Flying to Kenya tonight

12 March 2012. Frankfurt am Main, Germany.

Finally, plans materialize and we are flying one-way to Nairobi tonight. We're very much looking forward to seeing our friends again, helping the "Joy Valley" orphan home cum school in Kayole and learn a lot about hands-on local development. We don't have exact plans in Nairobi. All we know is a place to stay during our first days, with couchsurfers of course, and we'll take it from there.
Our last day in Europe is beautiful. The blue sky over Frankfurt is a nice goodbye from the old continent as we embark on another journey, some kind of Charity Travel 2.0. We hope to keep this blog updated with photos and stories from Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Tanzania, Namibia, Zambia, and more such places, but above all with stories of hopeful local initiatives.


And we hope to turn the Rainbow Center, that we started in 2010, into one of these initiatives, a breeding ground too for development ideas and a place to find out what works, what can motivate, inspire, encourage people and move minds. Because our experience has taught is that there lies our primary and humble task as helping global neighbors. We will visit communities and ask them what theirs needs and desires are, ask them how we might be able to help, not financially, but with advise coming from our experience in different regions, an experience very hard to gain for people living in the developing world as they often can't get visas to travel. It is only when we have understood a community that we try to motivate them. And then we will need to observe carefully if they are developing genuine enthusiasm, that invaluable resource. Once that is the case, I dare say, everything goes.

I hope our readers will forgive us this boundless optimism, and that we can offer concrete examples of our approach at work soon. Stay tuned for our next update from Africa.