Atréju Tauschinsky

Final report on studying physics in Kenya

May 2006

After completing my year as an exchange student in Kenya it is time for me to summarize my experiences here at Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (JKUAT). Since I already talked about living in Kenya extensively in my first report, I will concentrate on academic aspects of may stay here this time, mentioning other aspects only shortly.

As I already described in my first impressions report, one has to adjust quite a bit to the Kenyan lectures and lecturers. This did not improve considerably over time and in fact in the second semester, I noticed myself getting more and more impatient with the problems one faces instead of becoming accustomed to them. These problems are mainly lecturers coming too late to class --- or not coming at all ---, coming unprepared or having only very limited knowledge of the subject they are about to teach. In the worst case, I experienced a lecturer giving a lecture who did not have the faintest idea about the subject he was teaching. He ended up reading a book to us, this way at least avoiding mistakes but I could read a book for myself just as well. This is not true for all lectures and all lecturers. Some of them are motivated and do have knowledge of their subject. But on average the lectures are not academically challenging to German students. In the better cases one can learn some things but even those I did not have to study for very hard. I therefore do second the notion of Christopher last year who suggested (see his report on this website) that the German exchange students work here at least in part as a tutor to their Kenyan fellows. In my opinion, this would be a better experience for the German students and something the Kenyan students could profit from as well.

Academically the most interesting and satisfying part was the fourth year research project which gave me a lot of freedom and was very much worth the time I spent on it. This project is a kind of Bachelor's thesis which I conducted under the supervision of a Kenyan supervisor, Dr. Mulati, rather independently. I chose the analysis of DOAS data for my project which I was able to complete succesfully. I can highly recommend doing a project to any other exchange students, and can also recommend Dr. Mulati as a supervisor.

I was also able to learn the basic notions of Kisuaheli which however proved to be a quite difficult language for me and I had to give it up again after studying it for about 6 months for various reasons.

Now I would like to say a little about more pleasing matters not directly connected to academic affairs. The Kenyan student I mentioned in my first impressions report, Peter Mayavi, continued to live with me for most of my second semester before he had to move into a "real" student hall. He became my closest friend among the Kenyan students and I visited his home near Kakamega twice. We always got along very well and I learned a lot about Kenya and Kenyan life from him, as I think he learned about Germany. I think in terms of cultural exchange discussions I had with him were most fruitful and very interesting for both of us.

Apart from visiting Peter in his home, I got to see quite a lot of Kenya in the last couple of months having some visitors from Germany to show around, visiting various national parks as well as climbing Mt. Kenya. Even though tourism is not the purpose of this exchange at all trips across the country do serve to get to know the country and its people better and I always marvel at the beauty this piece of earth has to offer.

I have included some pictures of the campus in this report which are described in short in their captions. The campus is, as I have mentioned before beautifully situated, very green and the accommodation I got was excellent.

Left: Part of the livingroom in my house. Sofas, TV etc. are to the right of the picture. Right: View of the house I was living in. In fact it is two houses, I was living in the part closer to the observer.

Left: Part of the university. The tower belongs to the assembly hall, the biggest lecture theater. Right: Student halls. Every balcony belongs to two rooms, each room is shared among 4 students.

Left: The road as one enters the campus area. In the background on the right is the library building. Right: A typical house in the staff quarters (opposite from mine).

In spite of the critique I formulated here, I do think that this exchange was a very valuable experience for me and even though the academic gain was limited to a few areas the overall experience was very well worth my time. I would therefore like to thank the Berlin-Nairobi Exchange as well as the DAAD for giving me this opportunity and making my stay here possible. Now that I know the difficulties one often faces here when dealing with the officials from my own experiences I appreciate their efforts even more.