Category: Travel

(If you want to catch up, here’s part 1, part 2, and part 3) When I began this trip, I had only a vague idea of what Open Hands was and how I’d be contributing. By the time I’d spent that epic day visiting savings group and interviewing small business owners, I’d fully caught the…

(You can find Part 1 here, and Part 2 here) There I was, locked in the house. I was too exhausted to spend another day traveling around meeting with small business owners, so I needed to talk to the other Open Hands people and hopefully figure out a new plan. But time was running out…

(To read Part 1, click here) I guess Joe wanted to ease us in to Kenyan food and culture, because he arranged for our first culinary experience of the trip to be a rather American-style breakfast at Java House in Nairobi. It was a chilly rainy day and the seating was outdoors, so I was…

Kenya never ceases to make me catch my breath. Beauty overwhelms my senses. The cool morning air and lush greenery. The tea. This is where I first fell in love with tea, 18 years ago. As you know, we had a bit of a rough time getting here. Dad was able to get his passport…

Well, it has been an interesting couple of days. The plan was to leave for Kenya early Friday morning. Now, both Dad and Steven have fly-by-the-seat-of-their-pants personality types. (I do too, frankly, but compared to them I seem like I don’t.) So a few things were left until the last minute, which made me a…

Yesterday I wrote part 2 of our trip, ending with the Bed and Breakfast in Huntington, West Virginia, on Friday night. We woke up early Saturday morning and left before our hosts even got up. Turns out, 6 AM in West Virginia is darker than 6 AM in Oregon and Colorado. We’d had many early…

At the end of Part 1 of our journey for Oregon to Virginia, Jenny and I had just arrived in Canon City, Colorado. I used to live in Canon City, if you can remember back that far. I lived next door to the Knepp family, distant relatives and old family friends, and of course that’s…