Well, the program is over in two days :( I am in denial.  I don't want it to end because it has been so incredible! 

To catch you all up:
I turned in my directed research paper, and I just got it back today...don't worry, I passed DR.  Two days ago we had to present our findings to the community, so we literally spent 7 hours giving presentations.  Eighty three people came from the surrounding communities.  They ranged from guides who helped us in the feild, to park officials, to our host families.  Needless to say, the room was packed and I don't think we could have fit another person in there if we tried!! It was really cool that all those people came to hear about our research! It was the first ever presentation where I had a translator.  Our translator was the giant of man.  He was pretty close to 7 feet tall if not taller, and he was a very animated entertaining interpreter who was very helpful with the tricky topics like poaching.  It was actually kind of fun having the translator because it gives you a second to breath while you are waiting for him to finish, and it prevents you from talking too fast! The community loved our presentations and then we had a lovely picnic outside afterwards.  So despite the fact that it was incredibly long, it was a pretty cool experience.
Then yesterday, we went back to Ngorongoro Crater for a fun day.  It was like the crater knew that we wouldn't be here for much longer because we saw everything we could have ever asked for times 100!!  For starters, crater is in bloom so it was so beautiful! We all really wanted to see a male lion up close, because we have seen them but only from really far away.  Then we got to see a male and a female lion mating from about 20 yards away.  They were "in season" so they literally mate every 15 minutes for 7 days ;) 
Then we parked the car on the road next to two male lions sleeping, and then one of them got up and came and laid down in the shade of our car!! I literally could have touched it! When you are so close to something so powerful, you body does not know what to do.  Your instincts are to run away but also it is so cool that you don't want to.  I gained a whole new appreciation for the majesticness (not a real word) for those creatures! 
We also saw the largest group of hyenas I have ever seen.  Normally we just see like 3 or so in a group but yesterday we saw a group of 30 or 40 hyenas.  Half of them were pregnant, and they had just made a kill so they were snacking on some buffalo! So that was awesome.  
Then we saw a huge flock (idk if its the right term) of ostriches just chilling out and dancing around.  They are so large and weird looking! There were probably 30 of them as well.  
Overall, it was just the best way to end the semester and I couldn't be more thrilled.  Despite the fact that I am having an absolute blast here, I am excited to come home and see all of you guys too! 

Well, I have 8 days left here at Moyo Hill. WHAT!?!?!?!?!?!? That's so not cool! Where did the time go!?!? I actually can't believe that! I love it here so much and I am so sad that it is almost over, but I am excited for my dad to come!! We have an awesome safari planned!!
The past few days have been crazy busy.  I have been writing my final research paper, and today I turned in the final product!! It was 17 pages 1.5 spaced, so it was a pretty hefty little bugger, but I am pretty proud of it! I don't ever want to look at a computer screen ever again.  This has been an awesome learning experience because now I know that I do really enjoy research!!  
We all handed our papers in today, and then had no idea what to do with ourselves! It was hilarious.  We went for a fun little walk and then played some cards.  It was really nice.  
Tomorrow we have a half day of community service and then a half day non-program day so that will be a lovely little break! 
Overall, things are going really well and I am enjoying my last few days here :(

Since Serengeti we have started our directed research portion (DR).  I am totally in love with my DR project, I think it is going to be really cool once I get going.  I am not actually doing any additional data collection, but instead I am working with long term data that SFS has been collecting for a while.  My project has to do with a special type of conservation area, because Tanzania has a bunch of different types.  I’m working with a place called Manyara Ranch which is a partially protected area in an important wildlife corridor between two national parks.  It is protected but people are allowed to live there and graze their cattle there. So I am taking data that we have collected this semester and for the past two years and comparing it to data collected when Manyara Ranch was created ten years ago to see if the ranch is a successful form of conservation or not. 

I don’t have any new data collection, because we have been collecting data for this all semester and for the past few years I am helping other groups with their data collection.  So I, along with the other 3 people working with long term data rotate through two different projects.  The first project (and the one I work on 3 out of 4 days of our rotation since the one project needs more help than the other) has to do with livestock so I get to follow a Maasai herder around from 8:30 to 3:30…aka awesome!! The second project is involves riding through the parks and doing animals counts and stuff…aka also awesome!

This first project has been quite an adventure.  We spend all day out in these very open fields grazing cattle.  There are no trees or bushes in sight…anywhere, which makes taking a bathroom break a bit... interesting! Haha 
The very first day we were out in this field measuring the distance between cows in the herd when one of the other members of my group called us over because one of the goats was giving birth! The birth was so quick that I missed the actual birth, but I got to see her learn to walk and it was so precious!! We named her Sneezy because that was the first thing she did when she popped out! The Maasai think we are crazy, because we like to play with baby goats and we chase cows around trying to measure their girth with a tape measure (its not possible, these cows are racists!)

It’s so funny trying to do research out in the field, because we frequently have between 3 and 10 Maasai kids hanging on our arms and playing with our field equipment.  We have made them our unofficial research assistants!

People here are so generous! The day after Sneezy was born, we were at the house of a different Maasai herder and we were playing with his baby goats and he offered to give us one! It was incredibly difficult to say no because baby goats are so cute, but we explained that we would have no way to care for it since we would be leaving Tanzania in a month.  Still, I couldn’t believe that a complete stranger was willing to just give me a baby goat just because I thought it was cute. 

In other (sadder news) the rains have gotten a bit out of control.  It rains so hard every night all night long, which isn’t a big deal for us doing our fieldwork but Lake Manyara National Park (LMNP) is a mess right now and so is the town of Mto wa Mbu.  Fortunately (I guess) they are pretty used to floods, so it doesn't do too much structural damage to their houses)  Mto wa Mbu is in a bit of a valley where it doesn’t actually rain that much, but they get all of this water come down off the mountains from Ngorongoro Crater and they are just getting wiped out repeatedly by floods upon floods.  LMNP is right near the town and it was actually closed for a day or two, because the bridges were wiped out, and all of the buildings like the bathrooms and the visitors center are buried by rocks and mud.  I don’t really understand how, but there must have been incredible amounts of water coming through the area because what appears to be an avalanch of rocks the size of soccer balls and bigger have buried everything and the park is more of a wetlands for the moment.  Many of the roads have turned into little rivers fortunately our cars can make it through anything!  I went to the park yesterday, and even from the morning to the end of the day the improvement was impressive.  The cleanup work has created a lot of jobs for local people, which is one positive thing that came from it.    

Today was our day off and it was much needed! Spending all day out in the sun is exhausting, and I needed today just to recuperate.  I did a little bit of work revising my research proposal and then I did a bunch of relaxing.  Most non-program days I just want to go out and do all of the activities because how often am I in Tanzania?!?! I can relax when I’m dead! But today I needed to just stay at camp and do nothing, and now I feel great and I’m ready for tomorrow!

Old Bessie here I come!

Christine

Serengeti comes from the Maasai word "Siringet which means wide endless plain, and it is a very fitting name.  What an incredible week! I hardly know where to start so I guess I will work chronologically, but be warned this is going to be a long one!

Day 1:

It has been raining for the past few days pretty non stop so we were pretty nervous about the road conditions because the roads here easily flood over or become mud traps.  So we got up early packed up the cars and drove out.  Fortunately that morning was the first dry morning in a while and the roads wound up being fairly passable.  In order to get to Serengeti you have to pass through Ngorongoro Crater, which means the drive there was incredibly beautiful and very bumpy.  I feel bad for people who have carsickness problems! On our way through Ngorongoro we stopped at Oldevai Gorge which is actually a butchered version of the Maasai name for it Oldepai Gorge.  So we had a little lecture looking over the gorge about Nutcracker Man and Handy Man and all of really cool primitive people the Leaky’s found in the gorge.  It is crazy to stand and look down where early man was figuring out fire and stone tools and know that my most ancientest ancestors are most likely from there.  So we had some fun taking goofy evolution pictures and walking through the museam where they had animal skuls that had been found in the gorge of early forms of extinct and extant mammals.  Pretty much everything was bigger and badder back in the day.  Some of the early elephant footprints were essentially small craters! That was a nice rest stop before we continued our drive to Serengeti. 

Once at the front of the park we got out and took a few more photos in front of the sign and then we still had to drive another half hour to an hour to get to the real front gate, but on either side of us we could see the wildebeest migration where a million (I’m not exagerating, its like 1.3 million wildebeest) wildebeest follow greener pastures through the park.  So that was very cool.  Once at the visitor’s center, we got to walk around for a bit while they worked out our passes and they had those giant Maribu storks I was talking about so clearly I followed those around for a bit.  They are like the ugliest birds in the entire world, which makes them sooooooo cool!!

Then we got to game drive to our campsite which was the dik-dik campsite! On our way we passed three cheetah all fairly large so it was hard to determine whether they were a bachelor group of males or a mother and her two grown cubs, but anyways we ran into them and we got to watch them for a while.  Cheetahs are just the most beautiful animals ever.  They have such grace, and one so kindly sat on a mound for us and posed so that was just lovely.  Then we got to see them jog, they almost ran, but in the end it was not full speed but still impressive! Once we left the cheetahs, we ran into lions spooning.  It was a male and a female and I was just dying from the cuteness because they were literally spooning and he even had his arm around her! But at that point a few people in the car were getting a little bit cranky so we didn’t stay very long. 

Then came the torrential rains…so we had to close the roof and just chill out.  We couldn’t really set up camp because it was raining so hard so we just hung out in the cars until it let up a bit.  Then we got to see an incredible sunset, and it is so flat and expansive you can just see for miles.  It was so beautiful because the sun was bright yellow and then from there it turned orange then red and then into a bluish purple plus there were little lines of clouds going across the sun to just add to the effect.  (watch the first scene of the lion king and then imagine it in reverse).   I did not sleep well that night because I was just too busy listening to all of the sounds like the hyenas laughing off in the distance and I was just too excited!

Day 2:

We got up early because we were doing a birding exercise and that meant we had to be up with the birds.  So we had a light breakfast at 6:30 and then headed out. I have never been super into birding but I might start picking it up, because it is actually kind of fun especially once you know a few birds.  I can still only identify the cool ones. I still identify all of the swallows and things like that as little brown birds, because that’s what they are! haha 

Anyways, this is the day that I completed my Big 5.  That means I have seen lion, elephant, buffalo, rhino, and leopard.  That’s right I saw a leopard!!! It was chilling in a tree doing leopard-y things!  It was absolutely incredible.  Out of all of the big cats, I think the leopards are probably the most stunning.  They are so incredibly beautiful.  It was hard though because they are always pretty far away.  Later on in the trip we had one pose on a mound for us and that was fantastic, but most of the time they are in the trees and they are impossible to see!

One thing that really struck me about Serengeti that I never felt in any of the other parks was that there are so many other tourists there when you see something cool.  When you are driving around there are generally not too many cars around, but as soon as someone gets wind that there is something cool, you get there and there can be 30 cars there and there is one tour company, leopard tours, that is so pushy and obnoxious and so we decided that we don’t like them because they don’t have good safari etiquette.  It was a little off-putting at first, but I got over it, and there were a few times when either our car or one of the other SFS cars found something first and our drivers have a code so that we don’t attract a gillion other cars when we find something and that was very cool. 

From the leopard we could see a bunch of cars on the horizon so we told our driver to take us there, and it would up being a massive pride of lions lounging in the grass on the side of the road.  There were about 19 lions and all female except one young male.  They were just lying in the grass taking a nap and what not.  The muscles on female lions are impressive.  They are some very powerful creatures! I think that they look like (and probably are) the most powerful of the big cats.  Cheetah have much leaner muscles and leopards are a bit smaller than lions.  Lions just look so strong.  So anyways I got a bunch of great pictures of lions because they were so close.  I even got a video of a mama lion licking her baby! I could have puked it was cute.  (I don’t know why I decided that puking is a symbol of cuteness but apparently it is.) Then that night we all hung out and relaxed. 

Day 3:

It was another early morning because we were birding again but this time we were also tourist watching.  That means that you creepily stalk tourists to see how long they stay at different animals and which animals they skip and stuff to see what draws tourists.  Is it baby animals or large animals or big cats ect.  So clearly I had fun being as creepy as possible and recording notes as if they were wild African animals and not silly looking tourists, because lets be honest we all look absolutely ridiculous in our safari outfits. 

This was the day that we got to see the leopard on the mound posing so perfectly for us.  It was funny because we saw the leopard in a tree and then we left to go look at some elephants and came back because it was still there and the other cars told us it had jumped out of the tree but that it was still around. Me and my friend Nikki spent about 15 minutes convincing ourselves that this rock below the tree was it lying in the tall grass and then the car behind us told us to turn around and BAM there it was clear a day sitting right on this mound above all the grass.  It was hilarious, because we were actually convinced that this rock was it but it wasn’t, and we were so focused on this one spot that we missed the actual thing like 100 meters to the right!

At lunchtime our camp was overtaken by 20 to 30 mongooses…mongeese? (Idk mongoose plural) It was thoroughly entertaining to watch people chasing these little meerkat-like weasely things around the camp!  I was locked in the room with the food and told not to leave, because we didn’t want to let them in so all I could do was watch! We eventually just let them go and they left of their own accord by the time we got back from our next game drive.

Anyways one of my favorite parts of the whole trip was the sky.  The people in my car can attest that about every five minutes I exclaimed, “OMG look at the sky! Check out my “artsy” picture of these clouds!” You can just see so far, and in one direction you can see a thunderstorm and the other clear blue skies! I can’t even begin to describe how expansive and stunning it was.

Day 4:

We got to sleep in a little bit because we weren’t watching birds and then we went to a lecture with a post doc, Tom Morrison, who was doing research in the Serengeti.  After his lecture he decided to take us to one of his vegetaton plots and WE GOT TO OFF ROAD! It was not very far at all, but it didn’t even matter because we off-roaded in the Serengeti! They even let us get out of the cars and walk around.  It was really cool.  During the lecture someone forgot to close their window in the car and a baboon got in and stole a can of Pringles…womp womp! I’m just glad it wasn’t my car and that she didn’t steal anything worse, like a camera or binoculars or something. 

From our chat with Tom, we headed to the hippo pool where hundred of hippos just hang out and wallow.  I obviously was in paradise! There were baby hippos and fighting hippos and even mating hippos! One thing I never realized is that hippos have the ugliest tails ever…its just this little tiny flap of skin that hangs over their but and it is kind of gross, but it doesn’t change the fact that they are my favorite animal!

After the pool we headed to Serena lodge, which is a hotel in the Serengeti where we were going to have lunch and a swim, as a little treat.  You could either do the buffet or order from the snack bar.  About half of the group did the snack bar and the other half did the buffet.  I decided that the buffet was the way to go, and I was one happy camper after wards.  I actually ate like a hippo.  I’m talking four plates (and they weren’t small)! Haha It was so good! I can’t say I really liked the lodge though.  It felt kind of weird to have this massive lodge with a swimming pool and everything in the middle of the Serengeti.  It felt wrong.  Camping is one thing, but this was a nice place, and I would have forgone my four plates of delicious food to not have that place there and have the Serengeti be a little more wild.  The even more entertaining part was when this one was complaining that we were disrupting the peace, because 38 college kids tend to make a little bit of a rucous even on their very best behavior.  She said “These kids are disrupting my peace, I am just trying to enjoy the wildlife!” Excuse me! If you want to enjoy the wildlife get out of the pool and go ride around in a safari car! Oh well, it was a nice little treat and I had fun anyways. 

We were giving each other superlatives in the car on the way home, because we were talking about how that would be a fun thing to do at the end of the semester and guess what mine was…Loudest person at camp! Womp womp I just can’t help it that my voice projects! Haha

Day 5:

Headed home L We packed up camp and then did one last game drive as we left the park, and it was the perfect ending because we saw a mother cheetah with her two baby cubs and baby cheetahs are so cute.  They have little fuzzy faces and little afros and I was very tempted to steal them except that there was this other large mother cheetah.  The one baby kept imitating everything the mom did so when she looked over her shoulder so did he and when she stood up so did he and it was so adorable.  The other was just lying down being lazy which was also super cute.  That was the perfect way to end it.  Cheetahs on day one and cheetahs on the last day.  Also got to see a serval which is a small spotted cat about the size of Rori, and they are so pretty.  So I was excited about that too.

Overall the trip was just incredible.  I couldn’t believe all that I saw and did and I never wanted to leave.  I can’t wait to go back with Dad in a few weeks, because it was by far the coolest place I have ever been.  The last night I watched three thunderstorms in the distance while looking up in to the sky above me and seeing a thousand stars! We nick-named it a Mufasa sky because it was like the scene were the cloud/ghost of Mufasa tells simba to remember who he is! Haha Pretty much everything we do relates back to lion king in some way or another. 

I apologize for the length of this post, but I couldn’t help myself.  I’ve uploaded a few pics to the photo gallery, and I will continue to try to up load more. 

Christine

Okay so yesterday was Easter and guess what...I had 2 exams! womp womp We had Friday and Saturday off to study, and then I had two exams yesterday and one today.  They are our only exams this entire semester and each of them are worth 50% of our grade in each of those respective classes.  THAT IS SO MUCH PRESSURE! haha but they are over and I am free.  It feels kind of like being on summer vacation because now I am headed to the Serengeti!!!  

I am sooooooooOOOOOOOO excited! It is going to be the best time ever.  One of my professors almost guaranteed that I will see leopards which has been one of my goals from the start and I will finally be able to complete my Big 5!  It has been raining a ton here.  It pretty much rains every night into the morning, and some days we get a break from 1 to 6 before it starts again.  It could be a very wet camping trip (in true Burns fashion).  It has been raining so hard that the roads are getting washed out and it may take as long as 6 hours to get to Serengeti.  Also, I think there is a pretty good chance that I will have to push the car at some point tomorrow depending on if it ever stops raining or not.  So far today, we had like a 15 minute respite from the rain and that was it. I really hope that it clears up for at least part of expedition, just because everything gets a little bit rougher when its all wet and there is no where dry.  Also, the last day in Serengeti we are going to go to this tourist lodge for lunch and it's a buffet and they will have CHEESE and SALAD! woot woot I am so excited because we only ever get cheese on pizza and a little bit when they make pasta that is similar to mac n cheese, but you have no idea how much I would love to just eat a block of cheddar cheese! They also have dessert, so that will be glorious! 
 
But Easter wasn't all bad, because we had a special Easter dinner.  They brought two (live) goats to camp and slaughtered them right here! People could watch if they wanted, but I just couldn't do it.  I have absolutely no desire to watch or hear a goat get killed, so I went to the furthest part of camp and played some music and I missed the entire thing.  Some people helped skin and process the goat, but I didn't really want to help with that either.  Once it was ready, they roasted it on sticks over a fire.  Then they put the works on for dinner, they had guac and samosas and potatoes and all of our favorite foods at once.  I did try some goat, but it is extremely chewy so I only ate a little bit.  Apparently at some point we will be making the skins into bracelets.  They are tanning them right now, which I guess is cool because they are using the whole thing (and its similar to leather?). I haven't decided how I feel about the bracelets.  I think I'll wait and see what it is like before I make any decisions.  

Well that is all I have for my pre-Serengeti post.  I hope everyone is doing well back home, and HAPPY EASTER! 

Christine

P.S. I found out this week that I will be living in the Treehouse again, and I will be rooming with Anna
 

Ok where to start? I guess I’ll start off wit how awesome my non-program day was! Two days ago or so we had the day off, so in the morning I went on a bike ride out to Lake Manyara.  It was crazy because we rode our bikes out onto the open savannah and there were wildebeest and buffalo in the distance.  We even chased some wildebeest on our bikes! We didn’t catch them! It was fun to ride our bikes and just mess around for a little while.  We also saw a Maribu? Stork. (I think that’s the name, its something like that).  Biggest bird I’ve ever seen fly.  This thing had a 7 foot wing span, and stood probably up to my waste.  We rode our bikes up to it and made it fly and I actually could not believe that it got lift off! It was incredible, and really ugly looking! It’s foot prints were the size of my hand (not just my palm, but my whole hand!!!) We rode out to the lake as far as we could, but eventually it just got muddy and we could not get all the way to the water’s edge.  Then on our way home we stopped at a wood carvers and learned how they make wood carvings out of all different materials.  They told us about how they came from Mozambique a few decades ago, because of civil war and they were amazed by how all 126 tribes of Tanzania can live so peacefully (for the most part).  It is a pretty impressive feat!

Then today we went to Ngorongoro Crater.  Probably the coolest place in the world! It is known as the cradle of humanity because the primitive forms of man were discovered here by the Leaky’s, including Nutcracker man and Lucy.  How awesome is that!! So while my mind was being blown by walking where the first man stood, I also go to see so many animals! We didn’t go to any of the archeological sites today, but we have to drive through the crater to get to Serengeti, so we will stop to break up that drive.  The crater is actually a massive caldera that formed when a massive volcano blew up and collapsed in (for any of you interested in earth science), and so you are surrounded on all side by cliffs and then it is an open grassland in the middle.  It is so open that you can see all of the animals and it is kind of like being in a zoo because there are soooooooooooooo soooooooooooooooo many! I was really glad that we weren’t doing animal counts, because you could not have paid me to count the wildebeest and zebra herds, they were just everywhere! Plus there were tons of babies!!! Baby zebras are probably one of the cutest things to walk the planet!   I also got to see lions which was a first for this trip, so that was incredible.  I should mention that I prepped for today by watching the Lion King last night, so all of the music was fresh in my mind all day! As we were driving into the park we found a buffalo carcass on the right side of the road, and then we looked to the left and BAM! there was female lion and her 3 adorable cubs hiding in the bushes.  I didn’t get a great look at the cubs, but I took an awesome pic of the female.  We eventually saw more later on just “lion” around in the grass (sorry I couldn’t resist the lion puns).  I was pumped because we saw 2 males and they were just so massive and furry and cool.  Another cool thing was that we saw rhino, twice.  Rhino are pretty rare in Tanzania, and the few that are here like to stay hidden because poaching is a pretty big problem.   My professor estimated the horn on one of them to be 1.5 to 2 feet long! So cool!

So overall, it has been an awesome few days! We are finishing up classes this week, and then I have my finals next week and then its off to the Serengeti! Woot woot

 So I have had three awesome experiences with the locals this week! The first one was on Monday when I got to go talk with the Masaai for a field exercise.  Only three of the ten groups got to talk with Masaai, and I was so lucky to be one of them! We got there and were introduced to a Masaai Morani (which means warrior) who was supposed to act as a translator for us.  The idea was that we would go from house to house asking questions about natural resource in different aspects of their life, but something was mis-communicated and instead we just walked around with our guide and discussed these things.  It was so interesting, and we still got all of the information we needed.  The Masaai are famous for being relatively untouched by western society and continuing to live a nomadic pastoral life.  From an anthropology point of view this is a very rare opportunity so I was pumped.  First of all, they only eat milk, meat, and cow blood. THAT’S IT! “Vegetables are for the weak man.” I actually could not believe it when he told me.  At one point on our walk he said something about drinking the milk and blood, and both me and my partner misunderstood him and we both thought we were going to have to go back and drink milk and blood with him.  As you can imagine, I was freaking out a little bit.  I mean how do you politely turn that down?!?! 

Our guide was only 18 so he wasn’t married yet, but his father is the chief and has 20 wives.  You can imagine the look on my face when he told me that! We were just chatting and he was like, “we’re a polygamous society” and I was like “yea I know.” Then he said my father has 20 wives and my jaw just dropped! It’s more common to have 2 or 3 but I guess the chief needs a few extra. He’s mother had 10 kids so if we do a little math, that man may have approximately 200 kids! MIND. BLOWN. Anyways, it was really cool because we walked around and talked about the culture and he showed us some of the plants that they use for daily activities and then he took me into his house and we got to see the inside of the house.  It was so interesting to see such a drastically different culture from my own, and I really enjoyed it. 

Then we had our home-stay with a local family from Rhotia. Our home stay isn’t really a home-stay, but we spend the day living with a family and learning about their day to day activities and participating in chores.  We were in partners to help make things less awkward.  My partner was my friend Annie.  I’m not going to lie I was pretty nervous going into it, because we have learned some Swahili but definitely not enough to spend a whole day with a family.  It turned out being so awesome.  My mama had mostly grown children, but one of them was 23 and attending the local high school and he spoke English well.  We learned how to cook and wash clothes and sweep the house ect.  It was really entertaining for them because we just did everything wrong.  They do things differently here, so when they asked if I could meat, I said yes. WRONG!  Do you know how to wash clothes; sure I’ve been washing my own clothes here. WRONG! Do you know how to chop vegetables, definitely. Wrong again! Haha The only thing that Annie and I did right on the first try was wash dishes because it is really hard to mess that up no matter where in the world you are!  It’s okay, because we definitely provided the family a source of entertainment for the day, and I can laugh at myself! Haha

They don’t use anything in moderation here! I put more salt in a small pot of meat than I would use in an entire day at home and don’t get me started on the sugar! They drink chai every morning around 8 or 9.  Chai is just a tea and milk drink.  You heat up water and then add chai tealeaves, milk, and enough sugar to have me buzzed for a week.  It actually tasted horrible because it was like drinking a cup of warm sugar, but you can bet I had multiple cups anyways! Haha Other than the chai the food tasted good, but I could feel my arteries clogging as I ate! Haha It’s funny, because they really struggled with making us do work because we were guests in their house, but we were their to do work so they kept telling us to rest even though we didn’t want to.  I didn’t realize this going into it, but after lunch they always take a rest as well…a four-hour rest! They get up early and work all morning and then rest in the heat of the day, but for someone who is used to a fast paced 9-5 idea of work, this was a difficult concept to grasp.  So I sat around for a while; and then we did a little Swahili lesson for a while where they would teach us words or phrases.  It was really cool how open they were and how willingly they opened their house to two strangers for a day, and I was grateful to them!

Then today we went to visit the Hadzabe, which are one of the few remaining “bushmen” left in the world.  They still lead a hunter gatherer lifestyle which is super cool! We got to dance with them, and shoot bows and arrows, and they even let us wear their baboon hats. (That was just gross, I’m not going to lie).  We also learned how to hunt for edible roots in the ground, but they tasted terrible.  Also I bought what I am calling a bush violin. It was only $10 so I couldn’t resist! It’s probably the coolest thing in the entire world, but I can’t play it because it only has 2 strings and you don’t play it like a violin at all, but it’s awesome so I’m pumped about it.  A bunch of people also bought bows and arrows so now we have target practice at camp all the time!

So I guess we have a bit of catching up to do.  

Expedition:

For starters, expedition was the best week of my entire life.  It was glorious from start to finish.  We went to two national parks, Tarangire and Arusha.  Tarangire is famous for its elephant population so we literally saw herds of 50 elephants up close and personal.  The baby elephants were the cutest things in the entire world! I realize that a baby elephant is small (because it’s a baby) but I never realized how small they could be! Also while in Tarangire I saw cheetah.  Let me repeat that….I SAW CHEETAHS!!!!! There were three of them and they had just made a kill and had a lot to eat so they were doing what cats do best, laying around being lazy! It was so cool; they were not even that far away! I can’t even describe to you how thrilled I am! We also got to see a jackel and ostriches (and they were not in the distance but rather close).  They are so awkward it just fantastic.  I find that I identify most with the awkard animals like the ostrich and the giraffe.  Come on it does not get more awkward than a giraffe running! One of my goals of the trip is to see a giraffe run or a giraffe drinking water because they have to splay their legs out all weird!

One day we went on a hike from our campsite, which was right outside the park in community lands to this dried up lake.  We left around 3 or 4 so it was an evening hike, and on the way home the clouds rolled in and we got to see a double rainbow! One was a half and the other went all the way across the sky! Then it down-poured.  It was raining so hard that it actually hurt, and I couldn’t see anything, and it was awesome.  A few members of the group were less than thrilled, and it wasn’t the most pleasant rain shower I do admit, but this is Africa and you just have to embrace it! Plus, once the rain was over we got to see a lovely pink and purple sky. 

While Tarangire was a more open combination of a bushland and a savannah, Arusha was forest-y and in the mountains so it was completely different than any of the other places we have been.  We didn’t see as many animals there, but we did see a ton of giraffe in large groups which is uncommon for giraffe who tend to be more solitary animals.  We stayed in Arusha for three nights and on the first night there was a leopard outside of our campsite AND I HEARD IT!!!  Unfortunately, it never made it into the campsite because the askaries (guards) scared it away so I never got to see it, but I was close!! The second night our camp was invaded by biting ants and there was nothing anyone could do to stop it! One of the boy’s tents was completely taken over and we had to surrender to the ants and put up a spare tent somewhere else.  It both sucked and was comical at the same time because by the third day they were everywhere and people were doing these hilarious little dances all over the place! We had to fortify our tents against the ants by putting a ring of diesel around our tents luckily fire wasn’t really a danger. 

Also while in Arusha we had some park guards take us on a hike through the park.  The only large carnivores in Arusha are leopards which would never bother us, so there was no real danger.  We got to see Mount Kilimanjaro, which was absolutely beautiful.  We walked up to some giraffe so that we were only 20 meters or so away and we played in this awesome waterfall.  The expedition was simply fantastic from start to finish and I loved every minute of it! The craziest part is that everyone says that our second expedition is even better than the first one, and I can’t imagine things getting any better than that and I am so pumped for Serengeti. 

After Expedition:

Since expedition things have been going pretty well.  I just got back from doing animal counts at the local national park and I saw an elephant with the largest tucks my professor has ever seen.  He was probably 45-55 years old and they were just massive in length and width.  It was so cool.  We also saw a fresh lion kill, but unfortunately the lions had left a few hours before we got there. 

On our non-program day last week we went to this local organic coffee farm called Gibbs farm for a tour.  It was so fun, because along with being an organic farm it is a lodge for very wealthy people (I’m talking $900 a night).  When we signed up for the tour we didn’t really appreciate that aspect until our program coordinator mentioned that we would have to keep our voices down so as to not disturb the guests.  We spent the first hour drinking complementary coffee at the look out point.  Then we met our guide who took us around the little farm and told us about its history.  The bathrooms were the nicest bathrooms I have ever been in anyware!! You walked in and rounded a corner and then there was this wall of glass and you had this beautiful view as you were doing your business! Haha  Honestly it was a bit of a culture shock for all of us, because we are so used to living right outside this little town where the roads are dirt and its speckled with little farms and then we find ourselves at the Ritz where the bathrooms have warm towels for your hands! It all seemed a little silly to me, but we had a lot of fun pretending we belonged there!

That afternoon we went to the monthly local market where the locals actually go to shop.  That was really cool, but my friend got pick-pocketed about 40,000tsh which is about $30 which goes a long way here so that put a little damper on things.  One of the venders was really upset about it, and he gave here a free necklace to prove that not all Africans are like that which was really nice of him. 

The rains have really picked up and we have gotten a few massive storms which have been really cool.  I honestly did not know it could rain so hard.  Its funny how quickly the rain comes and goes.  One minute it is 90 degrees and super sunny and the next it is 65 and hurricaning!

Overall things have been spectacular and I apologize for the lateness of this post!

Christine

I'm taking advantage of the awesome internet right.

First of all, I uploaded some pics from the elephant cave and then from knife painting and the market in Mtu wa Mbo.

So we leave for expedition this week! What?!?!?! Five days camping in the national park...I'm ready to get up close and personal. We have these massive green tents which can probably sleep 5 or 6 people, and they look hardy which is nice considering it's the rainy season. Plus we all know it's not a Burns camping trip unless there is rain...it just wouldn't be fun! 

Recap from Saturday: Classes ended right before lunch and then after lunch we had a community service day.  We went down to the local church where they are building a kindergarten and school.  The school will be for women in the town who have disabilities and need to learn a trade, so that they can become independent.  Our jobs was to move large rocks into the buildings to make a sort of foundation for the floor.  Once they get more money they will lay a cement layer down overtop of the boulders.  It was a lot of hard work, but we set up a few assembly lines and we were done in no time.  It was very rewarding and I hope that we will be able to help with the next steps if they get more money soon! 

Yesterday we went to a town called Mtu wa Mbo which means mosquito river.  It was named that because it used to be a swampy area that had jillions of mosquitos, but they started using better agricultural practices up stream and did some planting and now it no longer has a mosquito problem.  I didn't see any bugs at all while I was there.  We stopped and got pizza and then about 14 or so of us went to knife painting.  Knife painting does not involve painting with actual knives...they are pallet knives that painters use to mix paints! It was really fun though, and my painting is going to blow your minds when you see it.  If you close one eye tilt your head and then close the other eye, it actually looks pretty good! haha  M'Lis one of the program coordinators is going to pick them up for us in a few days, because we had to leave them there to dry.  While we were waiting for people to finish painting, we had a little dance party and one of the painters told me I had moves like Rihanna.  So I have decided that Environmental Science is no longer the path for me...instead I'm going to become a superstar...mom dad, you always tell me you will support me in everything I do ;) 


Today we went into town and interviewed people about how they deal with issues facing their farms, and it was really interesting because we interviewed people who only had 3/4 of an acre and we interviewed people who had 4 acres.  Right now they are really struggling because the rains are late.  So the rainy season sort of started, but now it has kind of stopped and they are very worried about their crops making it through the drought.  Their whole livelihood is dependent on these rains so I hope they pick up again soon.

I'm going to go eat some lunch!!
Christine  

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.