to spend some more time with the K Squad Squad Leaders and some of their staff. We leave for Uganda tomorrow! Please pray for safe travels and no problems at the border!
