Journal Excerpts

This will be a really long post, because I wanted to type up excerpts of my journal. I have to turn typed excerpts in to Earthwatch anyway, so I figured it would be easy enough to type them up for here at the same time.

Before you starting reading, you probably need to know who everyone is. Here's the cast of characters:

Volunteers
me, Cheryl, Liz, Pete, Michelle, Jordana, Melanie, Dan, Jordana, Carol
(everyone except Jordana and Carol were there as part of the Education Fellowship program)

Researchers and Staff
Mercy Mbui: camp manager
Petro Baroro: day security guard
Dr. Samuel Andanje: principal investigator for Carnivores In Conflict project
Dr. Kiplagat Kotu: principal investigator for Communities, Water, and Wildlife
Steve: water project technical staff
Nduhiu Gitahi: carnivore project graduate student

There were, of course, many others who assisted with the research and the running of the camp, but I think this is everyone who is mentioned by name in the excerpts below.

July 10, 2006

I’m on my way! I’m sitting at JFK right now, facing about 8 hours of time to kill. I’m not entirely sure what I’ll do for all that time; there aren’t many shops or restaurants in this particular terminal. But I have books, logic puzzles, and this journal, so I should be able to fill the time.
I’m still not entirely sure what to expect from this trip. Actually, I think I’m purposefully trying to keep my expectations vague and my mind open to all possibilities. It was great of Cheryl to share her experiences in Samburu with me and Liz, but I want to be able to clearly form my own impressions and experiences. I’m looking forward to learning about the local people and how they live, in hopes of sharing that with the 7th grade World Geography classes when I get back, but I also want to make sure that I have good stuff to share with my friend Katie’s 5th grade Field Science classes, too. And I need lots of animal pictures to satisfy the curiosity of this past year’s students, my friends, and family. Hopefully I’ll be able to do all of that!

Today’s flight schedule is pretty crazy. I had a 7:55am flight from Boston to New York, and I’m stuck at JFK until my 6:05pm flight to Brussels this evening. I suppose I could attempt to go into the city, but I don’t want to risk traffic issues getting back and miss my flight. That would be a disaster! Tomorrow morning, I’ll have 3 hours in Brussels, and then I’ll fly to Nairobi. On the way, there’s a one-hour stop in Kigali, Rwanda. This is quite the international adventure!

~later~

This trip is certainly turning into an adventure in travel! I am currently on board a British Airways flight to London instead of my scheduled American Airlines flight to Brussels. Things got a little hectic when the Brussels flight was delayed again until 9:30 (there were apparently problems with 2 different planes) and I would have missed my flight to Nairobi tomorrow morning. I immediately got on the phone and got American to rebook me, then raced between terminals to get to the British Airways flight on time. That 8:30 flight didn’t leave until about 10:00, however. We’ve been told that they’ll be able to make up some time during the flight, so hopefully I will still make my flight to Nairobi. If I don’t, I’ll have to find a way to Wamba on my own, which I think would be rather difficult.

July 11, 2006

I’ve made it to Nairobi! I am at the Fairview Hotel in a very nice, quiet room. It has been a very long day. Unfortunately, my checked bag did not make it to Nairobi, so the arrival was a little stressful. With the flight changes, there is really no way to know where my bag might be. Hopefully it will come in tomorrow and they can send it by plane to Lewa, where someone from Earthwatch might be able to get it for me.

July 12, 2006

What a great day! I still don’t have my luggage, of course, but hopefully I’ll get it soon. I was told this morning that it had been found in London. No word on when it will get to Nairobi, but at least they know where it is.

We all met up in the hotel lobby this morning (and some of us ran into each other during breakfast), and a man from WakuWaku Safaris collected us all and got us to Wilson Airport for our flight to Wamba. There are 10 of us in total; Earthwatch ended up combining our team (Team 13) with Team 2 because it only had 2 people. All 8 of the original Team 13 are teachers. (Well, there’s one principal, Dan.) Carol is a speech pathologist and Jordana is a lawyer. From Wilson we boarded a small plane (just enough seats for all of us), and the pilot, James, flew us directly to Wamba. We could see a bit of Mt. Kenya, and we flew over some other smaller mountains. It was too cloudy to see the ground for a lot of the flight, but once we could it was pretty cool. I took quite a few pictures.

There isn’t actually an airport in Wamba. It’s just a big, dirt airstrip. Quite a few people (and herds of goats) gathered around to watch us land and unload. I got a lot of attention from some little boys; apparently my red toenails and sandals were quite unusual! We drove through the center of town, made a quick stop at the hospital, and then drove a little out of town to the compound. It’s small, but it should be comfortable for the next few days. There are really just 3 buildings. Cheryl, Liz, and I are sharing a room; most of the rest are 2 to a room. The facilities of the compound are nice. The bathrooms are decent, they’ll do laundry every day for us, and so far the food is great. All of the staff is very nice and very helpful. Today we’ve had a lot of meetings to fill us in on how things work at the compound and about the 2 projects on which we’ll be working. We also had a few breaks, which I used for journal writing and picture taking. After the 2nd afternoon lecture, we all took a little hike, which was a nice way to work out some of the kinks from traveling.

I’ve seen some animals around so far. There were Vervet monkeys in the trees as we drove in, although I haven’t seen them again. There are lots of goats around, but fewer cows than I expected, at least so far. I think this is, in part, due to the drought. Some camels came by the compound, too. They wear weird, dull-sounding bells around their necks. There was also something that looked kind of like a squirrel, and there are some cool birds. One bunch I saw was bright blue and mustardy yellow—gorgeous! Another is gray with a long tail and sounds like a cross between a dog barking and a baby crying. When I asked tonight, Kip told me that it’s probably the go-away bird.

After dinner tonight, Philip (a Samburu man who works at the mission hospital in Wamba) came to talk to us about Samburu culture. It was interesting, but I didn’t learn a lot about them that I hadn’t already read. I’m sure I’ll learn more as we get out into the fields and have more questions for Philip.

Tomorrow, we leave at 8am to start our research work. I’m starting with the carnivore project, which I’m really excited about. Sam, the principal investigator, said that we may spend tomorrow visiting carnivore dens; they do this to check for signs of what the animals have been eating by looking at bones, hooves, etc. and hair found in scat. I’m a little nervous about it after he told a story about going to what was supposedly an abandoned hyena den that was actually occupied by a leopard, but he said it’s usually pretty safe. In any case, I’m really excited about working with that project; I’ve done so much reading and watching videos for it, so I want to work on it while all of that is still fresh. Then I can work on the water project next week.
Liz just reminded me of one new thing I learned about the Samburu tonight. As a tradition, every Samburu must have his/her 2 bottom, front teeth removed at a young age, once their permanent teeth are in. This is because there was a time when tetanus was widespread and many people died from it; many got lockjaw and could not be fed medicines, so the solution was to remove 2 teeth to leave a hole through which to get medicines. An interesting solution to the problem!


July 13, 2006

Animals seen today: Grevy's zebras, ostriches, black-bellied bustards, dikdiks, Kori bustards, hornbills

What a day! It was long—our group didn’t get back until 6:30pm! But it was a good day.
We didn’t go to dens because the person who was going to guide us couldn’t come with us. Instead, we drove along roads and took counts of prey animals. We mostly saw and counted livestock, keeping track of how many animals there were, how many herders there were, what sort of weapons the herders had, and what sort of plant life and terrain was around. The livestock we saw were goats, sheep, camels, and donkeys. Often the herders were children or young women; the best protected herds had men with spears, knives, or clubs. A lot of animals, especially donkeys and camels, were just left to wander alone. It was really exciting to see the Grevy’s zebras and ostriches. The dikdiks were hard to spot; they’re little and they blend into the landscape.

We did our research in 2 areas today. We started in Ngutuk Ongiron (to the south) in the morning, driving a 20 km stretch and counting everything we saw. We then stopped for a picnic lunch for about an hour, and then continued to Ngaroni, where we drove 30 km in before turning around to count for 20km driving back. We were hoping to see more wild animals then because it was cooler, but no such luck.

We had several incidents of people being upset with us looking through our binoculars at them and their herds. Most Samburu people do not like to have their pictures taken, and some of them assumed that’s what we were doing when we stopped to observe their herds. It’s a little bit unnerving to have a murran (a Samburu warrior) demand to see your binoculars, even if you can’t understand what he’s saying and he will only take them from the men in the car. I was in the car, so I didn’t feel completely threatened, but he was pretty impressive with his ochre-colored hair, weaponry, jewelry, etc. Beyond those couple of instances, however, most people were friendly, waving to us as we drove by, and only a few children asked for “sweets.”

The best thing about today was meeting some young Samburu who came to visit us while we had lunch. They spotted Pete first and came to check things out. At first it wasn’t much of an interaction, because none of us know many words in Kiswahili and nothing at all in Kisamburu, but we tried. One of the older girls (there were 3 girls, 1 boy, and 1 baby) asked us for our names in English, and they repeated all our names and the older girls told us their own names, Jen and Christine. (We wondered about the very anglicized names, and later found out that most Samburu have both traditional and Swahili and/or English names.) Luckily, Sam was able to communicate a little better. We found out that Christine is 16; she is married, and the baby on her back was hers. She wore a LOT of bead necklaces; she told Sam that her father bought most of them for her, but her husband gave her a few of the thicker ones. She also wore a really cool beaded watch. Jen (or it might have been Jan) is 13. She is still in school, in the grade they call Standard 4 or Class 4. Christine left school after Standard 3. (We found out later that the classes correspond pretty well with grades in the US system. Children go to preschool—like kindergarten—at 5 or 6, and then start Class 1. However, not all children start at the recommended ages, so we saw students in Class 8 who looked to be much older than 13 and met high school students who were 19 and 20.) Jen also had many necklaces, but fewer than Christine; she told Sam that her mother sold a goat to buy her necklaces. We noticed that both girls had small keys attached to their jewelry, and found out that these went to lockboxes or trunks where they keep special things like their fancy clothes and special keepsakes. The two other children were 3 and maybe 5 years old; they were brother and sister. Neither one seemed particularly healthy. The little girl had a bad cough and spit up stuff several times. We had fun with the older girls. Michelle and I let them use our binoculars; Christine got so excited that she slapped me hard on the back, grinning all the while. She was also fascinated with my hair. She took of the hat I had borrowed from Mercy and started playing with my ponytail. When I undid the ponytail, she ran her hands over my hair some more, and then told Sam that I had hair like a murran. (Among the Samburu, most people shave their heads; only the murran, the young warrior class who are considered very glamorous, have long hair, which they color reddish-brown with ochre.) The girls were disappointed, however, when Michelle and I refused to give them our watches, and they left rather abruptly soon after the exchange. I wish we could have taken pictures of them, but they didn’t want us to.

Tomorrow, we are going to leave the compound at 7am to go pick up a Samburu guide (James) in Ngaroni. We’ll do some animal spotting with him in another area. He is a ranger/community security guard, and is also going to help us visit some manyattas (homestead) to conduct interviews. The interviews happen later in the week, but he is coming with us tomorrow. I’m not really looking forward to another day in the car, but I can understand why the work and data are important. Scientific research isn’t necessarily supposed to be flashy and exciting, so I’ll try to focus on how cool it is to be in Africa.

July 14, 2006

Today’s new animals: Vulturine guinea fowl, baboons, rock hyrax, vervet monkeys, gerenuk

Today was an interesting day. We were able to get out of the car today and interact with more people. We left the compound at about 7:15 and drove to James’ manyatta. Some of the women from his manyatta had beautiful beaded necklaces that they wanted to sell us when we stopped. I’d like to buy some and will tomorrow when we go back, but Sam thought we should ask Mercy about fair prices. After we picked up James, we did a 20km transect counting animals. We started off with 4 Grevy’s zebras. They were too far away for good pictures, but we could see them behind the bushes with the binoculars, and James took Pete out to see them up close. (The rest of us would have liked to go, but we weren’t invited.) We continued driving (counting rock hyrax, dikdiks, and ostriches as well as the usual livestock) until we crossed over the Ewaso Ngiro river into the Laikipia District.

At the river, we had a little photo mishap with a murran. He’d started herding his goats across the bridge, and James said that is was OK to take a picture. We meant to just get the goats, but the murran moved into the shot. James still said it was OK, so several of us took the picture. The murran was VERY annoyed. James finally convinced him that we’d been using binoculars rather than cameras. I felt a little guilty, but it’s a really great picture. It’s the only Samburu person picture I have so far.

After lunch (where we came across an old Nomadic Preschool that was kind of cool), we visited some manyattas and interviewed people about their livestock and predation. The interview forms were very long and we had to use translators, but it was nice to be part of the process and to interact with the people. We got up-close looks at the bomas and at least the outside of the houses. We were really able to see the differences in how well some people care for their livestock. At one manyatta, there was no perimeter fence (there usually is), and the boma fences (especially the small, enclosed pens for newborn goats and sheep) were not as solidly constructed as others that we saw. We also learned that it made a difference if the houses were located between the wall and the boma, if there were dogs, and if they have flags on the bomas (the flapping fabric helps scare predators away).

At the final manyatta today, Michelle, Jordana, and I took some time to play with some of the children. We managed to get their names, and then we demonstrated Ring Around The Rosie and some of them to play with us. We also tried to get some of them to sing “Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes,” although that didn’t go over as well. Two boys tried it with us. Their mothers watched and laughed; I decided that it was nice to know what they were laughing about, for once. There was a lot of staring and laughing going on today, and a lot of conversation about us. Of course, we talk about them a lot, too, so I don’t really mind. But it would be interesting to know what they think of us. I’m glad that we thought of trying to play with the kids; children are almost always easier to interact with than adults when you don’t have a common language.
Tomorrow there is going to be a Samburu wedding in the neighborhood of the Earthwatch compound. We won’t be able to go to all of it, but we are going in the morning for the traditional bull slaughter (only the bridegroom can slaughter the bull, so it will be heavily guarded by the murrains to make sure that no one sneaks in and takes the honor, which would give him the right to take the bride as wife) before breakfast. We are also hoping to come back early tomorrow so that we can see some of the dancing and singing. We are all going to chip in 150 shillings so that we can buy the bride and groom a couple of goats, because traditionally everyone who attends a wedding should contribute something.

I just went out to check out the temperature and see the stars, which are quite visible here. The temperature is very nice at the moment, so I think I might go read on the porch for awhile. While I was out there, Pete told me that the animal I heard calling a little while ago was a hyena, according to Mercy, so even if I haven’t seen one yet, I at least know I’ve heard one. Now if I could just stop hearing the cricket that appears to be in our bathroom; it’s drowning out the singing that I assume are part of the wedding preparations.

July 15, 2006

New animals spotted today: klipspringer, rabbit, evidence of elephants (but no actual elephants)
We saw elephant dung today! The stuff is the size of cannonballs, and we saw a lot of it. I took a picture to show the science teachers back home. Unfortunately, we never saw the elephants, but we’ll keep looking.

Today has been a day of many cultural experiences. There was a wedding at the boma down the street from the compound, and we got to go! Even better, they let us take pictures. This morning, we woke up early to go to the ritual slaughtering of the bull, which supposed to happen around 6am. We were told that it has to happen before sunrise, but it didn’t happen until about 6:30pm. (Technically, I guess the sun hadn’t really risen over the Mathews Range yet at that point.) It was well worth the wait. The murrans led the bridegroom and best man into the manyatta while chanting. The bridegroom and best man wore white. The groom and some of the other men killed the bull by shoving a knife into the bull’s neck to try to cut the brain stem, spilled a little blood from that cut onto the ground as part of the ritual, then very skillfully cut the throat and drained the rest of the blood. I was proud of myself for watching all of it. Not all of the volunteers did! The groom speaks excellent English and works at the lodge in the Samburu National Reserve. We called our research quits early in the afternoon to go back to see some of the dancing at the wedding. Cheryl and I even joined the murrans and some women to dance a bit, although we didn’t do it very well. People were very welcoming, and we were again allowed to take pictures. We were all surrounded by children from the moment we arrived. Jordana has a great picture of me disappearing beneath a group of children who were dive bombing me to see my camera. One little guy, named something like Skola, didn’t let go of me for a couple of hours. (He's on the left in the picture.) He even fought his sister and others when it was time for me to leave. Kip eventually had to life him away from me and over a bunch of people while I walked away. One of the most fun things about the wedding was that we gave the new couple a pair of goats as a wedding present. We had a big group picture taken with the volunteers, some of the researchers and staff, the bride and groom, and the goats. Of course, when we came back to the compound we were all quick to disinfect; after all those kids touching us. It’s sad to think like that, but most of these kids had bad coughs, runny noses, and generally poor hygiene.

Another interesting cultural moment today was when we stopped to pick up an assistant chief (head of a sublocation, one of the governmental divisions of Kenya) who knew of some local predator kills. We had to make room in the car not just for him, but for his spear as well. Not an everyday occurrence in the US! Then we became an ambulance when we dropped off James at his manyatta and were asked to take an injured boy to the hospital in Wamba. He fell out of a tree and cut his stomach badly, but was amazingly calm in the car. He even smiled at us all and watched us when he got in the car! Sam and Nduhiu said that he had been given some sort of pain medicine.

We didn’t see the women selling necklaces today, but I did buy a camel bell. It is a wooden bell made by Petro, the day guard at the compound. He burns designs into the wood. I paid 500 shillings (about $6, give or take), and I got a tour of his home—not inside, but the outside and the chicken shed.

Today we did one transect this morning, but it went much faster. We were much farther out, up a mountain, and we saw more wildlife than herds of livestock. We saw lots of dikdiks, one klipspringer, 5 Grevy’s zebras (James said 8, but I only counted 5), several gerenuks, and a rabbit. After the transect, we conducted 3 interviews at manyattas; I worked on measuring with Carol, and we had a few interesting moments of having to walk alone between manyattas. Just a little scary when you’ve heard about lion kills in the area!

Tomorrow, we’re going to some dens (hyena, wild dog, and leopard) to look for scat!

July 16, 2006

No new animals today, but things to remember were:
1) Samburu man putting stick through his earring hole to hold onto it—he wound his ear around it!
2) Sam telling us, “We’re looking for a road to somewhere,” when we asked where we were going.
3) We had 2 men with guns with us (James and a Kenya Wildlife Service ranger named Fred), plus the assistant chief (named Aliben Lekumosaa).

Today was a nice change of pace. We got out of the car and hiked! We spent the whole day hiking to various carnivore dens. Some of the hiking was really rough; we got scraped by a lot of thorns and got very sweaty. We had 2 armed guards with us; the guns were rather reassuring when we were approaching leopard, hyena, and wild dog dens, although we never saw any actual carnivores. We saw lots of scat and dung, a few really good footprints, and a desiccated goat in a tree (a leopard’s kill).

July 17, 2006

We were awakened in the middle of the night last night by a chorus of hyenas. They sounded quite close for awhile, and then moved farther off. We’ve heard them before a couple of times, but this was the longest and loudest episode so far.

Just a couple more words about yesterday: We didn’t see a lot of animals (mostly dikdiks, a few gerenuks, vulturine guinea fowl, and a couple of good zebra sightings), but it was really neat to get off the road and explore a bit. The rock where we found the hyena dens was really cool. Most of the hiking involved hacking our way through a lot of thorns, so it was sometimes really difficult.

~later~

New species seen today: impala, mongoose

We went to the saddest little manyatta today. Our day was devoted to a transect (we saw 8 impala) and to interviews. Our second stop today was at a manyatta that seemed very poor. The fence was the shortest and thinnest we’d seen. There was no one who spoke Swahili or English, which means that people are not very educated. Worse, there were several children who looked very ill. One child was very still and looked possibly mentally disabled. There were also 2 children with big, distended bellies, which is a sign of very poor nutrition and something that we haven’t really seen here yet. It was very sad. They also had the meanest dogs we’ve ever seen. I was glad when Sam finished the interview and we could leave. Usually the children have runny noses and bad coughs, but they don’t have the bellies that show starvation and poor nutrition.

We made an earlier stop where we conducted interviews at 3 manyattas near each other in Inglai West. There were enough people who spoke English and Swahili for us to do for interviews. I’ve become the queen of measuring; Sam always has me do it because I’ve gotten used to it. Michelle and I took care of that while the others took care of the interviews. We measured the perimeter fence and the height and thickness of the fence, and then counted the number of bomas and the compartments in them. We also counted the number of huts and measured their distance from the bomas. After measuring, Sam and I sat in on the end of Sam’s interview. The translator he was working with told us that the women they were interviewing were surprised to see women in pants; they had never seen that and thought it was very funny. We spent a long time telling to the same interpreter, because he spoke English quite well and we had a lot of time to kill while waiting for Jordana and Carol, who had disappeared over the hill with 2 Samburu men. (I got nervous about that and had Sam send the ranger out on a rescue mission.) We talked about culture, such as comparing weddings (he liked the idea that the women’s families pay for weddings in the US), learning about the change from boy to murran to elder, and the meaning of bead colors. (White is for peace, red for blood, and green for pasture.) I also spent some time with an older man who wanted to reset the time and date on his watch, then asked me to trade mine for his. Luckily, he seemed OK with my “no.” We also found out that the woman Sam interviewed had spent about 7500 shillings (she sold a cow) to buy beads to make a big necklace for her daughter so that she could attract a husband (which seemed important, given that she appeared to be already pregnant). When the average income is less than $400 a year, $100 for a necklace sounds like a lot.

Yesterday, we finally got around to stopping at James’ manyatta to buy jewelry. I bought 3 pieces: a choker kind of thing for 300 shillings from one woman and a collar and bracelet from another woman (who spoke English quite well) for 1000 shillings. She originally asked for 800 shillings for the necklace and 300 for the bracelet, but I made a little bargain with her to buy both. When I put everything on as soon as I bought it, all the women got a kick out of it and tried to show me how to move to make them shake, and the second woman asked me to take a picture with her.

July 18, 2006

Animals seen in Samburu National Reserve today: dikdiks, vervet monkeys, yellow-necked spurfowl, water buck, impala, lion, Grant’s gazelles, malachite kingfisher, warthog, gerenuk, vulturine guinea fowl, elephants, Grevy’s zebra, African fishing eagle, baboon, greater kudus, reticulated giraffe, beisa oryx

Today was so awesome! We left the compound at about 6:25am to drive to the Samburu National Reserve. We got to see the sunrise over the Mathews Range as we drove, as well as a troop of baboons on their way to the river. (We saw them again on their way home, which was a neat way to round out the day, along with seeing the sunset.)

After paying the entrance fee to the park ($30 or 2200 shillings), we started a 20km transect and began counting animals. Sam did take it easy on us and gave us a lot of the info so that we could take pictures and watch the animals. At first, we mostly saw dikdiks, with which we are now pretty bored. They’re cute, but we see a LOT of them! Sam kept torturing us by pointing out evidence of elephants (fresh dung, footprints, trees they’d broken, rubbed against, or fed on…at one point he said to us, “Oh, did you want to see elephants? I didn’t know.”) And then, all of a sudden, there were elephants! We saw a couple, and Sam told us not to worry about photographing them because we’d see some closer soon, and within a few minutes, we were about 10 meters away from 2 more. They were amazing! Throughout the day, we saw elephants of all sizes, some closer than others, and got great pictures. We actually ate our lunch across the Ewaso Ngiro river from a whole herd. It was fun to watch them! Shortly before lunch, we also came across a lioness resting in the shade of a tree beside the river. She was very close to some impala and Grant’s gazelles, but we didn’t get to see any interaction, or “drama,” as Sam called it. I guess the lioness wasn’t hungry. We also saw a bunch of reticulated giraffes, which were so cool to watch. They’re so tall and skinny! I think I got some good pictures. It was especially cool when we came across some elephants and giraffes together, although we couldn’t quite get them all in one picture. I’ve now seen all the animals I really wanted to see on this trip: lion, giraffe, elephant, and zebra. Very cool! Some of the other animals we saw today were also very fun to catch sight of. The male water bucks were very stately and regal. The gazelles are dainty, but not quite as dainty as the gerenuks. The greater kudus were a little oddly put together, with some oddly places stripes. And the warthogs were very skittish.

One last thing that Sam told us today was that Fred (the KWS ranger) was with us today as an armed guard not just because of animals but because the road between Wamba and reserve can be dangers due to bandits/thieves. I’m glad he was with us, although we didn’t have any problems. Fred is not originally from the Samburu District. He is from the western part of Kenya and has been stationed in Wamba for about a year. He expects to be transferred to somewhere else soon. Sam later explained that the KWS doesn’t generally station people in the regions where they grew up in order to avoid conflicts of interest and family obligations in cases of reports of wildlife problems in the area. If they did have a Samburu ranger stationed in Wamba, he would not be from the immediate area.

July 19, 2006

The new water group had an OK day. A tire on the van was flat when we went to leave, so we had to spend some time getting that fixed in Wamba. Steve and Kip let us walk up the main street to post office because Carol wanted to mail some postcards (we met a lot of little kids who wanted to shake our hands). I did some shopping while we were there; I wanted to buy some of the fabric everyone wears, and bought what turned out to be more like a skirt than the lambas from Madagascar. It’s mostly the men who were the shukas (the Swahili name for what I bought), but I liked it because I have seen lots of people wearing that particular fabric, so I know that it’s authentic. I’ve found that it’s really quite comfortable! We also met a bunch of men and boys while we were waiting. There were some interesting discussions, with them asking questions about law and about the US.

After a late start, we headed to the West Gate Community Ranch of Ngutuk Ongiron (almost back to the reserve) to take water samples from the Ewaso Ngiro. It was a long process there: we needed UTM coordinates from the GPS, 3 different water samples, and measures of water speed, depth, and distance across the river. It was an interesting change of activity, but it was a lot of work in the hot sun. None of us brought any water and we were all anxious for lunch by the time we finished. After lunch, we drove a little farther and then hiked down to a lagga (dry river bed) to take water samples from a well someone had dug. I use the term “well” loosely; it was basically just a hole dug into the river bed. The water is in an underground river there, so they dig down to reach it. They have to keep digging it deeper as the water table drops. They pile acacia branches around the edge to make a fence in hopes of keeping out the animals, but it doesn’t do a great job. We saw baboon tracks that seemed to indicate they’d gotten beyond the fence. The water pretty disgusting, kind of scummy looking, and a nearby patch of surface water was completely covered in algae. It makes you wonder how people can survive as well as they do. There’s so little water! Kip told us that one reason the Ewaso Ngiro is so shallow where we were is that a lot of it is used for irrigation by the people who live to the north.

After dinner tonight, we had to learn how to do the titration tests for alkalinity and dissolved oxygen. Liz and Melanie taught Carol and Michelle, who then taught me and Pete. Hopefully the titrations won’t give us too much trouble. The other group had some late nights working on them, and they had more science teachers on their team than we have.

Other than the lost luggage and the broken camera, this has been a pretty good trip. I’m learning a lot, seeing some amazing things, and meeting some nice people. I just wish we had a little more down time. It’s really hard to find time to write in my journal, and I’ve hardly picked up my book at all since I got here. I end up having to make the choice between sleep and time to relax and unwind. Right now, most people have gone to bed, or are at least in their rooms. But it’s a lovely night, so I decided to sit on the porch for awhile. The generator is destroying the silence a bit, but there’s a lovely breeze and surprisingly few bugs. It’s good to have a moment to just stop and absorb everything.

July 20, 2006

Things to remember from today’s water use observation:
- men singing from the bottom of the wells as they watered cattle and donkeys
- wooden troughs set at the edge of the wells for the animals to drink from
- clouds hugging the tops of mountains
- big bull elephant (outside of the reserve!) on the way to the water holes
- young herder wearing fanny pack over Samburu man skirt (Steve says its pretty typical, but I haven’t notice it before)
- women moving their homes by donkey and stopping to ask permission to use the water

We saw 2 elephants today in our travels. Seeing them in the reserve was cool, but seeing them
outside the reserve was REALLY cool. One was a big bull. I’m not sure about the other one. They were fairly well hidden in the bush, so we didn’t get pictures, but it will still be a favorite memory.

Today we counted animals at some water holes/wells in a dry riverbed in the Sarara section of Namunyak, which on the other side of the Mathews Range from the Earthwatch compound. We counted so many animals! Between 5 water holes, there were a whole lot of goats, sheep, donkeys, and camels. There were also a lot of men bathing, women washing clothes, and even some women filling water jugs. We also saw 3 women and a girl apparently moving their manyatta on the backs of donkeys. (Steve told me that it is usually the women who do the moving, because the men are usually with the cattle and the women move to join them if they have to move too far away to find water.) The women asked permission to use the water and then were given priority over the others who were waiting. I wonder how far they were going.
To water the animals, the murran strips and climbs into the well. He scoops up water into a wooden trough on the side of the well, and the animals drink from the trough. The murrans sing the whole time, which was really cool to hear. I wish I could have recorded it.

After counting, we had lunch and then drove to a couple more wells to take water samples. We’re getting pretty quick at the water samples, and the titrations were not so bad. We divided them up so that it didn’t take too long.

July 21, 2006

Things to remember today:
- elephant dung soccer (For some reason, some of us decided it was fun to kick around some really dry elephant dung…not quite the same size as a soccer ball, but it worked OK.)
- tire jump rope (The place where we get tires fixed makes sandals and rope out of tires, and Mercy got us all playing jump rope while we waited for another flat tire to be fixed.)
- Shopping in Wamba: tire sandals and sarong cloth, ending with Pete taking a picture of me and Mercy with a cow
- Waving to James as we passed the house with the blue door at his manyatta, and him waving back when he recognized us
- School visit, with the choir singing to us (“This is the day the Lord has made” and a song in Samburu)…Nagorworu Primary School
- Mercy’s story about why dogs chase cars: A dog, a goat, and a sheep were riding together in a taxi. The sheep got out first and paid his fare. The taxi continued to the goat’s destination, and when the goat got out, he told the driver that the dog would pay for his share. When the dog got to his destination, the driver told him that he had to pay his fare and the goat’s fare. The dog argued, told the driver he had never agreed to pay the goat’s fare and that he didn’t have the money to pay for both, but eventually the driver got him to pay both fares. And to this day, the dog believes that the driver stole his money and that’s why he chases all cars that he sees, trying to find the driver and get his money pack. The goat, on the other hand, runs away from cars and dogs because he knows that he is guilty. And the sheep, being oblivious to all of this, isn’t scared of either.

July 22, 2006

We have had the most amazing morning! Steve and Petro took me, Pete, Jordana, and Michelle on a hike into the Mathews Range behind the compound. It was so nice to be out of the car! We hadn’t gone very far when it became very clear that there were elephants in the area. There were lots of tracks, and there were several piles of very fresh dung and urine. (According to Petro, the animals had been right near the compound at about one o’clock in the morning.) We all walked very slowly and quietly behind Petro until we were past all signs of recent activity. We heard breaking trees a few times, but we didn’t see the animals. It was definitely a little scary! We didn’t have an armed guard, just Petro with his stick. He didn’t seem too nervous, however, so I mostly focused on how cool it was to know that we were so close to wild elephants. The fact that we saw very few other people and no livestock added to the adventure because we seemed so far from all civilization, but we had all heard enough stories about the dangers of elephants to know that the situation could be very serious.

The place to where we were headed was a beautiful stream coming out of the mountains. Everything around it was green, and there were freshwater crabs, tadpoles, and dragonflies. It was the first water source we’ve visited without any livestock, which made it seem more idyllic. All we saw was a troop of baboons who arrived as we were about to leave. Some of them seemed as interested in watching us as we were in watching them.

On the way back, we actually saw the elephants! Petro found himself a bigger stick, handing off his original stuck to Pete, but otherwise he didn’t seem too worried. We met more livestock and people, but in one deserted spot we heard breaking branches and cracking trees just off the path. We couldn’t see anything, but Petro led us up a hill in the opposite direction. We found out later that we only climbed the hill to try to see the elephants, but it was a bit scary for a few minutes because we thought we were trying to get to safety. Once we were up the hill, we were able to see 4 elephants. Petro said there was a fifth, but we couldn’t see it. (He later told us that the 5th was a calf, which may have been why we couldn’t see it.) We couldn’t have been more than a few hundred meters downhill from them when we were on the path! They were so cool to see! Even though they are huge animals, they’re really hard to spot. You have to look for the moving branches first, and then try to see some moving body part, like a trunk or an ear. We were able to watch for awhile and get some pictures. It was definitely a highlight of the trip!
We’ve been entertained since the encounter with stories of other elephant run-ins and advice about what you should do if an elephant chases you. Apparently, the trick is to throw pieces of clothing in a couple of directions and then run in the third direction; the elephant will smell you on the clothes and trample them, giving you time to get away. Of course, we’ve also realized that some of the researchers weren’t very happy to hear about our encounter because it could have been really dangerous, so we’ve realized that it could have been even scarier than it was.
We’re getting a bit of a break this afternoon. We came to the compound for lunch, and we just have to do a couple of titrations this afternoon. We have to go get one more water sample, but Steve says we don’t have to leave for awhile because it is in Wamba.

Last night, the generator died. It gave us a nice ambience for a lantern and candlelit dinner, but it made it hard to find time to write in my journal. Without my headlamp (which I packed in my checked luggage), it was really hard to see!

Yesterday’s school visit was nice to do. What surprised me most was that the classes were really small. I expected class sizes like I had in Madagascar (I had 43 per class there, and that was small compared to the class sizes some of my friends had), but these classes were tiny. The biggest class was probably about 20 kids. The Class 8 group was the smallest, only 5 boys. Otherwise, I saw a lot of the same problems I saw in Madagascar. The desks were broken and they sat 3-4 to a seat. The walls were pretty bare, except for a few assignments taped up. The blackboards were just about as bad as what I had in Vavatenina. But the students were well behaved and seemed to be working hard. I would to try to send them something useful, but it might be hard to get it there.

July 23, 2006

Today was our last day of fieldwork. Tomorrow, we’ll have a free day, so I think most of us are planning to take a hike. On Monday, we’ll fly back to Nairobi. Hard to believe the trip is almost over!

Petro just called us off the porch to see a snake. It was big excitement at the compound, a thin green snake climbing up a large cactus-like tree. We’re told it isn’t poisonous.

Pete and Carol went to the hospital today, while Jordana, Michelle, and I went with Steve and Kip to do another water use census at a lagga. It was a long, dull process. The one we did earlier was more interesting. Steve and I didn’t have much to record after awhile, while Jordana and Michelle were swamped. I spent most of the time playing with some Samburu kids who decided to hang around me. They came over when Steve left for awhile to look for more wells; all of a sudden I was surrounded by women and children, only one of whom spoke English. I ended up trying to teach some of the younger kids tic-tac-toe on the back of my data sheets. They didn’t entirely get the concept, but they seemed to have fun with it. We did some other drawings, too, and I had them practice letters. One of them stayed for a couple of hours, playing with my hair, singing, drawing, etc. I ended up giving 2 of them my pens because they were having fun with them. Steve said it was pointless because they don’t really know how to write anything (they probably weren’t attending school very much), but I figured I might as well give them a little something. In return, I got to play with a club for awhile. After most of the animals seemed to be watered, I helped Steve and Kip do some water testing. We tested 15 wells for conductivity, salinity, pH, and temperature. It was 3:30 by the time we got back for lunch after stopping to pick up Pete and Carol and make some phone calls.

July 24, 2006

Ntepes Primary School visit:
- Angelina was in Class 2; Daniel & Eric in Class 5
- The two girls I sat & talked with (Nasieku & Soila) were in Class 8
- The biggest class (Class 4) was 90 students
- 9 teachers and more than 400 pupils
- Textbooks provided by government, but only 1 per 2-3 pupils; government also provides pens, pencils, erasers, notebooks
- Biggest challenge, according to one teacher, is class size making it difficult to do all necessary work
- Teachers are posted to the a school by the government; they can have a choice of 3 districts, but can’t request a particular town or school
- In primary schools, teachers teach a variety of subjects to a variety of grade levels: 35-40 lessons per week, multiple preps
- Students study in English and Kiswahili
- After class 8, students take a test to determine if they can go to Form 1 (secondary school) and how good a school they can get into. (Top score is 500; average grade is 250.)

July 25, 2006

We’re back in Nairobi, and I actually have my luggage! It felt so good to take a real shower and put on fresh clothes. We just had a nice lunch by the pool, and we’re leaving in about 15 minutes to go to the Maasai Market for some souvenir shopping. Tonight, we’re going to the Carnivore, and tomorrow morning Pete and I are going to Nairobi National Park before we fly out tomorrow night.

Unfortunately, I seem to have caught the cold that was going around camp. I’m a little stuffy, and my ears were really painful on the flight from Wamba this morning.

It was a little sad to leave Wamba. I really enjoyed my time there, and it was hard to say goodbye to the Kenyans who have become friends. I’m going to miss sitting on the porch in Wamba, especially in the quiet of early mornings when few people were awake and the only noises came from livestock in the distance, and at night after dinner when most people had gone to their rooms. It was a good place for being peaceful.

July 26, 2006

It’s my last day in Nairobi. I’m both sad to leave and looking forward to getting home to familiar things and friends and family.

After lunch yesterday, we went over to the market. What a zoo! It was definitely a shock to the system. The place is jam-packed with vendors, and it is also crawling with “brokers” who claim to want to help you negotiate a good price but are really ripping you off. I bought a couple of ebony animals, a cute wooden bowl and spoon set, a painted wooden bracelet, an African shirt, and a keychain. It was definitely necessary to bargain hard and be firm if you weren’t really interested in something. It was definitely an experience unlike anything else we’ve done in Kenya.

The Carnivore Restaurant last night was awesome! Nine of us plus Liz’s friend and Nicole’s parents all went. It was definitely touristy, but it was an experience that I wouldn’t have missed. The menu was a set thing that included the soup of the day, bread, a baked potato, a little bit of salad, all the mat you can eat, and dessert. Most of the meats were great. We had chicken, beef, lamb, pork, crocodile, camel, and ostrich. I wasn’t a big fan of the crocodile, but everything else was great. Most of us were stuffed by the time they finished serving us. Ice cream for dessert really hit the spot after 2 weeks without really cold beverages or foods.
This morning, a bunch of us met for breakfast before people started to go their separate ways. Pete and I were supposed to be picked up by Arthur (the carnivore team driver in Samburu) to go to Nairobi National Park. There was some sort of misunderstanding, however, and after waiting an hour and a half for Arthur, we gave up and got a taxi driver named Robert to take us. (The hotel has drivers based at the hotel.) We heard later that Arthur showed up at 9:00, two hours past our arranged time. Despite our late start, we had a great mini-safari. We were both idiotic and forgot our binoculars, but we still managed to see quite a few animals up close. The highlight of the day was getting to follow a lioness down the road for a bit until another car scared her off, but we also saw giraffes, a black rhino, common zebras, and some bush buck up close. We saw kongoni (hartebeest) all over the park, and we saw one heard of elands, too. One other cool thing was seeing a monitor lizard, which our driver and either one KWS ranger didn’t even recognize.

After a stop for lunch, we went over to the Giraffe Center. Jordana happened to arrive there at the same time as us. The center wasn’t much, but we got to feed a couple of giraffes. That was a fun—if somewhat slimy—experience. The giraffes have really funny, long tongues and loved eating out of peoples’ hands.

The remainder of the day is being spent by the pool at the Fairview. Pete, Jordana, and I will have one last dinner together before Pete and I take a cab to the airport tonight for our flights home. I’ll fly to London, have a 12-hour layover there, and then fly to Boston. It’s been a good trip.