Classes: First Day

Monday, May 16th
Nairobi

Today is our first day of classes. We needed to leave at 7:30 so that we could arrive at the University of Nairobi Health Sciences campus. We ate breakfast at the hotel.  The walk to the school was not too bad, about 25 minutes. As I walked I was able to observe the hustle and bustles of the city as a pedestrian. The mutatoes speeding with the bus doors open.  I was also able to observe the local attire as we were told to be conscious of how we dress. Many people were covered up and wore long sleeves compared to what we would wear for summer in America.  The weather was nice not too hot or cold.
Swahili was the first class of the day.  We learnt the three ways to say "hello" which are "habari gani?", "jambo", and, "u hali gani".  The response is then "Nzuri sana." We then did some Swahili conversations for the remainder of class from our books. After Swahili, we would have three lectures.  The first lecture was on the government structure of Kenya by John Kaminyori and Rachel Koigi.  This lecture was a great overview.  He explained the Nationsal Assembky and the allotted members, the Judiciary and Executive branches.  He also discussed the coalition government briefly ( a shared power with the opposition party, Raila Odinga, and the ruling party Mwai Kibaki) which is the new structure in place. Kenya is also transitioning to a decentralized government so he explained that the counties would have more power similar to the autonomy that most states have. We had a short break before our next lecture.  Our next lecturer, Cyprian Nyanwamu is the most brilliant man. He absolutely blew me away!  The lecture sought to identify the problem of governance in Kenya and outline the initiatives taken to rectify it.  It was organized in the form of a 21 page paper.  His lecture contained so much pertinent information I could not help but to soak up his words.  A section that fascinated me was on the crisis in Africa.  He linked it to process of being colonized which began to set barriers for people. This led me to wonder what exactly about colonization that cause many countries to not recover after they become independent and the role it possibly plays in weak governance, poverty, and disparity.  Most developing countries were colonized at some point usually.   The problem he said was the four "I's": Institutional capture, Impunity, Inequality, and Intolerance.  The cycle off power struggle between the elites and the poor has began to perpetuate itself since then.
We then ordered lunch from the cafeteria that is outside from our class. I ordered chicken rice, vegetable, and chapati.  The food only cost $3.00.  I sat on the grass in the quad and ate my food.
The third lecturer, Mr. Njeru, from the Institute of Development Studies spoke with us.  in this lecture he discussed Kenya's development in a broad perspective.  He discussed development in the education system, exports, and touched on the moi era. Following this lecture we proceeded to Nairobi National Museum for a short trip.  I was excited to see the many artifacts of the museum.  One of the first exhibits that one would see is a giant collection of gourds connected to a huge calabash by eight strings to represent the eight provinces.  I enjoyed and had fun while walking though the exhibit.  While we were at the museum we met at the on-site restaurant, Savanna, to discuss our group papers.  This was kind of tough because many of the groups had the same idea but our group will be researching women in politics.