Website Blog Link

SFS has a section on their website dedicated to short blogs written by students in the program.  The blogs can be about whatever the student wants.  A few weeks ago I volunteered to write a short blog and it got put on the website!  Here is a link if you wanted to read it.

DR fieldwork ended today.  Tomorrow we start data analysis and start writing our papers.  I'll try to update about the last few days of fieldwork and whats up next for DR.  Have a great day!

http://www.fieldstudies.org/blog/?p=1327

Welcome to DR!

Day three of DR fieldwork is over.  Just as a reminder, my DR group has 10 students including myself and is lead by our wildlife ecology professor, Kiringe.  Our DR focus of study is the Noolturesh River that runs through the Amboseli ecosystem in our part of Kenya.  We have split into several groups and are measuring several different aspects of the riverine environment.  The first group has been measuring turbidity and mapping the river.  They also take samples of the water to measure the sediment load.  The second group has been measuring the riverine vegetation.  The third group has been assessing the human encroachment and human activities along the river.  The fourth group has been measuring woody vegetation and erosion.  The fifth group has been measuring water quality. 

For the first two days, I was measuring erosion with three other girls, our two guides, and Kiringe. In order to measure erosion we split into groups of two students and one guide and did transects 200 meters apart from each other and perpendicular to the river.  We went 10 meters from the river and measured the herbaceous vegetation cover in a 2X2 meter quadrat then expanded the quadrat to be 30X30 meters and measured the sheet, rill, and gully erosion with the quadrat.  After that plot, we moved so we were 100 meters from the river and repeated the process, then moved to be 200 meters from the river and repeated the process once more.  This procedure sounds pretty dry, but I found it fun, plus I needed some practice for my methods section of my research paper so I thought this would be a good place to practice. 

The exciting part about this procedure is the hike through dense forest.  Our 10 meter quadrat is fine, but getting to the 100 and 200 meter plots requires hiking up mountains and battling thorny plants.  Basically every plant in Africa is covered in thorns or is poisonous.  It is a slow process getting to the quadrats, but it makes me feel pretty awesome.  Whenever we get whacked by a branch covered by thorns or trip on the thick underbrush, we tell each other, “Welcome to DR”.  Yesterday, there was no path next to the river, only a vertical rock face.  We started climbing around the rock cliff to get to our next transect, when we looked at the GPS and realized that it would have started exactly in the middle of the rock face.  It didn’t seem worth it to complete that transect so down we went and instead we crossed the river by walking across a tree trunk that is being used for a bridge.  Now when I say river, it’s definitely not raging or really wide, it’s average is probably 3 meters wide and I don’t think it ever goes past your knees. 

One of the best parts about working with erosion is working with our guide, Francis, or Wiper as everyone calls him.  He is called Wiper because he ran for government office in the district a few years back and was part of the “Wiper Democrat” party.  He is running again for district counselor in March so we have been talking politics quite a bit.  We have heard all about his stance and what he would do to change the district, if I could vote in Kenya, I would vote for him.  He also tells us all about the national Kenyan government and all about the corruption and nepotism and asks us many questions about the US government.  He is the only Kenyan I have heard to say that he would have voted for Romney, but he still likes Obama because he is Kenyan.  One of Wiper’s passions is helping out the orphans in the district.  He doesn’t have a family of his own so he pays for school fees and for food for 29 orphans!  He is so cool!  On top of it, he is Maasai, my favorite.  He even gave me a Maasai name:  Nasieku!  It means “sharp and fast”.  My life has been fulfilled, I get to measure soil erosion and I am now an honorary Maasai. 

Today, I switched groups and worked the turbidity group.  For the past few days, during the hot parts of the day, all I have wanted to do is lie down in the water.  However, that probably wouldn’t be very smart because the river is very contaminated and looks like a chocolate river.  But anyways, today I finally got to go in the river, but our guide, Danson, wouldn’t let me swim…

We had to follow the river and mark GPS coordinates wherever it had a bend.  Every 400 meters we would get into the river, wearing rain boots, and measure the turbidity, the width, depth, the flow rate, and every other stop we took a water sample.  We got a lot of weird looks from the locals who would stop and watch us, laughing and asking Danson what we were doing.  At one stop, we saw a mother and two children gathering water by the side and though it looked muddy, we decided we could probably handle it.  Nope.  BG, the other girl I was with today, got both of her boots entirely stuck in the mud and I had to pull her out than dig her boot out of the mud, much to the amusement of the mother and girls.  Once we were done with our measurements for the day, we had to hike for an hour through the bush to get to the closest road to be picked up while wearing rain boots that were several sizes too big and with socks that were soaked and muddy!  It was an adventure! Once again, welcome to DR. 

Danson is another great guide.  SFS has a scholarship program where local students can get scholarships and go to the summer programs on wildlife management or public health that are in Tanzania and Kenya respectively.  This summer, he was one of the scholarship recipients and spent a month in Tanzania.  He knew all of the Tanzanian staff and went to all the parks we went to, so we bonded over our experiences.  Danson is also an incredible athlete!  Farmers put acacia branches, covered with thorns, around their farms, and Danson would take two steps and hop over these fences that can be 1.5 meters tall!  He also raced against another Kenyan who has made it to the Olympics, the other guy beat him, but it’s still cool.  Danson, another Maasai, told us that Maasai are born to be good athletes. 

As you can tell, DR fieldwork is going well!  We have five more days of fieldwork left, then we will start data analysis and writing our papers.  Crazy!  I only have 23 days left in Kenya!  Weird.  But also I’m excited to come home.  I hope everyone had good Thanksgivings!  We didn’t really “celebrate” Thanksgiving since it was our first day of fieldwork, but we did go around the room at supper and say what we were thankful for, which is really what Thanksgiving is about anyways.  

Adventure is Out There!

We’re getting close to the end of the semester, classes and exams are over, DR selections have been made and in two days time, we will start DR fieldwork.  Crazy!  In good news, I got my first choice for DR!  I’ll be working with one of our professors, Kiringe, and nine other students assessing the water quality of the main river that goes through Kimana Group Ranch.  In assessing the water quality, we will be running water quality tests, measuring the erosion, and measuring the distance between human settlements and farms and the water.  I’m excited! I’ve been reading countless articles on water quality but it won’t really be real until Thursday when we start fieldwork.  That means we don’t get to really celebrate Thanksgiving in normal fashion, but all you really need to celebrate Thanksgiving is counting your blessings.  We’ll celebrate Thanksgiving the next week on a non-program day.  We even chipped in to buy a turkey, which are pretty scarce around here.

Today we had our second non-program day.  We went on a hike in a town called Loilotoktok.  We were hiking to a waterfall, but being that it’s the dry season there was no water in the waterfall.  It was a fun hike though, we jumped over boulders in the dried river bed and tried to avoid all sorts of spiney and pokey plants.  We found a cave that was about twenty feet up on a rock face and I climbed up to the cave along with three of my fellow other students, much to the dismay of our student affairs manager who was certain we would get hurt and he would get in trouble.  We didn’t get hurt though, don’t worry!  At the waterfall, we found these huge vines and all took turns swinging on the vines! We dubbed the hike “Adventure Hike”.  Climbing to caves, jumping boulders, swinging on vines; it was great!

After the hike we went into Loilotoktok town and went to the market. The market was good, I didn’t get anything or barter at all, but it’s always fun to walk around and see what people are selling.  After the market, some of us went back to KBC and watched a movie while the rest went into Kimana town.  After watching a movie, I spent the rest of the night in the kitchen helping one of the chefs, Motero.  It was one of the most relaxing nights I have had here.  No one was around so it was quiet while Motero and I just cooked away, or at least Motero cooked, I just cut fruit and veggies.  It was very peaceful.   

Well that’s it for now.  We haven’t gone out a lot lately.  All of our time is spent on getting ready for DR so that’s why there are a lack of posts about Kenya.  I’ll try to update about what DR entails and how it’s going.  Have a great Thanksgiving! Make sure to count your blessings and tell the people you love that you’re thankful for them.  I am thankful for all of your support and prayers back in the states!  Thank you everyone!  

A Faceless Crime

The poaching problem became real today. 

For our last wildlife management class, we went to Kimana Game Sanctuary to complete a field activity in which we were assigned a species and have to write a management plan for the species.  My species was hartebeest, which is a large antelope species that is quite rare.  Needless to say, I didn’t see any hartebeest, but at least I know my management plan will be to increase the population of hartebeest in the area. 

Game sanctuaries are maintained and patrolled by game scouts, which are employed by NGOs.  The KWS (Kenya Wildlife Service) may come in for extra help, but the game sanctuaries are primarily local communities responsibility.  This being said, it is very easy to come and go on game sanctuaries and there is little patrol.  There are no distinct boundaries, the game sanctuary just blends into farmland whenever it ends. 

Anyways, my car was driving around looking for our certain species when our driver, Sopiya, saw something strange in the distance.  It looked like a big, gray lump.  Through binoculars we could see it was an elephant on its side.  The good thing (or not so good depending on circumstances) about being in a game sanctuary versus a national park is you are allowed to off road and drive wherever.  We were able to drive right up next to the lump.  The closer we got, the worse the situation became.  It was a dead elephant with no face. 

Sopiya said it had probably been dead for about two days.  The smell was putrid.  The sight was worse.  An incredible, majestic elephant with it’s face cut off.  It’s trunk left behind.  There is only one reason an elephant would be missing it’s face.  Poaching. 

We have learned about poaching all semester, but seeing it up close, seeing the direct effect of poaching was too much.  It made me sick to my stomach.  Cutting off the face makes this crime seem so heartless, like the people who killed the elephant didn’t even care that this was a living creature.  It was only a good that can be sold for money.  I realize there are factors behind poaching such as poverty, but poaching is still sick and wrong.  Though, we learned from several sources that poachers are usually not the people entrenched in poverty, instead people who are well off and can afford fancy equipment. I don’t know who poached this elephant, but whoever it was took a life for the sake of money.

I’m adding a picture of the elephant.  Not to sensationalize the story or to add to the entertaining aspect of my blog, but to show you, to make people aware that this happens.  Poaching is not just a problem to learn about in a classroom or read about in a paper, it’s real and it affects all of us.  Poaching affects the social structure of animals, it affects the populations, it affects the vegetation, the habitat.  In short, it affects everyone in our global community.  And we need to stand against poaching, we need to stand against poverty, we need to realize that we all share this world and we need to start acting to ensure everyone is taken care of and that the environment is conserved.

Beginning of the End (and Amboseli National Park)

Today we went to our final national park, perhaps even our last game drive.  That seems crazy.  For as slow as time seems to go at times, other times it feels like its racing by.  We went to Amboseli National Park, however the last game drive didn’t really end with a climax.  We only got about 1.5 hours to game drive around the park and it took about thirty minutes to get to the swamps where any animals were.  After our short game drive, we were brought to this picnic area, with a beautiful view, and left there while the drivers and staff went somewhere to get lunch.  It was an odd situation, especially since we all ate our packed lunches before we got to the picnic spot so we ended up taking naps and sitting around.  After the picnic we went to the park headquarters and had a lecture from a senior officer in the KWS (Kenya Wildlife Service) about Amboseli and after that we left. 

As you can probably tell, Amboseli didn’t go out with a bang, which is kinda sad.  We saw your standard zebras, wildebeest, tommies, gazelle, as well as elephants and hippos.  We did see an Egyptian mongoose however!  We haven’t seen an Egyptian mongoose yet. 

During the game drive I was doing some thought about the incredible game drives I have been able to go on over this semester.  We have been to five national parks and one conservation area.  Lake Manyara NP, Tarangire NP, Serengeti NP, Lake Nakuru NP, Amboseli NP, and Ngorongoro CA.  It’s hard to say which one was my favorite because each place has such good memories attached.  I think if I had to choose, I would choose Ngorongoro CA to be my favorite.  Everything seemed to go perfectly that day; great company in the car, incredible sightings, essentially the circle of life played out in front of my eyes, and gorgeous scenery.  Yet Tarangire has some great memories as well, but so does Lake Manyara because it was my first safari.  I can’t forget Serengeti or Lake Nakuru, because I feel like I got to know those parks fairly well.  Unfortunately, Amboseli gets the last place.  It has nothing to do with the park itself instead everything to do with I didn’t have enough time to get to know Amboseli.  It is like an acquaintance that could have been a close friend.  I’m very grateful for all of my safari experiences, they have been the highlights of the semester and something I will never forget. 

In the spirit of moving towards the end, today we were introduced to the directed research topics.  Directed research is structured in a way that the three professors have a topic of research and the students are divided among the three topics.  We must follow the umbrella topic of research, but there are more narrow areas of research under each topic that we will write our own papers about.  The Environmental Policy professor, Ekisa, will be studying land tenure and land use changes and how they have impacted the environment, wildlife, and people in the area.  The Wildlife Management professor, Shem, will be studying the group ranches surrounding Amboseli National Park and how they are wildlife dispersal areas and have wildlife corridors for migrations.  The Wildlife Ecology professor, Kiringe, will be studying the water quality in a specific river and how people, livestock, agriculture and the sorts impact it.  We had to rank our top choices and give them scores and using those, the faculty will decide who does each research topic.  My ranking was:  Kiringe and water quality as #1, Ekisa and land tenure/land use as #2, and Shem with wildlife dispersal areas as #3. 

I’m really hoping to work with water quality because I think that is interesting and very needed in this area.  Also, if I want to work with soil or land in the future, this may offer me some more insight and I may be able to work with researching soil erosion!  For those of you who know me, you know I have always wanted to work with animals; I wanted to be an ocean researcher, dolphin trainer, marine biologist, veterinarian, and finally wildlife biologist.  However, I took one geology class and wrote one research paper and realized how fascinating I find soil.  Sounds crazy doesn’t it, I wouldn’t have believed myself a few years ago.  However, I really do like soil and the land and sustainability!  Well before coming on this trip I was still going back and forth in my mind with animals and soil and figured this semester would be a good way to figure out if soil was really something I should pursue or if I should stick with animals.  The very first safari in Lake Manyara National Park I was standing in the back of the land cruiser, enjoying myself and I got this overwhelming sense that God was telling me “Not animals.  I have something else for you.  I have others to care for my animals”.  It was the weirdest thing, but also the coolest thing.  I was floored for a while.  Then as we continued this semester, I began realizing how true that was, that I really had no desire to work with animals.  I still don’t.  I love animals and always will, but I just don’t want to dedicate my life to working with animals.  Therefore, I guess I’ll be pursuing soil and land! Woo!!  However, if someone ever offers me a job to swim and play with dolphins all day, Ill definitely be taking that job.

I think we hear about our DR placement on Sunday.  I’ll let you know where I’m placed.  Pray it’s with water!!

In other news, I learned more Maasai skills yesterday.  We had a non-program day and two Maasai men came to camp and took us on an expedition to learn how to track giraffes and other animals.  We also saw a tree that you puncture and it will squirt out this juice that the Maasai use for soap.  While in the bush, they taught us how to throw spears.  None of the boys really tried, but us girls were pretty awesome at throwing spears! Ok, so I wasn’t one of the girls, I got it down decent, but if I had to spear lunch I might be in trouble.  Later in the day, some Maasai Mamas came and taught us how to bead!  I made a pretty sweet bracelet and have another one in the making.  If I didn’t have to do homework, I would be beading all the time. 

Well I’m really tired.  By that I mean I want to go work on my beaded bracelet.  See ya’ll soonish! Be good. 

Maasai Home Stay Pictures

 Natalia, our "new sister", Priscilla, and Mama Aggie

Our other "sister", Sabina and Mama Aggie carrying a massive tree limb

(Sorry, I'd publish more pictures if not for the Internet, but these showed who we spent the most of the day with)

Maasai People Are Great

I lived as a Maasai woman today.  We had our second home stay today, this time with Maasai families.  Naturally I was thrilled about today before it even happened because I love the Maasai people and culture.  Sometimes I border on obsession with Maasai and wish I could be Maasai so today gave me an inside look at Maasai daily living.  One of my first thoughts about my wish to be Maasai is the realization that I may be too weak to be Maasai; these women are so rugged and strong, they never cease to amaze me.  But more on that later.

My partner, Natalia, and I were dropped off at a Maasai boma, along with two other pairs of girls, which was about 3 minutes away from our camp by land cruiser.  Despite the short distance from the camp, the maze of sisal plants and thorn acacias needed to pass through to arrive at the boma left me completely lost.  It never ceases to amaze me how you don’t know youre at a boma until you’re there.  They blend into the landscape so well with the thorn fences and mud houses with thatched roofs.  The boma we stayed at was home to one family, which apparently had about fifty children.  I did not see this many children but it could have been referring to the several generations’ children.  There was the head Mama, the matriarch of the family, then several of the second generation Mamas, one of whom we stayed with and of course the children.  We found out that this boma is actually home to two of our staff members, Motero, who works in the kitchen, and Kinyako, who is an askari (security).  In fact, Motero and Kinyako are actually brothers, which we did not know.   Side note on Kinyako, he has the best smile in the world and is always so happy.  He stands at the gate to camp during the day and whenever we go out of camp or come in, he is there with his huge smile and waving excitably.  I don’t know him very well, but his enthusiasm is contagious. 

Natalia and I stayed with Mama Aggie, who is Kinyako’s wife.  They have four daughters.  I think we only met two, Sabina who is 10 years old and Priscilla who is probably around 3 years old.  This was like the last home stay where I was unsure of which children belonged to which mama.  I thought two other girls we met were also Mama Aggie’s daughters, but they turned out to be her sisters.  Mama Aggie was wonderful.  She was so friendly, helpful, kind, and excited.  She wanted to hear all about our lives even though she can’t speak any English and our Swahili is still rudimentary at best.  We fumbled through my Swahili-English dictionary to try to figure out how to say everything.  I feel like my Swahili improved today though! 

We started out the day by sitting in the house small talking and showing Mama Aggie pictures of our families while Sabina made chai.  I can’t get over the chai that has been served at my home stays.  I always try to replicate it at camp but can never get it right.  After chai and washing dishes, we had to gather water.  In Tanzania we were told we might get to fetch water with the family, but none of us actually did so, so fetching water was an exciting experience!  This is where I learned how weak I am and began to really admire Maasai women.  The stream where the families get water was about a ten-minute walk from the boma, and is actually right next to our camp.  After our water jugs were filled, the Mamas showed us how to carry the water back by putting a strap around our forehead that was connected to the jug, which would rest on our back.  I started off well but after like 2 minutes, my neck and back muscles were screaming at me. I’m going to wake up sore tomorrow, I can already feel my lower back aching! I wish I could have an excuse like the jug was really huge, but I don’t have an excuse other than I’m weak, especially because three of my fellow classmates with me and our Mamas were doing just fine.  I finally decided to loop the strap through my arm and carry the jug on my shoulder, which was much more cumbersome and made me trail behind the group.  I think Mama Aggie felt sorry for me so she switched our jugs, hers being considerably smaller than the one I was attempting to carry.  Maasai women! I tell ya, they look small but they are so strong!

After getting water, we started making lunch of ugali and cabbage.  After my last home stay I decided I would never eat ugali again, but yet again I forced myself to eat ugali.  Mama Aggie was fine letting us take over cooking the meal, which was pretty great.  There isn’t too much to cooking the cabbage and the only problem with ugali is stirring it when it gets really thick.  At lunch, Mama Aggie put icebergs of ugali on Natalia and my plates, much to my chagrin.  Covering the ugali in cabbage, which I actually think is delicious; I ate half of the iceberg before it expanded in my stomach to twice its original size. 

 After lunch, the kids started jump roping and we joined in, Mama Aggie even joined in the fun!  The kids and I shared jump-roping songs and they actually knew one that was a staple in my neighborhood; we called it “school” where we would start with “first grade” and jump once than run out, and increase the number of jumps with each “grade”.  It was a lot of fun! 

After jump-roping for a while, we were told we needed to collect firewood and went out with Mama Aggie and Sabina to do so.  In Africa, all the plants have thorns and if they don’t have thorns, they are poisonous.  Trying to navigate through this kind of a landscape, much less live in it presents numerous challenges.  Though, the abundant thorns do make a suitable replacement for tweezers when you have a sliver as Natalia found.  After collecting sticks for about an hour, Natalia and I strapped them on our back again and headed back home.  Before we got home, Mama Aggie saw a huge dead tree limb on the ground and picked it up with no problem and hauled it back to the boma. 

For the rest of the day, we played with the adorable children and talked to Mama Aggie.  Before we knew it, the end of the day had arrived.  It was such a good day.  Mama Aggie was such a good “mother” to us, she even gave me a bracelet as a gift, and all the kids were of course incredible. 

On a purely academic level, we have been learning about environmental degradation in Africa since day one.  We have heard all about how local people are polluting water and how forests are being deforested for the sake of firewood and how this needs to be stopped immediately.  Taking part of this in a small extent today and witnessing how the families need these resources for daily survival put a more human aspect to the problem.  Yes, environmental degradation is awful and I want to spend my life making sure it never gets to an irreversible state; however I feel like sometimes in our crusade to save the environment, we can forget about the people.  Especially here, I feel like it’s so easy to demonize the local people and wonder why they don’t care about the environment or wonder why they don’t realize that they are hurting the environment.  They do know though, the Maasai especially have always lived very close to the environment and know what will happen to the environment, but what other choice do they have?  I guess what I’ve been realizing is there needs to be a balance between what the environment needs and what people need.  Without people the environment wouldn’t have much purpose and without the environment, people wouldn’t be around. 

I don’t know if I could make it as a Maasai woman as much as I want to.  Life is hard for them, this ecosystem is a hard place to live.  Though life may be hard, the people I met today and at my last home stay have been some of the most kind and loving people.  They work hard but they make time for their family, neighbors, and guests.  I don’t think they complain about their hardships, at least it doesn’t seem like it, they are always so positive.  If I could take anything away from these experiences, they would be to not complain about my life back home and be willing to help anyone out.  Life is shared here, the hardships and the good things.  I want to do the same with my life and be able to share what I have with others.  As for the complaining, how can I complain about anything in my comfortable life when my new “families” have so much less and must put their daily energy to surviving? 

I’m blessed.  

Expeditions, Elephants, and Elections

Expedition #2 is complete.  Last Saturday we left bright and early for Lake Nakuru National Park, which is about eight hours from our camp.  Before we left, we were told to pack plenty of warm clothes and rain clothes.  That request seemed odd because it’s Africa, one would think that it’s always hot especially in Lake Nakuru, which is much closer to the equator than our camp.  However, the short rains have begun in Kenya and I am so glad we were told to pack warm clothes!  I wore pants the entire expedition an at least two layers on top, if not three, which included a t-shirt, sweatshirt, and rain jacket.  After one game drive we were all sitting in a meeting room near a fireplace drinking hot chai or hot chocolate and wrapped in blankets; it looked like we had just gotten back from a day of skiing instead of a safari in Africa!

We didn’t camp in Lake Nakuru, and a lot of people were upset that we weren’t camping but I am so glad we didn’t! We stayed in a hostel in the national park instead.  The hostel had several rooms of 12 bunk beds, a dinning room, and a meeting room.  So we crammed about 18 girls in one room, the rest in the other room, and the four boys got a huge room to themselves.  The hostel was fenced in unlike our campground in the Serengeti, but we still had animals surrounding us.  There were always buffalo and zebra right outside the gate and at night we would hear lions, which I thought were buffalo at first, but I never saw the lions.  I actually only saw one lion the entire expedition, and it was sleeping in a tree. 

Lake Nakuru National Park, as one can probably guess, is situated around a lake and is beautiful.  It is the greenest place I have seen in Africa thus far due to the high amount of rainfall.  There were mountains surrounding the park and forests and grasslands throughout the park.  This park is best known for birds and rhinos.  The wetlands make for a great habitat for birds, much to the excitement of several of my classmates who are avid birders.  The park also became a sanctuary for black and white rhinos in the 1970’s so we saw several rhinos, some right next to our car!  The park doesn’t have a large diversity of species, no big cats other than some lions, the park is home to primarily herbivores.  There is a huge population of buffalo, zebra, waterbuck, impalas, Thomson Gazelles, giraffes, and a few other rare ungulates.  There are no elephants in this park. 

What I found out during this expedition however, you don’t need animals to make a game drive fun.  The best game drive during the expedition was during a torrential downpour and we didn’t see very many animals, but it was so great!  We just drove in the rain and enjoyed the beautiful scenery.  I gave up trying to keep dry so I took the hood of my raincoat off and let myself get soaked.  During this particular game drive, we saw the most beautiful rainbow I have ever witnessed.  The colors were so vivid and we could see the entire rainbow.  We could see where it began and ended.  On top of that, there was a second rainbow, which wasn’t as vivid but nonetheless amazing, a simple reminder of God’s faithfulness and presence. 

I don’t have any crazy animal stories from Lake Nakuru like I did in the Serengeti.  Though, a buffalo briefly chased our car, which was absolutely terrifying.  I was sure it was going to ram our car.  If you have never seen cape buffalo, they are huge and have a very nice set of large antlers on their head. In Swahili cape buffalos are called “nyati” when they are being normal and “bogo” when they are charging.  Cape buffalos have been known to take on lions and win.  Buffalos are not animals you want to get angry.  Sometimes, after all of these safaris I get the idea that animals are so cute and sweet that I forget that these animals are wild and can hurt people. 

We did see a pair of Colobus monkeys, which are the black and white monkeys we have in the Sioux Falls zoo.  They were a nice change from all the baboons and vervet monkeys we see everywhere.  Of course, like I said, we saw rhinos! I wish the Internet here was strong enough to upload a few pictures, but I don’t know if that would work.  I also saw two of the Small Five.  I forget if I have explained the Small Five but they are ant lions, buffalo weavers, elephant shrews, rhinoceros beetle, and leopard tortoise.  I have already seen ant lions and buffalo weavers and at Lake Nakuru, I saw a rhinoceros beetle and leopard tortoise.  If I see an elephant shrew I will have seen both the Big Five and the Small Five!

One of our professors in Kenya, Shem, has worked with Lake Nakuru for twenty some years so he knows the park very well.  He was able to explain all the changes that have happened and answer any question about the park, which added to the experience.  We went on two travelling lectures, one throughout the park to look at the invasive species that have invaded grasslands, and one outside the park to see how the surrounding community affects the structure of the park.  It was really interesting to get the information on the entire ecosystem and be able to see with my own eyes the effects.  I really enjoyed Lake Nakuru.

This summer, my mom and I read a book called Love, Life and Elephants by Daphne Sheldrick who lived in Kenya her entire life, was married to the warden of Tsavo National Park, and started an elephant orphanage outside of Nairobi.  A few other classmates had read the book and wanted to visit the elephant orphanage.  The only problems with visiting is the orphanage is open for one hour on Wednesdays and is in Nairobi so the only time we could visit would be on the way back from our expedition.  We left early yesterday morning and endured insane Nairboi traffic, but we made it!  The orphanage is only open between 11 and 12 on Wednesdays and we got there around 11:30 so we missed part of the tour and the really little baby elephants but we saw the 2-5 year old elephants! The elephants came out and drank bottled milk and ate tree branches while the head keeper introduced each elephant and explained how it’s mother was killed.  Most of the elephants were orphaned due to poaching.  They also have a few baby rhinos at the orphanage and we did see one of them, but it was in its enclosure sleeping.  Once the elephants are old enough, they release them to the wild, but I never heard where they release the elephants.  The orphanage also has several groups, which spend their entire time taking apart snares and foiling poachers.  It was a very neat organization and really cool to see something I read about this summer! 

You may have noticed it was election time in the US these past few days.  Election fever took over Africa as well.  Fortunately we didn’t have to endure the political ads and commercials, but the hostel had a TV and the staff watched the coverage all the time and everywhere we stopped had the TVs switched to the coverage.  It was really fascinating to see the election from a different perspective and witness how the election matters to other countries as well.  Obama was the obvious favorite in Kenya because his father is from Kenya.  I was stopped numerous times yesterday by Kenyans to talk about the election.  Fun fact, one of our staff members, Charles is from the Luo tribe near Lake Victoria and Obama’s father was from the Luo tribe as well.  Charles was telling me how the village Obama’s father is from bought a huge TV and set it up in the village square to watch the coverage.  The village also held a “vote” and I guess Romney got 12 votes while Obama got over 500.  Charles was surprised Romney got so many votes. 

I hope all are doing well in the US.  I’m getting pretty antsy to see everyone and be home.  Just over a month to go, then I can see everyone!  Miss you all.