St. Paul's University

Today we had our first class at St. Paul's University. It was amazing. I have never been so completely welcomed into a new community so fast. Immediately we were all sisters and brothers. Also, I'm going to be completely spoiled with how Kenyans live here. Class is from 9am-4pm with tea time at 10:30am and lunch at 1pm. I love it.

We had an introduction to the course that will be in all week and got to meet the Kenyan students in our class. There are about 10-15  Kenyan students all ranging in age and discipline. All are masters students since St. Paul's does not have a PhD program... yet! It shocked me that there were so many pastors and reverends in the group. Most of the students work with faith-based organizations or with churches in either Limuru or Nairobi.

Everyone had to go around the room and say why they were there. Why did we choose to take a course on health, religion, and development? What do those terms even mean to us? How does our background help us? This really made me think. I said in my first blog post about how I just kind of fell into this program. Now I really need to know why I am here and how I can make a difference in these people's lives.

I started thinking about social networks, which is a topic many sociologists research, so I'm not thinking completely out of the box. Then I started thinking about how the church is a huge social network and has vast influence over their congregation. This leads to the topic of trust. If the pastor/preacher/reverend, etc. tells their congregation not to use condoms or not to take ART, then they will most likely comply. This is a HUGE problem for HIV/AIDS prevention. It might even be one reason why the epidemic has spread so far and so many people have died.

A Kenyan student sitting next to me started talking about how, as preachers, they need to be more open talking about sex, HIV/AIDS prevention strategies, and treatment. We need to take the stigma out of HIV/AIDS so that more people seek treatment as soon as possible and so that they are not embarassed to tell their partner to take preventative steps.

I'm excited to see what else I learn about throughout the week. Stay tuned for more!