Parvis Soltan-Panahi

My first impressions as an exchange student in Nairobi

November 2002

My flight to Dubai
It was a very strange feeling to know that the moment was going to come when I would have to leave Germany for a whole year, especially as I didn't know what could happen on the other side of the equator. The old co-operation agreement had expired and the University of Nairobi had still not signed the new one which had been drafted 7 months earlier by Jürgen Theiss who established and runs the exchange programme. It turned out to be a major challenge to have the new co-operation agreement signed although it is almost identical to the old one. Even my parents hadn't known the whole story, because I didn't want them to worry too much (especially my mum). 

At around 10 o'clock in the evening my plane was supposed to depart. I had been a little bit afraid because of the weight of my baggage, but at least there were no luggage-weight-problems at all. The flight: Very comfortable, Emirates, Airline of the year. I was quite surprised. I thought it would be the opposite because of the very cheap price, perhaps this would be a good sign for my upcoming stay in Nairobi. The flight itself wasn't very exciting, but I  was lucky to be alone so that I had a lot of time to think about my upcoming experiences. 

Airport in Dubai 
After a short stay in Dubai we landed at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, Nairobi. It was nearly 12 o'clock, noon. It seemed to be getting serious. I had the whole afternoon to arrange where I was going to stay. Nothing was clear at that time. Where should I stay? What would happen with my studies? (Even now, today is the 30th of November, my status isn't clear!) The last instruction I had received from Jürgen was 24 hours old and now our communication would only be via email.
Heinke, intern at DAAD in Nairobi

My adventure started at the airport. Perhaps adventure isn't the right word, let's say my odyssey started from there. What had I expected from Kenya? Sunshine, warm weather, etc.. Of course, the opposite was the case when I arrived there. (In Germany, the sun was still shining.) But I didn't care much about that because there were a lot of other problems to solve. First address: The German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD). It seemed that I must have had an old address of DAAD, but at least we, the taxi driver and I, were able to find out the new address. At the DAAD Office I met Heinke for the first time, an intern from Germany, and Cay Etzold, Director of the DAAD Office. After some suggestions from Mr. Etzold I arranged to meet Heinke the same evening. In the meantime, I went to the YMCA to take a room there. The YMCA is opposite the student halls which belong to the main campus.

When I met Heinke in the evening I was introduced to another person, Muturi, a Kenyan who has spent a lot of time in foreign countries (including 6 years in Germany). It seemed that from a social aspect I had a good start and it was still about one month until the official start of the academic year.

During "hall week", I spent my whole day organizing my studies and my room in one of the student halls. In the Office of the Centre for International Programmes and Links, I met Prof. Mavuti (Director) and Mr. Estambale who are very nice people and who really helped me. Furthermore, I met with Prof. Malo, Chairman of the Department of Physics who can be very nice if you don't stress him very much and if you agree with him, but difficult if you like to achieve something and he thinks it's not right (sometimes because of incomprehensible reasons).

Verena, I, Heinke and *** in Hell's Gate National Park
On my first weekend, I left Nairobi with a group of  ladies who were doing an internship at the UN. We traveled to Naivasha/Hell's Gate National Park. It was a good experience to escape from Nairobi for a short time. If you visit Kenya for the first time I would recommend seeing other cities first and then Nairobi. In Naivasha, I saw for the first time here in Kenya giraffes, baboons, anthilopes and zebras. During our stay in Naivasha - we stayed overnight in a camp outside of Naivasha - we even visited a Massai village which was an interesting experience. However, especially in the national parks you shouldn't think that people have never seen a white person before. They even took something like an entrance fee when we wanted to visit the village. See more pictures.
Matatus

On Sunday, we went back to Nairobi. From the matatu (mini-bus) I directly headed to an election party which was held in the Goethe Institut not far from the main campus/YMCA. There, I met a number of really interesting people. Afterwards, we went to the Intercontinental Hotel where another election party was held. There, we had the opportunity to meet some people from the German embassy.

During the next week it was business as usual: running from office to office to organize my stay in Kenya including getting a room in the students halls.

The following weekend, I went with Heinke to Kisumu - a very nice city, especially in contrast to Nairobi and Naivasha. During the stay in Kisumu we drove to Kagamega Forest which is not far away from Kisumu. As far as I know, Kagamega Forest is one of the few rainforest areas you can find in Kenya. It's very nice to see monkeys, a lot of different birds and the very huge trees. See more pictures.

My room
I was quite happy when we came back to Nairobi. Before we had gone on the trip, I had made the impossible true and obtained a room in a students hall. Fortunately, I didn't get a room on main campus as the exchange participants before me did, but on the Chiromo campus which is very close to the Department of Physics and also much closer to the libary. The library isn't equipped with very new books, but the books I found there seemed to be good. I was really surprised when I was there the first time.

Chiromo halls are quite a contrast to those on main campus. The toilets are more or less clean and don't smell, and it's not noisy there. Also, if  you are coming from the centre of Nairobi for the first time you can't believe that this place is only 15 minutes away from Nairobi downtown. Even at night it's possible to return to the hall through Chiromo campus by foot whereas usually you have to take a taxi or a matatu.

              
In the driveway of my students hall
View from my room

Only 5 minutes away from my room is Arboretum Park, a very very nice park. Sometimes you are able to see some monkeys there. Also near the students halls or on the Chiromo campus itself  I've seen some monkeys. 

The weeks after my trip to Kisumu I spent the majority of my time to fight for the right to join postgraduate courses.  Until now it's not clear if we are allowed to take them or not. The reason is that the University of Nairobi officially considers us to be undergraduate students although we feel that we are well qualified for postgraduate courses, which has also been acknowledged formally by the Freie Universität Berlin. Apart from that I have also been to some parties, discotheques and spent some time with Murat, a Turk who is studying towards his masters in Kenya.

I also met a group of people who were attending classes at the Goethe Institute to learn German. I had the opportunity to join them to a trip to Nairobi Nationalpark (see more pictures).  It was quite a lot of fun. It seemed to me that the Kenyans know much more how to enjoy a trip like this than the majority of Europeans would. Apart from this trip to Nairobi Nationalpark the group organizes other activities. The group is called Goethe Club and was started by a few very committed people. They are also going to perform some dances and singing on the 5th of December, which gave me the opportunity to teach them a few ballroom dances.

Members of the Goethe Club

So the days before the start of the academic year were passing by. Of course, I still had to arrange for my upcoming studies. I was still trying to be allowed to study at postgraduate level, but I wasn't quite successful. At the moment it seems that we cannot attend postgraduate classes, but perhaps next semester it will be possible.

After more than one month that I had been here, the other participant of the Berlin-Nairobi Exchange Programme, Felix Berg, arrived here in Kenya. At first another student, Alexander Gottberg, was supposed to come here but he withdrew at short notice and so Felix was given the opportunity to come.

Felix Berg (right) and I
Felix hanging from a tree
In the first few days after his arrival we spent most of our time together. We tried together to be accepted for postgraduate courses. Several times we waited nearly the whole day to talk to an offical of the university. We made the word "meeting" to the disword of our stay in Kenya, because everybody is in a "meeting" all the time.We often  cooked together, drank a lot of banana shakes (self-made!), went to discos, and I took the opportunity to join  Felix in climbing (see more pictures), which looks much easier as it really is, especially when you watch Felix climb. Then, once the semester started, we were finally allowed to attend postgraduate courses. But after two weeks we were not allowed to attend them any longer, so once more we started to walk from office to office. 

We decided to attend undergraduate courses even though they had already begun. Time was starting to run out for me as I had been staying in Kenya for more than 2 months and before that 2 months in Germany without any academic work.

Departments of Physics, Mathematics, Meteorology and Geology

We are now taking 2 mathematics courses (Topology I and Partial Differential Equation) and 2 physics courses (Quantum Mechanics II and Statistical Physics). Especially the mathematics courses are quite okay, the physics courses could be a little bit better. Especially so Quantum II: The lecturer really reads from his notes and writes only formulas on the blackboard.

We were quite motivated after it seemed to be possible that we could attend postgraduate courses. The choice was: Classical Mechanics, Electrodynamics, Quantum I and Statistical Mechanics. Even though some of the courses, such as Electrodynamics, seemed not to be very "post"-graduate, they it was okay. At least we had the opportunity to attend the courses and afterwards we always revised the material in greater detail at home. Classical Mechanics,  which we had already taken in Germany, was good and on as high a level as Theoretical Mechanics in Germany.

Contrary to what many people think at first, living in Kenya/Nairboi doesn't mean living in the bush or something like this. Especially here in Nairobi you've got a lot of opportunities to go out to cinemas, discos, pubs, climbing sites, shopping areas, parks, etc.. There are places where you would never think that you are in a developing country. However, there's a lot of poverty, which cannot be ignored. Especially in the beginning of my stay I was quite sensitive to such things, later you start to realise that sometimes things look worse than they really are.

At the moment there are still some problems with the university: I'm not even officially registered yet and my visa is going to expire this week!. But in general, I think that an exchange programme like this one is a good opportunity to gain a lot of new experiences. The greatest experience I've made here so far is that sometimes things are not as different to Germany as they seem, especially regarding people. To this end, I finish my report and can only say

KWA HERI.....

Parvis Soltan-Panahi, November 2002

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