Long meeting Day

After cleaning up the washroom that I flooded last night with my long shower (as I waited for hot water), the second night sleeping was much more enjoyable. After a nice breakfast, we headed to another part of downtown in search of a Nakumatt grocery store. This part of downtown was more of a tourist area with big name hotels including the Hilton. We were approached by many safari tour salespersons on the street. We rejected their offers to be cautious. Fortunately, we found a tour agency from our Lonely Planet Kenya book, but we had to challenge 9 flights of stairs (since Brent refused to use the elevator) to find the place. Behind a gate was a very old and dirty office without computer equipment, but the agent we spoke to was very helpful. We didn't sign up as the price was not as good as we expected. Despite walking 9 flights of stairs to an office that could potentially be a high pressure sales environment or an 'organized mugging,' it was definitely an adventure.

We walked (I had to jog as the boys were walking very fast!) back to the hotel for the next meeting with the Daystar University students and Ebony Foundation representatives. We confirmed that there will be 3 sites for teaching; however, we UBC students will only be co-teaching with Daystar students at the Kimathi Information Centre and Kibera. Each UBC student is paired with a Daystar student and will co-teach the workshop that corresponds with their specialty. We discussed the teaching methods and came up with lots of great ideas with the local expertise of the Daystar students. The meeting was long (about 5 hours) but very productive and we got our schedules and staffing organized.

Tomorrow is our first day of teaching. I am in Brent and Art's room, which has become the SE101 headquarters, with the rest of the team. Alvina is preparing flip chart slides for the Introduction to the Business Plan session tomorrow, Kevin is updating the 'quote wall' and Art is just being “awesome”. The room is cold and Brent is holding a candle in his hand to keep warm (as if it works…). The team has been doing great and hopefully we will have a good start tomorrow!