The World Traveller In The Making. Travelling Ninja.
One day in the early months of 2017, my boyfriend and I were in a matatu heading to work from his place. At around Westlands, just before that closed roundabout, we were talking about our hobbies. I quickly mentioned travelling and he scoffed stating the fact I never travel. It was true, I hadn’t travelled to anywhere in the last few years (Edit: going through the blog, I remembered I travelled to Kigali in 2015). But that statement got to me, which explains why I am sitting at the library of KTH University, Stockholm, writing about it. He probably doesn’t remember saying it at all. But, it got me thinking. Do I really love travelling as much as I say I do?
Up until that point, (early 2017), I had only been to major Kenyan towns. Thanks to my dad taking us around as kids and school trips. I had never personally decided to take a trip to anywhere. So Marc was 100% right in asking me that question.
In 2017, a lot of things happened, I quit my job as a software engineer. I got another one as a graduate assistant and I started my Master’s degree. On that December, I felt as lost as I had been since realising the software engineering job was a dead-end for me. Therefore, I made a plan of how I was going to go on this round the world trip(RTW). I also started this blog. I did a lot of research and realised all I needed was money (which I definitely didn’t have) and time (which I also didn’t have). Reason being, I had just started a 2-year Master’s program which would be followed by a 2-year bonding period from the University. (Unless I paid them, remember I did not have money or a good way of earning it).
All in all, RTW seemed like a faraway dream. So I had to readjust my mindset. I would start travelling at home, around Kenya, and see how it would go. In 2018, I made three trips: One in January to the Kenyan coast with Marc and another couple. You can read about it here. One in June with a group of 10 friends. There is no post on that one and I don’t feel like writing that. It was okay. One in November to Uganda to visit a friend, alone. You can read about it here. So, as far as improvements go, I deserved a pat on my back. I could now officially have a comeback if Marc and I repeated the conversation.
In 2019, the god of travelling shone his light upon me. I got to be part of three teams that changed my travelling stories altogether. The first was the team of four lovable idiots, that got to represent the university in a grand challenge in Arusha, Tanzania in January. Read about it here and here. In February, I was part of the team that accompanied students on their academic trip to Germany, Switzerland and France. This post explains that experience (soon to include the actual trip, hopefully). Last but not least by a fair shot, I was nominated as part of a group that would participate in an exchange program, at the Royal Institute of Technology, KTH, Sweden. The program started on August 17th 2019 and will end on January 15th 2020. Now you get why I am in a library in Stockholm writing this.
Granted, none of the three amazing travel opportunities in 2019 was of my own making, but they answered one question for me. Do I love travelling as much as I say? The answer is YES, a million times YES. I am a curious person by nature. If I see a button, I will want to push it to see what will happen. Curiosity needs to be fed. And what better way to feed it than to visit new places where you know nothing about including the native language?
Long story short, I started this blog to write about travelling and spent an entire year not doing that. But from now on, I will write about my adventures and hope that someday somehow, someone will read about them and enjoy the places through my words. You can start by checking out my first post on the Journey to Stockholm, Sweden, and the next one, Sweden at a First Glance.
