Wednesday, Jan 20

Today I got up at 6 to take a shower. The shower at Nakuru is a spicket inside the main bathroom. The floor is cement and the water is ice cold! We shower into a bucket and then dump the water into the back of the toilet so that we waste as little as possible. It is actually quite cold at night- it regularly gets down to 55 at night- and then sun doesn’t rise until around 6:45 or so.

Most of the day today was spent in orientation- we talked more with the MSID (Minnesota Studies in International Development- program I am on) staff- Simon, Jane, Abdull, Khalif, and Dr. Jama, the main professor who works with MSID. He is a professor at the University of Nairobi in Kenya. All of the MSID staff are very kind, knowledgeable and fun to be around. I am looking forward to getting to know them better as the semester continues.

I love the MSID program mission and vision. It is an experiential learning program, which encourages interaction with host cultures, personal development and career development in combination with academic work. Today, we talked about the expectations that many Kenyans will have of white students in the US- the ability to get them a visa, pay for their children’s school, or just give money. The people in the program are also interested in development issues.

Around our campsite, there is a fence that will keep the buffalo (dangerous), zebra, and gazelle-type creatures (gazelle, impala). However, one creature that the fence does not keep out is the baboon! In the evening at dinner, about 20 baboons jumped the fence outlining our camping area and tried to come in to steal our dinner! Luckily, we locked the doors before they could come in, but they were roaming around for about an hour until dinner was over. Apparently, baboons respect men, but not women, which means that we can get our food stolen more easily. In the evening, we went on a ‘game’ drive (other people safari here) where we saw impalas, zebras, buffalo, hyenas, more baboons and black rhinoceroses. There is a lake in the middle of the park as well as other scenery that is very beautiful.

Picture: This was a common view for us to wake up to every morning outside of our compound.



Pic: View from hill in Nakuru National Park. The hill you see across the lake is apparently stretched out like a lion. You can only see the front paws, head and backbone in this picture.