I’m sitting on my balcony with a glass of sweet white South African wine while the voice of the legendary Sam Cooke streams out the window of a nearby apartment.
I was born by the river in a little tent
Oh and just like the river I've been running ever since
It's been a long, a long time coming
But I know a change gonna come, oh yes it will
The song too perfectly suits this calm Spring evening, where everything feels as if it is in a lull before the heat and traffic of summer swarms the city. It is also the end of the first day of classes, which started off slowly and with review.
I could’ve written the first few lines of this post anywhere in the world, but I’m addressing you from Nairobi, Kenya. Thus, my classes today were about all things Kenya. First, an hour and a half of Swahili at 7:30 a.m. Then I worked through 3 hours of Institutional Strengthening in Kenya followed by the Social and Political History of Kenya.
Our Swahili class is much more than just language instruction and I attribute this to our professor being a trained linguist. His name is Fred and he speaks eight languages. Eight! His instruction does not only cover vocabulary and grammar, but he also weaved through the history of Bantu languages this morning. By doing this, he instills excitement to learn this new language and also a deep appreciation for its survival in a world of dominating Western tongues.
Institutional Strengthening was the heaviest of courses today. We began with a discussion about why we each decided to study in Kenya then jumped quickly into our assigned readings. Our professor made insightful remarks while she breezed through the history of aid in Africa. My notes go on for four pages. I won’t bore you with them. We concluded the class with a “light” review of Easterly and Sachs’ economic theories of development. There is hardly anything light about summarizing their thoughts. Nevertheless, it was a good review and jumping off point to begin discussing the present institutions of Kenya. As professors often do, her last remarks were questions for us to think about for next time:
What is the end game of development?
Who gets to choose what these goals are?
Who are the recipients?
Why is a strong middle class essential?
After class, we were dismissed for lunch. I love African time. We had a two hour lunch break and started our afternoon course 45 minutes late. Our professor didn’t mind a bit. He came sauntering into the classroom around 1:45 p.m. asking us how we were doing with the transition and what our expectations for our internships are. It was a good start to the next hour of discussing the historiography of East Africa. I learned that word today: historiography. It means the study of historians and the story they write. Africa is a peculiar place because it was first documented by explorers, missionaries, settlers, colonial administrators, and imperial scholars… not natives. Many early African languages were not literate, thus they did not keep written records. So when studying African history and primary sources written by Europeans, we have to take their bias into account. They were looking at regional culture through the lens of their own.
This is an idea I learned early in a cross cultural class. When living within another culture, we are seeing it through the tainted window of our own. So when we travel, we tend to distance ourselves in a way that leaves us feeling uncomfortable within a different way of life. Learning to break down that barrier takes time and patience, it often starts with familiarizing yourself with the local language. And this is why it is worth it to wake up at 6 a.m. for Swahili class.
Wait a moment - I have to take some pictures of this sunset. It really looks like this from my balcony.
I was born by the river in a little tent
Oh and just like the river I've been running ever since
It's been a long, a long time coming
But I know a change gonna come, oh yes it will
The song too perfectly suits this calm Spring evening, where everything feels as if it is in a lull before the heat and traffic of summer swarms the city. It is also the end of the first day of classes, which started off slowly and with review.
I could’ve written the first few lines of this post anywhere in the world, but I’m addressing you from Nairobi, Kenya. Thus, my classes today were about all things Kenya. First, an hour and a half of Swahili at 7:30 a.m. Then I worked through 3 hours of Institutional Strengthening in Kenya followed by the Social and Political History of Kenya.
Our Swahili class is much more than just language instruction and I attribute this to our professor being a trained linguist. His name is Fred and he speaks eight languages. Eight! His instruction does not only cover vocabulary and grammar, but he also weaved through the history of Bantu languages this morning. By doing this, he instills excitement to learn this new language and also a deep appreciation for its survival in a world of dominating Western tongues.
Institutional Strengthening was the heaviest of courses today. We began with a discussion about why we each decided to study in Kenya then jumped quickly into our assigned readings. Our professor made insightful remarks while she breezed through the history of aid in Africa. My notes go on for four pages. I won’t bore you with them. We concluded the class with a “light” review of Easterly and Sachs’ economic theories of development. There is hardly anything light about summarizing their thoughts. Nevertheless, it was a good review and jumping off point to begin discussing the present institutions of Kenya. As professors often do, her last remarks were questions for us to think about for next time:
What is the end game of development?
Who gets to choose what these goals are?
Who are the recipients?
Why is a strong middle class essential?
After class, we were dismissed for lunch. I love African time. We had a two hour lunch break and started our afternoon course 45 minutes late. Our professor didn’t mind a bit. He came sauntering into the classroom around 1:45 p.m. asking us how we were doing with the transition and what our expectations for our internships are. It was a good start to the next hour of discussing the historiography of East Africa. I learned that word today: historiography. It means the study of historians and the story they write. Africa is a peculiar place because it was first documented by explorers, missionaries, settlers, colonial administrators, and imperial scholars… not natives. Many early African languages were not literate, thus they did not keep written records. So when studying African history and primary sources written by Europeans, we have to take their bias into account. They were looking at regional culture through the lens of their own.
This is an idea I learned early in a cross cultural class. When living within another culture, we are seeing it through the tainted window of our own. So when we travel, we tend to distance ourselves in a way that leaves us feeling uncomfortable within a different way of life. Learning to break down that barrier takes time and patience, it often starts with familiarizing yourself with the local language. And this is why it is worth it to wake up at 6 a.m. for Swahili class.
Wait a moment - I have to take some pictures of this sunset. It really looks like this from my balcony.