Hey Everybody!
Sorry it’s been so long, but we haven’t had internet in forever!! (which makes writing a research paper rather difficult!). Things are going great here. I just handed in my first paper of the semester!! I wrote about how elephants shape their environment. I have another one due in a few days and then I head out on expedition next Wednesday or Thursday! We are headed to Arusha National Park and Tarangire National Park. I’m freaking out I’m so excited.
Rewinding a little bit, this past week or so has been sooooo amazing. So last I had written, we had just gone to Lake Manyara to take field notes for our papers. Wednesday was a pretty regular day, and then Thursday and Friday we visited a pasture that abuts the park on one side. There Maasai (local indigenous people) graze their cattle, sheep, and goats. Because it is open land, many of the park animals such as wildebeest, gazelle, and impala share this land too. The first day we were there we were animal tracking. That means following their poop and tracks (but mostly poop) across the plains. I know it sounds pretty lame, but it was actually really cool. I am now a poop expert. We also found some bones, ostrich feathers, and dried up fish. We are at the transition from the dry season to the long rainy season so a lot of the lake was dried up, but off in the distance we could see all sorts of safari animals.
Sorry it’s been so long, but we haven’t had internet in forever!! (which makes writing a research paper rather difficult!). Things are going great here. I just handed in my first paper of the semester!! I wrote about how elephants shape their environment. I have another one due in a few days and then I head out on expedition next Wednesday or Thursday! We are headed to Arusha National Park and Tarangire National Park. I’m freaking out I’m so excited.
Rewinding a little bit, this past week or so has been sooooo amazing. So last I had written, we had just gone to Lake Manyara to take field notes for our papers. Wednesday was a pretty regular day, and then Thursday and Friday we visited a pasture that abuts the park on one side. There Maasai (local indigenous people) graze their cattle, sheep, and goats. Because it is open land, many of the park animals such as wildebeest, gazelle, and impala share this land too. The first day we were there we were animal tracking. That means following their poop and tracks (but mostly poop) across the plains. I know it sounds pretty lame, but it was actually really cool. I am now a poop expert. We also found some bones, ostrich feathers, and dried up fish. We are at the transition from the dry season to the long rainy season so a lot of the lake was dried up, but off in the distance we could see all sorts of safari animals.
I had cook crew that night which means that you help with cooking breakfast in the morning and then clean up after dinner. While we were cleaning up we "wrote" a song called "Ostriches in the Distance" about the ostriches that we could see chilling out in the distance! It i but it helped pass the time.
Then we had another non-program day on Saturday. We went hiking to elephant caves where elephants go to get special minerals from the walls. They call them elephant caves, but the are more like little openings on this muddy hill. It was a beautiful hike through a jungle-y area, and it poured for the first hours, but once the rains were gone it was so nice out. We did not see any elephants while we were there but there was elephant poop everywhere and we could see carvings in the walls where the elephants used their tusks to scrape it down. We got to climb around on the caves and mess around in the mud. As we were climbing around, me and my graceful self slipped and got completely covered from head to toe in mud! It was hilarious and I am pretty sure that somebody got photo documentation. It was one of those slow motion moments when you know you are slipping and you try to fight it but there is absolutely nothing you can do to stop it! So that was a really fun non-program day, and I have my next non-program day on Sunday and I am going to learn how to knife paint! Step aside Monet and make way for the next big thing to hit the art world!
When I’m not in class or studying, I play a lot of volleyball. The staff get really into it, and it can get really competitive. I think by the end of the semester, I might be pretty good. There is a local farm near us, and apparently they have a pretty good team so we are hoping to challenge them when we go to get a tour. We usually play from 4:30 or 5:00 till dinner at 7:00. It’s a really fun way to unwind at the end of the day. Then we’ve been having movie nights after dinner. One of the movies we watched was called In Bruges it was actually pretty good, and I did not want to see it at first.
The rainy season has pretty much started so it rains for an hour or so everyday, and last night we had a crazy thunderstorm, and I just sat in the gazebo and watched the lightening crack open the sky. It was the coolest thing ever. I achieved one of my goals for the semester: watch a storm in Africa! My one friend even got a few good pictures of it.
I am going to try to get some work done!
Christine
Then we had another non-program day on Saturday. We went hiking to elephant caves where elephants go to get special minerals from the walls. They call them elephant caves, but the are more like little openings on this muddy hill. It was a beautiful hike through a jungle-y area, and it poured for the first hours, but once the rains were gone it was so nice out. We did not see any elephants while we were there but there was elephant poop everywhere and we could see carvings in the walls where the elephants used their tusks to scrape it down. We got to climb around on the caves and mess around in the mud. As we were climbing around, me and my graceful self slipped and got completely covered from head to toe in mud! It was hilarious and I am pretty sure that somebody got photo documentation. It was one of those slow motion moments when you know you are slipping and you try to fight it but there is absolutely nothing you can do to stop it! So that was a really fun non-program day, and I have my next non-program day on Sunday and I am going to learn how to knife paint! Step aside Monet and make way for the next big thing to hit the art world!
When I’m not in class or studying, I play a lot of volleyball. The staff get really into it, and it can get really competitive. I think by the end of the semester, I might be pretty good. There is a local farm near us, and apparently they have a pretty good team so we are hoping to challenge them when we go to get a tour. We usually play from 4:30 or 5:00 till dinner at 7:00. It’s a really fun way to unwind at the end of the day. Then we’ve been having movie nights after dinner. One of the movies we watched was called In Bruges it was actually pretty good, and I did not want to see it at first.
The rainy season has pretty much started so it rains for an hour or so everyday, and last night we had a crazy thunderstorm, and I just sat in the gazebo and watched the lightening crack open the sky. It was the coolest thing ever. I achieved one of my goals for the semester: watch a storm in Africa! My one friend even got a few good pictures of it.
I am going to try to get some work done!
Christine
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