So the safari to Masai Mara is still up in the air. We are waiting to hear back from Minnesota to see if they will allow us to go since it is into the west. They are suppose to be emailing tonight to give the final word. If not we will still be leaving tomorrow afternoon to go to a different area that is apparently safer near Mt. Kenya. Regardless, tomorrow I will be leaving to go on a much needed Kenyan safari.

Along with Masai Mara, the peace talks are still up in the air. No decision has been made and neither side is willing to budge. Kofi Annan insist that they are making progress though. ODM has called for mass action next Wednesday if nothing is resolved. Today we had a linguistics class taught by the person who had to read Kofi Annan's press statement to the public in Kiswahili. He was a very interesting guy and said he was exhausted afterwards because he had to translate Kofi's english press statement as he went on live television. It sounded rough.

There were fellow Minnesotans and Wisconsinites here this week to review the program....something they do every 7 years. They were of course very proud of the program telling us how we were the only study abroad program in Kenya at the time and how CNN and the NY Times has been contacting them, etc. I think that has also added to their over-protectiveness of us students...aka our safari this weekend. Oh well, I guess they're just doing their job.

One other important note: last week I saw my first Kenyan monkey on the way from school to the MSID office. I was pretty stoked. Another worthy note is that while rafiki is the name of the monkey on lion king...rafiki means friend not monkey. You probably already knew that but thought I'd let you know anyway.

Well, I better get home. I got home at 7:15 last night and Mary told me she was going to cane me....so I better run. Don't worry I will have Mary say hi to her brother Obama from you all!!