March 7 Meeting

Jambo DC-area Kenya travelers!

As you know, in addition to your assembled group, plus Hadley from Dana Hall School in Boston, there are five people from Cary Academy in North Carolina who will be traveling with you.

I'm Steve Goldberg, a history teacher, and we have a senior, Therice Morris (pronounced Terrace), and three juniors -- Izaak Earnhardt, Daniel Bowden and Anna Plastina.

We're on a trimester schedule, and we just finished our second trimester. We actually have exams at the end of our second trimester (but not at the end of the year), so we just finished those. Students here are just beginning a two-week break, so they will not be back at school until March 23.

In an effort to get to know you folks in DC, we've each introduced ourselves on this blog (see the last entry -- click on comments to read the student intros).

It would be great if you could, in the next few days, also write brief introductions so we can get to know you a little. If you have trouble with posting to the blog, just email me your introduction and I will post it for you. My email is MrGoldberg@gmail.com

Also, if someone could take notes during your session today, and email me those notes, that would be great. I can share those notes with the students here, so we can build upon your thoughts about the two topics you're discussing today: 1) fundraising activities and 2) the day-to-day itinerary of our time in Kenya.

We'll try to see the same video you're watching about life in Kibera, and we'll also try to catch up with Ken to learn some basic Swahili, but there's no substitute for working with Ken...

I'll be updating this blog and/or sending you periodic email updates with information and questions about Kibera. Ken can answer most factual questions about Kibera, but I'm hoping we can ask some policy questions and some ethical questions that don't have a "right" answer. For instance, what should the Kenyan government do about Kibera? In order to answer that question in a sophisticated way, you'll need some background about Kibera and its history.

I hope to talk with you at some point during your meeting this morning.

- Steve