Bonus Blog!

Time for one last blooogggg!!!
We had our community presentation a couple days ago, where everyone presented their topics to both big-wigs and illiterate locals alike. I would like to say that everything went as lovely and smooth as the mock presentation, but that would be a complete lie. My group began to throw their powerpoint together in the early morning, making only the rough skeleton for editing by Prof. Wallis. We waited and waited and waited for her to return from Arusha, which is 2 hours away, and the meeting was ultimately pushed back from 1 until 4:30. At 4:30 we had only a rough visual outline and at 5:00 we learned that our entire presentation was to be translated. We were worried about the practice that is involved with speaking to a person in the correct amount so that translation is complete, clear, and effective. That would have been relatively easy to deal with, what we were presented with was completely ridiculous. The translator was not a translator at all, but an intern under our Wildlife Management professor who was semi-fluent in English. He was simply not qualified to do the work of translation, which is an art in all senses of the word. We ended up staying up until 2:00 am the night before our big unveiling to the community, adding images to slides, chopping down words to simplify our topics, reducing our presentation time, creating a script for the translator to translate on paper and hand out since we had abandoned live translation, and attempting to practice our speaking skills. It was a disaster. It was not in any way difficult to speak in front of people, the true struggle was trying to explain my complicated project completely and concisely in 4 slides. I knew that the information provided sounded ridiculous, and the thought of cutting up all my hard work made me stutter. But wait, to make it worse; the highlight of my presentation was a recording of very startling baboon vocalizations. Now I’m not a rookie, I checked my equipment the Moring of the presentation. However, when I presented the sound didn’t work and I nearly burst into tears up on the stage. I stumbled through it blindly, completely mortified and very very very glad but disappointed when it was over.

For the next hour after all presentations were over, several local people spoke in Swahili (which I obviously wasn’t able to understand). At one point they started singing ‘jambo bwana’ to us, which is essentially the happy birthday-ish pop song for welcoming people anywhere (which we had heard many many many times since our arrival here). It was very unexpected and funny and we laughed off a bit of the tension we had experienced. I found out today that the speakers were commenting on our presentations, saying that they were unbelievably thankful for our presence here and the respect we had shown the locals by informing them of our scientific activities. They were shocked that we had taken the time to include them, but for this program it is obvious; in order to preserve the health of an ecosystem you must involve the local people or your project will fail.

Once we were done with presentations we felt a little bit useless. It was the first time in 3 months we had no academic work and it meant that there was an obvious activity to tackle: packing. It went more smoothly than I had expected, with plenty of room in my bag. The program did us a favor by driving our bags to the Nairobi site so we avoid the overweight luggage fees (at least once in these travels). I had been missing my VERY expensive VERY new binoculars for 3 weeks. I was absolutely sick with guilt and really confused on how they had been misplaced. We were living out of a suitcase for over a month, and it is absolutely the worst way to attempt to keep things organized. As I packed and set my stuff in front of the huge truck I attempted to come to terms with losing something so ridiculous (and it didn’t really work), Then our very squirrely Puerto Rican friend, Coral walks up to me guiltily and places my binoculars next to me on the table with “they were under my bed and I don’t know how they got there” before walking away. That was a very good day.

Grades came out!
Wildlife Ecology – B
Environmental Policy – B+
Wildlife Management – B
Directed Research – A-
I feel really good about them because I am a biology major, not necessarily an environmental studies major. Just like the average bear, I really didn’t think there was a difference. Silly me, there is. I was at an extreme disadvantage at not having the background in these subjects. Also, the professors are extremely qualified and the program wants to have academic weight so they tend to make many assignments ridiculous and very difficult. Those B’s took a lot of sweat and tears and this when SFS said it was an academic program… it was NOT kidding.

Our last activities have been very entertaining. We have spent the last couple of days splurging, buying trinkets before we ship out. We watched a scary movie together, which is incredibly frightening when you’re technically sitting outside. And we had an Ugali eating contest between one of the boys and our little south Korean girl student. Jiyong kicked Ryan’s ass and I haven’t laughed that hard in a really long time.

We found out just now at 8:00pm the night before we leave that our group reservation for the flight has been cancelled. Our student affairs coordinator literally said “I’m going to go to and talk to the manager…. And I don’t really know what I’m going to stay”. We plan on driving to Nairobi in the worst case scenario. It’s really an appropriate occurrence which sums up this trip well. Everything in Africa has required flexibility and patience. When they say there is “no hurry in Africa”. they are not kidding.

Mostly I can’t believe we leave tomorrow morning. Not only does it mean that I have to say goodbye to some (but not all) very close friends, but it will also be my first time completely independently braving the world all by my big-girl self!

I had a revelation and realized that only hearing one voice about this experience is a little selfish. Here are two friends of mine here who have their own blogs (and the ones that I consider to be the best of the best).

Jen’s Blog has fantastic pictures which you should definitely take a look at:

Cara aka Carabash is my incredibly talented English major roommate. She is getting PAID to write this blog. She is PUBLISHED. (and I’m jealous).

HAHAHA. Tonight I forgot my towel while in the shower. I was contemplating using my T-shirt as a towel when Kaila walked in. I kindly requested that she bring me my towel and since she’s the nicest girl in the entire universe she agreed. Except she had to ask Cara where it was. Instead of throwing the towel into my shower they threw a burlap sack. After I got the joke and told them I wasn’t using it they threw in my laundry scrub brush, my tupperware, and Cara’s walking staff – all while laughing hysterically. Before finally throwing in my towel so I could continue my night with some normalcy. After I ran into another dung beetle. They are huge, at least 4 inches long. They are also not particularly exciting since I have seen a million of them. I rescued this one from our laundry bucket. Little did I know that they could fly and when that huge bug took off I nearly died of a heart attack. I’m really going to miss Africa. A lot.

The Last Days

Mambo. Tanzania is beautiful, as always. We’re slowly moving into more of a ‘winter’/long rain season. That all sounds much more dramatic than it actually is. Usually it’s cloudy and chilly in the early morning, pleasantly warm during the day, and if you stay up late enough – surprisingly bitter cold. Every once in a while there are showers and sometimes it downpours, but there are no major complaints from me.
Papers are due today.

My topic morphed into a nicely written 15 page research paper with significant findings. Yesterday I presented my material in a professional styled mock-presentation to my professor. I’m happy to say that the words she used to describe me were “unbelievably professional and well spoken”. Nothing to brag about, since she immediately told me that before the presentation she didn’t think I had any type of speaking skill and that I should start speaking that way in my daily life.

My professor is a crass middle to late aged woman who has spent a significant amount of her life doing research in Africa. She lacks basic social skills and tends to remind everyone of a bit of a crazy cat lady. I was slightly worried about working with her in the beginning but found her ‘rough-around-the-edges’ personality surprisingly charming. I never would have thought that she would have grown so attached to us. Within the first couple of days of research she was beginning to apologies the instant after she had verbally lashed out at one of us. Within the week she was calling us ‘team papio’ (after the baboon’s scientific name) and bragging about how we had the most interesting research proposal. At this point she is layering the praise onto each one of us, saying that she never thought that we would be able to do so much valid science in such a short time and that we have impressed her more than she ever thought we could. Today she took us out to lunch at a beautiful café and treated us all to a delicious lunch. I am really glad that we could make this project fun for her, as overall she was very tolerant of our naivety and a really great mentor.

There were only a few meltdowns on other DR groups. One girl found that her information just did not meet her hypothesis topic and had to find another issue to work with. This was really not a very big deal, but we were all freaked out and very edgy the first couple days because we had been told that DR was impossible. Another boy’s computer crashed the other day, and he had to pay $50 and the computer man had to slave over his hard drive to get it to work again. Those were the biggest upsets, and they were minor.

As we dealt with 7 days of concentrated work we got a little bit stir crazy. One particular thing we found humorous was the continuation and elaboration of an idea that was introduced on April Fool’s day. On April 1st Clinton “proposed” to Amanda and the “engagement” has been a topic of conversation ever since. Somehow it was decided that we should have a wedding, and once that was suggested, plans had to be concreted with the intentions of making it as ridiculous as possible.

Today was the big day and it was so much fun! We had the mock wedding down by a beautiful overlook and everyone got to play their own ‘role’. I was crazy ex-girlfriend, Professor Wallis was Clinton’s mother, Ryan was Amanda’s father, Kate was bridesmaid, Hass was best man, Lia was flower girl while Ian was the ring bearer, Max was the priest, and Jiyong was photographer. Even the local stray, Chelsea Cat, showed up and enjoyed the proceedings. Max read out absolutely hilarious vows, Clinton stole a kiss from Amanda, and I got to make an incredible outburst of objection. It was an excellent way to spend time together and relieve the stress from DR.

Of course every wedding has a reception and we rented out the local bar to down bottles of Champaign and eat fantastic food. It really was such a blast. It was our last time to drink together and spend quality time before we leave. We only have 4 days left here and in that small amount of time we have to fit in community presentations, driving to the Nairobi camp, and finally leaving.

Everyone’s trying to keep their emotions under control but it’s going to be an emotional rollercoaster as we leave people who will be our friends for the rest of our lives. About 11 of the 23 are going to be spending a few more days together when we go to Uganda to white water raft. Then Clinton, Kate, and I are spending 2 days in Nairobi before I fly to London to spend 3 days with Katherine. It is going to be so much fun and I will do my best to keep everyone updated!

‘

Everyday A New Adventure

Woah. 9 days of baboon study and the research period is officially over! I was enlisted to write the ‘news from the field’, which I managed to accomplish in a half hour before it was published on the website:

Jambo! With only 2 weeks spent in a traditional academic setting, classes here in Tanzania ended as quickly as they had begun. Many of us were a little astounded to find ourselves at the threshold of ‘directed research’, something which seemed so unbelievably official and scientific. For the first time I really appreciated that I had in front of me the opportunity to practice authentic research in an exceptional setting under incredibly qualified instructors. With 3 different thesis options, everyone effortlessly found their niche and within days of selecting and officially enrolling we were in the field!
I found myself pulled towards the ecology option, which was invested in baboon behavioral studies. Four days into data collection my small team of 6 has spent at least 20 hours searching out and observing the Olive baboon within Lake Manyara National Park and the surrounding village. The complete synopsis of research can be described as this: we spend X-amount of time driving until we spot baboons, we all fall silent and jump out of the hatches, clipboards ready and eyes open, we record data, pointing out injuries, male-infant interactions, mating behavior, and vocalizations to each other as is relevant to our personal projects, and fervently scribble all over our data sheets until the very last baboon strolls from view (hoping that we can read the chicken scratch come the time of analyzing the written information). It may sound dry, but to us it’s unbelievably captivating. We are beginning to recognize certain social groups which we see daily, and have a special fascination with our bi-pedal primate which we call the ‘hominid’. (Why he chooses to walk on 2 and not 4 limbs is currently being debated among us). We secretly scold particularly rough juveniles as they play with younger siblings, and adore watching the newborns learn to climb even the smallest little tree. Watching a particularly large and powerful male walk close by has yet to lose its hair-raising intensity. Yesterday, we had the ultimate ‘acclimation’ experience when several baboon ‘children’ climbed onto the hood of our land cruiser to play with our antenna and rub their sensitive little fingers over the hood of the car, producing a long squuueeeeeekkkk.
We still have 4 days left of data collection, and then we pursue the write up, and maybe even publishing!
- Chelsea Parise

Above pretty thoroughly explains the process of looking for baboons and then rapidly recording the relevant information. I no longer only have 20 hours of observation logged; now it’s much closer to a total of 60 hours. Looking back, every single day was unbelievably interesting, with at least one random surprise and unanticipated experience occurring every single day. Here’s a short recap (in random order):

One of the research days our entire morning and afternoon was uneventful. We should have been suspicious and suspected something, but we still thought all the weird occurrences were sporadic and not going to occur consistently. We leave the park at exactly 6:15 pm, only 15 minutes late of closing. We were glad to have avoided the charge that coincides with a late exit. On the road out we ran into Clinton and Jiyong, who were on the other environmental management research group, we weren’t going to just leave them and offered them a ride. Everyone was in the crowded car, happy and tired, very glad that the long day was over. We made it out of the driveway, under the park arches, and about 4 meters up the beginning of the hill heading home before the car stalls. Then we turn the engine over, stall, engine starts, stall, and over and over over over over over. We finally realized we weren’t going anywhere. 2 hours later, we were still sitting in the dark vehicle, getting eaten alive by mosquitoes. The problem was a lack of petrol, which was awesome because it was a problem that was easily repaired. One of the guides and drivers told me later that it would have been extremely dangerous to run out of gas inside of the park, as the dark is obviously not a good situation when there are wild animals everywhere, but also because the park staff would not have allowed any of our SFS people to enter the park and rescue us. We escaped from that day relatively unharmed (except for the millions of mosquito bites which covered 90% of my body).

On another day we travelled deep into the national park (which is the beginning of every famous adventure story) in order to visit the famous hot springs. It took us over 2 hours one way to get there, with plenty of stops for baboon observation on the way. Finally we fell out of the land cruiser, our muscles hardly functional after sitting for so long. We all ran down the crude stone steps to see the steaming rivers with their yellow sulfur deposit banks and extremophiles. The six of us nearly tumbled into the stream as we slammed into the person in front of us who had apparently stopped suddenly for no reason at all. But there had been a very important reason for stopping. No more that 100 meters away was a lone male buffalo. You see, Cape buffalo are the #2 deadliest animal in Africa just behind the hippopotamus. They are very dangerous at all times, but notoriously dangerous when they are alone. The buffalo are very skiddish and can’t see, but have an excellent sense of hearing and smell. They’re sensitive, jumpy, and completely blind but accurate enough to do serious damage to anything in their path. These characteristics make them extremely unpredictable and something to be taken very seriously. The locals here, who have seen everything and fear nothing, get very nervous around buffalo. We looked at the buffalo, which was looking at us, and didn’t move, deciding that was the best option. We were all only 1 step away from being able to touch the hot springs. Slowly we all slid down to the next step, bent down…. And then we all saw the buffalo (with unbelievable speed) turn its massive bulk towards us, take 4 very purposeful steps in our direction, and let out a low snort followed by a violent head toss. Most scurried 5 steps upward and turned around, but some continued to run until they locked themselves in the safety of the land cruiser. We spent the next 45 minutes watching the buffalo graze, trying to decide if it could get up the steps and kill us, or if we were safe. We never did get to touch those springs, but being close to such a treacherous African animal was way more exciting. (and if you haven’t been able to guess the cape buffalo is my favorite animal here).

Some days were full of tiny oddities. One day while observing baboons, a pair of brothers carrying firewood stumbled onto our path. Not a huge deal, most people in Africa get their cooking wood directly from unprotected forest land. However, one of the boys had an obvious arm deformity and was severely malnourished. We stopped observations to figure out how to help him get the wood down the hill, since he was having trouble balancing it. Eventually we threw the wood onto our cruiser roof and drove it down for the poor kid, where a motorcycle had offered to drive the wood the rest of the way. Another day we did observations just under a tree where fruit fell onto us from ridiculous heights. The fruit from the sky gathered quite a bit of velocity and was extremely painful if you were unfortunate enough to be in one of their downward paths. Also, we narrowly dodged fecal contact which also occasionally found its way down towards our position.
Sometimes we had a very hard time finding baboons, and had to follow little roads deep into farmland. Here we talked to locals, asking them how many, how often, and what time of day they had seen the animals. The locals were always happy to point us in the right direction and the ‘right direction’ often led us to very interesting places. Once we went out on foot following a tiny path which led us in the direction of a small lake. We walked through the woods, constantly moving out of the way when boys on bicycles passed us, with water filled buckets on the back of the bikes teetering with the weight of fresh fish. At one point on this particular walk our instructor walked right off the path out into the middle of the grassy field. We were all alarmed because there are ticks, snakes, and who really knows what but she was following a ‘baboon path’ and we understood that we would sacrifice our very lives for this research (note the sarcasim). Also, she’s the boss and very difficult to reason with, so we just let her go. Without our instructor we continued down the hardly visible path until we broke out onto a clearing. For miles and miles all you could see was flat yellow grass. It was so beautiful, and if you stared hard enough you could see the blue water of the lake where the fishermen were getting their fish. We were tempted to walk the entire way to the lake, but it was quite a distance and there were obviously no baboons in this location so there was no excuse to continue. We all hiked back to the car, and didn’t have to wait long for our professor to show up. We were all a bit confused when she demanded the black plastic trash bag and “quickly!”. She had apparently found a hippopotamus skeleton on her way, and used the bag to snatch a few vertebrae. We were very glad for the industrial strength of the bag as there was still plenty of flesh and bugs on the bone, and it needed to be buried when we returned in order to complete the decomposition process. Another day we followed a local farmer, who said that he frequently saw baboons on his property. We followed him through is banana fields. The banana trees are beautiful with their huge green leaves filtering the sun, making everything feel slightly unreal. Their flowers are strange; huge purple buds which are extremely dense. Every time a petal falls it exposes a row of flowers which grow a row of bananas. We continued out of the grove, crossing over streams and climbing over rocks. The rivers got bigger, and their roar echoed off of the trees in the forest, which we suddenly found ourselves in. Some of the water was travelling down the mountain outside of streams. Loose water was rushing past the stones we were walking on, only a few centimeters deep, which was very odd. We reached the very top of the mountain, and found no baboons, just plenty of water and mosquitoes. It’s difficult to describe, but the forest was unbelievable. On our way down one of the dogs barked several times (and was then kicked HARD because no one in Africa thinks pets exist), and we heard a baboon call. We quietly walked towards the sound and emerged into a clearing. In the middle of the clearing was a HUGE tree with baboons jumping from branch to branch. We were able to collect data and enjoy the forest for a little bit longer.

On a particularly slow day, when we were cursing the lack of baboon troops in the area and complaining about the overall boring atmosphere, we really tempted our unmistakably interesting fate. We came the back way towards a road that we had avoided every time we came to Lake Manyara National Park. We didn’t recognize the flooded road from the new angle and had committed to conquering the water soaked way before we finally realized what we had gotten ourselves into. The trick with driving land cruisers through muddy conditions is to go fast enough that the weight of the car does not rest on the mud and therefore does not sink into a self-made hole which is impossible to get out of, but not so fast that you skid out of control and fall into another pre-made rut. Our driver, Festo, left the road favoring ‘dryer’ ground and rejecting the pond in front of us which used to be official national park roadway. I’m sure it seemed like a great idea for a moment, but we only made it 4 meters into the clearing before we sank into incredibly dense mud. There wasn’t any doubt about it, everyone was going to have to get out and help push the car out of the mud. And everyone was going to have to do it quickly, as it was 5:10 pm and the park would be closing in less than an hour. Myself and another student both had open cuts on our feet and were not allowed to step out of the car to help due to bacteria/microbes/mostly worms that inhibit standing water here. It meant I had the pleasure of videotaping the ongoing lets-get-the-car-out-of-the-park-alive effort. We attempted to use the cable and gear, tying the cable to a tree and expecting the gear to wrench the car out of the mud with minimal effort on our part. The land cruiser was an original 1990 or older and shuddered, smoked, and stalled without moving a single inch out of the mud. That plan had failed. Everyone stood in front and behind the car several times each, trying to see which direction was more partial and realistic for pushing the car out of the mud. There were at least 2 manpower fails and everyone was getting a little nervous. Not only was the park closing and it was getting dark, but we were no more than a mile away from the hippo pool, which obviously contains hippos. We were stuck around dusk, a time when the hippopotamus leaves the safety of his pool to forage on dry land. It meant that we had a high probability of being very close to Africa’s most dangerous animal. However, rocks were gathered, jammed behind the wheels and the car was finally pushed with the correct direction with an effective amount of effort and restored the car to a workable path. The irony of this situation is that we ended up using the path which was completely flooded, the same one we had avoided, and it was a piece of cake to drive through.

By far our most exciting DR story is our repeated consistent encounters with the same herd of elephants. I will never forget the very first time that I saw them. Within the park it’s extremely necessary to be careful with your speed of driving, because you never really know what’s going to be around the corner. Many times, we rounded a corner to find ourselves driving dangerous close to a herd of elephants. This day we were driving at a reasonably fast speed and stopped closer than I would have liked. I mostly felt bad, at being invasive to their personal space and expected them to walk away quickly. However, they did not, instead slowly walking past our car until we were in the middle of a herd about 10 individuals strong. This was all very exciting. We noticed a female walking towards us from the bushes. We all kept an eye on her since she was showing no signs of deviating of her course, which seemed to be projected right through our vehicle. That’s when we first noticed the very very very young elephant behind her. Every single person in the entire car stopped breathing, put their cameras down, and gripped their canvas seats. Not many things, including hippopotamus and cape buffalo, are as dangerous as a mother elephant. Mother elephants, especially new mothers or high ranking females, are very ‘freaked’ about their young and will go to extreme measures to ensure it’s safe. If that means charging everything in sight, then so be it. We watched her as she walked up to our car and stopped just short of our front bumper to graze. Her baby walked past her, closer to us, to play with a piece of grass no less than 1 meter from my window. Another elephant, probably this same mothers last calf and little baby’s older sibling, walked past both and came so close to us that I almost shifted over in my seat away from the window. If I had felt like it, I could have reached my hand out of the window with no effort whatsoever and stroked the face of this ginormous creature. We and the elephants stayed like this for a very long time before they moved away on their own. Every single day for the rest of DR (about 4) we saw the same herd with the same baby.

Right now we’re stuck at camp working on analysis and rough drafts. Not very exciting. Only 13 days left. I can’t believe it.

OLIVE BABOONS (Papio anubis)

Jambo from Tanzania! And Happy Easter!

It was very odd experiencing a major holiday here in Africa. There were no mountains of cheap candy inside grocery stores, no people in bunny costumes standing on street corners, and no ritual purchasing of egg dying kits even though you know you’re too old for that activity and are too embarrassed to admit that you have no idea how to hard boil an egg. Some things remained the same with most people going to church and everyone dressed in their best for the ‘lord’s day’. And of course, here at Haven Nature we had our own version of an Easter egg hunt. Our ecology professor is Janette Wallis, an aging woman with no children and a life centered around scientific research and teaching. She has a very impressive academic resume, including spending an extensive amount of time working with Jane Goodall (The very famous primate lady). Needless to say, she’s the cat lady of primates (and has quite a few cats back in the states, which is appropriate) and lives for the little things few appreciate in social interactions; like watching her students run around like competition crazed psychopaths for Easter. She designed an Easter egg hunt where we found zip ties, instead of eggs, and were given coordinates with our task to find all 7 using a GPS location devise. Side tasks included finding the center of the camp and counting the suckling plants present, observing and identifying a local bird, and locating an invasive flower to Tanzania. It was incredible amounts of fun, with lots of running through underbrush and standing on what you thought was the exact coordinates and finding the zip tie about 10 feet from that area. My team was doomed from the beginning when one of our not-so-bright teammates chose green for our zip-tie color, but no one was tempted to jump off a bridge because we lost. The winning team was treated to hamburgers at the local swanky bar as a treat from Dr. Wallis. (I prefer pizza, so I shed no tears over loosing).

Speaking of the bar, its called Happy Days. It’s completely different then our very own ‘Club Kimana’ back in Kenya. In Kenya we drank cold beers in plastic chairs under a hand-made and hand-painted wood hut. Here in Tanzania someone built Happy Days, a swanky bar with country flags, rugby flags, a big screen TV, art, wooden benches under a beautiful porch, and a rather large liquor and beer selection. Last week we had a battle of the bands, which had trouble getting off the ground but turned out to be hysterically fantastic as most things are with this group. The boys played The Flight of the Condors, Cara (my enchanting roommate) and Christine played a few covers and some marvelous originals, Kate and Katie did an entire Monty Python skit, and Lia (no longer my roommate) finished up with a truly outstanding rap about everyone in our cohort using the background music of “Empire State of Mind”.

The most exciting new of the week is that I was able to earn a position on the wildlife ecology Olive baboon directed research team with Dr. Wallis! Yesterday, I turned in my scientific proposal for my future paper and today we had our first official scientific research day!

My research question is:
Is there a significant difference in frequency of Olive baboon vocalizations between baboon troops residing in the forests of Lake Manyara National Park and those residing in forests neighboring human villages? If there is a significant difference in vocalization frequency between locations, are the differences pronounced in a particular age, sex, or behavior?

Basically, all day I get to use a fancy shot-gun microphone to record and document the vocalization of baboons. I won’t go into too much detail about the types of vocalizations and the study design, because I’ll include my actual proposal in this post. I got fried today. If I didn’t have a shirt tan yet, then I defiantly have one after today, and I went ahead and made sure I added a watch tan to that mix also. I’ll make sure to drink plenty of water tomorrow to avoid the unbelievably painful headache that I currently have. We saw some interesting behavior, including a juvenile male baboon that had apparently injured both arms and was walking bipedally down the road. While watching baboons in the villages people kept asking if we were lost, over and over and over again. Apparently we look like child muzungus and not powerful scientists who are helping to save the world.
Miss EVERYONE!
Xo- Chelsea

WE – PROPOSAL – PARISE

Are you ready for Directed Research/A-Little-Real-World-Science?

I’m nearing 3 weeks of residence here at Haven Nature Campsite. In this amount of time we’ve travelled to Serengeti, Ngorongoro Crater, and Lake Manyara National Park, taken a wildlife management quiz, written another paper on human-wildlife conflict (this time focused on the Karatu district of Tanzania), and analyzed data on species-habitat preference. Yesterday, my academic courses of wildlife management, wildlife ecology, and environmental policy came to a close when we sat through our final round of exams. I really would have loved to spend the next day taking it easy and letting the illusion of freedom sink in, except instead we were thrown into statistic classes, writing classes, and classes on public speaking to get us ready for our directed research. I haven’t woken up later than 7:00 am in 2 months.

We were introduced to our topics:
DR Environmental Policy: Interviewing village residents and curio shop owners to understand how locals experience benefits from tourism. Students will use this knowledge to redesign tourism to benefit locals in order that they develop a positive viewpoint towards wildlife and become active in efforts of conservation.
DR Environmental Management: Interviewing tourists visiting Lake Manyara to understand their expectations when traveling to this region and how these compare to the realities they experienced. Students will use this information to adjust and improve tourism infrastructure.
DR Wildlife Ecology: Comparing the behavior of Olive baboons who live within the protected area of Lake Manyara to those who live on the edges of woodland and have more contact with human villagers. This includes differences in time deviation by the baboons, vigilance to humans, presence of disease, and vocalizations between the two baboon communities.
I put my name in for wildlife ecology and environmental policy, but I won’t find out which DR I will be working with until tomorrow night. DR is going to be a ton of work. All proposals and drafts will be graded and the paper often totals to +50 pages. There is a reasonable possibility that some of our work could be published under the overarching work of our professors, which would be really exciting.
The only other interesting thing to happen this week besides exams and DR was the presence of a very odd half moon. The moon last night, instead of being divided vertically, was divided horizontally. None of our professors had seen anything like it before and apparently it’s notoriously rare. The picture I included is one I found from the interenet posted from the sky over India, but it looks very similar to the one I saw here in Africa. The only information I was able to find about it was this:
(Take it with a grain of salt because I didn’t get it out of a scientific journal)

“ THE ORIENTATION OF THE CRESCENT MOON
The line that connects the two points of the crescent Moon is always almost at right angles to the path of the Moon along the sky. If the Moon goes up almost straight from the horizon (as it does when seen from the equator), then the crescent appears horizontal. If the Moon rises at a shallow angle (as seen far from the equator), then it moves as well along the horizon towards the west, and then the crescent is mostly vertical. The Moon rises almost vertically as seen from the equator because the orbit of the Moon stands approximately above the equator.
The shape and orientation of the Moon as seen from a spot south of the equator is similar to the shape and orientation of the Moon as seen from a place equally far north of the equator, and vice versa. For example, the Moon has the same orientation as seen from 52 degrees south latitude as from 52 degrees north latitude.”

Take a moment and try to appreciate environmental humor:

Camping Trip of a Lifetime

Everyone woke up at 4:45 with very high expectations for our expedition to the world famous Serengeti. We packed clothing, rain coats, sleeping bags, and Tupperware only half consciously, with the other part of our minds imaging cheetahs hunting gazelle, zebra grazing in an ocean of grass, and wildebeest stampeding by the hundreds of thousands.

 By this time most of us have the incredible ability to sleep despite a wide variety of jarring road conditions. In fact, the unpaved roads are my personal favorite, rocking the car and sleepy me right off to a REM cycle. So essentially, I caught up on my beauty sleep for a decent amount of time before arriving at Ngorongoro Crater. I doubt you’ve ever heard of this little paradise in Northern Kenya, and that is honest to god so unbelievable. How has this place been kept a secret?

The crater was formed by a massive volcano which erupted and is the source of the rocky soil covering this region. The steep edges of the crater causes humidity clouds to burst, providing the crater with a pretty constant source of water, way more than most areas of the region. The higher amount of rain water and already high water table allows hundreds of tropical trees and enormous grasslands to thrive while also supporting a pretty impressive lake at the bottom. Essentially, Ngorngoro Crater is a paradise inside of a cereal bowl. The lions, black rhino, zebra, antelopes, wildebeest, and buffalo, ect. that live within the crater have all of their essential needs catered to them and never have any reason to leave. Interestingly enough, there are no giraffes within the crater because they cannot lower their heads to walk down the side as it would cause serious cranial pressure which would kill them. So Ngorngoro = perfect observation paradise minus giraffes. We just drove through on our way to Serengeti but will spend an entire day within the crater later this week.

Sleep commenced until we pulled up into the Oldupai (Olduvai) Gorge. We stepped out for a lecture on the history of the gorge which was given by a bit of a tour guide and was honestly, pretty lame and pathetic. He was much more interested that we visit his huge curio shop. Highlights of the lecture – Olduvai was spelled wrong by those darling white folk and should have been spelled oldupai which is the Maasai word for the Sisal. Also Serengeti should be spelled  Siringet and means wide open grassland. As far as anthropology facts go – its amazing – but really, look it up in a library book. I’d rather not butcher it here. They had a small museum with absolutely unbelievable fossils. You have no idea how big impala were a few million years ago. Their bounding was probably not nearly as cute and graceful when they were 4 tons.  There was also a very interesting bicycle on display owned by a Dr. Yoshiharu who traced the migration of mankind across the continents using just this little rudimentary piece of machinery. This includes through frigid snow drifts and suffocating hot deserts. I recommend looking him up, it’s a very captivating story.

And then we were on the last leg of our drive, and I was way to excited to sleep any more. The top three goals of the trip were seeing cheetahs, leopards, and wild dogs. The past group who had traveled to Serengeti a few months earlier had not seen any cheetahs, so we were trying not to fill our fragile little conservation hearts with hopes. Are you ready for this? We drive into the park to find a leopard lounging on a rock. We are ecstatic and use up way too much camera battery. Once our heart rates have slowed down we continue the drive to our campsite. Oh wait, is that a cheetah sitting perfectly poised on a rock? Yes, it is. And we have the second heart attack within a dangerously short period of time. Our professors and staff keep saying OH MY GOD YOU ARE SO LUCKY. And we know we are. And we are satisfied. And then my land cruiser almost slams into another cheetah about a half an hour later. We literally almost hit the sweet thing as it was crossing a road. It really didn’t look fazed as our driver burned rubber inches away from its face and it sauntered silently past down the length of the car and past the back fender to stand on a lookout rock for a photo shoot. I doubt many people have experienced euphoria the way we did in those 5 or 6 minutes. We were like small children who had opened up the best Christmas present ever, which we didn’t in a million years think we were going to get. We were the most satisfied and spoiled American students within the entire park.

Unpacking blab la bla. Eating blab la bla . There were an unbelievable amount of hyenas around our campsite at night. Their howls are something very unnatural, eerie, and beautiful all wrapped up into one. I was able to get a recording, and can’t wait to share it with everyone. At one point an ascari bopped a hyena on the head in order to send it away from our kitchen, which it was raiding. Throughout the entire trip we were privileged to have guest lecturers by the tourism manager of the park, head veterinarian of the park, and a bush meat lecture by one of our own. They were all very interesting. Day 2 and 3 were filled with hours upon hours of game driving. We saw leopards, hyena with pups, a very cheeky jackal, hippopotamus, cheetah, lazy lions, huge crocodiles, mongoose, rock hyrax, topi, hartebeest, wildebeest, zebra, giraffe, elephant, antelopes, buffalo…. It was unbelievable. I would go into detail but there is too much detail. Just too much detail. It was incredible. We stopped and climbed onto huge rocks which are made of some kind of special geological specimen and when you bang them with a stone they make a metallic sound. There was a beautiful bolder sitting on a ledge covered in small niches which had been worn away by ancient people who used the rock to create their own type of music.

Highlights of the trip include: Elephants fighting which was unreal. The elephants run at their opponent, locking tusks and shoving each other while their trunks flail around on their opponents foreheads. We also saw cape buffalo vying for territory and females. They bash horns, twisting them together while wrenching their necks towards the ground, trying to put their opponent at a disadvantage and eventually exhausting the weaker of the two. A local hippo wallow was filled with huge crocodiles and lots and lots of baby hippos (which seriously may be the sweetest looking pigs you’ve ever seen). The hippos make the weirdest sound, honking and squawking at each other while blowing water out of their noses and slurping their big heads under water. A jackal trotted very bravely towards our car, getting close enough for us to get fantastic photographs. A herd of elephants walked right up to our car, so close that they made me nervous before crossing the road. The elephants would place their sensitive trunks on the ground, testing the small drop off between their unfenced habitat and our well used vehicle paths, before slumping their large bodies down and strolling to the other side. About 25 elephants walked past us, including several little infants, holding their mothers tails the way you have always imagined. It was like being in a dream.

At night we set up a motion sensor camera and captured many hyena and a giraffe walking directly through camp right in between our tents.

However, the highest of highest or seriously souring highlights of the trip had to be this: After returning from a fantastic lunch and a day of swimming complete hot showers at the five star lodge we found a surprise waiting for us at camp. And I am dead serious on all of this. While we were gone a cheetah took down a female impala no less than 100 meters away from our campsite and had spent the rest of the day consuming its prize. We arrived to find the cheetah still there, with bloody muzzle and very satisfied eyes. I’m pretty sure most of us stopped breathing for a world record amount of time. Too many eyes did startle the animal and he abandoned his kill under our pressure. We set up our night camera and were able to get picture of the cheetah returning and finally hyenas dividing the kill amongst themselves and dragging it away. This didn’t happen while we were sleeping. All of this natural animal activity occurred while we were around the campfire, 100 meters away, enjoying our own dinner. This all sounds very cool, but make sure you see the pictures to really understand the gravity of this situation and the incredibly rare experience I’ve now put into my mental bank.

At this point, it was time to return home and we were really bummed that we had not been able to observe the wildebeest migration, as the animals were still in the very southern tip of Serengeti. Have you forgotten we are the luckiest safari group that’s ever existed? On the return drive home we passed the 3 different sections of migration. The wildebeest graze first, followed by zebra, and the grants gazelle bring up the rear. Seeing that many animals so close together is incredibly beautiful. It’s hard to put into words what its like to watch hundreds of animals grazing, always alert, walking with their nose down trying to survive day by day. At one point we watched 2 abandoned wildebeest infants stumble around and walk past 9 hyena with only 25 meters between the prey and the predator. So we are the luckiest safari group, but those are the luckiest baby wildebeest. If those hyenas had been hungry we would have had another experience of watching those predators take down and dismember an entire carcass in less than half an hour.

We are finally home at camp, and our second round of exams begins in less than a week. It’s crunch time again, but we have 2 day trip expeditions to Ngorongoro crater and Manyara national park  within our study period. Could my next post be as exciting as this one? Hopefully!!!

 The power here has been trembly, but stable. I wanted to say an extra special thank you to Colleen and Erin! Thank you so much for your letters! I LOVED them.

Love,

  Chelsea

Third World Country = Massive Black Out

My next post about the unbelievable camping trip to Serengeti should be up in a few days. Northern Tanzania has been experiencing nation-wide electricity failures and massive black outs. There wasn’t any power at camp for 5 consecutive days. Its pure luck that we are receiving electricity at the moment, but that could change at any time. So don’t worry if I’m out of touch for a while!

Good news: I don’t have a single mosquito bite. Its an unbelievable thing and I haven’t been able to say that in almost two months.

Love,

 Chels

Expedition to Serengeti

Hello everyone!

   I won’t be able to post anything for the next five days, so I thought I’d catch everyone up on the going on’s here in Tanzania before I leave.

   While unpacking the ‘white rhino’/huge truck I rolled a suitcase over my big toe and lost about 1/3 of my toe-nail. That really really really hurt. I was very worried I was going to be limping for a while, but as of day 4 it has healed beautifully and I feel in tip-top shape. It would have been awful to have a sore foot when I’m going to be spending over 75% of my time standing and hanging out of a land cruiser hatch.

   Also there is a resident black adult cat here, which some how was nominated to receive the name Chelsea.  There has been some confusions as I often hear “good morning Chelsea, how did you sleep? Have you eaten today?” and none of that concerns me directly. I call it ‘Chelsea Grim’ to seperate the two of us. Apparently my little name sake resembles me expect for the fact that it has a skin fungus and huge balls. But besides that its a sweet kitty who is always wrapping itself around our ankles and meowing its opinion in our general direction.

Our professors seem to be very kind and just as nice as they were in Kenya. Surprisingly, the ecology teacher is an American who has lived all over Africa studying primates. As directed research draws closer I’m going to have to struggle to choose between tourism topics and primate studies, neither of which particularly draw me. Its very unfortunate, the wildlife management professor has incredible ongoing research involving lion pride structure and behavior which would have been unbelievable to work with, but thats not the way it worked out.

I’m sitting here writing this the night before I leave for Serengeti. We’re right in the middle of a thunderstorm, which is a little worrisome as we will be full-blown camping for the next week, but its expected because it is the rainy season. We lost power for a while, which was bearable, but stressful because 1000000 ipods and cameras needed to be charged before our incredible trip. The power turned back on just in time for me to jump into the shower, which was essential to my happiness as I won’t see water and soap for another almost week. It was the worst shower of my life, and completely embodied the ‘new Chelsea’ who has so much patience and good will. I jumped into the shower, as thunder and lightning crashed, absolutely terrified that the power was going to fail any second and I was going to be plunged into creepy darkness. I ignored that the water which was supposed to be hot, was freezing, and that the pressure was nearly non-existent. What threw me for a loop was grabbing the soap and having the water shot off entirely. But as with most things in Africa , you wiggle a few knobs and yell a few vulgar words, and everything eventually begins to work again, so I finished my shower before leaving at 5:30 am tomorrow.

The reason that this expedition is going to be so special is because it falls right in the middle of the wildebeest migration across the Serengeti plans. There will be over 1 million wildebeest, 100000 zebra, and 100000 gazelle crossing the landscape. Its bound to bring the predators of the plains and rivers, including lions, leopards, cheetah, and crocodiles. We will also be seeing the Ngorongoro crater which is over 100 square miles in diameter and was created by a seriously massive volcano. Its a bubble of an isolated ecosystem and one of the only places to still support black rhinos in the wild. Another highlight of the trip will be the Oldudai gorge which is the mecca of archeology and the cradle of civilization, containing a human footprint over 2 million years old. 

Tanzania has quite of few tourism gems and I am so glad to be able to experience this place first hand. EVERYONE needs to become educated on issues of conservation. Places like Serengeti, Ngorongoro, and Oldudai need to be preserved for future generations. Environmental rant is over, but seriously – don’t shit where you eat.

Clinton showed me the long lost photo of my first interaction with the acacia thorn. I thought I’d throw it in here for kicks. OUCH.

Exams, Olympics, and Crossing Borders

WOAH. Its been an absolutely CRAZY two weeks and after 14 days I’ve finally found the time to sit down on my computer and complete an action that doesn’t receive a letter grade or doesn’t involve packing or driving.

I’m going to backtrack to our expedition to Tsavo West National Park. Tsavo West is separated from Tsavo East by a busy road, but together the two parks make the largest national park in Kenya.

We were all a little bit apprehensive about the idea of a camping trip in the middle of the wilderness which has a large popuion of lions, elephants, leopards, and other large dangerous animals. Not only are these animals here, but Tsavo is famous for its exta-large and aggressive elephants and the freakishly huge lions. The lions of Tsavo are called the ‘Tsavo Man Eaters’. Wikapedia it, because it’s a fantastic documented instance/urban rumor. The rumors/stories are as this: there was a railroad built by the British across Kenya which exported Africans to the slave markets and ivory to the demanding west. The slaves that were too weak to survive the trip were tossed from the moving train off onto the side of the tracks. The already weak Africans, who were now injured from their fall, were easy targets for the nearby lions who are not only incredible hunters but very resourceful scavengers. These lions are known as the man-eating lions of Tsavo, not because they consumed people who had been abandoned by the trains, but because these easy kills created a craving for human flesh within this pride of lions. These lions were said to actively hunt people, something that has never before or anywhere else been recorded. There is a large den full of human skeletons that was found and all the lions responsible were killed. It’s now said that its possible that the ‘den of skeletons’ may have been a Maasai burial site. All I know is that its currently a huge tourism destination that brings in an incredible amount of money for the park in order to protect Kenya’s dwindling lion population. Looks like everyone wins. (Except those who were eaten by lions.)

We arrived at Tsavo East to find the place incredibly overgrown with greenery. You could hardly see 100 feet into the bushland, and that’s incredibly for a place as arid as Kenya. Our campsite was a wide clearing about 50 feet into the bush which had a permanent cho/long throw (or bathroom) and a kitchen. We found the kitchen to be filled with moldy hay bales which had been used to feed the starving hippos of the region during the several years of incredibly severe drought. We set up our own and all of the staff’s tents. I looked like a total pro (thank god) because they were the exact tent the Tanaka’s owned which the AZ girls and I used to camp in Greer. We settled in to play checkers, connect-4, banana-grams, uno and the classical ‘camping’ games until dinner. Dinner was good as usual, except for the millions of pencil eraser sized black beetles which were attracted to the light of the kerosene lamps and camp fire. No big deal, its not like we weren’t used to bugs. During dinner I lost my appetite when I took a bite and instead of enjoying lightly seasoned rice I gagged on an incredibly strong soapy taste that was unbelievably chemically repulsive. I figured that I hadn’t washed my Tupperware well enough and had scooped up rice that was soaking in soap, but no, the answer wasn’t that simple. As our trip continued we realized that the awful smell was coming from the beetles, and I definitely had one in my bit of rice that night. It made dinner for the 6 nights pretty hellish as we were terrified to put a beetle in our mouth but didn’t really have enough light to see them and if you shinned even a red light onto your food you were guaranteed to be swarmed and by association guaranteed to get a plateful of the suckers. Even if you flicked them away from you or off your clothes they wreaked, they were pretty much a constant awful association during the trip and one of the only things that were unpleasant.

Later that night we found the biggest scorpion I had ever seen in my life. You know the scorpions in silly movies like the scorpion king that are huge and repulsive and are shown merely for the freakout factor? Yeah. It was one of those. It. Was. HUGE. And very cool.

That night before we went to bed both a leopard and a lioness were seen walking through the camp. Were we scared? No. Just bummed we didn’t catch a glimpse.

Earlier in the afternoon, before tents had been set up, there was a flash rainstorm which forced us to run our stuff to the cars. Yes, I was wearing flip flops because of the car ride and yes, I stepped onto another acacia thorn. This time Daniel, our Swahili teacher and a local of Kimana, was able to get the tip of the thrown out using another acacia thorn which had been sanitized with hand sanitizer. And that thing is so sharp it was used as a knife and he simply opened up my foot and pulled the rest of the thorn out. That was a certainly an experience.

And we thought our little rainstorm in the early afternoon was really exciting. It’s not the rainy season yet and technically we are at the harshest period of the dry season (even though the environment didn’t reflect that) so rain storms are supposed to be far between. Not many people were emotionally prepared for the 8 hour long thunder storm that commenced promptly at 10 o’clock after we had gone to bed. This thunderstorm could rival any I had ever heard at home. The rain came down so hard you couldn’t think straight, the lightning was so bright that even with eyes closed and turned away from the source you were blinded, and the thunder was so loud that you felt like your heart was going to stop and it rolled and rolled and rolled for so long that you didn’t think that it could be real. It really was amazing, and the storms for the next 5 nights continued to be amazing. What was not amazing was waking up soaked every night because the tarps were not of substantial size and the rain pooled underneath you, never really drying during the day. But hey, we were camping. If we had wanted a luxury stay we would have gone to Germany, not Africa. To hit home: Tsavo received over ½ of its annual rainfall in 4 days, which is enough to support the fauna for the rest of the year.

On our game drives we saw our first Lesser Kudu, bat eared foxes, kipspringers, hippopotamuses, and elands. We had the privilege of being charged by an elephant who shook his huge head at us, waved his ears, and trumpeted before deciding we weren’t worth the injury or energy expenditure of a confrontation. During the drives we saw the most beautiful tracks in the fresh mud. We gawked at the huge lion paws walking down the road, cheetah tracks, and jackal tracks which all fresh and very intimidating to see. My caravan had the most privileged sighting of the entire trip. We rounded a corner to find 4 young male lions dozing together in the afternoon sun only 2 feet from the driving path. When we gasped two of them jumped up just as startled as we were. The four young male lions were only about a year old and were probably practicing hunting on their own, within their prides territory. The pictures are really beautiful and it was really an experience to see them so close.

One afternoon we had the privilege of a private site tour within a Rhino Sanctuary. Black Rhinos are currently surviving only with incredibly small population sizes due to over poaching for their ivory horns. The best fight for them to escape extinction is to reside within sanctuaries where their life expectancies and birth rates can be kept at maximum potentials. Unfortunately, one vehicle became stuck in a ravine and time ran out trying to get it out, so we were unable to see a rhino. Huge bummer, but not my last opportunity to see one,

We scheduled a field lecture at the top of the Chyulu hills. The rain had made the main road to the hills unusable. Solution: alternate path. We drove 2 hours through forest and high grassland through paths seldom used. It was unbelievable to see what an all wheel drive vehicle can do and it was really really entertaining to be diving through brush and jumping out of the way of tree branches coming through your window and trying not to hit your head when we scaled over a particularly big rock at a particularly high speed. The trip was totally worth it. The hills were one of the most beautiful things I had ever seen. We took a relatively steep one hour hike through waist high field crass to the very top of the hills to have a field lecture. The top of the Chyulu hills provided an incredibly vantage point with a jaw-dropping view. Again, having classes outside is absolutely amazing. Only downside was that for our lecture we crushed the tall grass, flattening it to provide a soft place to sit. How selfish of us, obviously the grass was home to thousands of spiders. And when I say thousands, I am not exaggerating. It was oddly terrifying and captivating. The spiders were beyond beautiful. All different sizes, shapes and colors; it was like the entire spider cast of an award winning documentary had showed up. Our other friends were ticks! I had to get over my fear pretty damn quickly when you see about 30 in a few hours. They were gross, ranging from seriously tiny to alarmingly large. None of them bit me, which is awesome because I would have had a panic attack, but I did have to flick a few from my rain poncho.

These are only the highlights of our trip. We saw and did way too much to include here, but it was absolutely crazy and I loved every second of it. I am sooooo glad I decided to do this program! The things we get to experience are absolutely out of this world.

We rushed back from our not-so-relaxing academic and weather intensive camping trip to KBC base camp. Once there we had 3 days to unpack, finish 3 assignments, and study for 3 exams worth 40% of our final grade. It was awful. We were all very stressed out and irritated at the completely unrealistic expectations. Some people do very well with situations like this and did, unfortunately I am not one of them. I knew that 3 days, even without assignments was not enough for me to study, and teachers thinking that we had time to study throughout the semester despite the incredibly packed days was ridiculous. It added up to me doing not very well on exams. It’s hard to have A’s on papers and projects and C’s and D’s on tests, when you know the information and have done more absorbing than you can exemplify. But because we had never been given an exam by these teachers and had very little time to prepare, I was not surprised by my performance. Also, the program prides itself on ‘academic rigor’. Possibly because only the geniuses are able to do well. But I still presented my best work and could do no better. Its still a bummer. Tanzania does continue some classroom subjects and we will have one more exam, so there is still time to earn grades that reflect what kind of student I am.

As soon as our exams were over, with only a day break, we had to receive guests. The Tanzanian group was arriving at KBC to begin the switch. We were kicked out of our bandas and placed in tents. It was very generous of us, but I was slightly resentful that we had to give up a space that we had each personally grown very close to. We welcomed the group of 30 and were shocked to find them so different then us. We don’t know the reason why but found them to be much less unified, less friendly, and less in love with the entire program. We organized friendly competitions for our new ‘friends’. The Olympic were organized to include volleyball, soccer, ultimate Frisbee, banana grams… ect. Sadly we didn’t do as well as we thought we were going to and didn’t win the overall. Most people were dealing with the emotions of finals, leaving KBC, and losing the Olympics all at once so nearly everyone was a train-wreak, but we were able to say goodbye to professors and staff without any major breakdowns.

The drive from Kimana town, Kenya to Lake Manyara, Tanzania took a total of 8 hours and it had to be one of the weirdest road trips of my life. The boarder was relatively quiet, except for the wedding proposal. Sweet space-case Cara was approached by an infatuated Kenyan who worked at the border and would know no happiness if Cara would not become his wife. His name was Pious and he was at the itchy-for-a-wife age of 30. He introduced himself with “I like your stick (slash Maasai staff that Cara is very attached to and carries for literally all life activities), I love your stick, I want to buy your stick, may I have your stick? I love you” It had to be one of the funniest things I have ever heard. They discussed why he had always wanted to marry a muzungu (because they thirst for knowledge), how many kids they would have (only two), and he assured her that she would be his first wife (obviously the most important). He offered to fly Cara back to Kenya after her education along with all of her friends, who would obviously be there for the wedding. She left an address so that he would not try and physically drag her from the car when our Jeep pulled away and finally crossed from the Kenyan boarder into the country of Tanzania. I’m pretty convinced Cara is keeping this option open just in case she needs a radical life change sometime in her future.

The landscape changed immediately after we crossed the border. Kenya was dusty and arid with only sparse shrubbery, but Tanzania was practically a jungle with extremely lush green vegetation and more bananas than I have ever seen in my entire life. We passed through major cities with tons of cars and fashionable people, which was very odd since we had not seen anything more advanced than shacks and handmade wheelbarrows for over a month. Nothing could have prepared me for our major stop, which was unbelievable for the simplest reason as we were so cramped that I could hardly feel my toes. We were told that there was going to be a sandwich shop, ice cream, a chocolate store, and a supermarket. We were pretty crazy over the idea of a super market and refrigeration, and experiencing it really did give us an incredible high. But walking into the air-conditioned chocolate shop with fresh cut roses in vases on glass tables placed quaintly around mirrored cases holding chocolates exported from Belgium…… I almost hit the floor. It was a huge culture shock and I couldn’t even purchase anything. It was satisfying enough to run around the store like a heathen yelling “Cheesecake! Éclairs! Croissants! Sculptured chocolate rubber duckies!” until I finally noticed the lady of the store glaring at me. I treated myself to a passion fruit ice cream cone which was rejuvenating, and a few groceries for times of desperate need and we were back on the road.

Our new site is within the Maasai steppe, specifically the Tarangira–Manyara ecosystem. It’s on the very top of a large hill high above the small towns below which are supported by tourism, farming, and herding. The site is not owned by SFS, but is essentially a rented camp site and unfortunately, we share it with elderly tourists (but we stay away from them the best we can). Our section of camp is beautiful. It’s much tinier than KBC, but part of that is because of the dense green vegetation everywhere. We sleep in camping tents and live out of suitcase, which is a bit of a frustrating demotion, but I’ll live. The best thing about this place is you feel like your constantly outside. The chumba, where we spend most of our time, is open walls, the kitchen is outside, and the bathroom has walls only to your waist. Yesterday morning I was brushing my teeth and a beautiful hummingbird flew into the bathroom to check himself out in the mirror. I shooed him away when I thought he was getting to vain and he sat on the branches in front of the sink and shouted at me for being so rude. It was really cute. There is hot water here that comes from a hand made fire built under the water tank! And electricity, which eliminates the hassle of flashlights. The fire-pit overlooks the bluff and is surrounded by beautiful views and beautiful trees. The weather here is much cooler and the birds are always singing, making it a tiny jungle paradise. I am also in love with the resident 6 week old black-and-white short hair kitten which we all take turns giving love to and spoiling the hell out of.

Classes start tomorrow, and directed research is creeping up on us. That’s going to be an academic marathon complete with paper presentation to the community. We leave for a 5 day camping expedition to the famous Serengeti this Wednesday.

I miss everyone! Please don’t stay out of touch! And everyone cross your fingers that the healthcare bill is effective and advantageous!

Love,

Chelsea

Friends/Amigos/Rafiki

I thought I’d let you know the common Kiswahili that I use. 

Jambo: Hello 

Habari?: How are you? (Habari asubuji = good morning, habari machana = good afternoon, habari jioni = good evening) 

Muzuri sana: Very Good 

Mwanafunzi = student 

Muzungu = tourist 

Mti = tree 

Mtoto = child 

Kiboko = hippo, duma = cheetah, simba = lion, chui = leopard, tembo = elephant, twigga = giraffe, mbu = mosquito 

Shikatano = high five 

My dad so pointedly asked if I was making friends, which was startling reminiscent of kindergarten. And yes, I am as social here as anywhere else (which means more talkative and at a faster pace than most of the human population can handle). Our group is getting along startling well. And by our group, I mean all 23 individuals here. The list of my favorites includes Olivia, Jen, Clinton, Amanda, Cara, Ryan, and Max. Olivia is a sweet manicured blonde from Ojai, CA who you would never guess can hang as well as she does. She is the only one I’ve ever met who can always looked groomed and clean in the most unhygienic environment I have ever experienced. She was a ‘type A’ camper at boarding school where she went on 2 week backpacking trips and can pretty much handle anything thrown at her. Jen is our curly red head from Connecticut who has a hysterical sense of humor and excellent wit. She has plenty of experience as a girl scout and camp counselor and loves being outside. She is one of my favorites to have on a volleyball team because she is a competitive crazy who enjoys playing regardless of a win. Clinton is from MA and is your typical ‘outdoors man’. He’s the resident dead-head who can’t stop talking about ‘music festivals’. He is so glad that Kenya is experiencing tons of rain which is begetting tons of vegetation because the combination of heat and dry desert plains would have sent him running back to the comfort of the east coast’s hardwood forests. Amanda is also from MA and has the best resounding laugh I’ve ever heard from a 4’10” girl. Its impossible for her to be anything besides positive and cheerful and she has somehow figured out how to maximize bubbly while minimizing annoying. It’s a feat few have accomplished. Cara is another MA resident and is my favorite space case. She has a short mess of curly hair and huge blue orbs for eyes. Cara is the classic indie girl and one of the most talented ballad composers I’ve ever heard, easily making them catchy, witty, and exciting. She is often caught with her gorgeous Martin guitar and while she is quiet, she has a very strong opinion about everything. Ryan is from Illinois and reminds me an incredibly amount of the Wisc. Fam. with his inappropriate sense of humor and overall easy going attitude.  He has a particular affinity for trees and is a persistent environmentalist. Max is from San Fran and is half-Caribbean. Coming from the cultured west coast he taught everyone how to dance salsa and capuera. 

That’s the gang. You’ll get to know them as well as I do when I start telling stories. Olivia, Amanda, Clinton, Jen, and Cara live close enough to already be making plans to meet up our senior year! 

I’ll write more about Tsavo in a few days. 

Schedule right now includes 3 papers due in the 3 days we have before our 3 final exams. I’m not really sure if I’m going to sleep in the next 72 hours. 

xo – Chelsea —

From the Left: Olivia, Chelsea, Jen, Sam, Lauren

Jen and I (In Amboseli Ntl. Park – only out of the car because we were outside of a lodge. Anywhere else getting out of the car = death by something nearby)