Having been contacted on very short notice because one of the selected exchange students had withdrawn from the programme, I had to decide on my participation quickly as there were only three weeks remaining to get organised. I had to unpack from my six months' journey through Asia and Europe, and then pack again for my one-year study visit to Africa. The flight via London to Nairobi was calm and the sunset over the Sahara was beautiful. Soon Mt. Kenya appeared in the East. Having a window seat on the left side, I had a great glance on this wild, jagged 5000-meter peak dominating the dusty plains in which Nairobi and its airport lies.
Nairobi is a city of big contrasts between the rich and the poor, skyscrapers belonging to banks and glue sniffing street boys in front of them. With Parvis, the other exchange student, I have so far spent most of our time in Nairobi with walking from office to office to organise our studies and in our spare time in the Maison France, the Goethe Institute, and the nearby disco clubhouse.
After the first week of organisation, the postgraduate lessons started. They were not of particularly high standard. Only classical mechanics, which we had already heard in Germany, could live up to our expectations. But all lecturers were nice and organised their classes by topics, which gave us orientation for our additional studies with books. Thus we hoped we would be able to acquire a good amount of knowledge.
However, we were only allowed to study that one week because the University of Nairobi decided that two years at the Freie Universität Berlin is equal to the same amount of time at the University of Nairobi. We tried to convince the university of the opposite and, after three weeks, are still waiting for a definite decision. We cannot attend the postgraduate courses until our status is clear. We are therefore still not officially registered.
It is hard for me to understand that the University of Nairobi does not consider the recommendations made in official letters from the Freie Universität Berlin, the German embassy and the DAAD Nairobi Office. I was surprised that officials react in a similar fashion to concerns raised by their own countrymen and so, in my view, block the development of Kenya in general. Negotiations concerning our particular problems started a long time before we even arrived and it is unfortunate that these problems have still not been resolved. However, the administration of the exchange programme tries its best and we contribute towards the solution as much as we can.
We have now started attending some undergraduate courses. We meet more and different students, which is definitely an advantage. So, besides the registration and organisational problems, life around here is great and all other activities are going fine. I am looking forward to the Christmas holidays.
One of my biggest extracurricular interest is climbing and it is developing well. I have been able to repeat some of the hardest rock challenges around and put up some nice, new routes. Especially the people of the Mountain climbing Club of Kenya (MCK) are very nice and helpful. So it has been possible for me to leave Nairobi every weekend since I arrived to enjoy the Kenyan countryside. Cheers for now!
Felix Berg, November 2002
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