Students at homestay with a Tugen family in Rift Valley
An initial homestay experience provides a critical total immersion cross-cultural experience, giving the students an immediate context for developing empathy with members of authentic African society. This process, begun during the initial homestay, enables students to develop methodologies for understanding Kenya on personal and intellectual levels. In the rural homestay, students share in the full range of African lifestyles in both traditional and modern contexts. The homestays begin after an intensive five-day orientation and prior to any other contact with Africans. The rural homestays are done within the context of an agricultural community. Individual students spend at least six days with families, observing and participating in all aspects of family life. Host families are chosen from the rural "middle-class" with average family farms of five acres or less. The hosts' occupations include farmer, primary and secondary teaching, veterinary services, ministry, medicine, local administration, and public and private service.
A second homestay of longer duration occurs in urban East African society. This extended period of contact provides students with excellent opportunities for understanding the processes of modernization and urbanization in an African context. Emphasis is placed on developing a comparative approach to understanding culture and cultural change. Students are, therefore, able to evaluate the processes from rural to urban society. Urban hosts are drawn from a variety of geogrpahical and ethnic areas reflecting the diversity of regional, ethnic, and religious heritage of East Africa. Urban hosts include those of African, Asian, and European descent.
A third homestay of one week occurs among the pastoralist Maa-speaking community. This field component in which students reside in tents near the Maasai manyattas is physically demanding and mentally rigorous. Students explore settlement and herding life with their Maasai hosts. Interpretive lectues are given by field-component leaders including topics such as pastoralist life-cycles, philosophy, cosmology, development, and modernization.