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Ms. Wonson Goes to Kenya!

Thoughts on and photos from one teacher's adventures with Earthwatch.

August 27, 2006

TeachLive! from Wamba

A group of teachers from New Jersey is currently in Wamba with Earthwatch, and they are participating in the TeachLive! program that allows them to have access to a satellite phone and laptop that will help them get information to students back in the US while they are still there. (I would have liked to do that, but it wouldn't really have worked since it was summer vacation!) There site has information about the programs they are working on: Grevy's Zebras and Wildlife Habitats. You can check it out at http://www.salemnj.org/brown/index.shtml. I wish I could get cool music on my site like they have! I was very pleased and honored to discover that they included my blog in their list of resources for teachers.

Good luck to everyone out there as the start of the school year approaches!

August 15, 2006

Kenyan Music

I didn't really get to know any Kenyan music (other than the murrans' and children's singing) in Kenya--I've already mentioned how most of what I listened to was 80s stuff--but I did find out recently that National Geographic now has a world music site where you can listen to and download international music. They have quite a few Kenyan groups available...and what I've listened to so far is good! You can check it out at http://worldmusic.nationalgeographic.com/worldmusic/. Just click on "Regions," then "Africa," and finally select Kenya. Happy listening!

Madagascar?

OK, OK, I know this blog is supposed to be about my trip to KENYA! However, in my effort to keep teaching those of you out there who were once my former students, I just have to share this article. I found out about it through the Madagascar listserv to which I belong, and I thought it was kind of cool. Some of you will remember that I have pointed out how they are constantly discovering new species in Madagascar. Well, now they have 3 new species of mouse lemurs! They were discovered about 5 years ago, but it has now been made official through genetic tests that these are separate species. For a long time, scientists thought that there were only 2 species of mouse lemur on the whole island, but since the 1970s they have determined that there are at least 15 species that they know about. This is good--because it's pretty neat to discover that there are new species out there--and bad--because as the population is divided into all these different species, it turns out that some of them are more in danger of extinction than scientists originally thought when all the mouse lemurs were in two groups. Mouse lemurs don't fall prey to being hunted for food by humans, but they are still at risk of extinction due to a loss of habitat when people cut down and burn the rain forests for firewood and to clear land for subsistence farming. (Remember what that is, kids?) Anyway, I urge you to check out the article at http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/06/060626-lemurs-africa.html because, at the very least, the pictures of these little primates are very cute!

August 13, 2006

My videos on YouTube.com

I finally got around to putting my video clips from the trip onto YouTube.com. I have blogged them so that you can watch them directly on this site, but you can also see them on YouTube using the following links:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFm5HBk5lLw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHOFy8b0a6c

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPSdwtZiPCI

I hope you'll take a look and let me know what you think!

Samburu wedding

My videos are finally on YouTube.com! This first one is from the Samburu wedding the other volunteers and I attended in July 2006. The men are leading the groom and best man (both in white) into the manyatta (Samburu homestead) for the bull slaughter that traditionally begins a Samburu wedding.

Nagorworu Primary School #1

In this clip, the student choir from the Nagorworu Primary School (one of two schools we visited) gathered to sing us a couple of songs. This one is in English, "This is the day our Lord has made, a wonderful day our Lord has made."

Nagorworu Primary School #2

In this clip, the Nagorworu student choir sang us another song, this time in the traditional Samburu language.

August 09, 2006

Samburu District on NationalGeographic.com

I know my trip is over, but I still want to keep learning about the Samburu District, its people, and ways to help preserve this wonderful place. As part of that, I checked to see if there was anything about Samburu on National Geographic.com. There is! There are a few different articles on different parts of the site, but the one that has interested me most so far is called "Scenes from a Kenya Safari." It was originally from National Geographic Traveler. The author appears to have spent a large part of his visit to Kenya in the Samburu National Reserve, one of the two parks I visited. There are some great stories (I love the one about a lioness that adopted not one, but two, Beisa oryx calves and tried to protect them from other predators!) and some wonderful pictures of the animals and the Samburu people.

The author ends his article with this quote: "A safari teaches you to see, and seeing helps you understand. The patterns of a day may be simple, but the qualities of it are anything but. My guess is that every safarigoer makes two promises at the end of a journey: The first is never to forget the romance of the wild, and the second is to return again soon. These promises are why, though you may leave Africa, Africa will never leave you. It's a very specific relationship that way, one endlessly rich in its specificity." Although my expedition was not a tradtional safari, I can understand what he means. It is an amazing thing to really look and search the land as you drive through, to try to pick out the animals in the camouflaging bush. I learned that even very large animals can be hard to see when they want to hide. I learned the differences among different species, and trained myself to look for those little characteristics that would help make identification possible. On our first day, I strained to see a dikdik lying on the ground and thought that I would never be able to spot them without help from Sam and Nduhiu; after a few days of really watching, I found that the dikdiks had become a nuisance, so easy to see that I groaned at spotting them because it was "just another dikdik." But learning to quietly watch and appreciate the animals of Samburu really does teach you a lot about the world in which they live, even when you only see the tracks they leave behind. And the experience most definitely encourages you to return as soon as possible! Just as Madagascar is forever a part of who I am today, Kenya will be as well.

I recommend checking out the article when you have a chance! In the meantime, I'm going to see if I can try to track down the author through the magazine to share my impressions and experiences in Samburu with him.


The article's author, George W. Stone, with 2 Samburu guides who worked at the campsite where he stayed. (Photo by author, located at http://www.nationalgeographic.com/traveler/photos/africa0509/africa_gallery2.html.)

August 05, 2006

My friend Pete's pictures

My friend Pete took some really great pictures during our trip, so I wanted to share a few of them with you. I hope he doesn't mind! This seems to be all that will fit in the post for now, but there were a LOT more that I really liked. The one to the left is a Common Zebra in Nairobi National Park.

A Samburu child with donkeys beside the Ewaso Ngiro river. The donkeys are rigged up for carrying things, so probably they were at the river fetching water to be used in the manyatta.












Giraffe watching us from behind a tree at the Samburu National Reserve.












Lioness at Nairobi National Park. This was how she was when we found her. When we arrived, she stood up and very calmly walked right past my window.











Lioness in Samburu National Reserve. This is the one that was resting right near herds of impalas and Grant's gazelles.












Me, Mercy, and a cow outside a store in Wamba. The cow didn't stick around long enough for a second picture with my camera.












Me and Jordana doing water sample work at the Ewaso Ngiro. I was in charge that day of keeping records about things like water temperature, water color, air temperature, relative humidity, etc. Jordana is holding the pole that we used to get water samples if we couldn't get right to the very edge of the river or well.

August 03, 2006

Another Samburu video

I was just checking out YouTube.com again to decide whether I should post my own short videos there. I came across a video about the CRI project in Wamba. It seems to be professionally done, explaining the Earthwatch CRI goals, the challenges in the region, etc. It has some really great views of animals, of Wamba, etc. You can check it out at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNXxA2X4PcU&mode=related&search= if you'd like to see it. I think it provides a pretty good overview of what Earthwatch is trying to do in Samburu. When you watch it, though, keep in mind that it's been a couple of months since the rainy season, and they've come up with a solution to the washed out road. I didn't have to jump the river like the volunteers arriving in the video did!

I still haven't decided about posting my own videos to YouTube, but I'll let you know!

August 01, 2006

Photos

I've changed the update format for my photos. Flickr was proving too annoying. There are still some photos and descriptions there, and some of the links in the postings go to that site, but now all of my photos are on Shutterfly. You can see them at http://wonsonkenya.shutterfly.com. I am working on getting the titles and descriptions edited, which may take a little while longer. I hope you'll check out what's there!