Jumbo Kenya

Jumbo Kenya, kwa heri Tanzania.

Well today is the first full day in Kenya.  It was a bittersweet farewell from Tanzania.  I was excited to see a new place, but sad to leave Tanzania.  Now that I’m in Kenya, the reality that I’m actually in Kenya and am done with Tanzania is hitting me.  The last night in Tanzania was particularly sad.  The Iraqw staff members did a farewell ceremony for us, which included a dance and prayers for safe travels and a good semester.  After talking to one of our professors, we found out that this was the first time the staff did the ceremony for a group, which was so neat and just made me want to stay with the staff even more.  The staff was definitely one of my favorite parts of Tanzania.  It was weird to see the Kenya group driving away from the border with our drivers.  It was weird to drive into Kenya with new drivers. 

We got to Kilimanjaro Base Camp (KBC) around 4:30 yesterday and had orientation, a tour of the camp, supper, and unpacked.  KBC is definitely different than Moyo Hills.  For one, its huge, we have a running track that circles the inside of the camp that is a mile long.  We don’t have a separate classroom and dining room, they are one in the same here.   The bandas are thatched roof and don’t have electrical outlets or bathrooms.  The bathrooms are open air have three toilet stalls and three shower stalls. We don’t have bunkbeds in the bandas, we also don’t have desks.  We have wildlife roaming around the camp.  I woke to the sounds of baboons this morning, a change from the cows and chickens in Tanzania.  Apparently there are hippos that walk around outside of the camp.  Finally, the closest village is an 45 minute long walk from here.

We can see Mt. Kilimanjaro from KBC, which is really cool.  Kilimanjaro is actually in Tanzania, but the best views are from Kenya.  We’re close to Amboseli National Park. 

We jump right into the schedule here; today we had academic orientation and this afternoon we’re going to a cultural boma and to a market.  Then tomorrow we have community service.  This Saturday, we leave for our second expedition to Lake Nakuru.  After we get back from Lake Nakuru, we pretty much start on our directed research.  From the sounds of it, it’s going to be a busy few weeks.  Also, the Internet in Kenya is worse than in Tanzania.  Only ten people can be on at a time and we have to sign out when we want to use it.  It’s definitely a change from Tanzania.  I think I’ll enjoy Kenya, but I have to get used to the fact that I’m not in Tanzania anymore.  It’s definitely a great opportunity to be able to get to know two countries while studying abroad, I just have to keep that in perspective. 

Well I hope everyone is doing well back in the states.  I hear there are crazy storms and hurricanes on the east coast? Scary! Ill be sending prayers up from Africa.  Kwe heri.  

Last Days of Tanzania Pictures

 One of my favorite staff members, Bora, wearing a fabulous hat made of baboons while visiting the Hadzabe tribe.

 The little boy in the pink was one of my favorite little children at the orphanage, he is beautiful.

 Piggy-back rides at the orphanage!

 The little girl on the left is the beautiful girl I played with while visiting the Hadzabe tribe.  

The kids at the orphanage and our painted mural behind them. 

Last Days in Tanzania

Goodness, it’s been a busy few days in Tanzania.  After we got back from the Serengeti, we had an off day to rest which included a goat feast (more details on everything later), the next day we had a tribal day where we visited the Hazabe tribe and Datoga tribe near Lake Eyasi, today we had community service at an orphanage.  Tomorrow we pack up, and on Monday we leave for Kenya.  Man, the time in Tanzania has sure gone by fast now that I think about it! There were times where it seemed to drag on, but looking back, it was so fast! 

I’m excited to see a new place, but I have enjoyed Tanzania immensely.  I’ll miss the staff here the most I think; they are all so great.  I will also miss the village atmosphere that we have here; in Kenya we’re about thirty minutes from the closest village.  Also, the amenities here are nicer than Kenya I believe, we’ll be roughing it in Kenya far more than we do in Tanzania.  We did meet one of the staff members from Kenya, Charles, and he is fabulous so if he is any indication of how the rest of the staff will be in Kenya, I think I’ll like the staff there as well. 

Goat Feast:

Yohana, one of the staff members here, and one of my favorites, announced at breakfast on Thursday that we would be having a goat feast for supper.  Around 5:30 he brought in two goats and announced that he would be slaughtering them shortly.  I was unsure if I wanted to watch or not, but I ended up watching out of curiosity.  As Yohana held the goat down, another staff member, Paulo, slit the throat of the goat.  Surprisingly, it didn’t bother me as much as I thought it would, which I thought was odd.  We don’t have any visibility in the US’ meat industry.  No one ever really gets the inside glimpse into the process between alive animal and packaged meat in the grocery store, so this was a treat to see the whole process.  I really think it’s important to know where your meat, or any food for that matter, comes from. 

Anyways, after the slaughter, Yohana skinned the goat, and got all of the skin off in one piece, which I thought was impressive but he has been doing this since a young boy.  He took all the internal organs and showed us the four stomachs of the goat, which was pretty interesting.  One of my classes at Bethel, we learned about ruminants and the differences between the different stomachs so now I got to see the differences up close!  After a little anatomy lesson, he put the legs, ribs, and liver on sticks and roasted them over the fire.  The goat was ready in time for supper and it was absolutely delicious! I went back for seconds!  It was such a great opportunity to witness the entire process of butchering, skinning, cooking, and finally eating meat.  One I probably would not have anywhere else.

Tribes:

The Hadzabe tribe is such a different tribe than any we have visited.  They are still a hunter/gatherer and nomadic.  They speak in a language that includes lots of clicks.  Definitely a culture shock!  The tribe we visited was less nomadic because they are a tribe that hosts tourists but they still had no permanent houses.  The Hadzabe have a special permit that allows them to hunt animals on any land.  When we arrived at their camp, we passed by a tree that was covered in skulls of baboons, kudu, bush pigs, zebra, and other animals.  The men wore denim shorts but had baboon pelts for shirts.  There were about 15 to 20 people in this tribe, including the children.  When we were introduced to the tribe leader, I was surprised how young he seemed.  He looked like he couldn’t be more than 20 years old.  In fact, all of the adults in the tribe looked to be in their early 20s.  No one seemed older than that. 

We were shown how they make fire and were allowed to try it out for ourselves, and one girl actually got a fire going!  After the fire, we were shown how they search for roots under certain trees.  They found these roots or tubers, I’m not really sure, and peeled them and gave them to us to eat.  They use this type of root in the dry season to provide extra water because they were very succulent.  They tasted interesting, some people thought they tasted like watermelon, but I got dirt crossed with a water chestnut.  After the root finding session, they showed us how to shoot a bow and gave us the chance to try.  We were all pretty awful, if we had to live with the Hadzabe, we would probably starve.  They were excellent however.  Finally, they performed a dance for us. 

The cultural presentation was interesting, but it’s not the part that will stay with me.  There was a little girl, she was beautiful and she was kinda tagging around the entire time.  At the end, people were buying bows and arrows and jewelry but I saw her standing off in the distance and decided to go up to her.  I noticed she had a toy truck, like a matchbox truck, and somehow we started playing with the truck.  She would push it to me and I would push it back.  Then we began driving the truck up trees and trying to make it stay on knobs in trees.  She would giggle really hard when the truck would fall of the knob.  I can’t even describe what the experience meant to me, I got really sad when we had to leave.  Any tourist can have the experience of seeing how the Hadzabe live, but to be able to play with a little girl and enjoy the time without even being able to speak the same language is so special.  She may not remember me after yesterday, but she will stay with me.  Its those real human interactions that make this trip worth it, it’s even better than seeing animals or learning about environmental policy.  It’s the times of making connections with people that I will never meet again or can’t really communicate with that just creep its way into my heart. 

The Datoga tribe seemed fairly similar to the Iraqw tribe that we have had experiences with throughout the semester.  The Datoga tribe members are usually blacksmiths so at the cultural Datoga boma, we watched a woman grind corn and got to try it out, watched the men do their blacksmith work and watched a dance.  Honestly, nothing really special stuck with me from this experience.  This experience was just another touristy cultural trip.  I guess it just shows how much those personal connections matter. 

It is interesting how tribes are the fabric of life here.  Every person in Tanzania comes from a certain tribe, there are around a hundred and fifty or so tribes in Tanzania alone.  At our camp, the staff all comes from different tribes.  Most are Iraqw, but there are also people who are from the Chagga tribe, Sukuma tribe, Maasai tribe, and Wey Wey (I think I spelled that one wrong) plus more that I don’t even remember.  It is interesting because at first when I heard all the staff is from different tribes, I thought there would be conflicts among them, but from what I can see at least, there isn’t that.  I’ve been asked several times what tribe I come from in America.  I try to explain that we have tribes, but I’m not a part of any tribe.  One time, I had a long conversation with my ecology professor about the Native American tribes, especially the ones in South Dakota.  He was fascinated by the concept of reservations.  I told him the tribes were once hunter/gatherer tribes but have now lost a lot of traditional ways of life.  I told him that there are lots of problems associated with reservations and he told me to bring all the tribes to Africa so they could learn how to make a fresh start for themselves.  I have really enjoyed the diversity different tribes bring to the cultural makeup of Tanzania.  Tribes always fascinate me. 

Orphanage:

Today we had community service all day at Amani Orphanage in Mtu wa Mbu.  They have 38 children there ranging from the ages of 3 to 12.  All the kids there are orphaned due to HIV/AIDS and come from all over Tanzania.  We raised some money and were able to buy paint for murals and walls, beds and mattresses, food, and bricks to start building an office building.  The orphanage consists of three rooms, a sleeping room, a classroom, and another room that they’re remodeling to be another sleeping room. 

When we got there, the kids were all in the classroom and they got up and sang us songs.  It was the first time of many that I cried today.  After that, the orphanage director gave an introduction and other people such as a pastor of a nearby church who helps out welcomed us.  The pastor told us that they already loved us, it was the second time I cried. 

There was no real structure to the day, just chaotic playing and painting of murals.  At one point I was helping out with the mural with a little girl that had decided to stick with me and we didn’t have paintbrushes so we decided to use our hands.  Unknown to us, the paints were all oil-paints.  So after at least 8 washes and using water, sand, straw, soap, paint thinner, and a metal scrub brush, my hands are still green.  I look like I am slowly morphing into the Grinch or a reptile. 

The kids were great.  They had so much energy.  The favorite thing today was putting kids on your shoulders than spinning around in a circle.  “Tena tena” the kids would shout (again again).  My shoulders killed and I was exhausted but it was fun!  I mainly hung around two kids, a girl who was 11, but I don’t remember her name and this adorable little boy who was 6.  I saw the little boy in the classroom when we first got there and told the girl I was standing next to that I wanted to keep him, and fortunately he wanted to hang out with me today!  He was pretty quiet and didn’t talk much, but he had the cutest smile.  As soon as he would get on my shoulder or another person’s shoulders, his face would light up.  It was precious. 

The kids have so little but they were trying to offer us all their things.  Like at lunch, they tried to feed me their measly rice and beans.  Or when I was washing off my hands, the kids would take over and get a rock to scrub my hands.  Once again, they just creep into my heart.  

If anyone wants a precious little Tanzanian child, no one has been adopted since 2009.  I was tempted. 

Well, like I said earlier, we leave for Kenya in a day.  Tanzania has offered me so many new opportunities and experiences.  I’ll be forever grateful for everything I’ve learned in Tanzania.  I definitely feel like I’m growing.  God’s doing a good thing.  Though I don’t want to live in Tanzania, it’s crawled inside my heart and will be a part of me forever.  I hope all that I’ve learned in Tanzania I will carry with me and will shape my life in the future.  It’s a beautiful country with absolutely beautiful people.  Wow, that sounds cheesy, but it really is beautiful in a raw sort of way. 

Next time you hear from me, I’ll be in Kenya! Kwa heri!

Serengeti Pictures

 Two male Cheetahs about ten feet from our car!

 This is the male baboon carrying around the dead baby, he had just sat down and was taking the baby out of his mouth.  He put the baby on his lap and began stroking the baby. 

 The young elephant with part of her trunk missing.  

 My new favorite animals, hippos (kiboko in Swahili)

 Leopard taking a mid-morning nap in a tree.

One of the male lions we saw!

Mamba! Crocodile, we drove past him once, then the next time we drove by him he was in the water stalking gazelle who were drinking at the pool.  

South Dakota or Africa?  Looks pretty reminiscent of my homeland to me!

Siringet

Jumbo!  We are back from expedition in the Serengeti! It was one crazy time.  Usually my posts about one day are long, so I have a feeling that a post about five days will be quite long. 

Gosh, I don’t even know where to begin.  We left on the 20^th around 7:00 am, made a stop at Olduvai Gorge before arriving at our campsite in the Serengeti around 4:00 pm.  The 21^st and 22^nd, we left our campsite around 6:15 am to go on morning game drives, we got back to our campsite around 10:00 am and had breakfast, then had until 2:00 pm as free time.  Those four hours were brutal.  The heat is awful at that time and we had very little shade in our campsite so if you were fairly heat tolerant, you could brave the roasting tents for a nap, otherwise we all squished under a few trees and tried to rest.  Around 2:00 pm we had guest lectures, one about an overview of Serengeti and the other about the reintroduction of wild dogs in the Serengeti.  After our guest lectures, we would head out for an evening game drive until 6:30 pm, returned to camp and had supper around 7:00 pm.  Then our night was free.  It gets dark in Africa around 6:30 pm so the first night I played Uno by the light of head lamps, but the other nights I went to bed around 8:00 pm because I was so tired.  The 23^rd was the same with game drives, but we went to a fancy lodge in Serengeti for an American style buffet complete with create-your-own pastas, salads, meat, cheese, and dessert (you would have thought we hadn’t eaten forever by the way we gorged ourselves at the buffet); after lunch we had a swim in the lodge pool. 

Schedules aren’t very exciting, I’m sure you want to hear about the actual trip and what we saw.  I still don’t know where to begin!  I guess I will begin with Olduvai Gorge. 

Olduvai/Oldupai Gorge

Olduvai Gorge (as it is commonly, but mistakenly called) is considered to be the “cradle of mankind” because archeological digs have found some of the oldest human ancestor remains.  I’m not really sure if what they have found are “human ancestors”, but that is how the man who gave us a lecture described the remains.  If you have heard of “Lucy”, the oldest remain found, it is commonly thought that Lucy was found in Olduvai Gorge, however those remains were found in Ethiopia.  What were found in Olduvai were preserved footprints that matched Lucy’s species as well as remains from different archeological periods and artifacts.  The lecturer threw out so many scientific names for the remains, but I can’t remember them at all, essentially the scientists believe the gorge was occupied 1.7 million years ago. 

In the museum, they had a plaster replica of the best-preserved set of footprints made by the same species that Lucy was.  After preserving the real footprints, the archeologists reburied the footprints to keep them from eroding.  They also had a large collection of prehistoric animal skulls and horns that have been found in the gorge.  Just from looking at the skulls and horns, I can tell you that those were some weird looking animals! 

The museum and lecture were definitely interesting, though I’m unsure how I feel about the “human ancestor” part as it evokes the idea that modern humans evolved from these chimp-like, almost humans but not quite.  Evolution is a tricky subject and one that most people, especially Christians, don’t like to get into.  I completely understand why.  Therefore, as this isn’t a blog dealing with evolution or young earth vs old earth theories, I’m going to not talk about it other to say, the visit has made me think and has brought up a lot of tricky thoughts.  Though, at the end of the day, I get the feeling that we will never know the full extent of creation and how God formed the earth and everything living on it until we reach Heaven.  I’m naturally a curious person and want to know how everything works now, but I guess I’ll have to settle for not knowing for the time being. 

Fun fact about the gorge; while its commonly called Olduvai, that is a misspelling of a Maasai word for the wild sisal plant that grows in the gorge, Oldupai.  I believe they officially changed the site’s spelling to Oldupai Gorge, but most people still know it as Olduvai. 

Fun Fact about Serengeti:

Serengeti is also a misspelling of a Maasai word.  The Maasai word for the area is “Siringet” which means “wide, endless plains”.  Wide, endless plains definitely describe parts of the park.  There were a few moments on game drives when I would look out and feel like I was transferred back to eastern and central South Dakota for a moment (minus the corn fields).  I even exclaimed to my car mates: “This is what my homeland looks like!” It was beautiful.  I love plains that go on forever.  It just shows I really am a South Dakota girl at heart!   

Exciting Things We Saw in Siringet:

First of all, guess who completed her Big Five sightings? This girl! That’s right, I’ve seen a lion, elephant, a cape buffalo, rhino and wait for it….leopard! Leopards are gorgeous.  I saw three leopards, one of them I saw four different times.  The one we saw four different times was in the same tree all four times, but changed positions each time we saw it and had a dik-dik for breakfast one morning and a Thompson’s Gazelle for breakfast the next morning.  Another car saw a leopard chase and kill a warthog.  I unfortunately did not see any kills this trip, as morbid as that sounds, kills are really exhilarating to watch!

We also saw two cheetahs, ten feet away from our car! It was crazy!  We saw a large group of cars and pulled in and a cheetah was standing right there!  He walked around and called for another cheetah, also a male therefore it was his brother as cheetahs are only found in male pairs when they are siblings, who joined him!  We watched the cheetahs for thirty minutes!  They rested in the shade of a car for a while, then drank from the nearby stream and ran off into the grassland.  Incredible. 

HIPPOS!  There have been several conversations about how we have surprise favorite animals that we didn’t give much thought to before we came to Africa and once we saw them in Africa, we fell in love.  Well I fell in love with amphibious, fat, big-mouthed, yawning, mud-wallowing hippos.  One of the coolest things we saw was a crocodile eating a rotting hippo, we passed this particular scene the first day and watched the feast progress every day as there was less and less hippo every day.  The last full day there, we went to a special hippo pool where we could get out of the car and stand 50 feet away from the pool.  It smelled awful because the hippos use the pool as their bathroom and wallowing spot, but there were so many hippos lying on top of each other! Another morning, we watched hippos run towards a pool, one of the hippos couldn’t figure out how to get into the pool and tried four different spots before he actually got into the water by sliding down the bank into the water.  Hippos, they may be one of the most dangerous animals in Africa, but they are also now one of my favorites. 

Several lion prides.  I saw two male lions.  One had a fantastic mane, the other one was younger so didn’t have much of a mane at all.  We saw so many lion cubs though! They were precious.  We saw probably a total of 40 lions throughout the five days.  It was great!  

Sad Things We Saw in Siringet:

In Africa, baboons are considered vermin.  If they get into your personal space, you can kill them with no repercussion.  Even though the government “owns” all the animals, they don’t really care about baboons.  After watching these primates for a full day in Lake Manyara National Park and writing two scientific papers about them, I have a greater appreciation for them, even if they can be nuisances. 

One day we were driving and had to stop for a baboon troop crossing the road, as we watched the baboons, we noticed one was carrying a dead baboon baby in its mouth.  This baboon, a male baboon to be exact, crossed the road and sat down on the other side taking the dead baby out of its mouth and putting it on his lap.  He then began to stroke the dead baby.  The baby had been dead for several days at least, it looked almost mummified.  In baboon social structures, there are some males who act as godfathers and take care of young that are usually related to them and we figured since baboons don’t exactly know their fathers that this male was probably a godfather to the dead baby.  This scene really touched me.  For all the bad rap baboons get, they obviously have complex brains and have feelings.  Baboons aren’t the only animals to “mourn” their dead, elephants when passing remains of a clan member or relative will rumble and move their trunks over the remains. 

The other sad thing I saw in Serengeti was a juvenile elephant with half of her trunk missing.  We were watching an elephant herd and I realized one of the young elephants only had half her trunk!  She was trying to grab grasses to eat but her trunk wasn’t long enough to reach the grasses so she had to bend over to be able to reach grass.  We asked our driver, Charles, why an elephant would be missing half a trunk and he said that it probably got caught in a snare set by poachers.  Awful. 

Visitors to our Campsite:

Fun fact: we stayed in the Dik-dik campsite.  More fun facts: We brought our own security detail and hired a guard with a gun from TANAPA (the park authority) to patrol the campsite for visitors such as hyenas, lions, cheetah, and serval – all of who visited our campsite. 

Mind you, though we were at a campsite, we were still in the middle of the Serengeti and were not separated by fences or any barriers so animals were free to visit us at any time, though they all visited during the night.  I saw a few hyenas, but didn’t see any other animals.  I definitely heard them at night laughing and howling.  Apparently last night there were a few lions wandering through our campsite and the iscari (security people) got into cars to corral the lions out of the campsite.  Of course, I slept through all the fun parts like that!  Last night there was a lion near the border of the campsite around 10:00 pm, but I had already gone to bed.  We were sharing our campsite with students from another rival study abroad program, SIT (other unwelcome guests depending on who you asked), and I guess several of the SIT students decided they wanted to get closer to the lion, and got fairly close before they got yelled at by one of our professors and hauled back to their tents.  The SIT program is not wildlife based, obviously.  I never felt unsafe though, our iscari are great and kept us very safe. 

There you have it, Serengeti.  I don’t know how to wrap up a trip like the one I experienced. The magical, mystical land of purple flying monsters; or maybe more like the magical land of endless plains abundant of beautiful creatures and God’s creation.  Siringet.  

Exams, Exams, Exams....then Serengeti!

Blah.  Studying for exams isn't fun.  Studying for exams in Africa is actually worse.  I don't think homework should be legal in Africa.  Or at least legal for SFS students.

We had our first exam today for Wildlife Ecology.  I definitely thought the broader concepts were going to be tested and not the little details, however I found that to be false.  I had to guess on a few questions and am fairly sure I got one four-part question about vegetation survey methods wrong. Blah.   That's frustrating.

We have Wildlife Management and Environmental Policy tomorrow at 8:00 am and 1:00 pm respectively (my time).  So if you're up at midnight or 5:00 am and want something to pray for, you can pray for my tests!  We had all day yesterday to study and the half of the day before as well, then the rest of this day after our exam.  Unfortunately for myself, I keep losing focus.  I did well for about six or seven hours yesterday, then 4:00 pm came and I couldn't do anything else.  I've hit that point right now as well, which is why I'm writing a blog post instead of studying.... I just can't do it. I can only go over animal count methods and policies for so long.  On top of it all, I'm pretty homesick today.  And my mouse tracker pad on my computer went awol today.  I haven't been able to use it all today.  SUPER frustrating.  I'm just blessed that the mouse pad started going crazy the day before I left so I was able to buy a bluetooth mouse just in case.

I'm trying to have an attitude shift.  I'm trying really hard.  I was told the other day a quote that goes something like "Life is great, it's just my perspective that's off".  Grumble grumble...thats totally true.  I kinda want to sit and be sorry for myself a little bit longer but that's not going to help anything.  My God is so great.  I am so blessed to be here.  My family is great.  My friends are great.  Africa is great.  I have the opportunity to learn.  I have the opportunity to study abroad in Tanzania.  This is only for a season.  I get to go to bed soon.  Oh and probably some super exciting news: the day after tomorrow (I have no concept of days of the week here, I think today is Thursday so on Saturday) we are packing everyone from the camp up and going on a little camping trip to Serengeti National Park.  No big deal or anything.  We just get to sleep for four nights in Serengeti National Park.  We get to explore probably the coolest national park in the world for five days.  Yeah after thinking about that, I really have no reason to feel sorry for myself.  I really didn't have any reason to feel sorry for myself before though either.

I won't be posting until after the Serengeti expedition.  Expect a super long post.  Pray that I get to see a rhino and leopard and cheetah and lion.  That's a pretty ambitious list of animals to see, three of them are some of the most elusive mammals in Africa.  But, hey, you have to have a goal!  Pray that I get through these two next exams unscathed. Pray for my attitude.  Thank you all!  Have a great next few days!

Home Stay Pictures

 Afternoon chai time

 Joece and Azama

 Godi after he tied himself up to the goat hitching post

 Godi!

 Mwana

 The kids ( I don't know the boy's names except for the one in the gray, Sheban), Mwana next to me, Azama on the left bottom, Godi, and Joece

Jumping rope with Joece and Azama