TEAM MOMBASA checking in!
We arrived in Mombasa on Tuesday morning after surviving three flights and a nine hour stopover in Amsterdam. Both Team Mombasa and Nairobi enjoyed celebrating Queen’s Day in Amsterdam while on the way to Kenya. It was great to see downtown Amsterdam filled with people wearing orange and having a good time. Needless to say, by the time we finally arrived in Mombasa, we were exhausted.
We are all staying at the Radiance Hotel in downtown Mombasa. The hotel has all the amenities that we need such as: mosquito nets, air conditioning, television and wifi. Air conditioning in Mombasa is essential. Although locals claim that it is currently their winter season, we are not used to dealing with temperatures that reach up to 40 degrees Celsius with humidity. Our hotel is also located close to the Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (JKUAT), which is where we will be teaching a Business Decision Making with Cases Certificate Course.
JKUAT exceeded all of our expectations. The campus is such an innovative concept, it is an eight story cylinder parking garage with the floors converted into lecture halls and board rooms. This gives every floor a 360 degree view of Mombasa and its lovely beaches. We met with the director, executive director and several lecturers, all who were extremely friendly and welcoming. Today we took a look at the course outlines of their Bachelor of Commerce degree campus and were amazed at the similarities with our own curriculum. We briefly spoke to the director about the university’s strategic plan and learned that they are eager to implement case learning into their undergraduate courses to “prepare their students for the real world” as he said. We also learned a lot about JKUAT’s history such as how it has grown over the past 3 years from 50 to 1500 students and about their current branding strategy which was very creative.
We spent the last few days at the university and sightseeing. Team Mombasa has been daring and traveled around in mini street cars called “tuktuks”, which is scarier/more fun than any Canada’s Wonderland rollercoaster. So far we have visited Fort Jesus and Old town Mombasa to get a glimpse of Mombasa’s history and culture and spent time in Nyali and Bamburi Beach working on our tans. This weekend we will be going on a safari and hope to see many wild animals!
Until next time friends. kwaheri (goodbye)! – Team Mombasa.