I notice several of the students seem to be born on January 1st. Is that coincidence, or is something else going on?

Some students are, of course, born on January 1…but probably not so many as have that date listed!  There are two reasons.  First, if we don’t have a specific date, we list it as January 1 of the year we know.  But the fact is, we don’t have a specific day for some of the students because birthdays aren’t nearly as important to East Africans as they are to us.  Many students don’t even know their actual birthday!