Last night we flew into Nairobi and took a bus to our luxury hotel (seriously, it's got a bide and an omelette station at breakfast...). But since it was night time, we didn't really get to see Nairobi. Today we didn't really either, but we saw more of it than we did last night (which was only a few lit up signs saying "Casino" and "Luxury Hotel").
The morning began with breakfast (see previous statement about omelette station). Then we took a 5 minute walk to the Columbia Global Centres Africa in Nairobi. This is a new building that officially opened 2 weeks ago (but has been operating unofficially for one year). The title of the centre (I'm going to start spelling the British way more often because it looks cool and I'm in a former British colony) makes it sound like there are other Columbia Global Centres in Africa, but actually this is the first one. I assume they intend to open more. What I'm wondering is where is the Princeton Club of Nairobi. I mean, Columbia's got this nice gated centre where they work with the local government and the UN to set up and manage projects with the local UN Millenium Villages in Sauri and Dertu. That pretty cool, right? Well where's the Princeton Club of Nairobi? At the very least they should be throwing parties, right? Like, the Princeton Club of New York. Anyway, I am disappointed. But the Columbia centre is awesome and hopefully they will expand throughout Africa and the world and keep doing cool things.
We learned several orientation type things at the centre today:
1) There's an election coming up in March. When I went through the Visa line at the airport, the woman at the counter said that to me in a very "you know you're going to be here during our election, right?" kind of way. I thought to myself, "are you trying to scare me into leaving earlier?" But it was still nice of her to inform me. I'm not really worried. I've watched Argo and know what American ingenuity can do to sneak people out of hostile countries. I could definitely pretend to be a part of a film crew. But in all seriousness, I'm not worried because Princeton and Columbia aren't worried. If they were, they would've canceled the trip before we left. The political climate leading up to the last election (in which violence ensued in parts of the country we won't be visiting) was different than it is now, as I've been told. And in case things do get too intense, they've got an immediate evacuation plan. Honestly though, I'm not worried.
2) There's so much going on in this country! We talked about pastoralism, which sounds really cool. I would go into all the interesting things I learned about the challenges with pastoralism and the differences between traditional pastoralism and Western ranching, but Wikipedia probably does a better job (do you like how I'm including the links now so you don't have to google things?). A few interesting things I learned: families that can, prefer to have their daughters attend secondary boarding school. That is good right! Girls are getting educated, even if it is mostly motivated so that the woman will fetch a better dowry (generally 10 cows = 1 wife). Still, education is power. Second, the pastoral society makes gender roles highly differentiated (women can't really herd cattle over thousands of kilometers while nursing a baby. I guess, I mean, has anyone tried. Women are pretty tough.) causing gender inequality in the society. Third, mobile schools are a thing and they are working! It sounds really cool. Basically, the teacher loads up his/her materials onto a camel and when the herd stops to graze, he/she picks out some materials and sets up school underneath a tree. It kind of reminds me of what the one room school houses where probably like, but imagine instead of a school house, there's a camel and a tree. I just think it would be amazing to do that type of work.
3) More about agriculture! This time about farming and ranching. Small farms produce most of the coffee and tea and milk that gets exported and consumed nationally. Right now, it seems like Kenya is decently good at producing many of its own goods (especially things like milk), but that the need to rely on support for staples like cereals. The goal is to improve in staple production and bump up more products to be commercially viable across the border. I don't really know if all this info is right. I definitely felt jetlagged today, but one of my courses is on Tropical Agriculture and we'll be touring farms and ranches so I'll get a better grasp on that aspect later in the semester. Overall things seem really cool and totally doable. Truly a country to keep your eye on.
Lastly, we went to an Indian restaurant tonight. We took cabs and on the way there we were basically stopped in traffic. Out the window was a homeless woman (or at least a woman begging on the street) with a baby on her back and a baby in her lap. Our cab driver asked us if we had "street families" in the U.S. We replied, yes. "Oh," he said. "So it's not just Africa." No. Definitely not. There are homeless all over the world, in every country, developed or developing. The only thing I could think of that may distinguish the homeless of Kenya from those in America is the support system. The "net" as they say. I don't really know anything about Kenyan government, so I have no idea if one exists. It's inevitable, I think, that some people are going to drop into poverty and become homeless, but what matters is do those people have a realistic hope of getting out of it. I don't know if that's the case in Kenya. I don't know if that's the real case in America, although it certainly is a perception. I don't like to thing of the world as "we have this and they don't have that" or "we don't have this and they have that." But, from a scientific point of view, I think looking at differences is an important way to learn about what might work best in different situations/contexts.
I'll leave you with this. Credit to Matt.
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P.S. In leaving the hotel, I'll also leave reliable internet. Tomorrow we'll head to Mpala and the permanent tents that await us. I really have no idea what to expect. On one had, when I hear "tent" I think back to the Frosh Trip of 2011 and Tropical Storm Lee that caused me to have puddle of water pool in my sleeping bag. I'm holding out hope for luxury though. Blog posts will probably drop off, but quality will still be good (or bad, depending on how you've thought the posts have gone so far...)! Also, Facebook will be gone until we come back to Nairobi for another part of the third course. PLEASE EMAIL ME IF YOU WANT TO CHAT!
P.P.S. Too the people that were planning on sending me things, mail here takes ONE MONTH to get from the States to Mpala so if you are planning on sending anything, I would send it now. Also, it's probably really expensive so don't do it unless you REALLY REALLY CARE ABOUT ME (this is a test to see who my TRUE friends are!... just kidding. To be honest, I probably wouldn't send me anything so I won't judge.).
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