Kilimanjaro Bush Camp – Day 5 – 3/28/11
Wake up, breakfast, and the normal staring at Kili began the morning before we all headed off in different directions to learn about human wildlife conflict.  My group drove about 40 mins away and we were set loose with a guide/translator named Karen.  In total we spoke to four farmers about their personal experience with wildlife.  Every one that we spoke to was very angry that the wildlife destroy their crops and felt that the government did not help nearly enough.  When a farmers crops or animals are harmed by wildlife the government is suppose to compensate them for the lose but it never happens.  Plus KWS (Kenya Wildlife Service) never responds when they are having particular problem animals unless the animal is sick or has killed a person.  Elephants, monkeys, zebras, gazelles, and carnivores like lions, leopards, and cheetah pose the most problems and they most common solution the farmers suggested was an electric fence to keep everything out of the agricultural area.  It’s a hard issue to tackle, but it was interesting to get the opinions from people dealing with these threats everyday and trying to see the area through their eyes.  Our best interview was the last farmer who spoke very good English and had us do hoeing and weeding while we asked him questions.  It was much nicer letting my hands do mindless work as we asked him questions about his crops and what he does to protect them.  Walking back to the cruiser we got to trade contacts with our guide and about her life.  She lives locally and is starting nursing school in May at Kenyatta which will take four years.  She is 17 years old and has four younger siblings and one older brother studying to be an accountant in university.  Lunch followed out return to camp and we had another EP class at 2pm on group ranches before resuming the volleyball tournament.  I got recruited to play, and although we did not win, it was a lot of fun and I played pretty well considering I have not played since middle school gym class.  Rushing to shower I was a bit late to dinner which the real high point of the day happened.  One of my roommates strained her finger whole rolling up her pant leg.  The broken blood vessel cause her finger to swell so she had to keep it elevated which meant she was pointing at the ceiling for most of dinner.  Molly got her an ibuprophin and an ice pack but the teasing did not let up and our end of the table was laughing a lot.  The MOD today was Emily and she gave a great “reflection and presentation”.  She taught us a bit about Kili (the elevation, first climb, fastest climb time etc) and then played a youtube video called funny british animal voiceovers.  If you have a few minutes to spare look it up.  Since tomorrow is non-program day I am spending the rest of my evening choosing pictures from our year book that people are putting together and maybe watching a movie.  Lala salama (sleep peacefully)
Kilimanjaro Bush Camp – Day 6 – 3/29/11
My alarm was very insistent that I get up this morning.  It went off three times even though I kept trying to turn it off and I guess not pushing the switch far enough.  On the third occasion I decided something wanted me to get up and I followed along.  As it turned out I was up just in time for the first offered nature walk.  Last night lots of people had showed interest in coming but the reality of 6:20 am meant that it was only myself and two other girls who accompanied the guards outside the camp fence.  Both the askaris are very entertaining making it a great way to start the day.  They showed us some traditionally used plants and told us how and when they are used.  They began to tell us how to track animals and read how old dung is that we came upon.  As a group we talked and joked around out in the bush for close to an hour, saw a few dik diks, another gorgeous view of Kili, and many birds before getting back to camp by 7:30am so I could get to my cook crew duties.  I have found the entire experience here better organized than Tanzania and this feeling was reinforced by entering the kitchen and starting our jobs in getting breakfast ready.  All the things that needed to be done were out and ready to be started, all the work spaces were clean, and we finished nearly twenty minutes early because everything was so efficient.  After breakfast and packing lunch we loaded into the cruisers and headed to a town called Oloitokitok where we were going to hike.  We started out walking through a few field of corn and a small trail in the woods beside one of the fields before turning very sharply into the woods and heading down and steep and very narrow trail.  The vegetation was very thick on either side and I felt like I was descending into a jungle.  Continuing along this trail up and down for about 5 minutes brought us down into the gorge and our final destination.  The area was so beautiful.  A lovely 15 foot waterfall cascaded over the gorge rim and down into a shallow pool of about 30 feet in diameter below it.  The trail we can in on ended in a grave beach that became the pool and had several large rocks which we used to cross the stream leading out of the pool.  Once crossing the stream we could climb part way up the gorge rim using several huge vines that grew from the gorge top.  The whole area was very moist and there was every type of moss imaginable covering trees and rocks.  A group of us wandered further downstream with two askaris.  This involved some juggling and balance on slippery rocks while going under dead trees leaning across the stream.  We all stopped and say down for a while on a bunch of boulders about 300 yards from the waterfall yet hidden around a bend in the stream.  During our chat a few more students joined us as well as Molly who informed us that just across the stream was Tanzania!  Funny to think that while climbing up the gorge I had illegally exited Kenya and entered Tanzania.  Gathered on several boulders, Molly told us crazy stories of things that have happened to students on this program (of all the SFS programs Africa also has the strangest write ups).  This wandered into stories of the Tsavo man-eating lions and the various incidents that have occurred there.  Eventually we had to head back to the larger group and eat lunch before packing up and leaving our little waterfall paradise.  On our hike out I was listening to Debussy and shared my headphones with Martin the assistant of the program.  I don’t think I converted him to classical music but he was very interested to hear such different music from his native Kenyan music.  Back at the trail head all the girls put on their skirts and we headed in to town.  Here we stopped at the local HIV/AIDS clinic where they run a support group, provide free testing and make the best jewelry I have yet seen.  We were able to meet several of the support group members and hear their stories.  They are an amazing group of women (they do have ten men in the group but none of them were there) and their stories were both heart breaking and awe inspiring.  The courage the women, their families, and especially their children must show to a world very stigmatized toward those with HIV and AIDS was humbling.  After seeing the clinic we had the opportunity to buy jewelry from their small store and I was not able to resist buying more than I intended.  Leaving the clinic we headed into town proper to a vegetable and clothing market.  Many of my classmates bought mangos, passion fruits, and avocados while others continued further down the road to the tailor to have more things made with the fabric they had brought from Tanzania.  I had no interest in buying more so I walked along the road to explore the town.  While strolling along I came across a music store blasting very upbeat music that would be great to dance to.  I went in and inquired how much it was and ended up with a CD of more than 25 songs for slightly more than one US dollar.  I made it back to the cruisers just as it began to rain and waited while the last few people got back to the meeting spot.  Leaving Oloitokitok we drove to Kimana where everyone divided up once more.  I got in the cruiser going back to camp with five other students while the rest remained in town to explore the market there and go to a tourist bar.  I had had enough walking about and having people try to get me to buy trinkets so getting back to camp was very nice.  What made it even better was that one of the askari’s dogs was on the porch when we pulled up.  One of my classmates had been calling her woozy boots but I refer to her simply as Boots in my head.  She wagged her tail as I sat down and began petting her.  Of course she had ticks all over so I spent close to an hour pulling every tick off her I could find.  She is an extremely sweet dog and allowed me to roll her over and around as needed to rid her of the pesky things.  Once this task was complete I did my laundry and took a frigid shower just in time for dinner.  Immediately after finishing eating Center Director Okello spoke to us about the grade situation in Tanzania.  Because of the talk we had had with him just before leaving, his own observations after we left, and his conversations with the SFS deans in the States we are allowed to resubmit any work from the two classes that gave everyone so much trouble.  This work will be graded and reviewed by the deans of SFS and our grades will be from this grading.  I very much appreciate the effort that SFS is putting toward fixing this problem but at this point I’m not sure how much help this will actually be.  I plan to make an outline for the EP assignment we got today and then turning in early for a long day tomorrow. 
Kilimanjaro Bush Camp – Day 7 – 3/30/11
A normal start to the day with breakfast at 7:30 am and class at 8 am.  Wildlife Ecology went until 10 and covered the rangelands of Kenya, how it is used, the monitoring that is performed, and how these results can be used.  Since the majority of the population in these dry land areas rely on livestock to earn their income, the condition of the rangelands where there animals graze is very important.  Unfortunately the available land for the purpose of grazing is much more limited than in past decades thereby increasing the amount of environmental degradation.  It was an interesting class and we met again at 11 to prepare for the field exercise of rangeland assessment we were going to do in the afternoon.  Lunch was fantastic.  I have already mentioned that the food here is much better than in Tanzania.  Well today certainly drove the point home.  Not only was there an entire tray available of sliced tomatoes, peppers, and cucumbers with a mustard dressing, but there was also vegetable tempura and fruit!!!  Luke made his own sauce of chili sauce and other stuff so a group of us even had a spicy sauce to dip the tempura in.  At 1pm we were all in the cruisers and headed to the Kuku Group Ranch (aka Chicken Group Ranch…I have no idea why it is name that) about a 20 minute drive from camp.  Once we had organized ourselves into five groups, our professor began demonstrating what the exercise involved.  And of course at this very moment the threatening clouds that had been blowing about all morning decided to dump rain on our heads.  We all ran for the cars (I won…yay 4x4 training) and piled in until the storm passed.  We ended up with one extra person in my cruiser so we were jammed in the front seat with one person perched on the middle person’s lap.  One of the tools used for grass sampling is a long metal wire which the back seat people used mercilessly to tickly my roommate (Jess) right next to me.  By the time the rain stopped Jess was in stitches of laughter, the entire back seat was giggling, and Emily and I were laughing and doing an odd sort of shoulder fusion by being crammed into the corner by the door from the thrashings of Jess.  Groups 1 and 2 got out and began walking their transects for assessing the area on either side of the road and the rest of us drove 500 m further down the road.  Here groups 3 and 4 (my group) got out with our local guides and began our transects.  My group did fairly well once the person who insisted on doing our compass alignments learned how to find south the direction we were to go in.  The exercise took us close to three hours and we were pretty tired once we made our way back to the road.  Our local Maasai guide had decided on names for each of us during our exercise.  I got the name Nascieku which means very fast because of my terrible habit of rushing ahead on the trail.  Back here at camp we had a great dinner and prepared the papers we wanted to resubmit with a cover letter.  Another field exercise tomorrow so lala salama (sleep peacefully). 
Kilimanjaro Bush Camp – Day 8 – 3/31/11
Got up nice and early this morning, ate breakfast and loaded into the cruisers for a traveling lecture for WE.  We drove for about 25 minutes into the heart of the Mbirikani group ranch were Kiringe lectured on the Tsavo-Amboseli ecosystem with particular emphasis on the climate, dynamics, and the threats facing the system.  Our classroom today was a small hill that allowed us to look far into the distance in all directions as our professor Kiringe pointed out the parks, Chyulu Hills, Kili, and the other five group ranches.  We sat on the ground or on boulders for the lecture and were constantly hailed by Maasai children on their way to school.  The lecture was only ninety minutes long but we all were feeling rather fried as we climbed down to the cars to head back to camp.  On our way down I happened to ask about a plant currently grabbing my pant leg and had a small informal lecture on aloe plants and how they are being overexploited by the locals and are now protected by the government.  I had no idea since you can see so many products claiming aloe ingredients just walking into a drug store.  Anyway back at camp we had lunch and then we had a data analysis session using the data from our rangeland assessment from 2 til 4pm.  Allie and I got in a good workout to shake all the stress out and I managed to take another record breaking cold shower before the dinner bell rang.  The rest of the evening I spent reading old articles for my paper and writing the majority of the paper.  Amboseli National Park tomorrow !!
Kilimanjaro Bush Camp – Day 9 – 4/1/11
April Fools’s Day!  We began this morning with blue eggs.  Cook crew found food coloring in the pantry and had a bit of fun making breakfast.  It was very odd but they tasted just like regular eggs…just in a color that definitely does not occur in nature!  We had our first WM lecture this morning here in the chumba (dining hall/classroom) talking about biodiversity conservation in Kenya.  It was an interesting class but by the end I felt we were talking in circles about the same issues.  Quickly packing our bags and a lunch we jumped in the vehicles and headed to Amboseli National Park.  The drive took about 45 minutes and small swarm of Maasai mamas tried to get us to buy jewelry and carved bowls while we opened the roof hatches and went to the bathroom while the staff checked us into the park.  Standing in line for the only bathroom, we saw a few cruisers drive out with a few heavily armed rangers and what appeared to be military guys.  It was a different experience being in such close proximity to nearly half a dozen Ak47s and a bunch of laughing guys joking in what sounded like a tribal language I have never heard before (maybe Kikuyu??? I know Maa and Swahili by sound now).  Piling back in we drove through the gate all ready to go and then our driver stopped ten yards inside the park gate and our professor stood up and gave a short lecture on the park, challenges of park management, and impacts of the gate and roads within the park.  We drove on and I personally was shocked to see how overgrazed and sparse the park was.  We saw no animals until our second stop 15 minutes later by the smaller of the two swamps.  We continued through the park stopping every so often yet we saw hardly any animals.  This finally changed on our way for our lunch stop when we came across a couple of elephant families playing up to their ears in mud and swamp water.  We took lots of pictures and then continued on.  We climbed a tiny hill by the big swamp to eat lunch and got to watch two hippos browse the swamp grass.  Here our professor gave our last section of lecture and we got to enjoy the distance view while many many starlings hopped daringly close to beg for food.  While we were here a group of school children.  What was different was that they were clearly well off and looked just like American school kids.  They did stare at us but not nearly as much and for the most part kept to themselves.  These are the first kids we have encountered that were not dirt poor and running around in ragged clothes or naked.  Before leaving I had the chance to sit and enjoy the company of our staff our laughed at my attempts to follow their conversation in Swahili.  Back in the cruisers we game drove out of the park.  Again we saw hardly any animals (a few herds of impala and gazelle) and our car missed the cheetah chilling in the grass beside the road.  I enjoyed the wind wiping past my face and the small glimpses of Kili peaking through the clouds.  Once we closed the hatches and began driving back to camp we came across a group of giraffes with a perfect view of Kili behind them.  For the rest of today I am going to continue writing my paper and then go to sleep.
Kilimanjaro Bush Camp – Day 10 – 4/2/11
Woke up to another gorgeous sighting of Kili just outside my banda.  I never really get use to the sudden sight every day while I brush my teeth.  After breakfast we had an hour long class for WM talking about habitat management plans.  Right after class finished we had an hour to pack up and then we headed to a local wildlife sanctuary to test our newly learned skills out there.  We each were assigned a species (I got leopard!!! I lived in Leopard house in Tanzania, we saw two in Serengeti…something with me and leopards) and had to evaluate the sanctuary.  We made seven evaluation stops within the sanctuary before we stopped for lunch under a few shady trees.  I made myself comfortable on a rock and enjoyed my lunch.  The shade did not reach my rock so after finishing my food I moved under the tree.  I set my bag down and went to sit down.  A sharp pain in my hand told me this was not working and sure enough I thorn was buried in the heel of my right hand.  Swearing at my stupidity I walked over to Molly and asked if she had a pair of tweezers.  While she was rummaging around another student Christina offered to try and squeeze it out using her nails.  I had cut mine just yesterday so I readily agreed.  It took several minutes and was not comfortable but she got the sucker out.  It was longer than anyone including me had suspected and my hand bled magnificently.  And while I’m bleeding I begin to feel the effects of my day in full sun and general dehydration: I start to feel lightheaded and promptly sit down by the cruiser tire.  Disinfecting and bandaging of the damaged hand continues and Molly comments on my ghostly appearance while I focus on breathing and not passing out.  A few minutes later I’m ready to go but now have to deal with everyone staring at me out their windows and asking me the rest of the drive if I feel ok.  I chug a full nalgene of water and ignore the constant side long looks.  The rest of the evaluation went pretty well until two cruisers got stuck as we neared the swamp.  After freeing them from the thick black mud we all turned around and headed for camp.  Quick core workout, shower, and very good dinner and its back to paper writing.