Kilimanjaro Bush Camp – Day 11 – 4/3/11

Kilimanjaro Bush Camp – Day 11 – 4/3/11
Breakfast was a half hour earlier since we were leaving for a field exercise at 8am.  We loaded up and drove to the Kimana Group Ranch.  Oh a group ranch is “Created in 1968 through an Act of Parliament, with the intention of commercializing Maasai subsistence livestock production systems and stabilizing environmental degradation, group ranches carved previously open Maasai range into a series of
smaller units of variable size held under corporate title.”  Once in the group ranch professor Kiringe showed us how to collect data on vegetation damage done either by elephants and/or humans.  We were broken into 5 groups and sent to analyze a transect with five 30 by 30 meters boxes.  This exercise took three hours.  I had a good time not because I love analyzing trees and shrubs, but because in the bush there are no people except the occasional Maasai herd boy and his cattle and the sky is huge above you offering a perfect view of Kili.  So after climbing a tree and deciding if a tree has 10% or 25% of its branches broken we went back to camp.  Since lunch was not yet ready I wandered out to the garage where Martin was working on center director Okello’s car.  We chatted while I watched him change the oil (he of course refused all offers of assistance), changed the fuel and oil filters, and checked the battery stability.  The battery is secured by a handmade metal piece and screwed into the side of the engine box to keep the battery from moving while driving over rough roads.  By the time this was all done it was 12:30 and Martin and I got the very last of the food put out for lunch.  Eating on the porch outside the chumba I got to watch the starlings hop closer and closer before flying away to a safe distance before starting all over again.  At one we began our community service project of planting tree seedlings around camp.  I grabbed a metal piece with a handle which is used to beat and cut vegetation down.  I began clearing holes here and there and soon a system emerged.  I would clear the areas, Luke and Austin with  hoe/pickaxes would dig the hole, and Emily would select the tree seedling and plant it and water it while I had moved on to another area with Luke and Austin close behind.  I quickly lost count of the number of areas/holes/trees we did but we finished the entire area we were working through, then a second, and finally a third.  By this point Austin’s hands had blistered so badly he was bleeding and Luke and I both sported impressive blistered hands and fingers that would not straighten.  We had been working for two hours and most of the other students had quit long ago.  I decided since I was already very sweaty I may as well go running.  While running I saw a group of Maasai gathered across the stream all dressed up.  I have no idea what they were doing but periodically they were start yelling and call in the traditional manner (open mouth and the tongue going back and forth to create a wavering cry).  I still don’t know what they were doing but it added interest to an otherwise very hot run.  During dinner Luke (the MOD today) played “Who’s on First What’s on Second” by Abbot and Costello which had all of us laughing as we ate.  After dinner I reread my paper for the final time, printed it, and handed it in.  Tomorrow we have a traveling lecture so its early to bed for me.