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.)