All good things must come to an end

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Completion: come or bring to a finish or an end

As the saying goes “all good things must come to an end”, and although I don’t always like to agree, in this case I think its right on the money.

This is our last week of the program and I am feeling surprisingly content. I have had the most incredible last 9 weeks and know that it will probably take quite some time for me to process everything we have done and experienced here. What I know right now however, is that taking on this team leader role may have been one of the most frightening things I have ever done, but more importantly it is also the BEST things!

I sat with each of my participants individually this week to hear how they were feeling about the program ending and everyone is in a great headspace. They are happy for the hard manual labour to be over as physical exhaustion was starting to set in, however they are sad to be leaving the amazing group environment we have going here. They all have really exciting things going on in their lives after the program though so its time to move forward. We also have an awesome last few days planned together, with an awards night and a safari to finish things off with so what better way!

So today I woke up in Odede knowing that most of the hard work is over and now its time to celebrate, but I don’t think it has really quite sunk in yet. I think my body well and truly knows it though, as it has pretty much decided to shut down. Every movement I make hurts some kind of muscle and it feels like I ran a bloody marathon or something yesterday, when all I did was mud the walls of a house (something we have done three times now, so I should be used too). I think it might be trying to tell me something!

I must admit it’s a pretty strange feeling though, life as we have know it for the past few months is coming to an end. Throughout the day I have been getting a mixture of excitement and sadness over the weirdest little things such as going to the toilet this morning and saying hello to the resident bats for the very last time, or walking outside of our house to be greeted by Theresa the turkey, Alfonze the dog and a few random chickens. This afternoon when we arrived back in Kisumu the first thing I did was jump in the shower and OMG it was unreal!!! I had forgotten just how amazing a long hot shower can make you feel. Then tonight when I was brushing my teeth I couldn’t work out why I was feeling so strange, but the fact that I was doing it inside and in a sink (instead of outside and spitting on the ground) just felt out of the ordinary.

I am certainly going to miss the simplicity of life here. It doesn’t take much to be happy here and it’s a quality I absolutely love about this country and its people. It’s something I think the western world could certainly learn a lesson or two about as well.

So until my further travels…. I am signing off temporarily!

I will back with details of more African adventures!

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