Kenya!

I am beginning this blog entry (for the third time) from a comfortable home in the suburbs of Nairobi. First off, thanks for taking the time to read my blog. My plan is to try out this mass communication thing-a-ma-bobber in order to keep friends and family (you!) up to date on my travels in East Africa this summer. I’m not sure how it will turn out, but I’ll do my best to write consistently and see where it goes from there. So I guess I should start with the basics: where, what, why.

Where. I will be spending roughly three months this summer in Kenya, which is in East Africa. Most of my time will be spent in Nairobi, which is the capitol city with a population of over three million people. I’m also planning on spending a few weeks to a month in Marsabit, which is a small town in the northern part of Kenya.

The what. I’ll be spending most of my time conducting research for my dissertation, which is on the history of water use, water management, and economic development in northern Kenya. I may post a better description of my research in the future, but for now I’ll just say that fresh water has played a central role in the culture and economy of northern Kenya, and has attracted the attention of the national government, foreign missionaries, and international development agencies (think World Vision, CARE, the UN, USAID, etc.). A lot of my research will consist of sifting through documents housed in the Kenya National Archives in Nairobi. For those of you who are not history grad students, it’s a lot like being Hermione in the Hogwarts Library, or Nicholas Cage in National Treasure. Needless to say, I have packed a pair of magical spectacles with which to discover the true meaning behind the documents. Actually, I’ve spent two days at the archives already and I’ll just say the place has a lot of character. I’ll definitely have more to say about it in the future. I’ll also be conducting research by interviewing people and by spending time in Marsabit, which is the particular town I am using as a case study. Besides research, I’ll also be doing a lot of other things over the next three months and I’m guessing most of my entries will describe the non-academic side of my life here in Kenya.

The why. Hmmm…well I was intending to use this section to explain why I am doing research in Kenya when I am/was supposedly a student of American religious history. I guess I followed the trail of American missionaries to Kenya and have since decided to shift my focus. Religion and missionaries still have a role to play, but they are not the only factors in the story. But the truth is, my shift in topics doesn’t have a completely logical explanation and I have trouble explaining the process of the last year to myself. One driving force was my desire to spend time in Africa, in Kenya, a place which has been inexplicably alluring to me for a number of years.

Ok, so this is a start, even if a rather bland one—I promise to rely more on my five senses in the future. Fortunately I am assuming that you are reading this because you care about me and not because you are in search of entertainment or lively prose. Please let me know if I am misinformed.