Project Started

Yesterday was a long day. My cages were finished and delivered to the research center Wed, so yesterday it was time to put them out at my sites, and do vegetation measurments at each one.

I met my guard, James, at 8am and we worked until 1:20 getting 6 of the 10 cages out. We took a short lunch break and then went back out from 2-5 to finish the other 4. I spent a lot of the day squatting down to count grass, so I was definitely tired by the end. I think James was tired too, and probably wishing he hadn't been the guard assigned to me.
But my day was not over yet because I then had to drive to the 2 bomas on the East side to pick up their GPS units and give them new ones. One of the herds lost one of their units, probably because the collar was not tight enough. But oh well, what can you do.

These units only lasted 1 day instead of 2 also, so I am going to need a new plan. Right now I give each herd 2 units and tell them to put them both on for 2 days in case one doesn't work. But I think I will tell them to put one on for the first day, take it off, and then put the second one on for the second day. I don't know how to say this in Swahili though, so I need to either find someone to come with me to tell them, or translate it for me ahead of time and write it down.

When I was still waiting for the cages on Wednesday, I went to the Chimp sanctuary with Nicole for the afternoon. One of the chimps has a brand new baby and I got a cute picture of it.