Coursework and Dynamics of KBC

Many people have been curious as to the types of classes I have been taking here.  This is a debriefing of what I’ve learned thus far:

The Maasai are historically a pastoralist community.  The environment they inhabit, as you can see from the pictures, is very dry.  Kenya and Tanzania are semi-arid ecosystems that have two distinct periods of rain in which everything is green (except for in years of drought), but the rest of the time it is very VERY dry.  Truly, I’ve lived in Colorado nearly my whole life and the complaints about the lack of moisture there are ridiculous when I think about this place.  I apply lotion to my hands and five minutes later am questioning my sanity because I’m convinced I only ever imagined putting it on.  Okay, that’s way off track- back to the Maasai. 

Though they are traditionally pastoralists, the Maasai people’s way of life is changing dramatically.  Western colonizers introduced ideas and requirements of sedenterization.  This included education, agriculture, and western marketing.  Recently, younger generations of Maasai, along with other encroaching tribes, have been embracing the sedentary lifestyle and trying to better their poverty-stricken status with cash-crop agriculture or moving into the cities for wage labor. 

The regional environment can support pastoral living and little else.  Sedentary living has caused a dramatic increase in overexploitation of natural resources, doesn’t allow for the land to regenerate and recycle, has promoted agriculture which depletes soils and the already limited water stores, increases human-wildlife conflict as charismatic megafauna compete for forage, water, and migration corridors, loss of local culture, and may eventually lead to the collapse of the entire region socio-economically and ecologically. 

My courses include those that explore these socio-economic and ecological issues.  They also cover subjects that aid in the overall understanding of the situation, such as wildlife management in the area, land subdivision, regional policies on land use and wildlife, Swahili and Maasai language and culture, and anything and everything you could think of pertaining to anything in the scope of these subjects for the region. 

Classes are also taught by five different professors- a professor for each titled course in which I am receiving credit.  However, they teach each other’s classes or reference each other’s lessons because everything we are covering is interconnected.  They are all Kenyan-born men whom have received their Ph.D’s in their respected fields at universities in Europe.  Shem teaches Wildlife Management and is my favorite.  He has such a dry sense of humor and, though he doesn’t like to show it, loves to make people laugh.  Kiringe teaches Ecology and is very knowledgeable and is considered the overseer in our camp.  Sometimes he ticks me off though because he likes to inform us of the need for PhD students on a regular basis and that we should come with money.  It makes me feel used.  Daniel teaches Swahili and, I must admit, for the first week everyone including myself had a little crush on the teacher, but that has slowly passed as his mortal imperfections have emerged.  George Ekisa is a new professor at KBC and teaches Socio-economics and Policy.  He is very knowledgeable about his subjects but isn’t used to an interactive way of teaching and many times communication is lost lost to translation with him.  It’s actually been very frustrating and we’ve had to take large measures as a student body to remedy them.  (And guess who led that movement?  I’m glad I’ve had experience in monitoring professors in the past for I’ve perfected the art of being critical without stepping on their toes or undermining their authority.  The rest of the students are also awesome and helped me in my plotting to reveal to Ekisa his faults without making him feel attacked.  We are now at peace with the class.) 

Lectures are done in the chumba (large community structure), on top of hills looking out over the agricultural fields, group ranches, and pastures, just outside of camp, in Maasai bomas, and in the national parks.  We actually just finished a game count at Amboseli where we got the amazing opportunity to join Amboseli staff, rangers (yes, with large guns) and scientists from elephant and lion research organizations to count all of the animals in the park.  My group alone ended up counting a little over 2,000 animals!  It was such a great but exhausting day, and I even went home with a marriage proposal from the ranger that was in our car.  Lucky me J

Much of my learning of the culture and its people is also done just through interactions with the locals.  I spend a lot of time with the local children who are the best teachers, and I also spend a lot of time practicing and enquiring with the other Kenyan staff.  Our drivers and askaris (guards who carry large spears) are so friendly and are always willing to answer questions and talk to me about their lives.  Even random people in the market place are so helpful and are always willing to teach me something new.  My Swahili is growing in leaps and bounds and it amazes me how much I’ve learned of the language in just three weeks compared to my knowledge of Spanish, which I’ve studied in school for five years.

There are also three American-born women who work here.  One is our school administrative manager, Tara. She is awesome and helpful and is here to ensure that we are happy and on track with our coursework.  She is responsible for organizing a lot of our field trips and she is the link between students and staff.  She is an amazing young woman who has spent many years in Africa with Peace Corps and other organizations, grew up abroad, and always is up for being goofy.  Truly, she acts like a 12 year-old-boy when she doesn’t have her responsibility cap on.  I love it.  Beneath here are two fun-loving and hard working interns.  They both love the African community, way of life, and are full of knowledge about the language and the people.  Jenna has worked in East Africa for the past four summers and her Swahili is amazing.  This is Stacey’s second time in East Africa.  She is so goofy and the kind of person who loves to embarrass herself.  Ultimately, everyone here is fantastic!

Though I have done field-based coursework before, this program is dramatically more dynamic than anything I’ve experienced.  The education I am receiving is rich and expanding with every new day and it is only made more effective by learning in hands-on environments and subject-related locations with such great people.  Though it is very rigorous, I love the academic aspects of my time here.  


We are learning how to make traditional jewelry with the local Maasai mamas.

We had lecture about the detrimental effects of agriculture on top of a hill looking out over many crop plots.  This is Keringe (right), our Ecology professor.

 We climbed this large hill that looked out over a secondary school and 

Mt. Kilimonjaro for one of Shem's  Wildlife Management classes.

Here is the view for that class.  

This is Tara.  Yes, she's a ginger, but she's an awesome ginger.  On the left she is holding a mouse that she caught in her banda and carried all the way up to the top of Lasoito, the tallest point in Kimana Group Ranch where we had class one day (right).