Mid-Term Already??

Sorry for the delay in posting! A looming final report, a weekend trip, and a bout with food poisoning have kept me very busy and distracted!

Last week was a busy yet productive week. In order to ensure that our sub-team is on the right path with our recommendations, we scheduled a mid-term review with our client at the Vision 2030 Delivery Secretariat for Tuesday. Consequently, our team was very busy Monday preparing a presentation for the meeting, however by midnight Monday night we had finalized our slides and we were ready!

Tuesday morning bright and early we headed to Nairobi to meet with Emmanuel, our project sponsor at Vision 2030. It took us over two hours to get through our presentation, but (thankfully!) Emmanuel seemed happy with what we had to propose - it seems we are headed down the right track. We left the meeting with several action items, and the daunting task of both starting and completing our final recommendations report, but it was nice to feel confident in our progress to-date. As soon as we arrived back in Machakos, we organized and divided the sections of our final report so that we could get started on the report. The rest of the week was spent finalizing research and writing.

Saturday we left for another trip to explore more of Kenya. We started with a three-hour hike in the Ngong Hills just outside of Nairobi. It was great to be outside and explore, rather than just see the sights from inside a van! The highlight of the hike was when we ran into a pack of giraffes. Even though we saw our fair share of giraffes in the Masai Mara, it was another experience altogether to walk amongst them.


At the top of the hill before the hike down



Walking amongst the giraffe

Sunday morning we were up bright and early for a game drive in the Shompole Conservation Area. Again, this was very different than our experience in the Masai Mara; there was not a lot of tourists, so it felt like we had the place to ourselves. At one point, we were able to get outside of the van with our guide to walk around Lake Natron, on the border between Kenya and Tanzania. The lake was filled with thousands of flamingos, it was breathtaking! Following the game drive we headed back on the (very long) drive to Machakos.



The group at the Shompole Conservation Area



Flamingos at Lake Natron

This upcoming week (our final week in the program! crazy!) will be very busy; our group's final presentation was moved from Thursday to Wednesday, so we have a lot of work to complete in a short period of time. By Wednesday, we need to complete our final presentation, and by Friday we need to complete our final report. Should be a very busy five days!