The bus collected us at 8:45 to take us to breakfast which was delicious as always. We’ve all taken to the food really well, and we have our favourite seats which it seems we won’t be changing for the entirety of the trip.

Lectures were due to start at 10am however in Kenyan time that end up being more like 10:30. Everything is a slower pace compared to the Hussle and bustle of Brighton that we are used to.

The first lecture was focused on a work called Community Radios written by Abdou Sarr. It looks at tools to promote peace, culture, democracy and development in Africa. Peter divided us (UOB students) up into two twos and Sam by himself to join the University of Rongo students. We split into three groups of 6 to participate in the lecture and discuss our views and opinions. This is so important for our understanding of community media and maximising our potential on the CM4K project. Engaging with one another will help us to learn to engage with the communities we will be visiting next week.

At 2:30 we took a break for lunch. We used this opportunity to head down out of the classroom and onto the field where were all sat together and hung out. I read a bit more of my book Flowers for Algernon (Daniel Keyes). Hafsah and Sam got some photographs of the surrounding area. We are really bonding as a small group and really enjoying each other’s company. Mainly bonding over how our stomachs are coping and if anyone has been having toilet trouble. Which is a good ice breaker as we all seem pretty comfortable and confident with each other.

We started the second lecture a bit late again, it seems that time keeping really is not a priority here. This time the lecture was on Community Based Participatory Research, something UOB students had already covered before. This was our opportunity to help the students at Rongo to understand what we do as dissertations. Again, we split up into smaller groups to do this.

My brain was very tired after all the lectures that I was struggling to answer questions I knew the answers too. I think the heat here makes it difficult to totally concentrate. I’m thankful for the study rooms and lecture halls we have back in Brighton. I am going to post all my notes that I took from the lectures today on the discussion board as to summarise them on here would make this post more like an essay.

I think were going to get some beers to have tonight which will be lovely. I’m gasping for a nice cold beer or two. Its been a pretty overwhelming few days. I’m sure it will get easier as we become more accustomed to the heat and long days.

Katie x