Getting ready

Jambo! Hey everyone!

School is finally out and after one more week in lovely Minnesota I leave for Africa on June 25th.  I can't wait to finally get there after taking the pre-field class and attempting to teach myself survival Swahili and to solar cook a whole chicken.  Wednesday I fly to Amsterdam and then Nairobi.  I'll be spending the first 2 weeks taking a seminar in Chogoria, Kenya a small village at the base of Mount Kenya where many climbers stay before attempting to summit.  Chogoria is also home to Village Hopecore International, a non-profit working on microfinance, which we will be learning about and working with throughout the seminar.  I'm very excited to meet my host family and to learn about their life.  In Chogoria, we will be learning about microfinance and international health while introducing 2 new technologies, the solar cookit, for solar cooking, and the wapi, which tells you when water has been heated to a safe temperature. We will also be collecting stories about the impact of AIDS on the Kenyans' lives.

  

After Kenya, a few other Stanford students and I will have until the 23 to explore East Africa before starting SIC in Tanzania.  During SIC, a group of about 10 Stanford students, as well as students from UCLA and England will do 2 weeks of orientation then 6 weeks of teaching about HIV prevention in villages surrounding Arusha.  I am so excited to meet the other volunteers and start teaching!!

I hope everyone is enjoying summer--shoot me an email sometime if you're bored I'd love to hear what you're up to! 

Avery