KENYA: 

• I was 16 the first time I traveled to Kenya in 2009 with a group of 14 youth and adults.  As a group, we spent three weeks visiting and learning about AMPATH and Sally Test Pediatric Center at Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital, Neema Children’s Home, Amani Women’s Shelter, and the Umoja Project.
• In 2010, when I was 17 and during the first half of my senior year of high school, I returned to Kenya as an independent study. During these four months, I lived and worked at Neema Children’s Home, Sally Test Pediatric Center, and in Chulaimbo village with the Umoja Project.  Upon my return from Kenya, my independent study focused primarily on speaking and writing about my experiences (read one of my pieces here). This year, both in Kenya and after, changed my life, in all of that phrase’s cliched truth and I am forever in gratitude to those who made it all that it was; in particular, I cannot say enough thanks to Annie, our families, Lineweaver, Joseph, Joshua and the Mamlins.
• In 2012, when I was 19 and after my first year at Kalamazoo College, I was a field intern for two months for the Umoja Project in Chulaimbo village. During this internship, I worked as a part of GET-UP (Girls Empowerment Team of Umoja Project) to develop programs with two post-secondary students, Hellen and Lucy, for class 1 through 5 girls, focusing on self esteem, hygiene education, and play therapy.
• In 2014, when I was 21 and going into my senior year at Kalamazoo College, I completed an independent internship and formal research for my Senior Individualized Project in Anthropology at Sally Test Pediatric Centre, Kimbilio Hospice, and in the community of Chulaimbo village. My project is titled “Cultivating a Culture of Compassionate Caregiving Under Poverty’s Constraints: An Ethnography of Kenyan Child Life and Hospice Caregivers” and discusses the relationship between poverty, sociocultural resources, and compassion in care for ill and dying children as it plays out for families, medical professionals, and child life and hospice caregivers.

SENEGAL: 

• In 2013, when I was 20 and a junior at Kalamazoo College, I studied abroad in Dakar, Sénégal for six months. There I took classes in language, culture, history, and religion, completed an independent project on feminism in Senegal, and spent all of my free time exploring, holding conversations, and living with  and loving dearly a Sénégalese family. Becoming Callie Daba Sarr family was the greatest part of my experience and I am so grateful for the presence of that home in my life.

WORLDWIDE DAZZLEMENT:

• In 2014, after my time in Sénégal, I embarked on my first European travel. I first spent 10 days in England, UK before spending a short time in Paris, France. Though short, I credit this portion of my journey for awakening in me a spirit of adventure, a longing to explore, a joy in walking and witnessing this world.
• On September 11, 2015, I embarked on a grand, 100-day adventure through Europe with a dear friend, a single backpack, and heart-bursting curiosity to accompany me. Wonder, for the most part, guided our footsteps; what we sought was to discover. After a few planes, trains, ferries, and accidental rental cars, and 655.47 miles walked through 10 countries, our journey filled itself with soul-changing beauty of humans and of earth. In these 100 days, I gazed at the humble, quiet green of England, Scotland, and Ireland; I bore witness to the history and continued life of Poland and Bosnia; I laughed through adventures in Hungary and Croatia; I listened, learned, and loved as I volunteered with refugees in Italy and Greece. I am incredibly grateful for these footsteps.