East Africa Day 18 (Tues May 31): And the Research continues.

Today wasn’t a particularly exciting day. I spent it in the office at my desk, working on my netbook.

The list of persons that I'd like to connect with keeps growing by the day, as I learn more and am able to determine where to go for help. I also admit that I also love to interview people, so it’s easy to add more people to the list. Plus, while I expect that my research will continue once I’m back in the USA, the interviews are best done while I’m here in Kenya.

The list of people I’d like to meet with right now includes Admissions, Financial Aid, and Career Services counselors from both Public and Private Universities (Kenyan), Guidance Counselors at the top secondary schools (particularly girls schools), Kenya’s top scoring girls from recent years of the KCSE (think SAT’s), bank loan officer, the Ministry of Education HQ office … you get the gist. Fortunately this task will become much easier once I'm in Kenya's capital city, Nairobi.

I spent part of today scanning the internet to see if any other organizations or individuals are working on similar projects to my current one. I’m afraid that I might be re-inventing the wheel. Hopefully if that’s the case, then I’ll be able to find my colleagues:) In the meantime I’m teaching myself a lot about the KCSE, the Kenyan college application process, the higher education system, and financial aid.

I inserted a thumb drive into my netbook today so that I could back up my research notes, and discovered that I brought some Zac Brown Band music with me to Kenya. Sweeet! “Know you’re not the only ship out on the ocean. Save your strength for things that you can change, forget the ones you can’t. You gotta let it go … Like a sweet sunset in Georgia, let it go. Like the fear that grabs a hold ya, let it go.”