I blinked and all the caterpillars turned into moths and our lush green camp settled into a dusty memory. There’s a plethora of wildlife still around though - we collected 30 poop samples in one morning alone. That’s a fourth of the entire stock from last year. With the rains and the people moving to the other side of the river, everything is coming a bit closer to camp – even the lions. Our camp watchman, Merkiti, ran towards the river one morning, waving his hand back in my direction. The language barrier makes our communications rudimentary, although I was pretty certain that the scooping up of air towards oneself in a quick, curt motion means the same thing in English, Swahili, even Maa. Get over here! There was soon excitement on both sides of the river and by the time I got over there he was so excited that he had forgotten about our communication limitations and he was very enthusiastically telling me that something was right down there. He was pointing towards the river and I never heard the word simba, but that was what he was trying to convey. It was 10:00 in the morning and there were three lions walking up the river - that was translated to me in plain English. We got out the tracking equipment, but none of the lions were collared. Soon we had about 15 guys in camp, bravely walking down the bank to have a closer look. Presumably the lions were not in a big hurry to encounter people and they kept changing directions, as they would approach an area where there were a lot of voices. “Now they are going that way!” Someone on the other side of the river would yell and everybody would run in that direction. Maybe the Maasai were more anxious because their livestock were grazing nearby, but as long as the lions stayed by the river, I didn’t feel the need to keep them at arms length – until that night. As Paul and I were walking to our tent we experienced a renewed vigilance that habit had almost completely dissolved. With a dim flashlight and the dogs we made our way from kitchen to bed in usual stride until the dogs barked at something and backed up behind us. We tried to wait for them to lead, but they kept insisting that we go first, so much for guard dogs.
Two more of Paul’s cameras went missing – this time the whole set: camera, cage, and post. Three meetings later a search party was released and 20 men combing the area looking for evidence. They never recovered the cameras, but a few pieces were found and one of them happened to be the memory card. Once again we had photographic evidence of the scene of the crime. I’m not sure what will happen this time – we haven’t heard anything about another caning attempt, but the boy was older this time so we’ll stand by for word on the appropriate community punishment. In two years, we’ve only had problems in one area with camera destruction. The leaders and local men reinstated their support of the research and are looking for ways to help ensure that the theft stops. Teenage boys are the same everywhere though I guess, which is why I move for the world to be taken over by women – all in favor?
Baridi, cold, nairobi (nairobi is actually the Maasai word for cold) - All these words describe a temperature I’ve come to forget. The charcoal fridge – though probably not constructed and watered correctly – has provided us with a meager example though it serves as a better delusion than temperature control. So when Dr. Western remembered that he had a gas refrigerator sitting in his storage we jumped on the invitation. Well Paul jumped, I, on a sugar low, thought it would be great if it were already sitting in camp working properly. But we brought it down - it’s a full sized refrigerator – and hauled it into the kitchen tent, hooked it up, AND……..it didn’t work. Didn’t – a word of the past. Does – the word today. And Will – hopefully – the word of the future. We had to go to Nairobi to deal with permitting issue number 354 and on the way back we picked up a couple of refrigerator repair men and brought them down with us.
While we were in Nairobi we attended an awards ceremony for Dr. Western. Small world - he was awarded the World Ecology award by the Harris Ecology Foundation and the University of Missouri – St. Louis. He will be accepting the award at the Missouri Botanical Gardens in St. Louis on May 7th (for those living in St. Louis, feel free to attend). But the African Conservations Centre had a recognition party at a swanky hotel near downtown Nairobi. Wangari Maathai (the Kenyan woman who won the Nobel Peace Prize for her Greenbelt Movement – tree planting) was the guest speaker and at the end of her speech she sang “For he’s a jolly good fellow” since, she said, Dr. Western is an Englishmen, although he’s actually a Kenyan. Dressing up here is called dressing smart and for Paul and I that meant jeans and a dust free shirt – it’s hard to do. With life here and life in Montana, I’ve pretty much lost my sense of fanciness - lip-gloss and a few bobby pins has become my going out look. But Nairobians are always looking smart so I tend to feel like a scrub when we arrive back in town. Our refrigerator repairman even pitched up in a white button down shirt and grey slacks. To be fair though, he had never slept in a tent and probably didn’t know what dusty conditions he was getting himself into. So the frig - baridi, cold, nairobi, all words to describe the water we’re drinking right now, the cheese and tomato sandwich we will be eating tomorrow, and the fresh food, maybe even a little meat, that will have more than a moments breath day in and day out.
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