Goat Soup and Guides

 The Wildlife Ecology DR group, minus four of our local guides.  

 White Rhino and Black Rhino.  

Wiper!

Fieldwork was over four days ago, which seems like a forever ago, and we have now started writing our individual DR papers. We have five days until the paper is due.  It's a very daunting task.  I just finished my introduction today and after this break I'll start on my results section.  We're writing the paper in sections and handing them in to be critiqued before revising them and handing them in for good!  

We each write an individual paper that falls under our main DR topic and then will present as a group to the community in a few days.  Since our research was all about water quality, the riverine environment, and human encroachment; I decided to write my paper about how the agricultural practices along the Noolturesh River impact the ecosystem, specifically erosion, vegetation cover, and water quality.  I'm excited about it, I find it interesting so I hope it goes well.  

The last three days were dedicated to data analysis.  We had a lot of data to sift through and perform statistical analysis on, in addition to stat tests we also had to make maps using the GPS coordinates we gathered.  We did this using a program called GIS which is a computer program that helps spatially analyze data and make maps.  There were only two in our group that know how to use GIS, myself and another boy so we were nominated to make the maps.  I was really nervous because I hadn't used GIS since the fall of my sophomore year at Bethel and the version we had to use was of worse quality than the version we have at Bethel.  After the first night of frustrations and almost meltdowns, we finally got the data into the program and actually made pretty good looking maps (I have to thank my GIS prof, Dr Petersen at Bethel without whom I would know nothing about GIS).  

Today, as a break from paper writing, our DR group went out into the bush and had a Maasai goat roast!  We slaughtered goats and ate them in Tanzania as well, but this felt more authentic as we were in the bush eating meat right off sticks.  It was pretty tasty! If you've never had goat, I would suggest buying a goat and roasting it over a fire in the backyard.  Maybe I can convince my parents to let me do that in our backyard... We also had goat soup.  Now I really liked the goat, but the goat soup was another story.  It tasted like goat fat had been liquified, it had the consistency of fat as well.  I'm pretty sure its congealing in my stomach right now.  I couldn't get much down, but the guides were drinking it like there was no tomorrow.  We asked Ernest, one of the staff here, if he liked apple pie or goat soup better and he said very eagerly that goat soup was the best food ever.  I'm pretty sure he drank five bowls by himself.  One of the guides was just drinking out of the pot.  

Our DR group had a lot of fun!  Our local guides were the best, we really got to know them and had a lot of fun trampling through rainforests, muddy rivers, and acacia-covered hills with them.  There was a lot of teasing between groups.  My erosion group was fairly slow-moving, we said we were being thorough, but really it was because we took a lot of cookie breaks.  Because we were so slow-moving, we were called the "pole pole" group ("slow").  Later our name was switched to "kuju" group ("caterpillar") and Wiper was nicknamed "Bwana Kuju" or "Sir Caterpillar".  Ernest even made up a caterpillar dance.  I tried getting back at the other groups by calling them "olokuma" and "ilmada" ("turtle" and "crazy").  But it didnt really work...

If you're wondering about the White Rhino/Black Rhino picture, Ernest (Black Rhino) gave me the nickname White Rhino and I told him if I had to be White Rhino, he had to be Black Rhino.  After that, all of the guides just called me White Rhino.  Wiper called me Nasieku (my Maasai name) or Minnesota Lady (I just tell people I'm from Minnesota because no one knows what South Dakota is).  We also made up nicknames for all the guides.  Wiper became Franky, Ernest became Ernie, Danson became Danny, Samuil became Sammy, Rana became Ronny, and Mwato started out Matty but after some miscommunication became Mary.  

We did do academic work, it just doesn't make as interesting stories as stories about liquid goat and guides  

We're almost done here, which is crazy.  Though with this paper in the way, it seems like forever before the end.