The Water Crew

     Today was our last day of directed research fieldwork. It was a tiring eight days, but I had a tremendous amount of fun with my group (the water crew) slopping through the Noolturesh River or climbing through thick acacia shrubland. I managed to escape multiple almost falls, extra wide jumps over rivers, traverses and climbs of cliffs and of course a myriad of encounters with the horrendous Acacia melliferus (aka "wait-a-bits"). Despite puncturing my rainboots with an acacia thorn, falling into the river, falling straight into an acacia bush and witnessing just how far my skin stretches when stuck to a barbed acacia thorn, tripping on multiple rocks, somehow I am still alive. Tomorrow begins our data analysis period and after a couple of days we start our final paper writing. I have just about two weeks left here at KBC in Kenya (I cannot believe how fast this semester has flown by-my family is literally going to have to drag me back to the U.S.), and even though I have to spend a lot of it behind a computer, I know I am going to take every chance I get to explore my surroundings just a bit more.

                                      

View from a "hill" on our last day of field work.

What a good looking bunch of kids 

(from left to right)- Ed, Kylie, Haley, Laura, Me, Julia, Cam, Tally, D, and Kjersten

The Water Crew=the bomb diggity

The best group of guides we could have every asked for (from left to right)- Samuel ("Sammy"), Rana ("Ronny"), Dansan ("Danny"), Mwato ("Marry"), Wiper ("Franky"), and Ernest ("Ernie")

We gave all of our guides and Ernest (only the coolest staff member at KBC) "American" names. They seemed to thoroughly enjoy it.

Typical.

Slopping around in the Noolturesh River

     Yesterday, that would be Thanksgiving for all you folks back in the states, my Wildlife Ecology directed research (DR) group began our fieldwork. Cam and I (the only two geology majors on this trip) were assigned the task of mapping the Noolturesh River and measuring turbidity (basically the amount of suspended sediment in a water sample). We decided to add some of our own measurements including suspended sediment load, which required us to take one liter samples of water from the river at various points, and width and depth measurements to calculate flow velocity. Because we spend so much time slopping around in the river, we have to wear rainboots all day-which basically means we get to hike ~9km each day in shoes with little traction or support. And yes, after day two my feet are killing me.

     On day one of fieldwork, I managed to escape ultimate embarrassment (although Cam did have to hoist me out of the side of the river at one point). Today on the other hand, I managed to overflow my boots with water thirty minutes into the day, managed to get sort of somewhat stuck on the side of vertical cliff in rainboots (don't worry mom-I made it down) and also managed to lodge myself in a hole so big that Cam had to yank me out. Needless to say, it wasn't my day, but the fact that all my limbs are in tact, I'd consider these first two field days a success. 

     Our group has six more days of fieldwork, and I have a few more (hopefully) days that I get to spend slopping around in the Noolturesh River. I'm sure I'll have some more wonderful accident updates as the week goes on.

Glorious rainforest we somehow made our way through

More glorious rainforest

Measuring turbidity

Measuring river width

Slopping around

Cam carrying our guide, Dansan, across the river (he didn't have any rain boots)

A black mamba, Amboseli National Park and Kimana Wildlife Sanctuary

Since I’ve last posted, a lot has happened. Our group went out in the field for an Environmental Policy exercise and interviewed local farmers. During the trek through muddy irrigated fields, my group came across a black mamba (which one of us almost put her foot on). It was my first live black mamba sighting, and of course it was me- the girl who’s terrified of snakes- who was one of the first to see one in the entire group.

Well hello there venomous fella

On Wednesday, we went to Amboseli National Park. We didn’t get to spend much time there, as we had a rescheduled lecture that interrupted the day, and since the rains have started, many of the animals were not inside the park. However, we did get to see some cute baby zebras and we even got to see some of the famous Amboseli elephants. We also went to lecture given by a senior Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) officer, who told us the park has no poaching inside the park boundaries despite the park not being fenced and explained many of the management challenges the park faces (i.e. population increase, increased human-wildlife conflict, land-use change, etc.). 

Cute wittle baby zebra

Just playing in the mud

Emerging from the muddiful goodness

Baby elephant and her mama

On Thursday, we went to Kimana Wildlife Sanctuary, which is located about five minutes away from our camp. It was set up for the purpose of community benefit from wildlife conservation. And although we later learned it has been a complete failure here, it served as a successful model for wildlife sanctuaries around the country that have been able to bring economic benefits from wildlife to the local community. This day was very cool though because while the wildlife sanctuary has failed to bring monetary gain to the community, it has been somewhat successful in protecting habitats and wildlife within its borders. During the trip, we saw a poached elephant that had been killed by a poisoned spear after it raided crops from a nearby field. KWS had taken the ivory from the elephant to avoid illegal harvesting of it, but the rest of the body remained and we could clearly see the spear marks on its body.

Holy Kilimanjaro (and zebra)

Poached elephant, ivory was taken by KWS to avoid illegal harvesting

 Well hello there Giraffe

Oh look, a giraffe family- how adorable.

Today, we finished classes in Kenya, and we are in the midst of beginning or directed research projects. I was assigned to the wildlife ecology water project DR, which I am very excited about because I get to play geologist. Hopefully I'll have some hilarious fieldwork stories to divulge soon.

Maasai Homestay

     Today was our second homestay of the semester. This time around, our homestay families were Maasai (most of the people in the Kimana, Kenya area are Maasai), and we got to get our a hands a little dirtier than our previous Iraqw homestay in Kenya. Danielle and I were partnered together this time around, and almost immediately after being dropped off at our Mama's house, we were put to work. 

                                              

Maasai homestay Mama and I- modeling some beautiful Maasai jewelry that she handmade.

     First, we walked about a mile to the nearest water source, a small stream, and filled three canteens with water.  Now, the walk there was a breeze (the canteens were obviously empty), but the walk back was a comedy show. Maasai women have some tough skin (and heads), and they are able to carry unbelievably heavy and/or bulky things. I found out fast that I would not survive the Maasai Mama life for long. As soon as my Mama handed my the water canteen and motioned for me to put the strap on my head, I knew I was in trouble. I managed to get about 500 feet from the stream before my strap on the water canteen broke and got only about 500 more feet beyond that before I gave up head carrying altogether. Instead, I somehow decided positioning the strap precariously close to my throat was the better way to go (it definitely wasn't). Miraculously, I made it back to the boma. Danielle fared much better than me and managed to carry her water canteen strapped to her head the entire way. The Maasai is strong with that one.

     After collected water, we had tea time and began cooking food for chakula cha mchana (lunch). First, we cooked ugali (basically is flour and water boiled into a large mass of food). And when I say we, I mean our Mama laughed at us while "attempted" to stir the hot, sticky, pasty mess that is ugali in a pot. After finishing the ugali, we moved onto cutting cabbage and tomatoes. Our Mama told me I was excellent at cutting cabbage and that I must have learned well in Tanzania. The tomatoes on the other hand, she laughed at me just as she did with the ugali.

The pro cabbage cutter (in case you can't gather it from the picture, I'm referring to myself)

Maasai Mama rocking the cabbage cutting

     After lunch, we had some down time to play with the kids. I obviously spent most of my time admiring the 6 month old and conspiring a plan for stealing the gorgeous child away (of course I would never do that, but her chunky baby arms were so damn cute I couldn't resist the thought). After playing, Danielle and I were taught how to make Maasai bracelets. I've bought so many during the course of this trip and it was really cool to see how they are made. It was also extremely fulfilling to know our work on the bracelets we had made could help our Mama make some more money (I'm sure her handiwork is about 100 times better than ours, but it still felt good to help).

Too much cuteness for one picture.

I seriously wanted to take this child home with me. 

My Maasai Mama offered this adorable boy up to me (She was definitely joking). I told her I would take him in a heartbeat (I was definitely not joking).

     After playing and beading, we started collected poop. After our experience with out wildlife ecology professor's poop field exercise in Tanzania, we were well prepared for the work, and even though I managed to get thorned about five times, I still found digging in the poop to be thoroughly enjoyable. The collected poop was used to cover wood for the creation of charcoal. Maasai households rely very heavily on charcoal as a source of heat (and therefore cooking), and so this process plays a very huge role in daily Maasai life.

     Then torrential downpour happened. We hid up in the Mama's home to wait for the worst of the rain to pass, and then we immediately volunteered ourselves for another project-house building. It was still raining, and we got soaked, but we felt extremely accomplished having helped put together a wall (collected sticks and placing them in-between the structural beams) of a new Maasai home. 

     When our ride came to take us home, neither Danielle nor myself wanted to leave. I can honestly say that I don't think I've had so much fun with a foreign family or culture in my entire life. Danielle and I speak only very little kiswahili, and our Maasai Mama spoke only a few words of english. I had so much fun learning new words from the kids and teaching them english words as well. Communication was definitely not as hard as I had expected it to be (my sign language is getting unbelievably amazing), and I wish I could have stayed longer to learn more. I loved being able to help our Mama and not be in the way, and playing with the children was such a great rest from the other hardwork we had been doing. I can only hope that people can experience a day like this sometime in their life; it really is one of my favorite experiences of this study abroad program so far.

Danielle and I, homestay family picture take 1 (really probably take 5- the others are so ridiculous I decided to save your eyeballs)

The family! Absolutely adored them. 

Lake Nakuru National Park

The past week has been crazy. First, our group switched SFS sights from Tanzania to Kenya. Then, three days after arriving in Kenya, we were preparing to leave for expedition to Lake Nakuru National Park. The drive to Lake Nakuru was long (about eight hours) and we had to deal with Nairobi traffic near the middle of the trek, but it was totally worth it when we finally got to the park and were able to explore. We spent three glorious days exploring the park, and I GOT TO SEE SO MANY RHINOS. I figured pictures would better explain my experience, so enjoy!

One of our many roadside stops along the way to Lake Nakuru National Park. Here I present you our grossest toilet experience yet. At least it was situated on a cliff overlooking the rift valley.

 The magnificent waterbuck (our wildlife ecology's, Shem's, favorite animal)

Zebra with probable lion attack wounds. 

The beautiful Lake Nakuru. This view was absolutely breathtaking. I also wanted to jump in the water, but I'm pretty sure that's illegal.

Driving through the black-headed gull parade. 

THE BEAUTIFUL WHITE RHINO! -- my new favorite animal.

Another of the many unbelievable views in the park.

Mother and offspring butt pose. Love the rhinos. We followed these rhinos for awhile (I mean who wouldn't want to stare at a baby white rhino for hours on end).

Lazy lion chilling in a tree.

Mr. Giraffey.

Cool waterfall with water I would not want to swim in.

Lion hill overlook. We spent two nights watching the sunset up here and it was glorious.

Silly fighting buffalo.

Creepy buffalo staredown.

Karibu Kenya

It’s been awhile since I have been able to post anything, but I’M IN KENYA! Our camp is located in the Kimana Group Ranch, which is in the foothills of Mt. Kilimanjaro. The nearest town is Kimana, and it is about an hour walk or 30 min drive away. It’s Maasai country here, so most of the staff is Maasai and like our staff in Tanzania, they are wonderful. Our camp is absolutely amazing. Not only is it huge (we seriously had no idea how bad we were cramped in Tanzania until we got here), but you can see freaking Mt. Kilimanjaro outside our bandas. Kili also serves as awesome motivation when I’m up at six in the morning sweating on the running track (I almost squeal every time I turn the corner and see it). The professors here are also fantastic. It’s exciting to be able to start thinking about our directed research, which starts in about two weeks, and interacting with the professors who will advice us through the process. I’m crossing my fingers that I get to work on the water resource project with the Wildlife Ecology professor, Kiringe. Not only is the project extremely interesting since water rights, allocation and availability are a huge issue in East Africa, but also the project relates directly to my geological interests.

We had our first official holiday in East Africa, Halloween, a few days ago, and of course us twenty-some-year-olds HAD to dress up in costumes to celebrate. Our social committee also set up pumpkin carving and trick-or-treating- I don’t think I’ve had so much fun on Halloween since I was a child.

Today, the rains really started coming down. It’s the beginning of the short rains here in East Africa, and so I’m fully prepared for the epic mud fest that is about to happen around camp. Tomorrow we leave for expedition to Nakuru National Park, which is about an 8 hour drive from our camp. We’ve been told to expect cold and rainy weather the entire time there, and I am beyond excited to escape the heat (especially after fighting it through our expedition in Serengeti National Park in Tanzania).

I'm sorry about the lack of pictures at the current moment, but the past few days have been extremely hectic- I promise to put some up after expedition.