Weekend in Mombasa

Mombasa is along the coast of Kenya, an old port town with a multicultural history that includes the Arab slave traders and British colonists. It's also a resort location, since it's reported to have great beaches. We didn't actually go to the beach, even though it was oppressively hot and humid, but it was lovely anyway. Hours and hours strolling through the narrow streets of the old part of town gazing at intricately carved doorways and elaborate balconies with the occasional stop to goof around with some random group of kids animatedly playing soccer with a long worn and mostly deflated ball. Everywhere we went, we heard calls of Jambo! (Hello!) and Karibu!(Welcome!). Even from windows several stories above where it was unclear anyone had noticed our passing. A significant portion of the town is Muslim, so there were the frequent calls to prayer competing with the hustle and bustle of street life and traffic. I was disappointed by the fact that the haunting reverberations can't quite reach deep into your bones like it does in Urumqi or Kashgar (China), but then this morning I drifted out of sleep at about 5 am to hear the dawn call. That was pretty special - the faint haze of early morning light, silence of the streets below, and a lone voice calling to the faithful in melodic tones.

We are back in Nairobi now. I am really enjoying my work here. It's a challenge - an immense personal challenge that I find to be really fun. I'll give you one example by way of my day today: we decided last week that it would be useful to call a meeting of the chairs of the science departments that have benefited from the equipment donation that was made by Seeding Labs in the spring. There are some complications and apparent misunderstandings that would be efficiently addressed with everyone present. The departments fall under two schools - Health Sciences and Pure and Applied Sciences. So first we talked to the dean of PAS who was on board and ready to schedule the meeting. But she said we should first coordinate with the dean of HS. We walked all over this immense campus on friday trying to find the office because we couldn't reach him by phone, failed until the day was nearly done, and resumed an attempted phone contact upon return from Mombasa. That still didn't work, and the internet for the campus was down (again), so we again made our way over in person and got an audience with the dean. He didn't seem to understand our request but finally said he could call a meeting of HS chairs but couldn't involve PAS. Finally, we got the full story from a faculty friend of ours - hierarchy. Each office on campus has a flow chart of the administration. Each person knows their place, who is above them, and who is below them. And there are rules. Chairs cannot call meetings of other chairs because someone above the chairs has to oversee the meeting. Deans can call a meeting of chairs, but only within their own department. So a meeting amongst chairs of two departments involves two deans. But deans can't call a meeting of other deans, because again you need someone above the deans to oversee the meeting. So that sends us up the food chain to either the deputy vice chancellor or the director of research. We are only here for three more days, and hectic schedules fill up quickly, so we'll see if this meeting actually happens, or even gets scheduled, while we're still around.