fisi

A dust devil nearly blew us away a few days ago. It came on all of the sudden and took down our shower and a tree. The following day it rained. It was more like showers than good and honest rain, but some holy men sacrificed a couple of goats to make it happen. Michael explained to us that holy men here were wealthy men with around 10 children. I asked if a man had to be wealthy to be holy and he said that you also needed to be a really good man, meaning you haven’t killed anyone or gotten into any fights.
So we hacked up a dead zebra. There’s really no nicer way to say it. I thought better of making it the opening comment and gave you a nice little story about sacrificial worship instead. My role in the hacking was sitting in the car with the windows rolled up taking pictures. Paul has this wonderful habit of parking downwind of whatever decaying carcass he’s investigating. Some high school students walked by and caught him field dressing this zebra. “Research - Do you like science?” Paul asked them. They just smiled awkwardly and repeated the word research. “It’s all part of science.” He concluded to fill the void. They didn’t say too much, just stared and watched Paul separate one zebra hind leg with a panga (machete) and put it into a bucket. They didn’t ask, but in case you are wondering – this zebra that once was provides bait for the hyenas. We’ve been out four nights now, luring them with this scent, and getting closer every time. I think tonight will be the night. Night drives are spooky with all the eyes that you see. Paul is really good at differentiating between them without even looking through the binoculars. I’ll spot a cluster of eyes way off in the distance and without even stopping the car he will tell me that those are Impala or Bat Eared Fox. Most of the drive sightings are of Grant’s gazelle’s or hares and this group of six giraffes that we always seem to be surprising. We once found a baby Grant’s gazelle in the hiding spot its mom had left it in and I quickly took the spot light off of it so that its secret was safe with us. When we are driving through the thick salvadora bush, we like to play the game, ‘How much would I have to pay you to get out of the car and walk around for awhile’. This is a lion and hyena haven so I don’t think either of us has ever put a price on it, fantastical as it may be. Speaking of games though, we were out setting up cameras yesterday and Paul was dry skipping rocks across the dusty ground. He picked up a rock and hit it like a baseball and then asked his assistants if they knew what baseball was. Michael said that he didn’t, but he knew that the whites have a lot of games.
Since no one in the area really has a car, we’ve become a special treat for people who catch us driving down the road. Amref (African Medical Relief Foundation) – flying doctors – caught us the other day and asked us to give this guy a ride back to Olkiramatian – which is where our camp is. He had to come with us to set up a few more camera sites before we were heading back and as we were stopped at one of them, Paul asked him for the phone number of someone at Amref. This led to the guy reaching in his pocket and realizing that he had left his phone in the truck he had just come from. Panicked, he asked what he should do, then said something in Swahili to Patrick and Michael and took off running. We asked them what he was doing and they said he was running the two miles to the water hole where he knew the guys were washing the truck. He said he would just find us on the road on our way back. Unlikely we thought, but sure enough, we finished our sites and were driving back to camp and saw the man, shirt opened drinking a jug of water, waiting for us. “So about that number” was the first thing he said to Paul when he got back in the car.
So yesterday was inauguration day. Kenya is proud of the shared blood between us. We meant to listen to Obama’s speech on the radio, but then got sidetracked when we realized that an Impala had been killed and half eaten by a leopard the previous night right on the edge of camp. I can now add the relocation of large animal carcasses to my resume. We one, two, three, swung the animal by it’s legs over the bramble thorn bush wall that delineates our camp boundaries so that it would be on the outside rather than in. Then we packed our radio and some coffee in the truck and parked 15 yards away hoping to catch a glimpse of the leopard coming back for seconds or better yet, a hyena coming in for the leftovers. Neither of these things happened, but we sat there until 4 o’clock in the morning determined not to miss anything. I’d love to upload some images to accompany my words, maybe not of the dead animals, but Paul has those too if anyone is interested. Every time I even think about pictures the internet connection laughs at me. I spent five minutes the other day trying to upload this lovely picture of Paul’s and my feet with an Energizer packet lying next to us. Afterwards I had to laugh when I thought about the possibility of that being the only picture that made it. What a disappointment that would have been for all of you. I will keep trying though, with more important pictures of course. At the end of the month we will be going to Nairobi for a few days so maybe then.

Until then………………………………….

mwanzo

And so the story goes – well we are here, but I guess that is pretty apparent. These first few weeks have been busy and I haven’t found much time to start this blog that I’ve projected to create - this universal letter stating our safety and adventure. I’m powered by the sun now – sitting in our kitchen canopy, learning the difference between wasp buzz and the buzz of harmless insects. This huge wasp keeps terrorizing me, flaunting his stinger. He wants something in the kitchen tent though can’t seem to slow down enough to get through the small hole at the bottom. When we first got here I was averaging a scorpion sighting a night and one solofuse pretending to be a scorpion, I’m sure of it – though I haven’t seen any in a while. And there are these creatures called ant lions that dig little hurricane looking holes and then sit and wait for ants to fall into them. I first noticed one digging his trap at the edge of our tent canvas - amazing really, though I’ve yet to see a successful catch. Other than that, our most plentiful creature around camp seems to be the baboon. They aren’t like park baboons though so they don’t steal our food or trash our tents. They make the most noise, and the most variety of noises. I accused Paul of just saying, “It’s a baboon,” every time he doesn’t really know what animal to attribute to the sound. Our camp is right next to a river and you can tell when there is probably a leopard around because they send their warnings up and down through the trees. We can use the river to cool down during the day because there are no crocs or hippos. I’ve been given no reason for this other than, there just aren’t, when I ask why. I guess you just learn to trust those that know better than you.
I hope everyone had a wonderful New Year’s Eve. We tried to send a few text messages out from our phones. We are 11 hours ahead of San Diego time - 9 St. Louis. We spent ours at the Castle Forest Lodge at the base of Mt. Kenya. A guide hiked with us about 5 miles through the forest to a primitive little cabin. At the bottom there are full service cabins and tent options for lodging. And horses! It used to be an old British government official’s weekend retreat. Paul’s mom said that the place reminded her of the ‘Sound of Music’ and I have to say that I agree. It hailed that first afternoon as we were having lunch and waiting to start our hike. We had to make fires to keep warm at night – though I can’t imagine it anymore, sitting here 6 hours south in a heat that leaves me craving nothing but water. And you get warm water at that though I’ve been told twice now that cold water is bad for you so perhaps I should get used to it - something about being a shock to your system.
Camp has been slow going and we’ve already had to make one more trip back to Nairobi to get things forgotten. It’s about a three hour trip with patches of good highway. Our main necessity for the trip this time was liquid nitrogen. We went out looking for mwanzo – Paul’s collared lion – last Wednesday night and found her and three other lions feasting. We didn’t see the kill, but watched them for about an hour and then two of the lions pooped right in front of us - a pretty big deal for Paul since he could positively identify one of the samples as that of his collared lion. Retrieving the excrement was quite amusing – the truck is too high to just reach down and grab it so while Paul was mustering up the courage to actually step out of the car to get it Michael, one of his local assistants, just hopped off the roof walked over and got it for him. Paul toughened up for the second pick though – which was mwanzo’s poop so it only seemed fitting. The lions didn’t seem to mind us much, but it was a little surreal, sitting 15 feet away from them while they were eating.
So far my days have been spent out in the field with Paul or back at camp organizing. Organizing is a most treasured past time of mine; something that I’m sure most of you are well aware of. We set up a camp computer for the guys to use – a student at Montana State offered up his old one. I’ve started to give computer lessons to our camp manager, Albert. The day we sat down with it was his second time using one so he is very excited about it. He is also trying to develop my role in camp a bit and hopefully I will be able to link up with the schools and help with where he would like to see things go with that. I’m a bit of an anomaly here since I don’t have my own research agenda. The community has been most welcoming although many of the women I meet think I am Samantha, the other researcher down here. Samantha has blonde hair so I defer from that that if you don’t have differing hair colors in your own culture you must not pick up on it. It’s usually a funny encounter because Samantha is Kenyan and speaks Swahili well. Her Maasai nickname is nongishu, which means cow lover, and they usually come up to me saying “Nongishu, blah blah blah blah” – and when I look confused they look at me again and realize their mistake. I told her that I might be giving her a bad name in town, snubbing people that may not ever realize that I’m not her. Paul’s Maasai nickname is osupat, meaning polite one. We can take a poll here if you like to see if we are all in agreement. Apparently the story is that three separate individuals came up with the same name for him. Joel, a Maasai baboon researcher here told me that he already knows what mine will be, but he has to wait and get confirmation once everyone has met me. Sidenote - Cows are very important here so you must know that Samantha’s nickname is very endearing.
Well this is where I will say goodbye for now. Hopefully this message finds itself online soon. This place has put a cold turkey stop to my aimless internet activity. No more checking my inbox every five minutes or starting 3 gchat instant messages simultaneously. No more facebook and the daily show – it’s all so sad – and yet all so wonderful.