Directed Research

There are eleven people in each directed research group. We got to submit our first, second, and third choices for DR and they tried to put everyone on a project they were interested in. It seemed to work out pretty well although Okello's project was probably the most popular, Kiringe's the next, and Tome's the last. Okello is working on mapping wildlife in relation to human settlements in the group ranch outside of Amboseli National Park. Kiringe is looking at vegetation in the Kimana group ranch. Tome is researching community conservation initiatives in all of the group ranches in the Loitokitok division of the Kajiado district. I'm in Tome's group (along with Tommy, Izzy, Rose, Lindsey, Siena, Rocky, Liz, Kim, Mike, and Amy) and we've been conducting surveys with local guides for the last seven days. We leave around 7:30 AM and finish taking surveys at 3:00PM. Our goal for each day is about fifteen surveys each, but it depends on how long we have to drive to get to our destination and how far apart the settlements (bomas) are. We go out in pairs, so there are five survey groups and one person stays to do the data entry for the surveys collected the day before. It's been really interesting to drive all over the Loitokitok district interviewing people about wildlife conservation. The most common livelihoods around here are agriculture and pastoralism (or a combination). The farms are all cultivated entirely by hand, so they usually aren't more than an acre or two. You all can imagine what quick work an elephant herd makes out of that. The predators also eat livestock (cattle, sheep, and goats), so neither livelihood escapes unharmed. Given those things, the responses are a bit discouraging from a wildlife conservation point of view and entirely understandable from a human point of view.

Today, Izzy and I went to Mbirikani group ranch with our favorite guide Joseph. He had a lot of family around the area, so we got to go inside a lot of houses and sit down for coffee. Kenyan coffee is extremely watered down instant coffee with enough sugar in it to give an elephant a buzz. We had two cups in less than two hours because we didn't want to be rude and turn them down. Neither of us are coffee drinkers, so we were making a lot of eye contact and rueful smiles over our cups. Despite that, it was probably the best day I've had out in the field. We were welcomed into the homes and invited to play with the children and take pictures and people were asking us questions and showing us their pictures. I've only had one person turn down our survey so being welcomed isn't usually a problem, but we're often standing outside in the sun while the people work and it's easy to feel like an intrusion.

Today was our last day out interviewing group ranch members and land owners and tomorrow we start doing key informant interviews. We're going back to Amboseli to interview Kenya Wildlife Service rangers, lodge owners, group ranch officials, etc. tomorrow. After that we're starting our data analysis and writing our individual papers. Our final presentation of our results is on December 7th and we're all flying out (or moving on to our next destination) on December 10th. Hard to believe it's almost over!

Initials explained!

Just in case I forgot to mention this before, SFS has two sites in Kenya--NPS and KBC. NPS stands for National Park Site and it's right next to Nairobi National Park and twenty minute (or three hour) drive to Kitengela. KBC stands for Kilimanjaro Bush Camp and it's in between Isinet and Kimana. KBC is where we spent the first two months of the semester and returned to after three weeks at NPS.

So, you know when people come back from other countries having survived very sketchy situations that make for really good stories? This wasn't quite like that, but I held a baby cheetah.

Three of us decided to visit the animal orphanage outside Nairobi National Park in the twenty minutes we had between activities. We even talked our way in at the resident price (200 KSh or ~$2.50). We were walking around and one of the staff members decided to give us a personal tour (i.e. we were white and looked like we had money). After leading us through the entire orphanage, he asked us if we wanted to go into a cage with a cheetah. There were two cheetahs that had been rubbing against the fence and chirruping for attention (we were scratching their chins and rubbing their sides through the fence), so we all assumed he meant those two.

Before we knew it, he was leading us through a fenced-in area behind the orphanage and into a little building where they kept all the baby animals that were too young to be on display. They brought out this two-month old cheetah named Mac from Narok. All three of us (all girls) started cooing immediately and sounded surprisingly like Mac. Mac was a bit nervous about all the new people and calmed himself down by licking our fingers. Needless to say, we were a little late meeting the group. Once we decided we really, really did have to go we started to leave the building and were not so subtly reminded that we had had a good time and should compensate "our friend" for that. Bribes are extremely common in Kenya and I had seen that coming a mile away. Someone else paid because they thought it was worth it and fair, but I didn't and I still haven't figured out how I feel about two things--being singled out as a person who has money because I'm mzungu AND the zookeepers at one of the most prominent animal sanctuaries in the country letting total strangers pass a wild animal around amongst themselves for about ten bucks.

I guess I hope that money went somewhere useful so that it was a win-win situation.

(P.S. Hi Izzy and Tommy's families! These are for you! The first one is Daniel, Devin, Wendy and Izzy's volleyball team. The second one is Tommy. Riding an ostrich. This was at the ostrich farm on his twenty-first birthday.)

I'm back!

We are back at KBC for the duration of the program (which I just realized is now less than a month away)! The drive up to NPS was about seven hours with a couple of chocolate refuelling stops. Gas station food has never tasted so good. NPS is a whole new world. Rainy season had started about a week before we got there, so everything had turned green and misty by the time we arrived. I'm pretty sure we didn't get over that the entire time we were there. There are also a lot of spiky things on the ground at KBC that are not at NPS, so some brave souls tried feeling the grass on their bare feet. That resulted in a few embedded Acacia thorns. Brave in Africa often results in injury.

Our experience at NPS was defined by our expedition to Lake Nakuru, Lake Naivasha, and Hells Gate National Park. We finally saw a leopard at Nakuru stalking through the grass and climbing up a tree. We also saw a hyena successfully hunt a flamingo and three lions sleeping away the afternoon in an Acacia tree. We're pretty sure they were the same pride we would hear roaring at night which caused our poor SAM to nearly have heart failure. She spent at least two nights physically rounding people up and driving them away from the fence. "I'm not joking! Did you see those lions in the trees?! They can get over this fence and you are tasty, slow, and weak."

After we got back from expedition we worked for three straight days on finishing up our last four classes. We've had tests for three of them, but we had four final assignments and one last exam. Unfortunately, that all fell on the days following the election and we couldn't savor it the way we wanted to. We did, however, manage to fit in a couple more trips to the grocery store where we bought imported Dutch cheese, apples, chocolate, and chips.

The last couple of days at NPS it POURED. It turned our drive out of camp onto the main (paved!) road into a three hour slog through the mud. That drive normally takes us twenty minutes. We have a giant white van we pile all of our gear into called the Rhino and Sipaya drives it. Daniel's landcruiser had to pull Sipaya and the Rhino out of the mud twice.

(Picture: Sipaya in the back of the Rhino in his Rhino driving outfit.) Picture nine students standing in the rain on the side of the road while all of the staff push the landcruiser that is pulling a giant white vehicle through mud past its hubcaps and three other landcruisers sit full of students who aren't allowed out. Let's just say we had plenty of entertainment while we were driving. The drive back took over ten hours.



(Picture: Daniel's landcruiser pulling the Rhino!)

We have now started the last portion of our semester--directed research. I'm in Tome's project and we're surveying people about the effectiveness of community conservation initiatives in the group ranches surrounding KBC. My team is going the farthest afield and rainy season is in full blast. Good thing I really like getting stuck in the mud!



(Picture: Running from class to close our banda windows. I'm on the left.)

Finally

Kibaki (the president of Kenya) declared tomorrow a public holiday. Does more really need to be said than that?

I woke up to the generator this morning because they turned it for us to watch the returns. I didn't even make it to the TV room before I could hear the cheering from other students. I wish we had a bigger group to celebrate with (we all wished we were in Grant Park), but we packed into the TV room and cheered (and cried) through his acceptance speech nonetheless.

Thanks to everyone who voted.