The time has flown by! Today marked the second to last full day before  our departure from Daraja Academy, so the MA students set out to make the absolute most of it! Many students chose to shirk their usual classroom attendance for equally important projects around the campus: MA students led by Jane and Lizzy tirelessly continued to work away on the Shamba Shed, and now it's almost entirely been re-plastered; Jono and Julian finished a work-table for inside the shed; a group of students put the finishing touches on painting a rock that serves as a sign pointing the way to Daraja, as well as starting a mural on the front gate of Daraja's entrance; and Paige and I finished our fifth, and final, bench. As the afternoon came along we were busy as usual with clubs meetings. This time, however, they marked the final, culminating meetings for clubs .

Journaling and WISH both met for a final time, while the Girls' Varsity football (soccer) team prepared for their tournament on Thursday. Thanks to Jono's Internet searching in town last week, Krista found a graphing program for the math and science teachers and spent yesterday first writing procedures for it, then introducing it to the teachers – they were ecstatic! Steve held a last computer class for the Form 1's and he and Megan met with the student newsletter editors toward getting the first issue off the ground in the next week or two. After another long and productive day, the MA students feel they have fulfilled their wish to leave Daraja with no regrets for things they wish they'd done.

-Jamie Muresanu

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Thursday Morning

Most of us will be spending the morning finishing up the last of our projects, then joining assistant coaches Jono, Jamie and Julia in Nanyuki to cheer on the Daraja Girls Football Team as they compete in the Regional tournament (they won the District tournament the day after we arrived).

Tonight we have a goodbye celebration with the Daraja girls. We have a small impromptu slide show of both our and their photos, then will finish packing for an early departure to the Masai Mara tomorrow.

This has been a remarkable two weeks and the experience and our accomplishments have far exceeded anything we could have hoped for when we set out.

While we look forward to the next four days on Safari, our emotions are decidedly mixed. I can speak for all of us when I say that we will very much miss Daraja – it's something that volunteers experience without exception. On the other hand, we're all also looking forward to seeing our families again and look forward to seeing you on Tuesday.

Time permitting, we may or may not post another blog tonight. If not, we'll be going dark until our next Internet connection – likely when we return to the U.S. on Tuesday.

Asante sana.

-sd