And just in case anyone is wondering what in the world I'm doing here in Nairobi...
The organization I work for requires its members to have some sort of orienation to Africa before they live here long term. Well, I've sort of been living here for a while, and have never actually had any orientation!
So there is a course at Tangaza College, through a Catholic University in the US, which is a 4 week immersion course in African Studies. This morning I went with my supervisor here (who has taken courses here and has recommended the college for my orientation) out to the college to pay my fees and figure out how to travel there. If you look at the links, I'm taking the African Cultures: An Overview course.
I also got the syllabus and course information while I was there. It looks like it's going to be a brilliant, but intense, course. Basically, every student is assigned a Research Assistant, who is a local person. You work together with this person to do primary research on a topic of African culture - it can be pretty much any topic that you happen to be interested in which fits the broad themes of the course. Three days a week are devoted to lectures at the college. The other three days of the week (yes, it's 6 days/week!) are devoted to running around town, interviewing people and doing research with your assistant. The assistant is supposed to be able to help you find people and resources and help you get around the city on public transport and all that. It also includes a weekend visit to the homeland of your Research Assistant, somewhere outside of Nairobi! So that will be great fun, I'm sure!
It seems like it's going to be pretty intense, and quite tiring, as I'll probably be travelling around the city a lot. But it's a great opportunity to really get to know some aspects of the culture, and to be able to really talk to local people about some topic that I choose. I already know that I want to do research into some sort of education topic... just not sure quite what yet.
I would appreciate your prayers for my safety as I cruise around town on public transport, as well as for your prayers for a good relationship with my Research Assistant. It seems that the assistant is really quite key to the whole experience, and it would be great to have someone that I could really have a good relationship with. Please also pray that whatever topic I choose to research will be a real help to the work that I'm doing in literacy and education in my "normal" job.
So all that being said, I'm not sure how much I'll be able to blog in the coming weeks! At the moment, I'm in the office here near where I'm staying. But once classes start next week, I'll probably only use a dial-up connection for sending and receiving emails :(
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