best NPD ever

After two and a half months we finally, finally, finally, FINALLY!!! SAW A CHEETAH!!

We've all been waiting to see a cheetah since our expedition in Serengeti, where we were told that we had the greatest chance of seeing one! The other group of students saw about 4 cheetahs, and even saw one hunt an impala down, but we finally got to see our own!!

We saw it at Amboseli National Park yesterday on our non-program day. We passed by another safari car that stopped us and told us where it was, very nice of them.

It was just hangin out in the shade of a little bush, getting up every once in a while to stalk a herd of impala a couple hundred yards away. It was amazing. I feel kind of bad though because I think we scared off its meal.. But by scaring the meal we got to watch the cheetah walk around a bit







Today was our 6 day of data collection for directed research. On Thursday we finally finished with our local community interviews!! It was interesting to hear the views of the locals on tourism based industries, but after 5 days of 12 interviews a day, it started to get reallll old. Today we went to lodges to interview tourists, drivers, and lodge managers. By far the best day of data collection so far.

Sateesh and I were assigned to go to Mada Lodge, right at the entrance to Amboseli NP. Right when we walked in a worker gave us warm towels to wipe away the dust and ice cold glasses of juice. The receptionist told us that the manager was currently in a meeting and directed us to the buffet by the pool to eat until he was done! the buffet was great and the pool was by far one of the coolest pools I've ever seen. It was a giant shallow pool with a raised deep pool in the middle of it, with bridges that lead into it. The dessert at the buffet included cream puffs and a real chocolate cake!

While we waited after we ate, we interviewed a few drivers but got no interviews from tourists (they were too busy relaxing to let us interview them..) There was also this big spiral staircase in the middle of the dining room that went to the top of the building. It gave us a beautiful view of Kilimanjaro and Amboseli park.

We then met with the lodge manager to ask about the lodges involvement with the local community. He said that all of their staff is local, and they occasionally buy local products from farmers when they run low on produce. Also, the owner of all of the Mada lodges in Kenya is an Indian family that has lived in Kenya for years. Pretty interesting.. Our interview with the manager was cut short when he had to return to his other meeting. So it was a pretty bad day data collecting wise, but a great day of relaxing!

halloween in april

Before I talk about the great halloween night that we had 2 days ago, I'll put up some pictures from the Tsavo expedition...

laval flows that we drove through on our way to Tsavo West NP - view of chyulu hills in the background.


Mzima springs- saw some crocs here


Driving through the serene chyulu hills


hikinh up a cloudy hill in chuylu


The elephant that tried to charge our car!


So two nights ago, the wonderful social committee put together a festive halloween party, to celebrate finals being over, DR starting, and to just bring everyone's spirits back. The event was actually a brain child of Caroline and me; when we're bored we sit around and think of random themed days that we could have- in Tanzania we had Blue Day where we played depressing music at breakfast, put blu food coloring in all of the breakfast food, and made morbid/depressing place mats for everybody (it actually turned out to be a really sad day - we had an extra hour and a half of ecology class with the bitchy Dr. Wallis, and our amazing swahili teacher quit to start a new job in Dar es Salaam.)

Anyways, halloween started at dinner, where everyone was obligated to show up in a costume. I was so surprised at how everyone participated and how creative people managed to be with such limited costume resources! After dinner we had a costume parade down the middle of the chumba, and an awards ceremony to give out medals to the most creative, most africa appropriate, most awkward, sexiest, funniest, most ecologically destructive, cutest, smelliest, most magical, best cat walk, and a few others I can't recall.. Oh and the whole time we played the nightmare before christmas soundtrack.


Columbian drug load, pirate, and velma.


Everyone lining up for dinner in their awesome costumes.


Award winners!



Yesterday was our fist non-program day in weeks! it was amazing! we started the day late, at around 9:30, with a hike down to a beautiful gorge in the middle of nowhere. We drove for about 45 minutes to a random field of corn. We got out, hiked through the corn fields for about 30 minutes (corn stalks are a lot taller than I imagined ~10-15 feet) and descended a slippery hill into a tropical gorge filled with gigantic viney trees. At the bottom of the gorge was a waterfall and stream that separated the side that we hiked down and a giant rock cliff. The cliff was covered in huge loose roots that hung down all the way from the top of the cliff to the bottom of the gorge. We crossed the stream, with the help of Molly, and hung around on the roots for a while. Then we had a nice relaxed lunch by the waterfall and headed back up to the cars.













After we drove into Loitokotok town and stopped at an HIV clinic and then went into town to look around. I, along with a few others, skipped the clinic because I felt a little weird going in.. and just went straight to the town. It was nice to have the freedom to just walk around and cross streets without having to ask permission. We walked up and down almost every street looking through the different shops and market stalls. After about an hour we got back into the cars and went to a few curio shops with the whole group.

After some souvenir shopping at the curios we went to Club Kimana again for a few drinks!!

TODAY!! was our first day of data collection for our directed research! My group, environmental policy, went out to Entonet, a small town at the base of kilimanjaro, to interview the locals on the tourist industry and their economic background. We got some pretty interesting answers, and a lot more people were involved with the tourist industry than I thought. Being in the tourism industry here is a pretty big deal; it's a solid and stable source of income and it pays much more than agriculture or pastoralism.

One household that we went to was extremely friendly! they let us into their home, allowed us to eat our packed lunches in their living room, and even bought cokes for us! They turned out to be our translators family friend, so the exceptional hospitality wasn't that surprising. When we left they even gave us bracelets as a thank you for taking interest in their worries.

Now that DR has started things are going to get pretty busy.. I have data collection for the next week and then write up for the week and a half after that. During data collection we get to go to more local communities to interview farmers, lodges to interview tourists/lodge managers/tour guides, and we also get to have discussions with Group Ranch managers and government officials (Kenya Wildlife Service.)

so excited!! and after we finish with our research reports we get to present our findings to the community!

wooo

easter sunday

Happy Easter!!

Easter in Kenya was surprisingly festive. For dinner we had tacos, a rare delicacy, and someone even decorated the tables with flowers and candles. And as we speak someone is whacking away at a pig pinata, in replacement of the easter ham, filled with candies and rehydration salts. Pretty fun easter!


Yesterday we got back from our 5 day expedition to Tsavo West National Park! It was a lot of fun, and really different from our expedition to Serengeti NP. One difference is that there were nearly no animal sightings. We did see a leopard eating a klipspringer, but other than that nothing very exciting. But the park itself was really beautiful. On our drive in we passed through a huge field of lava flows. It was pretty cool driving down a little road and being surrounded by black lava remains from hundreds of years ago.

We also got to go on a hike up the Chyulu hills, probably my favorite part of the expedition. It was a pretty short hike, but we had an amazing view. We first ascended a little hill, crossed a ridge, and then hiked up another connecting hill. All around us we were surrounded by green hills shrouded in clouds and covered in trees. At the top we had a lecture for environmental policy.

The last day of our expedition we went to a rhino sanctuary in the morning and then to the Serena Lodge again! weeee.
The rhino sanctuary would have been a lot better if we actually saw some rhinos.. the sanctuary was a 90km sqrd inclosure within Tsavo West. It only had about 60-70 rhinos, and we only drove through it for about an hour and a half, so it's not surprising that we didn't have a rhino sighting.

The Serena was a little disappointing, compared to the other lodges, but who am I to complain when I come to africa to study wildlife management/policy. The food was great, had pork steaks with mustard sauce, a turkey carving station (kinda unique), spicy veggie curry, lots of cakes, and a pasta bar. The pool was pretty small and didn't have a view like the other lodges did.. but the dining area had a landscape view of the park to make up for it.

We left early sunday morning, per usual, and got back to camp at around 12pm. We rested for the rest of the day, the first rest time we've had in what feels like weeks, and then went to bed early!

Tomorrow is my last final!! It's a combined test for all three classes, so it should be fairly easy and short. After the tests are over I just have a few papers to turn in and then we start our directed research!!!!! Finally! I've been waiting for this for a long time. I hope I get my first choice of Environmental Policy DR because it seems the most interesting and beneficial. If I get that DR topic, versus wildlife management or ecology, I get to interview locals, government officials, tourists, and lodge managers about the tourist industry and its implications on wildlife conservation. The other ones are based on habitat assessment and group ranch locations.. We'll see. We submit our top choices for DR tomorrow so I should know by Tuesday!

I realize I didn't post pictures for this post-- kind of tired and not up to it so I'll do it tomorrow maybe.

KBC

long time no post..

I've arrived safely at Kilimanjaro Bush Camp in Kimana, Kenya! The long anticipated transition went smoothly and the Olympics against the Kenya group was a lot of fun!

My last few days in Tanzania were amazing. After finals ended, about a week and a half ago, we had about 3 days of free time fun time. The Sunday after our last final we went back to Watoto Care Orphanage and built the children a swing out of logs and rope. It was great and looked a lot cleaner than I expected.



The next day was another Serena Lodge day! It was comprised of buffet and swimming, also me breaking my 8 day streak of vegetarianism. Such a great day to become normal again!

Then on Tuesday, we got a goat from the market for the goat roast. He was tied to the satellite dish next to the kitchen, we named him Bucket after my future goat pet. Kind of morbid, I know.



At around 2pm we took him down to the fire pit to be slaughtered. I don't think I should post pictures of that, don't know who might freak out. While he was cooking a group got together to go down to Zebra Handcraft, a local curio shop with a bar! We all got a little silly and came back to camp for Bucket! He was pretty tasty.

The next morning we said our goodbyes to the Havennature staff :(, then left for Kenya. On our way we stopped in Arusha to get some milkshakes and to go to the grocery store. A REAL GROCERY STORE! I spent about $40 USD on 6 kit kats, 4 snickers, toothpaste, 2 boxes of cookies, apples, and a white chocolate bar.

A few hours later and we were at the Kilimanjaro Bush Camp!!! The other group was ready in the parking lot to greet us.

The next day was the Olympics! Here are some pictures of the games:





In the end we won more than Kenya, giving us the title as the Olympic champions!

Now about the KBC site. It is a lot bigger and better suited for our program. The library is larger, there are more bathroom facilities, the chef is an ex-Serena Lodge chef!!, the Bandas (huts) are roomy with 4 beds and 4 dressers, there is a field in the middle of the site for playing games and sports, and the running track gets a view of Kilimanjaro! There's actually a view of Kilimanjaro from pretty much anywhere in camp!







A few days after our arrival, we got the opportunity to do a Maasai home stay. I paried up with Sateesh and we both were paired with a Maasai warrior. We went to his Boma early in the morning and stayed until about 5pm. Even though it was only about 10 hours, it seemed like a longlonglong time.

We started by helping our Maasai herd his cows out to graze. We both got sticks and guided the cows out for about an hour, turned them around and brought them back. After, we came back and our Maasai's wife made us some hot tea with biscuits! After we cut down some spiky trees to help fortify the Boma. At around 12 we had a tasty lunch of Ugali and Cabbage! After lunch we rested and worked a little more on the Boma! It was an amazing experience and

Kenya!!

So today we crossed the border into Kenya! We woke up early to say our goodbyes to the staff at Havennature :( and got into the trucks and left.

We stopped in Arusha, Tanzania on the way to go to the grocery store (A REAL GROCERY STORE!!!) and to get milkshakes!!!! and sandwiches!!! It was all so so so delicious. At the store I bought: 6 kit kat, 4 snickers, 2 boxes of cookies, a can of pringles (salt n vinegar), nutella, apples, and toothpaste. After, I got a chocolate milkshake and a chicken, pesto, avacado, mozzarella sandwich!!

We drove a total of 8 ish hours and finally got to the camp! the other group of students greeted us at the entrance and welcomed us to our new home.

After a short welcome session, we got our tent assignments, moved in, and played some volleyball. Dinner was great! the chefs here are really good. We had chapati, chicken, guacamole, soup, mashed potatoes, kale, and real penne pasta!

The duka (snack shop) here is a lot better than the one at havennature. they have cold sodas, a huge stock of candy, t-shirts (kinda weird), and postcards! pretty convenient.

ANd tomorrow is the big day! The Tanzania (us) v Kenya (them) olympics start at 8am! Hopefully I'll kick some ass and win a gold medal for ultimate ninja!

I'll post more updates soon with pictures of the site and of my final days at Havennature. The mosquitos here are killing me so time to go to tuck my mosquito net in and go to bed!

Finals!

Can't believe it's finals week already! back home everyone is just starting to have midterms..

The work is really starting to pile up here. Not because of procrastination but because of stupid teachers that give out assignments less than a week before they're due. As of today I have to:

1. FInish a poster/powerpoint describing the mammal density distribution in Tarangire National Park (equipped with all sorts of statistical tests that make no sense to me).
2. Make a game board that teachers the players about giraffe/habitat interactions.
3. Write 25 150-250 word descriptions on animal ecology for stupid pictures. (given two days ago and due at the end of the week.) Some of the pictures include: a cricket sitting on someone's leg, a bird sitting on a tree branch, a group of giraffe standing, etc.
4. Make a statistical analysis of wildebeest counts in Serengeti. (given yesterday and due at the end of the week).

The teachers here really need to start working on giving us assignments in advance. Maybe I'm just not used to the african teaching style.


Also, classes are officially over! Today was our last lecture and starting tomorrow we just have reading days until our finals on Saturday and Sunday. After finals we have two days of returning graded material and then packing up and heading to Kenya!!

oh! and since we missed the Olympics out here in Tanzania, we're making up for it by having our own little Olympics games- Tanzania group vs. Kenya group. Us Tanzanian kids are probably going to win. We even ordered jerseys with the Tanzanian flag colors and bandanas. Hopefully we'll get face paint too.

The games:
ultimate ninja (introduced by me during RAP)
ugali eating contest
watermelon seed spitting
swahili translation
east african culture quiz
maasai jumping
volleyball
soccer
water balancing
egg & spoon balancing
I signed up for ultimate ninja and maasai jumping.

Don't know why I signed up for the jumping.. should be interesting,

One of the girls here, Lauren, taught us a short dance to Jai-ho. We're thinking of practicing some more and doing it as we enter the Kenya camp to intimidate them.


Since I'm leaving the Havennature camp in a week, I thought I'd upload some photos of the site since I never got around to it.


These are our tents.



The chumba! where we eat, study, hang out.


Outside view of the kitchen and where we line up for dinner.



Our very africa classroom.


The fire pit and view of the local farms.



Inside the bathroom- open bathrooms welcome birds in the morning.


Kids on the running track.


oh and I got pink eye this morning yikes!

Serengeti

Returned from Serengeti two days ago! It was so much better than expected- saw more animals than I thought I would and camping out was not nearly as bad as I thought it would be.

We started our 7 hour trip to Serengeti early on Thursday morning. We left at 7:00, passed through the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, and stopped at Oldupai (Olduvai) Gorge before arriving at Serengeti. Oldupai was kind of a let down.. You would think that the site of the earliest human fossils would have a better exhibition than it did, which was just a little shack crammed with scattered information about th findings. The view of the gorge was beautiful, but no different from any other landscape view we've seen. We didn't even get to drive through the trails in the gorge. It was still a great experience.

After the let down at Oldupai, we drove the final stretch to Serengeti in 2 hours and finally arrived at the entrance to the park. As soon as we drove into the park, we opened up our hatches and looked out for any animals. It didn't take long to see something spectacular- 5 minutes into our drive we saw a herd of thousands and thousands of zebra and wildebeest grazing in preparation for their great migration north.




Another hour later we arrived at our campsite! Equipped with flushing toilets, showers (which we weren't allowed to use), a kitchen space, and a fire pit. Much more luxurious than I expected. We set up our tents, 1 tent for every 5-6 people, unpacked, and jumped back into the cars for an evening game drive.



Our first game drive was very successful, we saw a pride of female lions, A LEOPARD!, hippos floatin in a pond, and on our way back we had to cross a flooded road by a river that had a crocodile swimming in it! So cool.




When we got back Judy, our chef back at Havennature Camp that we brought with us, cooked us up a delicious meal that we ate on our handy mess kits. After dinner we had announcements about the next few days and then, something crazy happened. Lions started roaring and grumbling VERRY close to our site. Sarah yelled for all of us to get in our tents and to only come out if an askari (security guard) was there to guide us to the bathroom. All throughout the night lions, hyenas, and baboons woke me up with loud roaring and screeching. It was amazing yet extremely terrifying.

In the morning we exchanged stories about what we heard, a few heard a hyena run through camp and knock over buckets of water. Sarah had to go through the tall grass to find them and only found 2 of 3.

We skipped breakfast in the morning so we could go on an early game drive, which was lame. No animals seen except a few herd of impala and some hartebeest. We got back, had breakfast, hung around camp till lunch, then went on another game drive.

This game drive was a lot more exciting. We saw more lions, some Thomson's and Grant's gazelle, hippo, hartebeest, topi, and another leopard! This leopard was chillin in a tree with at least 10 safari trucks surrounding it. It was kind of sad but the leopard knew he had control over the situation- he just jumped out of the tree and everyone dispersed. Another car from our group was lucky enough to have the leopard walk right up to their truck.




Our third day in Serengeti was probably the best. We had a 6 hour long morning game drive and since it was so long we were able to drive farther out from camp to see new areas of the park. In the afternoon we came up to a huge open grassland area with large kopis (giant rock structures) everywhere. Here we saw the equivalent of Pride Rock from Lion King. At one kopi we saw 3 baby lion cubs from about 5-10 meters away! They were looking right at us so I got a lot of good photos. RIght around the corner were 2 mature female lions basking in the sun. And on the other side of the kopi were 3 other females, one of which looked very pregnant.




After our amazing game drive we went back to camp for a rushed lunch and then headed to a research center for a guest lecture on disease prevention and control in Serengeti. After 6 hours in a bouncy car in the sun, no one was able to stay awake. I felt bad because the lecturer was very interesting, but it was just way to hard to keep my eyes open. After was another game drive. Highlights: lions, another leopard, more antelope, hippos, some beautiful birds, including ostrich.



The next day started off with another morning game drive. Again, we didn't see much. I think there's something about morning game drives.. we never seem to see anything cool. We did get to go to a hippo pool and watch some hippos fight each other.



After the hippo pool we headed over to the Serena Lodge, the chain of lodges mentioned in an earlier post. This on was just as luxurious and had food that was even tastier. Mom would be proud, I got I think 6 plates at the buffet. 2 plates of steak and veggie kabobs, baked fish, sausage, rice and chicken stir fry. 2 plates of salad and fresh fruit. and 2 plates of dessert: chocolate covered bananas, grape creamy jello, brownie bites, and fresh passion fruit and tomato fruit. The passion fruit was crazy! I was hoping I'd get to try it sometime. It has such a strong overpowering flavor, first sour and then sweet. It was great with the brownies.

After the buffet I showered for the first time in 4 days and jumped into the pool. Like the other Serena Lodge, the pool was an infinity pool. I had a few gin and tonics and then showered again and headed back to camp.

SInce we were leaving the next morning, we had a debriefing about the trip and what we learned (we did do a few exercises while on game drives for class). The next morning we woke up at 5:30 to pack up the truck with our equipment and take down our tents. Unfortunately, it was pouring when we woke up so we had to do all of this in the rain. I was soaked by the time we were ready to leave.

On our drive back to havennature, we stopped at Ngorongoro Crater- one of the 7 natural wonders? or something. It was probably the best National Park we went to. A little background info.

Ngorongoro Crater was formed when a gigantic volcano blew it's top and created a giant crater, 15 km in diameter. Since then, herds of animals moved in to take advantage of the rich open grasslands, many lakes, and frequent rainfall.

Getting into the park was tricky, since we had to descend the side of the crater. It was a bumpy and rough ride down the side, but we got a great view of the whole park. Inside the park we hoped to see cheetahs and rhinos, two mammals we haven't seen yet. We were lucky to see 6 rhinos, but no cheetah. :(



We also saw lots of hippo, topi, hartebeest, gazelle, lions, wildebeest, buffalo, and elephant. We even saw a female lion rolling in the grass about 3 feet away from the road!

Our journey out of the park was just as cool as our trip in. We had to take a different road up the crater, which took about 30 minutes. This road went through tropical forest and tall trees. It was cool seeing the different environment. There were also parts of the road that gave us more clear shots of the entire park.



We got back to camp a few hours later, unpacked, and relaxed. The next day was a relaxed day which included sleeping in till 8:30 (which is late for me now), going for a run, a late lunch, and a quick wildlife management class at 3. Then Indiana Jones: Raiders of the Lost Ark after dinner.