Peace, Love & Kili

Haven’t written in a while because the massive elephant shit has hit the fan. All I can say is I wish the program/staff here was more balanced and organized. Our first two weeks were leisurely and consisted mostly of sitting in the chumba listening to lectures. Next was a week of activities (our neighbor's boma, EP transect field exercise, visiting the manyatta and the homestay). This last week, we were assigned sooo many different things to do all at once. Needless to say, I am currently quite envious of people whose study abroad adventures are jokes in the school arena.

To start off: some pictures that really belong with my previous posts, but I still wanted to share them while I got the opportunity (fast internet for uploading pics is hard to come by here!)

Patrick, Jen and myself reppin our SFS t-shirts...mine will need a good bleachin when I get home. Why they decided to give us white shirts to wear in dusty Africa still puzzles me....

Our class at the primary school. (Girls wear dresses, boys have sweaters or button ups....notice it is mostly boys)

Swimming at a lodge near Amboseli National Park on 2/19 for our non-program day.  Normally our non-program days are still structured/planned activities so it was nice to relax and do nothing for the day :)

it was such a cool pool! strange to think that for some people who just stay at resorts, this is a major part of what they see/think of Kenya.

We had various traveling field lectures and exercises this past week but mostly just papers, presentations and assignments due basically ever other day. This would be more manageable except for the fact that we still have (at least) 4-6 hours of classes, 6 days a week. I guess in the big scheme of things, I’m still very lucky for having this amazing opportunity and my “problems” are really so insignificant (first world problems?)….I just have to remind myself that there are kids and adults here, especially females, who would do anything to go to school and the ones who are lucky enough to get an education are so passionate about their educations. I know I’ve already talked about the kids walking along the busy road 5km to school each way....but seeing it everday is a humbling reminder to be grateful for this and other opportunities I’ve been graced with!

The most interesting/exciting part of the past week was probably our Wildlife Management field exercise that studied the impact of humans and elephants on woody vegetation. We got split into groups and were sent off with a local guide to walk a 1-km transect using a compass, GPS and tape measures. Our objective was to measure 30meter by 30m plots and assess any damage to the vegetation that shows evidence of elephant damage or human use (this is where our guide, "Wiper" came in especially handy.) Wiper is a close friend of KBC who we've all met in town before. He is currently running for some governmental position in Kimana and is always a cheerful, friendly guy.  He is also very knowledgable and gave us tips which helped us so our transect walk was efficient and quick. He then gave us all Maasai names...mine, nashipai, meant "always smiling"

:)

A frequent site when driving around here...this is our car attempting to drive down the gravel road to camp when coming back from the field exercise. Wiper had to get out to shoo the livestock off to the side because they were in no rush to move anywhere quickly despite the fact that our professors and drivers give us girls heart attacks when the practically bump the animals to give em a little encouragement to get out of our way!

Other than that, the week was standard class and homework stuff, so I won't bore you with those exciting details.

However, Saturday 2/25 was a great non-program day. Despite having all of these assignments looming over our heads, the majority of us left around 9 to go on a hike in Loitoktok.  This neighboring town is about 30 minutes away, near the Tanzania border, and is hilly, lush and green (quite the contrast from the mostly flat and dry Kimana area). It was gorgeous! The hike led us down to this amazing waterfall oasis where we climbed on rocks and explored down the winding river.

"peponi" means paradise in swahili

We ate lunch here then hiked back up to the cars and continued on to our next destination of the day: a local Voluntary Counseling and Testing Center for HIV/AIDS patients. This is a stop the SFS always does and thus the program has a great relationship with the clinic’s administrator, Mary. We got the chance to hear stories of four women who are HIV positive. All were mothers of at least two children and shared with us the stories of how they found out about their status, and how it has affected their lives and the lives of their family members.  Listening to these brave and inspirational women speak was an incredibly touching experience. Each has their own family to take care of and they are all just trying to live regular lives in this society that is still very prejudiced and scornful to those who are HIV positive.

One woman spoke about her daughter who had to leave school in order to help take care of her before they figured out what was making her so sick. Now that the kids at school know that her mother is HIV+, they are very mean and discriminatory to her and she has not gone back to school since. The lack of education, preventative measures (either due religious or cultural beliefs or the wishes of their polygamous husbands to which a wife must comply), and health precautions for pregnant/nursing women has resulted in rampant spread of disease. However, the lack or inaccessibility of testing resources and medicine in rural areas is also a huge problem (this is where the Mbirikani Clinic that I’ve written about before plays a huge role—they have a cohort of motorbikes that are essentially traveling clinics for testing and treating AIDS patients who may otherwise not have access to these vital treatments. All testing and medicines are supposed to be free because of government subsidies, but if they can’t be accessed there is no point!)

These women were just average people who looked and acted normally, which got me thinking how many people I’ve met or shaken hands with here who are HIV positive who may or may not know it.  It’s so interesting that we learn so much about HIV/AIDS back in the states, and I’ve had various topics in my biology courses about it, but learning from actual AIDS patients and seeing the implications of the disease firsthand in a community where it is prevalent was a far more memorable and valuable experience than anything I’ve ever learned in a classroom. Sorry Bio 204...

My classmates Anna, Emily, Katie and Sarah at the VCT befor meeting the women and hearing their stories.

The women of the clinic have a small shop where they sell their beadwork and crafts that they make in group therapy and sell as a source of income (because the medication can have adverse side effects with lots of sun exposure, so they can’t continue with their daily lives and must seek other sources of livelihood). I bought some of the most beautiful jewelry I’ve seen yet and felt great knowing that I knew where and who this money was going to.

Oh ya know, just some women casually strolling about... with bananas on their head. This was in Loitoktok before going to the market.

We then got the opportunity to go to the Oloitoktok Market and shop around. I got some fabric and a bracelet and even randomly met a woman who came up to me and introduced herself…and her name was Christine! The people here are just so friendly and welcoming, I don’t think I can tell you guys enough times.  Oh, we also saw a guy wearing a Green Bay Packers jacket so, naturally, I had to get my picture taken with him (I don’t think he really understood what was even going on).  We also stopped in a little supermarket and got ice cream (a God-send when nothing we get here is really cold…really all I want is an ice cold glass of water. Or a delicious fruit smoothie. But there’s no ice! it's hard at times.)

My new friend Christine! I don't think I'll ever see her again but she was a sweetheart. I didn't know that Kenya could handle two Christines. :)

We then had to hurry on our way because Daniel, our Swahili prof, had gotten us an invitation to a wedding/circumcision celebration at a boma across the street from our camp! Everyone was so excited to get to see this aspect of the Maasai culture, but we didn't really know what to expect. I felt kind of bad because as soon as we showed up, us "muzungus" were more the spectacle to watch and I imagined the bride was probably annoyed (although it wasn't anything like a typical wedding in the states). We watched as the different age classes of warriors danced, jumped and sang in their circles. Then Tara came and told us to follow her to where the bride and groom were being photographed (by whom I assume was the photographer with a small hand-held digital camera that was put to shame by most of our cameras...whoops). The bride had a very somber look on her face and did not look happy at all….I was dying to know what was going on inside her head. Afterall, one of my friends pointed out, she was basically signing over her entire life and body to her new husband, and chances are it was an arranged marriage.

The bride and groom (and I'm assuming the groom's mother). The bride's huge necklace is traditionally worn for the wedding ceremony when the bride is given to her new husband, along with a dowry of some amount of cows.

The warriors jump as a fun competition in the boma while the older men and young chidren look on. Most of the women were socializing outside the boma fence. As you can see, some of the warriors can get crazy air!

It was overall very interesting to see the interactions of the people and families and watch the warriors jumping competitions. We didn’t get to see the actual ceremony because it was earlier in the day when we were in Loitoktok, but it was cool to see the Maasai “wedding reception” and talk to some people. One young man, dressed in regular clothes, approached me and was asking where I’m from, what I’m studying and what I want to do when I’m done "in the university". He was very surprised that I didn’t have an exact plan (he, on the other hand, wanted to be a doctor, and was quizzing me on the different cell functions in the body once I told him I liked biology, which made me feel stupid because I couldn’t remember nearly any for the reason that I had just memorized them for tests and forgotten them….that was definitely a little eye opener to try to start retaining more of the info I’m paying so much to learn in college..ha).

Anywho, the reason the celebrations were combined was because within the same family there was a young man getting married and two younger boys getting circumcised, which is the rite of initiation into adulthood here (for both males and females). We have learned a lot about the cultural beliefs behind this practice and why the government & outside efforts to end the practice of circumcision have failed…basically, it is believed that to curb the desires of women and prevent prostitution, young women must undergo the “female genitalia cut” to become a woman and ultimately be able to get married. For men, it is simply a rite of passage into adulthood.  As you can imagine, it is a common way to spread disease and infection because the practices are not exactly sterile. However, no one wants their child to be one of the first to not be circumcised (and thus be “impure” or dirty) due to these long-standing beliefs and customs, so the pressure from the government to stop has in some cases led to more secretive and dangerous procedures, particularly for women. Once again, I will say that I am incredibly grateful for being born in the US as a woman with equal rights and opportunities. I also decided on this day that if I could ever wish for anything in the world (like, for example, if I were one of those contestants in a beauty pageant  that gets asked what I would do to make the world a better place…lol) it would be for equal AND accessible education for all people worldwide. It is really the only solution to many of the problems I see here, and, well, basically everywhere.

Enough of the preaching. Here's some more pics!

The groom (left) and his brother/friend? I'm not really sure. Everyone was very decked out in jewlery and paint for the big day.

Family portraits. (Bet you wish you could say you photographed a Maasai wedding, dontcha, Shelly?)  ;)

When we were invited over to take pictures of the bride and groom, everyone around us thought it was funny we wanted to take pictures of THEM and they really got a kick out of looking at the pictures on our digital cameras. One mama grabbed my camera and took a few pictures of me with this young woman.

cute wittle baby :)

Basically, we saw lots of really awesome warrior jumping. They also do this super cool dance where they stand in a circle and....I'm just realizing right now how incredibly hard it is to describe it but it's beautiful and I have video of it so if we ever get the chance, I'll show you!

 

Here! I tried to put two pictures close together to show you the general idea of the dance. The song they sing is what makes it especially cool though :) The warriors all have the long hair for whipping around while dancing. It looks pretty sweet!

Some mamas strollin.

The SFS group before leaving the wedding. Is it just me or do my earring look HUGE?

Sunday and Monday consisted of presentations and papers and homework. Really exciting stuff. The weather has been cooling off lately and it's been really nice in the evening/at night.  It's also started to rain more frequently--usually in the afternoons just for short periods of time, but occasionally at night it thunderstorms now which is awesome. Also, just to clear things up with anyone who may be confused: our roofs have a metal sheet under them so we do not, in fact, get soaked if it rains here. Sunday night it rained alllll night and we woke up to an insanely snow-covered Mt Kilimanjaro on Monday morning! it was beautiful. I've included the following picture for comparison purposes.....

kili 2/18....what we thought was a lot of snow.......

Kili 2/27. INSANE!

Monday was the first day I got sick here...it was not fun at all, but I'm honestly surprised it took me this long to get sick! Lots of people are coming down with colds and stuff like that (possibly due to the fact that we're all stressin and staying up late to do homework) but I got some weird stomach bug that made for a very uncomfortable day. Luckily we had the afternoon off to prep for our poster presentations today, and I'm feeling much better today.

This Friday we leave for expedition!!!!!!!! We are all incredibly excited to "escape the chumba" as my friend Patrick likes to say. We leave Friday morning for Lake Nakuru, which is 5 hours away, but we make a few stops along the way so it takes 8 hours to get there.  While on expedition, we camp and have various field lectures and safaris. I should also probably note that where camp is fenced in (to avoid the big wildlife, obviously) and we bring our askaris and cook crew with us, so it might not exactly be classified as camping except for the fact that we sleep in tents at night. Been looking forward to this for a while now! We will be gone through Friday 3/2 through Thursday 3/8 though so it'll be a while til the next post.... I hear there are lots of rhinos there (and potentially some carnivores?) so I hope to come back with some cool pictures to share :)

Well, it's bed time for me. Hopefully yall are surviving the winter storms (that may or may not have actually showed up?) in the midwest! I'm glad the only snow I'm seeing here is far away on top of Kili :) Peace and love, rafikis!

The Circle of Liiiiife

So, I thought I'd give you all a glimpse into my daily life here in Kenya! Sorry if it bores you, and you may come away from reading this thinking that I'm crazy for subjecting myself to this rustic lifestyle, but I'm loving it (the bugs get annoying at times, but I just keep reminding myself I'm getting credit for this and it's all peachy keen:))

While writing this, I realized it's quite hard to "generalize" what we do on a daily basis because it varies greatly, but I have attempted! Hope yall enjoy!

Words can't describe this beautiful sight I wake up to each morning!
Mount Kilimanjaro is visible only in the morning and night...it disappears under the cloud cover from about 10 am until the evening. Enjoying it while I can because when we move to Tanzania (where Kili is actually located) we won't have a clear view of it :(

07:30 -- breakfast

This includes eggs, potatoes, toast, pancakes, sausage, baked beans, oatmeal, and lots of delicous fresh fruit (watermelon, pineapple, mango, papaya). Once every five days I have cook crew, which means I need to wake up an hour before breakfast and my group of 5 students helps the chef cook breakfast for the whole camp (26 students and about 10-15 staff depending on the day).

The baboons are active each morning until 8 ish, when they go up in the trees and avoid the hot daytime sun. They then reemerge around 5 when it starts to cool off. I guess it's mating time because we see a lot of awkward baboon action lately... this makes for some territorial males and we will occasionally see males chasing each other around and fighting in the trees--almost sounds like dogs barking and its LOUD!

08:00-10:00 -- class

This class usually runs 8-10 but sometimes it's 8-9:30 and followed by a short break. Either Wildlife Management, Wildlife Ecology or Swahili Language & Social Culture. Our classroom (the "chumba") is an open-concept room with tables and chairs. It's nice having class with a breeze coming through and hearing the birds chirping outside. It's also the same place where we eat meals!

This is a view from me standing near the bathrooms. I live in the bandas on the right side (the second to last, furthest away from the bathroom) and others live in the bandas you can see on the opposite side in the distance.  The large building on the left side of this picture is the chumba, which is connected to the kitchen and library. There is a large porch facing the open space in the middle of everything, where we toss ze frisbee for fun during breaks. There's also a gazebo in the process of being built (just to the right of the tree)

  

10:00-12:00 -- class

Once again, WM, WE or SSC.  If its a special class or field lecture, we might have one class from 8-11 if it involves driving some distance or hiking somewhere.  There's usually one or two field lectures each week, but the rest are either in the chumba or somewhere outside around camp!

Me after a field lecture on Inkinsanjani Hill. Mt Kili is hiding behind the clouds in the background!

Some young boys herding their livestock near our lecture. These are on the older end too--we often see young boys 4 or 5 years old out there on their own!

12:00 -- lunch

Lunch starts getting prepared around 10:30/11 while we are in class, and the delicious aromas tease us while we listen to our professors lecture.  It usually consists of some pasta dish, salad things (the avocados here are deeelicious), vegetables -- broccoli, carrots, couliflower, green beans, butternut squash, cabbage, spinach -- all of which rotate through in either lunch or dinner on a daily basis, fried bananas, potatoes, fruit. Everything (and I mean almost everything) is cooked in oil here, which is getting kind of old, but it's not too bad.

After lunch we have a break until 2 pm, which is great for relaxing or getting some things done. I do laundry about once a week, or will catch up on readings or work on an assignment (which will be happening a lot this week because we're started to get the work piled on us)

My laundry...I always say I'll do it every few days so my clothes don't pile up, but I get lazy and then am stuck washing a bunch of clothes which takes way longer than expected, especially when everything is chronically dust/dirt covered. My socks are already permanently brown so those will be going in the trash at the end of the semester rather than coming back. Shout out to my mum who has always handwashed my special delicate shirts that I can't put in the washing machine....but this doesn't mean you're off the hook in the future ;)

This is me and a euphorbia tree in camp....it is cactus-like and has white milky sap that is poisonous. All the foliage here is covered in crazy huge spikes (like up to 1-2 inches long). Some have smaller thorns, but don't let them fool you, they are extremely painful if you scrape your leg or arm on them, too... 

14:00-16:00 -- class

We have a third class in the afternoon, which is almost always guaranteed entertainment to watch people falling asleep after lunch. 

After class, we have free time to do whatever. We hang out on the couches on the porch or play soccer or go for nature walks either inside the fence or outside the fence if we have a guide. I make a solid attempt to do homework but it's just so hard with everything to do here!!!

The baboons playing in the evening. They have a field day playing on these gazebo things around camp, but will run away if you approach them because they are afraid of us

19:00 -- dinner

For dinner, there is some sort of meat dish (either lamb, beef, chicken or goat), along with pasta, lots of vegetables, ugali (this weird, flavorless cake-like thing made of flour and water...its a traditional African dish they eat with cooked cabbage), rolls or chabatti (pita-like bread thats fried so it's really good but not very good for you). Lots of yummy fruit once again.

We wash our own dishes in some basins after each meal. On the day you have cook crew, you help the kitchen staff by washing the pots and pans used for cooking and serving dinner. It's nasty but a good character builder I guess.

After dinner, we just hang out. Once again, it's so hard to focus on doing anything productive so it usually ends up being lots of joking around and story telling, but sometimes I'll be a good student and work on assignments (or post to my blog).

22:00 -- bed

I usually go to bed around 10-11. The stars are absolutely AMAZING here, so I always star gaze while I brush my teeth and when walking to and from my banda. There's a few little bats who hang out (literally...hah) on my front porch, so I say hi to them each night when I make my way to bed. If I'm lucky, I sleep through the night, but usually get woken up by these obnoxious, huge birds at some point in the early early morning.

Carey, Paige and I with our dirty legs after a nature walk. No, I am not wearing leggings. The dust here sticks until you shower or wipe your legs/feet down with a baby wipe

This was our excited group on the first day it rained! It's still dry season but has started to rain more frequently, in short little burts of like ten minutes every couple days.

Well, thats the end of my attempt to fill you in on my daily life activities...Below is a little update from the last week or so!

On Valentine's Day we went to a primary school for a Community Service day.  We split into groups to teach each of the four levels of students and planned fun lessons (or games, in our case) to teach the kids.  The school just outside Kimana, but the closer we got, the more I wondered how the hell people find the place! Our land cruisers traveled down the dusty road and over huge holes and bumps.  Ernest, one of our drivers, turned down this obscure trail (it seemed imaginary to me because we were essentially driving through the brush) and we soon saw the school in the distance.  There was one long building. It was separated into four classrooms, each very minimal with wooden, falling apart desk/tables and windows without panes.  There were water jugs scattered in the back corner and chalkboards in both the front and back of the room. The kids were so incredibly sweet and attentive. They all stood when we entered the room and clapped enthusiastically.  Their responses were so cute and in unison and just filled with genuine excitement. We played “heads up seven up” and a few other games with them, then went outside and played Duck Duck Goose and soccer.  It was touching to see the eagerness of these students to learn despite their minimal conditions and supplies. They were so quick to love us and showed it by their friendship custom of holding hands. We brought them little work books and pencils, erasers and pencil sharpeners.

gettin all artsy 'n stuff
:)

When we got back, my bandamate Taylor (the one who was sick before) had taken a turn for the worse. I walked in our banda where she was in bed wheezing loudly with each breathe. Being the sweetheart she is, she asked me to make sure that her "secret valentine" got the gift she made for our exchange that night. I told her I would, and ran to find Tara because I knew things were not okay.  She ended up being taken back to the Mbirikani clinic only to be sent to Nairobi via ambulance, where there are more official hospitals with specialists who would try to figure out what was wrong with her. We were all very nervous for her, but found out the next morning she was already doing better. However, that was not enough for her parents and the people at SFS headquarters, so she was flown home yesterday.  We miss her a lot already! I can’t even imagine having to leave the program early after looking forward to it for soooo long (not to mention the fact she might have to spend an extra semester in college now and probably didn’t get any sort of reimbursement). I'm taking probiotics and vitamins everyday, so hopefully I can stay relatively healthy throughout the course of the semester!

On Friday we had our first homestay with a Maasai family. Everyone was very excited and a little nervous while we were getting ready in the morning. We went with a partner and were dropped off at various bomas of our neighbors that KBC is close with. Each of us brought a huge grocery bag with cabbage, sugar, flour, cooking fat, cookies, bagged milk and some other stuff, along with a large jug of water for drinking and cooking.  Myself and the girl Rachel I was paired with got dropped off last.  As our intern Jenna and our driver Sipaya said goodbye, he said to us that this was the first time this family had hosted students and wished us well. (cue nervousness). Our mama was very kind and had 2 very young sons and thankfully one older daughter that could speak some English. We started off our day as traditional Maasai do: drinking chai. It doesn’t quite taste like chai in the US but it’s similar and tolerable, so we drank up and then headed out with our mama to fetch water.  They have multiple heavy duty plastic jugs that they tie this flat plastic cord around and sling over the head to carry.  We walked almost a mile to the spring where they get water. In reality, it was a stagnant pond of brown nasty water that livestock walk right into to drink. The edges are mucky with poop and mud. THIS is where they go each day to fetch water for their needs: drinking, cooking, and washing.  Our mama thankfully waded in to fill up the jugs for us, and then proceeded to wash her legs off in the same brown water. We then carried the heavy jugs home on our heads (wasn’t actually that hard but my neck hurt eventually) and were greeted with more chai when we returned. 

These are some little boys we saw at the watering hole with their cattle....unfortunately you can't see the water thats just off to the right, but trust me...you would not want to swim or drink from it even if your life depended on it. They must have amazing digestive and immune systems.

Now is where it starts to get gruesome.  There were so many flies everywhere in the boma—and I mean everywhere. And I mean MILLIONS.. The children had snot running out their noses and the flies would crawl all over their faces, literally on their eyeballs, into the corners of their mouths, and all over their noses. It was disgusting but I tried to ignore it and just bear with it.  But the little kids wanted to be by us, so as we drank our chai, they would come into the boma and bring the flies with them, which would then crawl all over us, our cups and literally everywhere. I was terrified but tried to play it cool because I knew there were flies at the other bomas we visited.  Then one of the babies started throwing up. That’s when I really started to freak out. So we went to go gather firewood with our mama while all the kids stayed back at the boma. We used the same cord thingys to wrap the piles of broken dead branches that our mama knocked off the trees and chopped up with a machete. Carrying them back was difficult but I didn’t mind because there were no flies! When we got back, we went back in the boma and were given MORE chai while lunch was made. I was internally freaking out more and more about eating and the sanitation (or lack thereof)... We watched as the mama and her daughter Evelene chopped up the cabbage and tomatoes and onion (on a plastic potato sack on the ground) and dumped it into the boiling water.  I couldn’t help but worry because we did not see what water they used nor whether or how they washed the dishes we were given.  The food was actually decent but I could not stop freaking out and wondering what everyone else’s boma vists were like….

We ended up getting picked up a little early because we were so concerned for our health and could not enjoy it no matter how hard we tried. Literally traumatizing. I cannot believe people still live in such conditions even though I saw it with my own eyes. It was an unbelievable eye opener and has brought a whole new meaning to my life and the gratitude I have for what I was born with and what I have been given. The opporunities I have been given with school and college, and having TWO jobs is something I will never take for granted again. This is my vow to try to complain less and appreciate everything so much more after living this way for a day. I cannot even begin to attempt to fully describe to you accurately enough to portray the reality of their home life. But regardless of the horrible aspects and my fears, I am grateful for having the opportunity to experience a day in the life of a Maasai woman.  It was a bit disappointing to hear from everyone else that they had “amazing” experiences and didn’t experience many of the unpleasant things we did -- not that I would wish that on anyone.  And I don't mean to sound disrespectful or rude in the way I've described it, but it's the best attempt I could do to share with you this experience. Needless to say, it was a rough night for me and it made me miss home, but besides that one day, everything has been better than I ever imagined it could be with a group of almost all girls living together 24/7!

On a brighter note, we had another safari at Amboseli National Park on Saturday. It’s about a 30 minute drive from KBC, most of which is down a horribly bumpy gravel/dirt road, which makes for a loud and bouncy trip. Our purpose was actually pretty awesome though: we were helping the Kenya Wildlife Service with their animal census in the park! SFS started participating in this project with KWS in fall of 2010, so we are still pretty early on in the contributions to their research efforts!  Our 26 students were broken into four groups and each assigned a predetermined “block” of the parks’ land to count any and EVERY animal we observed. Our section was quite large on the map, which was intimidating, but the majority of the wildlife was concentrated in the one area where they were near water.  There we observed hundreds of wildebeest, plenty of zebras, lots of elephants, some cape buffalo, Thompson’s Gazelle, ostrich and warthogs. We got to go off-roading, which regular park visitors are never allowed to do, and search through our area for animals to count.  Turns out, our section was so large because of the fact that most of it was barren desert land that floods during the rainy season but was completely empty while we were there. It was definitely awesome to get to participate in this project and go off road with a KWS ranger in our vehicle!

<3

After we finished our block, we saw giraffes and lots more wildlife on our way to meet up with the other groups. One swampy area was literally “circle of life” style with hundreds of animals of all ages – zebras, giraffes, elephants, gazelle, wildebeest and hippos – all chillin in the same area. So very cool!!!

I have "The Circle of Life" stuck in my head now.

We saw this guy chillin just outside the park on our way home...
"You can't see me!"

Well, thanks for bearing with me through this obscenely long post. I might start trying to do this more frequently to avoid the lengthy posts, but we'll see about that.

Hope all is well at home!!! Feel free to send me messages if you have questions or stuff to share with me :) Also, please keep my Grandpa Miresse in your prayers, as his health is failing with his old age (his 90th birthday is March 8th)....making wishes for him and other loved ones when I see shooting stars each night. Time for bed now! lala salama!

New Beginnings

Haven't had the chance to upload many new photos, but here are some good ones I didn't get to share from our safari in Amboseli, followed by a few new things! I can't believe it's been two weeks since I got to Kenya....seems like I've known these people forever already! Trying to live day by day and enjoy every little bit :)

no, your eyes have not deceived you.... this is indeed a baby elephant smiling
:)

just keep truckin'

om nom nom

oh ya know, just some casual yoga with the elephants and hippos. 

quite possibly the cutest baby elephant everrrr!

as promised! the creeper hippo

We are fully into the swing of classes now. Last week, we had two outdoor lectures on top of different hills overlooking the beautiful landscape in Kenya. On Wednesday the 8th, we were right outside camp on a hill that is surrounded by agricultural fields in the foothills on Mt Kili. There we had our Swahili and Social Culture class and learned about the history of the traditional Maasai. Basically, their past of nomadic pastoralism  (i.e. grazing their cattle, sheep, goats all around the land) and farming for themselves is a much more feasible option for land use rather than the commercial agriculture they are now attempting (lots of sun+little rain=not good conditions for crop growing). Our lecture the next day was just outside a small town and was based on the same concept, but with more of an ecology focus. Once again, the soil type, climate and weather patterns of the Amboseli ecosystem are not compatible with agriculture, but try telling that to these people who want to make money off of selling crops...the problem is that everyone is doing it, so the land is being converted to all crop fields, which is in turn increasing the amount of human-wildlife conflict (remember the elephants & other animals I told you about that eat the crops?) and crazy dirt devil dust tornados spinning around everywhere. These are huge issues all across Kenya, particularly now because it's the dry season.

Twister: East Africa!
 (jk, these are actually relatively harmless dust devils that we see almost everywhere....there's lots of dust here. my white socks are now mostly brown and our feet at the end of each day are coverd in dirt!)

Jen, myself and Paige during our break from one of our field lectures

During lecture, 4 little boys from the town climbed up the hill to listen and even though I’m sure they didn’t understand anything our professor John Kiringe was saying (besides the words Kilimanjaro and Amboseli) they sat quietly and attentively listened.  It's so cute-- all of the small children here wave frantically as we drive past and  they yell “Mzunguli!!!” in their high-pitched adorable voices (translation: "my white person"—actually a term of endearment... or so we’re told. haha). They (and everybody else in Kenya) like to stare at us. Makes me feel like a celebrity.

These are two little girls that Paige and I met on a walk to do a Wildlife Ecology assignment. The brands on their cheeks show that they are Maasai. So beautiful!

That afternoon after class was over, we walked over to the secondary school just down the road from SFS.  Tara had arranged with their principal for us to come watch them in their school's Olympics sporting event.  When we showed up it was kind of awkward because we weren’t exactly sure what was going to happen…as my friend Carey said, it was like a middle school dance but instead of boys and girls awkwardly staring at eachother, it was three headed dogs. And we were the three headed dogs. But before we knew it, we were all talking amongst the students and making friends.  It is a boarding school for both male and female students aged 15-20’s, although they remain separated in classes.  I met tons of different people (got a few marriage propositions and was also quite frequently asked why I didn’t have a boyfriend).

I did manage to remember one person's name; a girl named Shantel, who was 16, approached me right away and was soon my friend, showing me around and asking me questions.  She was full of questions and even braided my hair.  Everyone wanted to touch our hair, and kept calling us all beautiful, which is funny because we all think they are absolutely beautiful. Shantel told me that they wake up every morning at 4 am and have ten lessons a day. They have tea for breakfast, are given lunch and dinner (all very minimal—lentils, cabbage and ugali, which is this horribly tasteless cake-like thing with zero flavor but all the Kenyan’s looooove it).  It was so inspiring to listen to these young girls who want to be scientists and are just so motivated and excited about learning, despite their long school days, while I sit in my three two-hour classes and get tired or bored (really, its only in environmental policy thatI get bored though).

my friend Shantel from the local secondary school. she braided my hair for me!

On Sunday, we had a Wildlife Ecology lecture off-site. We hiked up a hill and sat overlooking the beautiful landscape of Chyulu hills and mountains in the distance. It was hard to lose focus because it was so relaxing to just stare out and start daydreaming. The sounds of Africa are amazing too; you don’t really hear any cars or factories, but rather cow bells dinging as the livestock graze,  baby goats bleating, Maasai mamas shouting and little kids playing. The breeze is so fresh and the sun so perfectly warm. If I could bottle up the sound to revisit at a later date, I would. I already know I will miss this when I’m back in the city surrounded by cars and busy people and buildings. Everyone here waves and says hello or comes to shake your hand, and I know I will miss that genuine kindness when we get back to the states.  

I've said it before and I'll say it again....I am obsessed with the trees here!

Monday was a non-program day (despite the fact they scheduled one class from 8-9 in the morning—we’re all already beginning to dread our Environmental Policy class…thank god there’s only a few classroom lectures left). I spent the rest of the morning working on our first assignment: for Wildlife Ecology we have to make two behavioral observations and do a write up for each.  We also had a very brief Swahili assignment of writing a short story. Learning a new language is way harder than I thought, especially one so drastically different from English and Spanish.  I started learning Spanish in kindergarten so it has always came so naturally to me…needless to say, attempting to learn (and RETAIN) Swahili is frustrating.  It is a very cool language though! Hopefully I’ll start catching on soon -- especially considering we have a “home-stay” with a Maasai family on Friday! It's not a traditional sleep-over home stay, but rather a day-long experience where we get to learn about and participate in their daily activities such as cooking, fetching water and slapping cow dung on the boma.  Hopefully they know enough English to make it not too awkward (or whoever else I’m with knows more Swahili than I do?)

On Monday afternoon, we went to the local Mbirikani clinic to donate blood! Last week we agreed as a group that we wanted to donate blood at this local clinic that's about 30 minutes away. The reason being, our friend (and my banda-mate) Taylor got extremely sick that day we went to Amboseli (remember when I said I had acute sun poisoning? She had legit sun poisoning, and had a reaction to her malaria meds along with respiratory problems) and ended up having to be taken to the clinic because she was not in good shape.  She's actually currently having some complications so we are praying for her to get better soon! Anyways, when she got back, she spoke so highly of this amazing clinic that our SAM, Tara, had also told us about during orientation (it is where anyone would be taken in the event of needing medical attention). The Mbirikani clinic is fully funded by a woman from Chicago and is absolutely amazing. All the workers are trained in the US and their services are completely free to everyone.  One of their main focuses is diagnosing, treating and providing counseling for HIV/AIDS patients.  They also offer basically ever service under the sun….did I mention it’s all free?

Tara is very close with the doctors there, and we were given a behind the scenes tour of the facilities while we waited for the line of patients to be taken care of.  Then 23 of our 27 students got our vitals taken, blood tests and donated blood! This was a huuuuge step for me (if you didn’t already know, I’m absolutely terrified of needles) but I refused to let this selfish excuse prevent me from giving back to the community. (Side note to my parents and any other concerned folks: this clinic was very clean and followed all standard protocols). I am O+ (universal donor—woot woot!!!) so I can be happy knowing that made a difference and saved someone’s life today!! I like to think of it as a reverse souvenir. I was nervous beforehand but only let a few tears roll--which is great progress from when I got my 6 pre-travel shots at the UST Health Clinic.  This was my first time donating blood so I wasn’t surprised that I was super lightheaded and practically passed out afterwards, but the amazing staff took great care of myself and the many other students who were faint after donating blood in the Kenyan heat.  My fellow students were also beyond caring and it was an overall awesome experience.

This afternoon we went to the primary school for our first Community Service Day! I will write more about that next time and try to do a "Day in the Life" of me post for those of you who have been asking what I do each day and what we are eating, etc.! 

Much love from Kenya!

Safari Adventuring!

Disclaimer: this post is a bit long, but there's lots of pictures to help you get through it :)

some of the Maasai mamas dancing and singing to welcome us to their "boma"

After our first few days of class, I can already tell that this semester will be unlike any other.  Although my professors are hard to understand at times, I don’t find myself tuning out or wanting to check facebook on my ipod or falling asleep like I would back home.  Swahili and Social Culture is our 2-credit language course that is supposed to help us communicate a bit with the Maasai during our stay here.  Wildlife Management and Wildlife Ecology are both biology labs and Environmental Policy and Socioeconomic Values is a more social-science course. All of these classes are 4 credits each and were approved by my awesome advisor to count towards my ESCI major at UST, which makes it even better just knowing that I’m getting credit for this amazing field experience (rather by than sitting in a fluorescent-lighted classroom or lab -- no offense to my wonderful professors at USTJ).  When we get to Tanzania we will begin our Directed Research projects, which is the heart of this program. This also counts as 4-credit class and culminates in a presentation to the Tanzanian community at the end, where we try to provide realistic options to manage the human-wildlife conflict that also improve the well-being of the local people.  We haven’t gotten too in depth in any of our classes yet—the first few days have been similar to the introductory days at the beginning of any semester, so I am very eager to get into the deep stuff! Monday (2/6) we went to Amboseli National Park to observe some wildlife on our first safari!!!

Another gorgeous sunset at camp.

The baboons in camp seem as though they are becoming more accustomed to us being here. Saturday morning when I woke up and opened the door of my chumba to go brush my teeth, I scared a baboon off our front porch and saw many others chasing each other around the central part of camp and playing in the gazebo—jumping off walls and running in circles around it. They also climb trees like it’s nobody’s business. It’s crazy. Then they bounce on the branches and shake the trees and occasionally howl at each other when there is any disagreement—which sounds like a very scary dog fight. There are a handful of smaller monkeys and even a cute little baby monkey with huge ears that clings to its mom’s back or on her tummy as she walks.We also have a family of vervet monkeys, which are smaller (and cuter) than the baboons.They are tree dwellers however and are very skittish when people come around but I’ve managed to get a few good pictures when we find them rummaging on the ground.

nom nom nom. some of the baboons in camp (look at the cute little baby!!!)

Friday night we had a bonfire at camp and got to ask some of the staff questions about Maasai culture and life in Kenya.  We learned about various cultural topics like clothing styles and marriage (polygamy is the norm in Kenya) and what they think of us students coming to see their homes (Saturday we went to visit a “boma” or traditional Maasai home).  Before the fire, we also saw our first Black Mamba, a poisonous snake prevalent in Eastern Africa.

beautiful Maasai mamas

Our visit to the Maasai boma was amazing.  We were greeted by a receiving line of Maasai mamas adorned with tons of beaded jewelry and wraps.  They then proceeded to dance and sing a song for us and even though we couldn’t understand what anything meant (Maasai and Swahili are two different languages) it was incredibly cool! One mama came and grabbed me by the hands to dance with her (basically jump up and down).  Our group then proceeded to sing and dance to that World Cup theme song by Shakira... and they looooved it! It was a cool way to bond despite language barrier and overall it was an amazing opportunity. 

We then learned a bit about their lifestyle and got to go inside one of the homes. These women live their lives taking care of their children in homes made of all natural earth products—sticks, cow dung, grass and other materials they gather—while their husbands (aka bad-ass Maasai warriors with spears) tend to their grazing livestock all day. I was amazed at how well constructed the homes were; they were practically pitch black inside except for a few holes for sunlight, were a comfortable temp, and were practically sound-proof. It takes them about 2 months to build their own home after marriage (the woman is responsible for this task) but they are assisted by other women in the boma community.

This is part of our group waiting to tour the inside of the Maasai home or "boma" pictured in the backgroud. Multiple bomas are in a circular fashion, which makes up the community, and the livestock are housed in a central pen surrounded by fences made from the branches of Acacia trees (basically, mother nature's barbed wire). The bomas were surprisingly spacious and you could stand up straight inside! These are the style of homes you see everywhere.

These particular Maasai are not accustomed to any tourists or visitors besides the semesterly visit from SFS. They are our neighbors and live about a 5 minute drive away down a dusty car trail—not even a road. We were told that we would later go see a commercial Maasai boma geared towards tourists for comparison, which will be interesting since we got the authentic experience first. Also, a few of the mamas come to our camp to do laundry for whomever desires to pay about two hundred shillings (=a little more than 2 dolla) but I think I will take a stab at hand washing on my own first.

lovely sunset at camp. I am obsessed with the trees here!

After returning back to camp, my friend Paige and I watched the baboons in camp while pretending to do some reading for class.  We then decided to take our cameras to go look for bush babies! We saw a few but they didn’t emerge enough for very good pictures before we had to head back for dinner.  However, around 9 that night, I was walking to the bathroom with my trusty headlamp and on the clothes line poles I saw a couple pairs of huge eyes that lit up bright orange when they looked towards my light!  Kilimanjaro Bush Babies!!!! We were so excited and stayed to watch these adorable, tiny, nocturnal creatures for about half an hour. They are actually little primates that jump through the tree branches and eat bugs, while somehow managing to not impale themselves on the huge spiky thorns of the acacia tree. We were also lucky enough to see the marvel of one hopping across the ground like a tiny kangaroo—leaps literally 3 or 4 feet high and about 6 feet in distance! So cool. And cute J

When we woke up the next morning, it had snowed a lot on Mt Kili! The staff says they haven't seen it this snow covered in a while. (also, those are spherical bird nests hanging in the trees in the top right corner)

Monday we went on our first safari adventure to Amboseli National Park! We had brief Wildlife Ecology and Wildlife Management lectures before heading out in the field.  Everyone was so ecstatic to see a herd of zebras and an elephant right as we entered the park…little did we know we’d soon be seeing hundreds of zebras, wildebeest, elephants, gazelle, antelope, hyenas, hippos, birds, and even a lion pride in the distance!  Unfortunately no pics of the lions yet....I'm holding out until I get some good ones! You'll thank me later.

awww! zebra love.

Our sweet Land Cruisers have hatches that pop open so we can stand up and view the wildlife easily…makes for a pretty sweet adventure.  However, it also means lotsssss of sunshine so I got to wear my awesome safari hat (Thanks Shelly!) but still managed to get a little burnt (Mother Theresa would not be happy).  Before lunch, I started to feel a little queezy but thought I was just carsick (read: was fully prepared to vomit out the window) …turns out I might’ve had acute sun poisoning or something along those lines, so lunch on a shaded veranda on top of a lookout hill was the perfect cure.  From this amazing vantage point, we got to watch elephants foraging in the swampy wetland below and even saw some hippos!

The view from our lunch shelter.

Elephants tromping through the swampy swamp. It looked so funny to see them half-submerged in the mucky water! The birds on their backs are egrets, with whom they have a symbiotic relationship (the elephants don't mind the birds who benefit by eating the bugs stirred up from the ground, and the birds will warn the elephants of any approaching dangers)

After lunch, we hopped back in the vehicles and had an amazing up-close elephant experience. A herd of elephants was crossing the gravel road, so our caravan of 4 cruisers stopped to watch as they entered the wetland and began feeding. Big elephants, medium elephants and absolutely adorable little baby elephants used their long trunks to drink up water and rip out chunks of grass from the ground. Our drivers turned off the vehicles and we could hear the elephants breathing, sloshing through the swamp and tearing the grass…it was unreal. One elephant got pretty close to a vehicle, which is a sobering reminder that these giants are real, wild animals – not in a zoo – and they are capable of causing great damage. But it was still insanely cool to see these amazing creatures so up close and personal. And I’m told there will be many more opportunities to come!

Why did the elephant cross the road? To go eat and splash around in the wetland, of course!

Our group consists of 27 students from across the US; a lot are from the east coast and a few from the Pacific Northwest.  I have one fellow Wisconsonite and was also surprised to find out that the intern at camp is from Eagen, MN.  There are 25 girls and two boys..that I feel kind of bad for.  Everyone is very friendly and easy going… but hey, I guess you’ve gotta be pretty legit [or crazy?] to voluntarily sign up to live in rustic Eastern Africa for 3+ months, so it makes sense.

I don't think there's a cuter baby animal than baby elephants!!! So in love with these guys.

There were elephants of all sizes and ages. These are all female adults because the adult male bull elephants tend to be solitary except when it's time to mate.

om nom nom....possibly my favorite picture of the day :)

Grant's Gazelle fighting and others on lookout as some lions approached in the distance (The lions must have just eaten because all they were concerned with was drinking water. So strange to see the gazelle and lion so close to each other!)

Lots of wildebeest. Such strange looking animals.

A spotted hyena on the prowl.

Basically, all of the animals were awesome to see in the wild (as I’m sure you can imagine) but I must say, I was super stoked to see a hippo! Ever since my Aunt Sandy and cousins Cindy and Cori got me this hippo stuffed animal for Christmas (I named her Hippie….creative, I know), I have been intrigued by these strange, huge animals. Turns out the hippo is the ultimate creeper of East Africa, and although we were lucky enough to see a few hippos foraging around out of water, many of them just peep their eyes above the water’s surface and straight creeeep (I really want to show a picture but it won't upload because everyone is on the internet right now).  Still awesome though.  The zebras were beautiful and hearing them “laugh” was incredible.  Leaving the park, we saw a few giraffes in the distance but I have yet to capture a photo…excited for that day to come! 

Today was our first “off-program day”. As you can imagine, we have a very nontraditional schedule due to the fact that we don't just "go home" for the weekend…wouldn't exactly be safe to just let us wander around Africa on our own, so basically, we have a day off from classes about once a week on average to do whatever we want, but usually there is some sort of organized activity. Today I did some laundry when I woke up (let's just say I'm grateful for whoever invented the washing machine) and then read some class material.  Then we went to Kimana, the small town about 10 minutes away, to go to the weekly market and buy (more) stuff. It was farmers-market style with tons of little wooden booths and people selling everything from "embe" (mangos) to "shukas" (fabrics). So incredibly interesting to see this aspect of their culture and also a bit overwhelming to get bombarded by the women selling jewelry. We also got stared at by just about everybody because each of us sticks out like a sore thumb. Everyone was so friendly and welcoming, and as I said before, I am simply awe-struck by the genuine happiness of each Kenyan (especially the adorable little children!) despite the fact that they have so little.

Well, I'm exhausted after a busy last few days...time to hit the hay!  In case you didn't know, we're nine hours ahead here. Crazy to think that when I'm waking up each morning, you all are just going to bed. Thanks for taking the time to read this ridiculously long post :)

lala salama! (sleep peacefully!)