Goodbye, Saskatchewan

I flew out of Saskatchewan early this morning. It was so early in fact that I slept through take-off. Luckily, routing from Regina being what it is, I was able to say a proper goodbye to my prairies while awake from Calgary. In fact, I flew over them not once, but twice this morning. Thank you WestJet for keeping me in the prairies for as long as you possibly could.

I do have an excuse for my sleepiness. I went to my cousin’s wedding the night before allowing for little sleep before my 6 o’clock flight. I did have the pleasure of saying goodbye to most of mother’s extended family as well. It was my first family wedding in a while so it was a nice experience. My cousin and his new wife also served one of my favourite Saskatchewan meals: steak. He is a beef farmer so it does make sense. I have to admit that I love steak especially from home. I’ve tried it other places and nothing quite lives up to my expectations. Now it will be another 8 months before I get Saskatchewan beef.

I’m in the Nova Scotia airport writing this post while I wait for my bus. I had the pleasure though of seeing an exhibit about an organization called WaterCan. They bring clean water to parts of Eastern Africa, including Kenya. As I saw these photos, I realized how incredible it is that I get to go to Kenya to do development work. In a little less than three weeks, those photographs will become real people for me. I will know the names of Kenyans and begin to have an understanding of what their lives are like. I have to admit that I can’t wait.

The exhibit also almost made me cry. The statistics about how many people live without clean water or proper sanitation was heartbreaking. We take clean water and garbage collection for granted. Here’s the stat that really struck me: 40% of children under 5 are saved by teaching people to wash their hands with soap. I’m amazed that something so simple could be so life changing for so many people. I also need to confess at this point that I dug out my hand sanitizer before writing this post.

I just got off the plane in Halifax and ran into that exhibit. I take it as a good sign that I’m supposed to be going to Kenya. I will keep you all posted on how orientation goes tomorrow!