Update from Nairobi

I don't have anything really profound to say, but I figured I'd just post a quick update.

After the rural homestay, we returned to Nairobi and began taking classes. Along with Kiswahili and the core class which we all take together, I am taking Health and Healing and Socio-Economic Development in Kenya. I am enjoying both, but particularly loving the Development class. Our teacher has introduced some really interesting ideas challenging traditional concepts of development and I'm excited to see what he has to say.

As far as activities, we have a good deal of flexibility but a TON of available reading. However, most of it isn't required which makes it difficult to choose which to read and which to leave. For those of you who know me well, I have a hard time when I know there are many things I could/should be doing but nothing is really structured.

Anyway, tomorrow we're going on a really cool hike up a dormant volcano (this seems to be a trend in my life recently...refer to previous posts to see what I mean) called Longonot Crater. The crater itself in the top is absolutely enormous and I hope we get to climb down into it. Hopefully, I'll be able to post some interesting pictures when I get back.

So basically we've just been hanging out at the compound and working on group presentations and readings for class in addition to reading for our Tanzania trip. I've been playing a lot of pingpong on the sweetest pingpong table I've ever seen in my life (it is painted with the Kenyan flag). Today, I also played Ultimate which was a bad idea because I've been a little sick and my stomach hurt like hell for at least an hour afterward.

Well, time for bed. Just wanted to give a quick update. I'm extremely excited for the Tanzania component starting next weekend. Apparently, we get to live with a hunter/gatherer group known as the Hadza and learn to produce fire with sticks and make bows and arrows. At the end, we supposedly get to go hunting with them. These people are one of the few groups left on Earth who still practice the hunter/gatherer lifestyle. They also speak a dialect in the Khoisan linguistic phylum, which means their language is most likely a "click language." If you don't know what this is, it would be really hard for me to explain it. Basically, they click while they talk. The clicking is incorporated into their speech in the same way we incorporate vowels or consonant groupings. I'm pumped.

This post turned out longer than I expected. I hope you made it to the bottom. Hope all is well!