Thursday, July 30, 2009

Addressing Mang'u High


I finally addressed the whole assembled school in the newly built chapel at Mang'u. I pointed out the very healthy competition we had in our class and the great opportunity they have to learn basic principles which they can continue to use throughout their life. Electrical Tech. made doing an engineering degree in Australia a breeze. The ability to speak some French has made me many friends.
In the second part I tried to introduce satellite remote sensing and probably managed to throughly confuse everybody. The speaker following me was Prof. Chege who is an economist and works as an adviser at the Kenyan Treasury. He talked about University after high school and steps to take to go to Ivy League schools in the US - a couple of Mang'u men from last few years have ended up in Yale and Harvard.
Afterwards we sat around in the principal's office and discussed how the old boys can help the school. May be one of my photos will end up on the wall in the school.

Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Back in Kenya via Cape Town

So I am getting to write another blog entry within 2009. I have rarely used the blog to express myself since I started using Facebook. I guess a blog has less sinkage from a million of other entries.

Anyway I am back in Kenya visiting my parents and organizing reunions for Mang'u Y2K. In this trip I also went to South Africa and presented at IGARSS 2009. My work got positive comments from J.S. Lee which was a big plus.

We had a standard reunion at Kengeles on Koinange street and got to catch up with people I haven't seen in 9 years.

Then I squeezed in a couple of days in Zanzibar just to run around at the beach and visit the world heritage stone town. I also got to learn a lot about spices, wonder if it will improve my cooking.

Today I am supposed to give a talk on how I have fared post high school at Mang'u and inspire the current students. I wonder if I will do a good job.