Less than a week left

Wow, the summer has really flown by. The undergrads I flew over with all left this morning... which means I have only 6 days left here. I can't believe how quickly 8 weeks have gone by. I will be driving down to Nairobi with Dan's wife Nancy and spending the night there before heading to the airport on Saturday. I fly back through Dubai again and get to JFK at 7:45 am next Sunday Aug 8. Then I will be taking a shuttle to the Newark airport in order to get on another plane back to Dayton, Ohio.

For my last week here, Dan and I have finally been able to start working on setting up this grazing project. We scoped out places to set up plots today. If the rain holds off and we can set up plots tomorrow, we can do vegetation sampling on Monday, and then bring in some donkeys to graze a third of the plots on Tuesday. I'm actually really excited because I kind of love donkeys.

I feel like posts are always more exciting if I include pictures, so here are some random recent ones. First we have a tree hyrax who decided to relax in some old pipes/tubing/tires by the workshop. I think they are really cute as well.

Then there are the vervet monkeys... the males literally have bright baby blue testicles, which I guess gives new meaning to the term "blue balls".

Stop Raining!

It has not stopped raining since Lisa and I got to Mpala... 6 days in a row. Which really puts a stop to researching since the roads are too bad to drive to most places, even with 4-wheel drive. So I don't know that I will actually get much done at Mpala other than relaxing and staring out at the view. It is a nice view though.

We have seen some cool animals here that we didn't see at Ol Pejeta though. First there are a lot more Grevys zebra: 35-50 as opposed to the 14 total on all of Ol Pej. Which means I actually see them in herds and not just one or two at a time, which is pretty cool.
They also have greater Kudu and tiny little dik-diks.... which I think are my favorite (aside from the zebra). They have the best name too. Their bodies are like little antelope, but their faces remind me of a mouse or a mole.

Hippos!!!

While there are apparently hippos on Ol Pejeta, we never saw one while we were there. However, there is a place on Mpala called the hippo pool where they like to go and wade, so we decided to drive by there today and see if there were any around. And there were 20 of them!

We went by the other day and there were only 2, but they must have all been hanging out today... including a cute little baby hippo.

It has rained here most of the past 5 days... so we've been doing a lot of nothing. But today it was clear enough that we decided to test the roads and see if we could make it up to the place where Lisa is going to set out tents to try to continue her experiment. Some of the roads are still bad, but we made it and saw a bunch of Grevy's zebra on the way too. I think I saw more Grevy's in one spot here than exist on all of Ol Pejeta.

Now at Mpala

Hey everyone- so I am now at Mpala. Today was "Discovery Day" and a bunch of people from the community came to hear short presentations by a lot of the researchers about the work going on here. It was a pretty impressive turn out. Even the director of KWS (Kenya Wildlife Service) helicoptered in for it.

Lisa and I drove our cars over here yesterday afternoon, and luckily they both made it. My car was making weird noises along the way- especially in 4th gear- but it made it.

The last day we were at Ol Pejeta, apparently one of the herders got gored by a rhino-- which is insane. He survived, but he took a horn to the back. Luckily it just hit muscle and nothing important I think. That will be a crazy story to tell one day. Speaking of rhinos, here are a couple pictures from the first week we were here that I don't think I ever posted. It was just getting to the end of the rainy season/beginning of the dry season then, so there were still mud pools around they liked to lay in.

Also yesterday, Lisa and I saw the tiniest baby elephant ever and as we were watching it, it's mom started to charge our car. We just drove off quickly, but I feel like now I can say I have been charged by an elephant.

Baby animals!

Moving to Mpala

Lisa and I were supposed to be staying at Ol Pejeta until next Monday (July 26th), but we just found out the research center is overbook and we have to leave this Thursday (July 22) instead. So we will be moving up to Mpala on the 22nd. Lisa is a little upset because that gives her 4 less days to work on her project and try to get some more trials of her experiment done. But oh well, nothing can be done. KWS (Kenya Wildlife Service) will be coming on Tursday followed by another Earthwatch group on Monday.

The Earthwatch group that was just here for 2 weeks left yesterday morning. We got to know a few of them really well- mostly just the two guys in college, Kenny and Saagar. There was a bit of drama toward the end of the trip where Saagar felt like he was getting really sick and told his dad who freaked out and called Earthwatch and they called Geff, the guy running the trip, and asked what was going on. So the older volunteers in the group got pissed at Saagar for starting something and unneccessarily stressing out Geff. There was a confrontation at dinner time with yelling and then a fake make-up hug. But then to make things worse, a couple days later Saagar woke Geff up at 3 am saying he thought he was dying and asking to be taken to the hospital. When they got there the nurses couldn't really find anything wrong. He came back to camp the next day for a few hours and then asked to be taken to the hospital again. He had strept throat. But do you really need to spend multpile days in the hospital for that? The Earthwatch team was leaving to drive to Nairobi for their flights yesterday while he was still at the hospital so they just left without him... He came back on his own later that day to get his bags and then find a taxi to Nairobi. It was so much drama for a few days, it was like we were living in a reality show.

Chayant, the guy working on the computer program to barcode ID zebras got here Sunday night and drove around with me monday. We saw so much wildlife for one day. I will put pictures in the next post. Then yesterday Dan came to see how it was working-- turns out not very well. So Chayant is trying to work on the program and get it functioning before we leave here on Thursday. I am now also trying to go through all of my data before I leave. If there are any questions I have or Plains zebra I need identified, I need to do that with Rosemary before I go. And then I want to leave info about all my sighting for her in a useable format... but that I could always email if I don't get it done now.

The trip really feels like it is getting toward the end now that we will be leaving Ol Pejeta in 3 days. Then I will have 2 weeks at Mpala before heading home.

Chimps!

So we finally went to the chimp sanctuary on the property the other day. The earthwatch people were going, and Lisa and I hadn't been yet, so we tagged along.

Chimps are not indigenous to Kenya, but I guess Jane Goodall started this sanctuary and they were brought here to get away from all of the fighting in countries where they are from like Congo, Rwanda, and Burundi. Most of them have been rescued from people trying to keep them as pets or sell them for bushmeat. They are a lot bigger than I was expecting. And so many of their mannerisms are so human-like it is really cool to watch. There is one name Max that the keeps kept telling us is "very naughty". I guess he doesn't like the crowds, so he kept running up and down the fence throwing sticks and rocks at us. We got really close, just on the other side of a tall electrified fence, but it is a little sad to see them behind a fence like that. They have a lot of acres to roam, and the fence is as much for their saftey (to keep out predators and elephants) as to keep them from escaping, but still...

We also finally went over to Ol Pejeta house (on of the places the tourists can stay) yesterday to use the pool for the first time. The house is huge and really nice. It used to be owned by a middle-eastern arms dealer who was involved in the whole Iran-contra thing... but he lost it in a gambling bet-- which I find funny and ridiculous. We didn't get to see upstairs because there are some people staying there right now, but the 2 pools and living and dining rooms are pretty sweet. If anyone wants to come visit me in Kenya one year, we should get a big group together and rent out the whole place for a week. It also felt nice to swim.

We watched the world cup final last night at Sweetwaters Lodge and then it was back to work today.

The blind elephant was right next to the research center again this morning and almost took down the clothes line again.

One of the guards was around and came out and made noise to get him to leave. Me and Lisa took pictures.

Also, yay for getting data! I gave Rosemary a bunch of photos of Plains zebra I have seen the hybrids with and she identified all of them and gave me their ID numbers today. Now I am cross checking them with the spreadsheet of all past sightings to see if a hybrid has been seen with these same Plains zebra before.

Dan is coming on Sunday again with a bunch of people to show them around.

Oh, and the Earthwatch volunteers have been here for 3 days now. There are 9 of them- several Americans, a couple British and a couple Japanese. 4 of the Americans are college students too, so it has been fun having lots of people to talk to at meals and around the campfire some nights. It is definitely more lively here now.

Good News

I have another quick update for you all- with lots of good news this time!

First, both Lisa and my cars have been fixed and are running like totally different cars. The mechanics here are great. My car used to make tons of noise (both the engine and exhaust) and now it is so quiet and runs so much smoother. Also, since Lisa's car was fixed, we went into town yesterday to deal with my phone. Unfortunately the shop where I bought mine was closed, so I could not ask them for a replacement. I did not want to leave without a working phone, though so I just bought a new one from a different provider at another shop. So I now have two Kenyan cell phones! The number of the working one is 0713 796 270 if anyone cares. The two big cell companies in Kenya are Orange (my original phone) and Safaricom (the new phone).
If we make it back into town again before we leave and that original store is open, I am still going to try to get a replacement for my Orange phone so that I will have two working phones. The Safaricom one works well on Ol Pejeta where I am (so I will actually be able to call for help if I get stuck in the field) but has no reception at Mpala where I will be for the last week. So if I can get my Orange phone fixed to use at Mpala that would be great.

I have also been seeing some cool hybrid behavior. I emailed my advisor to give him an update and he seems very pleased with my work. He said I am getting great data and with a little luck we may be able to get a paper out in the fall-- which would be awesome.

So, according to my mother, my last post sounded like I was really upset and did not know how to deal with problems, haha. Sorry if it came off this way! I'm am not that upset... everything is still good. I was just venting and sharing details of how things usually (don't) work around here.

I can already tell that at the end of my two months here, when people ask me "How was Kenya?" my reply will be: "It was awesome! There were so many little headaches: nothing worked right, you have to wait forever, the roads are terrible, things are not at all efficient.... but come on, I was surrounded by animals and amazing views, and I learned so much. I got to sit out on the open Plain and watch zebra all day and see cheetah and lions at night. And now I can consider myself pretty comfortable with things I was not before coming here: driving stick, driving 4-wheel-drive and offroad, changing a tire, a little bit of Swahili (which I hope to learn a lot more of). I also feel so much more prepared to start thinking about and working on a PhD dissertation, because I see what is feasible and how things really run here.

The problems are all starting to get worked out. Lisa and I have been going out together in my car the past couple of days. And while we each get less done than we would alone, we are still being somewhat productive. Today was pretty good, we got a fair amount done. They also took Lisa's car up to the workshop today and it appears to be fixed as they just brought it back! Tomorrow we are going to drop my car off to be looked at while we drive her car into town to get my phone fixed. So hopefully that will all go well and we will be back to fully functioning shape by Wednesday.

The research is also going well. I made some interesting observations today, but I will save that for a later post.
Oh, and all the Earthwatch volunteers just got here. So the place is now full and will no doubt be less quiet than the past few days. I'll have to go meet them all at dinner in a few minutes. I hope everyone is doing well back in the states (or wherever you are in the world at this current moment).

Nothing ever runs smoothly

Oh problems....

First, for those that have mentioned it-- this blog website does not let you copy and paste from Word. Yes, I have thought about typing up my entries ahead of time when not connected to the internet and then just pasting them in to save my internet time, but it does not work. Apparently there is some circuitous way to go from Word to Notepad to trying to paste it in this site... but I don't really want to take the time to figure that out. So I will just stick with typing directly here, even though it takes time and means I make fewer posts.

And now on to other problems. So Thursday night (after we got back from town) my cell phone stopped working. It just shut itself off even though I thought it still had battery. Oh well, the battery must be dead- I'll just charge it. Well I plug it in and it won't charge. I try Lisa's charger, since we have the same phone-- still nothing. Great- I bet the part inside my phone where the charge plugs in is not making a good connection. My next idea: since we have the same phone, lets put my battery in Lisa's phone to charge it, then we can put it back in mine so I will at least be able to use it until we can manage to get into town and have it looked at. So we do this, I put it back in my phone, turn it on, it says it has full battery, but almost immediately shuts itself off again. I turn it back on, it shuts itself off again. There is definitely something wrong here. It won't even stay on long enough for me to hit send to make a call. Which means if my car breaks down in the field I am stuck with no way to call for help. We will need to go into town to the place I bought the phone and ask for a replacement. We can't take my car, because it is missing one headlight and that is illegal to drive in town. So we will take the red car Blair was driving, that Lisa is now driving since Blair left on Friday.
Well... yesterday afternoon as Lisa was out in the field, she couldn't get the car to start. Luckily her cell phone is still working so she called control to come rescue her. 2 hours later... they finally send someone. Apparently they had a car available to go get her, but no one who could drive it. They had to wait and find a guy to come drive the car to go pick her up. It seems there is something wrong with the exhaust and the car will not start. So we need to get them to tow it to Kamok to be repaired-- but today is Sunday and no one will be around. They all go to church on Sunday. So we will have to wait til Monday for them to work on it.

In the meantime, Lisa and I will just drive around together... which actually works out well because I have a working car (for now) and she has a working cell phone. Hopefully the car will be fixed by Tuesday morning and we can drive it into town to get my phone fixed. My car also has problems- it has been making a weird noise that sounds like there is something wrong with the exhaust on it too- so I also hope it does not die before we can get Lisa's car back. We we pick up hers, we can drop mine off to be looked at.

So that is the state of things at the moment. Both of us driving around together means we get less work done, but at least we will be together if something else goes wrong. It is just Lisa and I here at the research center right now. Everyone else has left. But tomorrow a bunch of Earthwatch volunteers come for 2 weeks, so it will be quite busy soon enough. Because they are short on space, they are putting a second bed in one of the really big bandas and Lisa and I will move in together to free up our two rooms for earthwatch people. There is also a guy named Chayant coming in a couple weeks. He is one of Dr. Rubenstein's collaborator's students in Illinois somewhere that is coming to work out a computer barcode system for identifying all the zebra. He may or may not be sharing our banda as well, haha. But it is only for 5 days or so.

Yes, I'm still alive

Hi everyone. Sorry for the long delay in posting. Things have been busy here- working away. And I am still trying to save my internet time.

First up, a wildlife photo for the day. This is from last week sometime of 7 giraffes all drinking from the water trough together. When they pull their heads out they spray water on each other.

In other news, Robin left on Sunday to head back to Nairobi with his dad and then back to the UK to finish up his masters. Hopefully we will see him again some day soon, maybe back here in Kenya. His parents will be in Nairobi for another 2 years. Also Blair leaves today (Friday, July 2) in just an hour or two, which will be sad. She has been here 3 full months though and is ready to get back. Lisa and I will be here together for another month. Dan is saying now he want us to stay til July 27th before going to Mpala for my last 2 weeks or so. Then I fly home Aug 7.

Yesterday we went for a Sundowner for Blair's last night and on the way back we came upon a pride of 14 lions! Just right on the road in front of us. Some of them just sat there next to our car for a little while. It was pretty cool to see that many together.

Other than that I have been working away. Going out everyday searching for hybrids and recording all of their behaviors and interactions. I have seen 21 individuals now, all but 3 of them. Hopefully getting some good data.