Last year, I had the opportunity to participate in the Global Impacts Microschool. As part of the research each of us were doing for the class, Sion was able to send us on a research trip to the Lewa Conservatory and the town of Isiolo, Kenya. If I’m being honest, my family and I couldn’t believe this opportunity existed. I’d always thought of the trips Sion offered as amazing, but never something I would be able to afford or experience. I’d never thought I would even be able to travel across an ocean in the next five years, much less to Kenya.

My experience in Kenya is one almost indescribable. It was something I’d been preparing for all year, through Swahili lessons, pre-research on my topic, and perhaps all too long conversations about packing. All of a sudden I was walking out of a 14 hour flight, standing in the Nairobi airport. The next two weeks were filled with a rollercoaster of learning. Through moments of connection between our two Kenyan students who traveled with us, Fibi and Queentor. Through moments of peace when looking over the safari landscape of Isiolo. Sadness when learning of the hardships people endured, but then utter admiration seeing those who humbly walked the earth working tirelessly to help them. Facing unfamiliarity when participating in a sacred part of Masaai culture, a traditional goat feast. It was beautiful and incredible and over before I even blinked.

But not really over. Because what I learned through this time is something like this really can’t just be over. Something I struggled with after returning from my trip is this transition point between the going and the having been. I know some of you here have heard me mention this before, but I think it’s important to keep at the forefront of our minds. 

Because what I’ve come to understand is that the purpose of these travels is so much more than a stamp on your passport or another sight-seeing destination. It’s a chance to see not just the world, but the people in it, whose lives, experiences, and aspirations can be both wildly different from our own, yet so familiar. When coming back from an opportunity like this, where you are truly challenged to question what you know, to listen to others, and to expand both your heart and mind, it can be easy to not know what to do with yourself. Coming back to Kansas City after my experience, it was a strange but immediate realization that life continues just as before. Almost like time pressed unfreeze. But that’s not true, and it was critical for me to remember that. We’re not just supposed to let time unfreeze as if nothing ever happened, reminisce over the time spent and move on.  

To those traveling this year, and even those who experience deep dives in KC, Let the challenges and the questions implement themselves into the smallest parts of you. Because even though it can sound dumb, your travel doesn’t need to end when you come back home. I learned from my time in Kenya and the transition point after, that the reason Sion has these opportunities, the reason they coordinate and offer these to us, is so that we can continue in our learning and travel afterwards, continuing to challenge ourselves and forge our minds in the midst of both discomfort and familiarity. 

So to those of you who are able to participate in a travel program this year, especially this year’s microschool class, I am so excited for you. No amount of preparation and imagining I’d done for my time in Kenya could have amounted to the reality of what I experienced. Because not only was I learning from the people I met along the way, but also from my own classmates and teachers, whom I was able to create strong long lasting connections with. And for that, I am so so grateful.