We've Arrived

Karibu (welcome in Swahili)--

Yesterday, no, it was Saturday in Houston, I ate lunch at Chuy's. I then flew from Houston to London. By then it's 8 in the morning (times are local, as that's how you have to experience time). The next flight took me to Nairobi, and we arrived at 9 Sunday night. So now Elizabeth and I are here in Nairobi, Kenya. I've had breakfast, walked around the hotel, and, as I may or may not be teaching this afternoon, started thinking about what I will be teaching.

Oh, and one bag is lost, visa lines are long--long in terms of time spent in them; the lines do not actually have very many people in them--and winter in Kenya is a lot like spring in South Carolina. All of that, and my passport finally has its first stamp in it.

Back to teaching: I'm planning to have the students I meet in Kibera write some sort of description of one thing or place they encounter in the course of a normal day—Kibera is a large slum of more than one million people not too far from the center of Nairobi and our very posh hotel. We'll work on the elements of description, workshop the descriptions they write, and then I'll collect them to bring back to Denver. My students at Kent will do the same thing in the fall, write responses to the students in Kibera, and I'll send back the Kent students' descriptions and responses. After that I'll see how long I can keep the exchange going.

The plan for the day is evolving, so I'm not sure what today will bring. That's OK, no, that's good. I do know that I'll try to see as much as I can, take a lot of pictures, and then post them all here.

Kwa herini for now,
Kreg