School

Outside of all of the adventures I’ve been having lately, I actually do have classes that I go to. I just finished up the first week. We technically have class from 8:30-3:30 each day, but due to a combination of everything running on ‘Kenya Time’, taking leisurely chai breaks each morning, and teachers who understand that the most valuable learning we’ll be doing in Kenya will be taking place outside of the classroom, we usually are in class for far less time than that.

I’m taking four courses: Development, Country Analysis of Kenya, Swahili, and Public Health. The classes are with the other MSID students but are taught by Kenyan professors. We all take Development and Country Analysis together, and are broken up into small groups for the other two classes—there are only 3 other students in Intermediate Swahili with me and 6 others in Public Health, so we get lots of individual attention from the professors. Kiswahili has been very intense, with up to 4 hours per day of instruction, but it’s great because I can feel myself reconnecting with the Kiswahili that was lost as I learned Vietnamese. The instructors are all such inspiring people; Jama, our program director and Development prof, is a warden for the American Embassy and has the coolest life stories to tell us; Fred, our country analysis teacher, has worked for the World Bank, among other institutions, and has the most impressive CV I’ve ever seen; Karama, my public health prof, works for KEMRI (Kenya Medical Research Institute) and is an epidemiologist.

I had my first public health class today… ahhhh bliss. My population health classes at UW have prepared me so well, I felt so ready to soak up all of the information thrown at us. Our major assignment for each class is a 15 page paper, and I was able to choose my topic for the public health course—I’m going to be studying and writing about prevention of mother to child transmission of HIV in Kenya… the inner nerd in me is SO excited to get started!

Our school is about a half hour walk from where I live. The journey is wonderful, it’s shady and calm in the morning and bright and bustling on the way home. I get to walk with some of my best friends from the program who live near me once I hike the 10 or so minutes to their neighborhood. There are some interesting characters that I’ve been encountering on my walk home once I get to Kenyatta Market, the part that I travel by myself. My personal favorite is the man who asks me each day if I “want a black Jesus in my life”. I’ve since learned to cross the street before I come to him, needless to say.

The Street Crew
(we live near each other and have the longest/roughest walk to school)