“Let’s go give it a look,” I said smiling.  ‘What could one possibly expect?  Keep your hopes down.  No expectations.’ I told myself as we were planning to visit an Integrated Centre for children with additional challenges during my trip to Kenya last year.  ‘No expectations.’  I remember thinking the exact same thing as I was preparing for my first trip to Kenya the year before.  What is with our brains needing to keep expectations low for fear of future disappointment?  Needless to say, neither experience yielded anything anywhere close to disappointment.  More than anything else, each trip to Kenya leaves me with a new-found sense of satisfaction and appreciation for the little things. The familiar voice on the radio code-switching between Swahili and English often enough to have you get a gist of what your African mama is listening to in the morning, as she prepares the fire and ...
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Littering in public places is generally frowned upon.  But could the same thing be said for Kenya?  My walks around towns like Ngong or Kibera in Kenya left me appalled by the many streets that serve as rubbish dumps with towering piles of plastic bags all over.  No matter where I went, plastic bags were a constant. It goes without saying that since their invention in the 1960s, disposable plastic bags have become an amenity for lazy shoppers all around the world.  But one must not forget that this comes at a cost!  When incorrectly disposed of (a common occurrence in poor countries), plastic bags are not only unsightly, but also damage agricultural land and provide breeding grounds for malaria-carrying mosquitoes, not to mention the fact that they may take hundreds of years to degrade. An estimate by the United Nations, quoted in the mother nature network, states that more than ...
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Upon leaving last year, looking back at the village while the van made its way downhill, I promised myself I would come back, someday. So here I am, one year later. I’ve been asked several times about the reasons as to why I’m not going to some place I’ve never been before, for a complete different or new experience. Sometimes, I ask myself the same question, and I find that I always go back to two main things in this place that can lure you right back at it. The place where you were born determines much of who you are, be it luck or destiny. It determines your whole life, and there are only a handful of things that are in our control about this. Used to a busy lifestyle, with a set limited time-schedule for literally everything I do in a day, be it work-related, meeting friends or ...
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Blog post by Nicky Mifsud. Volunteer, Kenya 2017. The first thing that comes to mind when someone goes on a  voluntary trip is that he/she will go to a another country and help out the community in any way possible. Generally volunteers get comments like "congratulations!" or "well done!"  from close relatives and friends which feels like a sense of admiration from them ...
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