First Day of Class

Today was our first real day of class. I met up with the two girls who also live on Kayahwe Road to walk to class together. We had 4 hours of Kiswahili class in the morning with a short tea break. We covered basic greetings and some vocab. During the tea break I proudly walked around telling people the one Swahili phrase I remembered - Jina langu ni Dan (my name is Dan).

My host mom is a translator, so I tried practicing some of my Swahili with my family this evening at dinner. I started saying some of the phrases I remembered and evidently said, "I have one taco America" instead of "I come from America." The phrase is supposed to be "Ninatoka nchi ya America" and I instead said "Ninatako nchi ya America." They got a good laugh out of it and insisted that they would help me practice. I guess I need it!

In the afternoon, we had 2 hours of Country Analysis. The professor today focused on pre-colonialism because he said that most people forget that Kenya had a proud history and political system before the Europeans colonized.

After class several of us walked over to the MSID office to pick up textbooks and check e-mail. While we were there a huge storm started and the office lost power. 5 of us walked to YaYa Center in the rain to pick up some things and check e-mail. Internet at YaYa was three times more than what we paid for internet in downtown Nairobi because it is a very ritzy mall where a lot of the rich white people shop. I once again helped some of the girls navigate the roads and find their homes. We all once again were soaked to the bone and covered in mud. My host family claims that it really doesn't rain this much and that it must be the curse of the U.S. students.