Hujambo!

Second day of classes followed the same routine: we ate breakfast and then walked to school.  We went over zoezi la nyumbani aka homework. We then learnt another staple to my vocab which is another way of greeting, "hujambo!".  The response is "sijambo."  We did conversational drills and then we learnt about personal pronoun forms.  We had a short break so you know I had to have my chai while completing my homework for the next day. Dr. Wamai then gave a lecture on Health care in Kenya.  He wanted to introduce us to some of the policies before our guest lectures that day.  He discussed how Kenya has flipped between a fee-for-service model to no fees a couple of times and the impact it had on the economy.  He also discussed The Kenya public Health Policy Framework which all other policies branch from. He briefly touched on the five levels of health care system. Dr. Wamai's lecture was then followed by Ruth Ngechu from the Ministry of Health. She discussed the Community Health Strategy policy in Kenya.  This policy sounded like a great intervention on paper but it made me question the process of implementation.  The policy created a system similar to Social workers but instead they are Community Health Workers who have 10 homes assigned to them or 50 people who they would check in with every month.  They would educate and provide basic medicine to clients based on the visit.  The major issue, however, is that these CHWs are not paid.  This inspired me to do my research on the implementation of health policies in Kenya specifically this awesome one.
Lunch was next but today instead of grabing food from the cafeteria I decided to make a bread and nutella sandwich.  A couple of us sat on the quad and ate.  While I ate I could not help but admire the attire of the students.  I don't recall seeing anyone in jeans (and if they were wearing it they and on a nice top or heels).  Everyone was dressed in a very casual business attire.  They looked professional compared to students back home.
Our next lecture was closer to downtown so we walked there.  On our way there we stopped and admired the city from a viewpoint in Uhuru park.  The view was beautiful.  We walked to National Health Insurance Fund.   The lecturer was the general manager, Mr. Githmu.  The fund was established in 1966 and currently governed by the NHIF Act No.9.  It outlines a structure.  the minimal payment is 30 Ksh a month to 320 Ksh. There are some people who are automatically covered like mental health patients and children under 18.  I was really tired so it was hard for me to focus in this lecture.