I'm still alive!

Hello everyone! Worry not, I am still alive. Just a bit busy lately. My midterm seminar for school, where we present our on-going research, begins Monday of next week. So I'm making a big push to get a lot of interviews, surveys, and focus groups done. It's a bit stressful. In Kenya, especially the rural areas, time has a seriously rubber component that can cause quite a bit of trouble for someone trying to schedule more than one thing per day. But I'm trying, partly because I want to have something to show at the seminar, but also because after one week of seminar, then one week of spring break, there are only five weeks of field work before we go back to Nairobi for good. Wow. And there are only two weeks at the end in Nairobi, so the end is in sight. I definitely have a fair amount of time left, but the fact that I'm more than halfway done is certainly becoming clear now.

That said, my plans for spring break are just about finalized. I don't remember if I mentioned it before, but I am going to Rwanda and Burundi. Yes, they're safe these days. The genocide is long over. There are rebels in both countries from the DRC but the areas where they are I cannot go. Neither country has a travel warning so strong that my University would forbid me from going (for instance, the U will not allow me to travel to Somalia or Afghanistan). I'll be with a group of Rwandans that I know so it'll be safe! I'm looking forward to finally seeing more of East/Central Africa before I head home.