Every June, Well Aware travels to east Africa with a special group of people. We call them “Rafikis” (Swahili for friends). These wonderful people are all Well Aware Village Members or long time donors and have taken this big step to join our journey overseas to see, first-hand, the work that we do.
The Rafiki trips are very memorable, often exhausting, and always inspiring. Each new traveler plays a role in our work while we are there, and the friendships made in the field are infinite.
This past trip was no different, and it was probably our most productive. If I wrote about everything we did in the two weeks we were there, I would have a short story that would take too much time to read. So, instead, here are the highlights from the Rafiki 2018 adventure.
The Rafikis
What a beautiful, hard-working, patient and compassionate group of people these guys are!
Tim and both of his children, Emily and Daniel, joined us this year. While Emily and Daniel helped play with children and meet community members, Tim helped the technical team and provided engineering guidance that made our work more efficient.
Ranae and Bart have been long time Village members and supporters of our work. They’ve attended events in the past and always been around the Well Aware world. With this trip, they truly found a place in our hearts. This was their vacation, and not once did they bat an eye when asked to redo an entire garden at IPI or be in a medical clinic for days on end.
Chris and Ruby are both new to the Well Aware family and experts in their own fields. Chris has done work with another NGO in Ghana, and Ruby is a Civil Engineer on sabbatical. These two were more than helpful on our projects sites and able to provide extra expertise where it was needed.
We were very fortunate to have Jake, a current intern, and Erinn, a past intern, join us on this trip, as well. They were put to work conducting community surveys, assisting the technical team, working in the medical clinics, building gardens, and playing some intense soccer with the kids at IPI. Without these two amazing humans on the trip, we wouldn’t have been nearly as productive as we were.
Ken was a joy to travel with, assisted wherever he was asked, and he was (needed) comic relief to us all. John took stunning images and truly captured the beauty of our communities.