My first class is Intermediate Kiswahili which meets three days a week for an hour. It is obviously all foreigners in the class. We just started reading these children's books meant for young children just learning how to read. It is hard and I am not sure if my Swahili is really improving much in my ability to speak or hear, but at least I am not losing what little I have since I am exposed to grammar and such in class.
Second class is International Relations, my favorite class to attend. This is a big lecture class of about 150 people and I am the only U.S. American there which I kind of like. The professor is engaging and the content fairly interesting as we talk about what exactly international relations consists of, why we have the system of states we have now, the influence of the United States in the world and in general interesting stuff. This class meets twice a week for lecture and we break up into about 30-40 person seminars which we have a presentation by students (I am going next week!) and discussion which is also fun, though Tanzanian students seem to have a practice of using just resources for discussion not their own critical thinking. Coming from a liberal arts school where my degree is basically only in critical thinking, it is sometimes frustrating that students here are never taught in this way - even in high school it is repetition, repetition.
My least favorite class to go to is African Civilizations, which is an archeology class. I wanted a history one but the schedules didn't work and have decided I like history a lot more than archeology. It doesn't help that it meets at 7 am (yes, PLU students, you thought 8 am was bad) two days a week, once for a two hour lecture. Some of the content is interesting though. I especially like the discussion we have been having if civilization has to come out of Neolithic times like we always learned about in the Fertile Crescent and such. I see now how this view and focus on agriculture, as well as the 'progression' all societies go through from stone to agriculture to iron making is a very Euro-centric view since African civilizations have developed in different ways. So that is at least interesting but we'll see how I do on the tests for this class!
Finally, I am taking Writing for Stage, Screen and Radio in the fine arts department. The professor is pretty hilarious to listen to sometimes but I like the class, which meets twice a week in the evenings. The thing is the power is always out in the classrom and so when it gets dark we leave and never go the full time. We just got plots turned in and start writing plays next week! We'll see how that all goes.
So those are my classes. Getting the readings are interesting since people can't really just go out and buy the books. So the professors list a bunch of chapters from different books that they may have in the library (not likely), or the departmental libraries (semi-likely) or just in their office. Or they copy the sections for you and leave them in a copy room on campus for you to copy yourself. Either way, it is a lot more frustrating and more work, but way cheaper. I copied a whole African Archeology book for only $1.50.
A last note is that today started some student demonstrations that might go on for a few days (demonstration this past week and strike planned for Monday). The main problem is with the government loans that almost all the students rely on. The system of how much they will loan you is a bit corrupt and about 20% of the students have not received any money this year meaning that they are unable to pay for school and accommodations right now. A couple years ago this went on for a long time and shut down school for the rest of the semester, but we don't think that'll happen this time. So I passed the group singing and chanting today and sneaked some photos (though probably not a generally good idea...).
This is a long one - plus I added a bit onto the one below about the election (make sure you check it out) so I'll end here. But still enjoying myself and can't believe that I have only a little over a month before I leave!
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