Nicole Week 6

Alright Keeners! Its been a great first two sessions but its time to move into a new session and it’ll be great you’ll love it. Though it has been sad to see the Keeners that we have grown close with from session two go I am really looking forward to meeting the keeners who are arriving for third session. As I am already talking to you about how sad it is to see the keeners from last session go yet happy to see the new keeners come I am going to touch on something that is often overlooked in the blogs, rather than talking about our week and what we did every day and how amazing the kayaking is; I am going to talk about the physiological aspect and friendship building that goes on in Keeners.

As you know here at Keenerville we are thrown together in houses (Yakistan, White House, Robertson’s, and Istanbul) without knowing each other and suddenly you are expected to share a room with a stranger, and a bathroom, kitchen and common space with six. Not only that but you are expected to share the chores and food, all of these things present challenges as sometimes the people you are living with may not be the type of people you would become friends with at home. I feel like this is one of the most amazing parts about the keener program, you get to meet all of these amazing people who you may never have talked to had they not come to this program the main basis of conversations being kayaking at first then you begin to realize that you actually have something in common with this person who you met a week ago. I have personally seen these friendships bring people out of their shells and make them more comfortable in a social environment.

Scouting at McCoys

The best part of all of the friendships you make at Keeners is that they carry over into everything that you do and it gives you connections world wide for example, in first session I met two people from Norway and two people from Costa Rica, then second session someone from Switzerland with both sessions having multiple keeners from across North America. This is amazing because now I have people to call who may be able to lead me down new rivers and I already have trust in them and know their skill level so it is better than having a stranger lead me down the river.

Thanks for listening

-Nicole