Tuesday and Weds update

Tuesday was our first day of teaching on our own at Red Rose. Students learned it can be both difficult and rewarding to be a teacher... We're hoping to get some reflections from students about their experience in the classroom in the next few days, but we're busy each night making sure we are prepared for tomorrow's lessons.

After teaching Tuesday, we went to lunch and then did some shopping at a Masai Market that sets up each Tuesday outside the mall where we ate. After that, we visited the National Museum where we learned about Kenyan culture and saw human fossils and learned about mammals.

Wednesday, after teaching, we visited the U.S. Embassy. Here is James' account of that visit:

Today we were fortunate enough to secure an appointment to tour the United States embassy in Nairobi. The embassy, which has been located across from the United Nations African headquarters since the 1998 embassy bombing in downtown Nairobi, is an enormous compound which houses not only foreign service officials from the US State Department but also various other organizations such as USAID. After an absurd security procedure (no cell phones or cameras are allowed inside the compound), we were met by a foreign service officer who led us into the embassy building and to a conference room where we met with several embassy officials: an economist with the foreign service, an expert on education with USAID, the consular general and acting ambassador, an DoD attaché, and a director of PEPFAR (AIDS relief) in Kenya. After a brief presentation by each official of their role in the embassy and their work in Kenya, we asked questions, and in turn were asked questions by the officials about our views about Kenya. The officials seemed genuinely interested about our experiences in Kibera and were enthusiastic to explain to students about their respective jobs. After our hour long meeting with the US embassy officials, we were given a quick tour of the three story embassy building (including a quick peak into the ambassador’s office) and were led outside to the memorial of the 1998 bombings where we concluded our tour. Personally, I was struck by the genuine passion that the US embassy officials had about their jobs. Rather than simply being agents of the state department’s political agenda, each official seemed to exhibit compassion for the Kenyan people that I wouldn’t have expected. Overall, our visit the embassy was incredibly interesting. Having never been in an embassy abroad, it was fascinating to see the internal workings of one of the largest US embassies in the world.