24-hours of travel before I'm there

Well, the moment has almost arrived. Here I sit in my Evanston home, everything just about ready to go. I'm finally going back.

I am excited, nervous, a little anxious, but mostly exhausted. I'm ready to be there... but a long 24-hours of travel and an 8-hour time change stand between me and my arrival in Entebbe, Uganda.

I'll be flying from Chicago to Atlanta to Amsterdam to Entebbe. But it's not over there. Then we continue on to Kigali, Rwanda, so even more traveling. Oye. If everything goes as planned I'll meet the JRC group in Amsterdam and continue on with them. Keep your fingers crossed.

And so you probably want to know what I'm doing for the next six weeks. I'm going to Rwanda and Uganda to volunteer for 2 weeks with people from my synagogue (JRC in Evanston). In Rwanda, we'll be volunteering at the WE-ACTx clinic for women with HIV/AIDS. In Uganda, we'll be volunteering at the Mirembe Kawomera coffee Cooperative. We will also be spending Shabbat with the Abayudaya, a Jewish ethnic group located in the Mbale district in Eastern Uganda. I am incredibly excited for all this.

Then I am continuing on to Senegal to hang out for a month with my friends and families over there. To get to Senegal, I am flying from Entebbe, Uganda to Johannesburg, South Africa and finally to Dakar, Senegal. Another 20 hours of travel. Travel within the continent ain't so easy over there.

I'll stop with these monotonous details and save space for more interesting entries once I finally arrive. Hopefully, I'll have some internet access.

In any event, I have wanted to return to Senegal since I left it a year ago. I cannot wait to go back to the people, places and culture I knew then. And I am thrilled that I will be able to experience East Africa as well. I'm so grateful for this upcoming opportunity. My last hoorah for my last summer break before entering the real world.