Week One: Vacation

I have made it through my first wonderful week in Kenya. The first best part is that I am with my sister who I have missed all year because she has been living in Kenya with her husband Mark. The second part was the family got to be all together traveling around to small parks to the north of Nairobi. In true Schenk fashion we decided not to go to the big popular parks and make our own safari camping and driving around to amazing off the beaten path places. There were adventures at every turn. My sister had warned me about the bad roads but man are they an adventure. Driving through pot holes that I was sure would consume the car watching a mac truck coming out of the dust right at us while at the last minute swerving back to the "other" side of the "road." Each night we had a new animal that would take up residence by our tent much to our fear, excitement, and awe. Baboons, cape buffalo, and hippos made their nightly parade by our tent making noises that always kept you guessing. The birds were beyond amazing. We identified over 40 different species each more beautiful than the next. We camped at four different lakes, some alkaline filled with flamingos, another surrounded by beautiful green hills, and still another with a large waterfall. One of my favorite days was biking through Hell's Gate National Park down a dirt road will warthogs and giraffes staring at you only a few feet away. I am posting a few pictures that highlighted the trip.














An African Jakarata














The family biking through Hell's Gate National Park



















Flamingos at Naivasha Park

Courtney on her way to Nairobi

Courtney is off! I dropped off Courtney and Deborah at JFK this morning for their flight to Nairobi. Courtney went with a lovely collection of blue bags, packed with 11 months worth of gear!

Address

Some of you e-mailed asking for our address in Tanzania. We would love to get mail of any kind while we are there. Many of you are thinking that you don't know what to write but any bit of news is exciting when you are far away from home. So tell us about your day, give us and update on your favorite TV show, or send us an interesting article you read. Mail takes forever there so for those who are really excited to write us if you send something in the next few weeks it will arrive right when we get there. If you write us we will be sure to write you back! Our new address is:

Miracle Corners of the World Trust

Box 538, Songea Ruvuma Tanzania.

East Africa

I (Courtney) leave in one week (Sunday) so the next post will be from Kenya. I will miss you all and be sure to keep me updated.

Courtney is leaving soon!

I (Courtney) leave for Africa on August 12th. I will be traveling with my parents to visit my sister and brother in law who have been living in Kenya for the last year. My whole family will be going on vacation for two weeks and then my parents head back to the US. I will be staying on with my sister, visiting my cousin who is also living in Kenya and relaxing until Arthur and I meet in Tanzania in October.

Our Upcoming Adventure

Courtney and Arthur are moving to Songea!






This October, Courtney and Arthur will be moving to Songea, Tanzania. Tanzania is South of Kenya and North of Mozambique on the East coast of Africa (for more information on Tanzania go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanzania).

Songea is a small town in Southern Tanzania, about a 12 hour bus ride from Dar Es Salaam (on the Scandinavian Express). Songea is isolated, but has many residents spread out over a large area, including many small villages. Google maps has pretty good satellite pictures of western Songea.





We will be volunteering with the not-for-profit Miracle Corners of the World (MCW). We will be living at their community center, which is a 45 minute walk outside of town up on a hill. As of now we don't know much of what we will be doing but we are very excited! For more information about the organization check out this website. http://www.miraclecorners.org/