11:51, Sunday, 31 July, 2011

We also saw three more cheetahs that morning, a cohort of males if I’m not mistaken. Then last night we saw all of Talek territory’s lions except for one male, meaning I saw twenty-five cats in one day, the most yet. Unlike upwards of 60% of the people in my field, I don’t believe much in coincidence, and I like to think that yesterday was somehow Minnie’s way of saying goodbye from wherever she is now. I will surely miss her.

There is a second strain of wildebeest passing through, so we get to feel the full effects of the migration at last. They are everywhere. It’s so remarkable. The only place where they weren’t was on the plain with the lions, and who can blame them? I have noticed that there is usually at least one per large group who just seems overjoyed to be a wildebeest, bucking and sprinting all over the place. What odd animals they are, though, with their long beards and tapering rectangle faces with peculiarly placed eyes and curly horns, hairy tails with one little flap of skin at top, Choobacka (sp) grunts and a size much smaller than I originally imagined. Two males were sparring last night, and even that ritual is abnormal. They stand face-to-face, plant those faces in the dirt and then circle one another. I assume horn butting comes later, but we couldn’t stick around to see.

We turned more tourist heads with our Maasai dress, and one lady actually went so far as to snap a picture of us. At dinner Triple B worked up the courage to come grab a noodle dangling from my hand. And, THE SAFARI ANTS ARE GONE FROM THE CHOO! What a relief. There is the most amazing line of them crossing the path, however. The warrior ants have formed a tunnel over the line of walking ants, likely transporting their babies from one place to another. The ants in the dome stand stock-still, holding onto one another like the separate bars of the monkey-domes in playgrounds. Right on our path is the only place where they are structured like so, even though their line extends probably one hundred meters through and beyond camp, thus my hypothesis that the behavior serves a protective function. If you place the tip of a stick in the ants’ path, they are crawling over the entire thing within seconds (it’s good to make sure you have a long stick), and the line will slightly follow your foot as you step over before reforming. The warriors are enormous, and I guess one drew blood when it bit Eli today; you don’t mess with these guys. Incredible little creatures.

We made it out to Prozac today. No hyenas, but we found two really good mothers. One was a lion, who was pouncing on and wrestling with her little male cub, the smallest cub I have seen on this trip. It was just the two of them, and it was excellent to see her play with him like that. The other mother was a plover/lapwing, whose nest was right by the road. She stood over her extraordinarily camouflaged eggs, refusing to move when we slowed down to view her nest even though her countenance screamed terrified. Impressive indeed.

After obs, we gave a tour of camp and a talk on hyenas to a group of students from George Mason who are staying at JK Safari Camp; it was actually a splendid experience, and definitely different being on this side of it. They all seemed very interested in hyenas; I wish Kay could have met them. And Isaac was there! He was one of our drivers on BEAM. He remembered me, and is as full of life as ever, the loudest Kenyan I have ever known (most are very soft-spoken, at least from an American perspective, as we tend to be quite loud).

And now you can expect to see a duck flying backwards, because twice in a row I have written blog posts of almost reasonable length...sort of.

12:34, Saturday, 30 July, 2011

I think one of the big male baboons is finally tolerating my presence, because yesterday he was very aware I was close and watching, but continued to forage, only looking up at me every once in a while. This troop must be getting used to the strange homo sapiens individual who repeatedly sits to watch them.

It was nice to finally return to obs last night. We collectively decided to wear our Maasai clothes to see what kinds of looks we’d get; Benson was obviously the only one who was completely convincing. So here we were, five Maasai in a hyena research vehicle, four of us slightly unconventional. The reactions were hilarious. Benson sped up to catch a combi and ask if they had seen any hyenas, and the two tourists in back couldn’t stop staring, unsure whether to smile or if we were legitimate or what in the heck to think. We kind of spoiled it by cracking up the whole time, but no explanation was given, and we just drove off after thanking the driver for his help. Later, while we were watching hyenas at Horseshoe Lugga (where they have been hanging out in hoards), a tourist standing up out of the hood of a combi did a complete double take. He looked and smiled politely as usual, looked away (at which point our Maasai dress must have registered), and promptly turned his head back to stare, again unsure of the appropriate reaction. Geesh, you’d think they’d never seen a Maasai before.

Female ostriches were dancing last night, literally spinning around and sprinting or ridiculously trotting along. Lia and I laughed until we cried, because they lined up and then went dancing ahead one by one, wings alternately flailing out to the side so it looked like they were going to tumble over, and then ruffling them up backwards in a great show, big tail feathers bouncing like mad. They were totally freaking out, and I can only figure that they were showing off for a male who was foraging in the distance. I would pay to see that again.

Mama B did a boogeyman dance at Kelsey last night, jumping along after her on her hind legs. Poor Kelsey just wanted some of the ugali we were sharing with the babies, but I don’t think Mama B liked her that near to Triple B. According to Estes, genets will sometimes eat bush babies, but I’m slightly skeptical. They sure make Kelsey and her mom nervous.

It’s been like home sweet Serena at night, hippos and buffalo, one night even elephants and lions very near to camp. It’s good to have the noises back.

This morning, we were going to go out to Prozac, and so awoke at 4:45 to hit the road. At Fig Tree, we came upon six lions and some hyenas in the aftermath of a wildebeest kill. The lions soon moved off, two old subadults playing pounce. Then one of the hyenas stole in to carry of the remains of the kill, surprisingly able to lift the entirety of the rib cage and what was left. We lost them to the muddy field, and didn’t even make it to Prozac because we started to severely fishtail back and forth in the mud. But I’m so happy we had to turn around...

I’m not going to write too much about what happened next, although it’s worth a thousand pages, because I’m afraid that trying to describe it might cheapen the memory. Super Mom and her six cheetah cubs were laying and sitting around back in the bush; there were no combis around. I don’t know if I would believe me reading this, but it really happened; three of the cubs came over and jumped onto the car. One of them started to purr, and we stood up out of the windows, staring into the sweetly beautiful reddish-brown, round-pupiled eyes and yellow speckled, furry black tear-dropped faces of the subadult cubs a foot away. And then they let us touch their tails, and I cautiously reached up to scratch one’s flank, and that gentle cat only turned its head to look at me. I cannot endure my love, awe and utter joy. I still think I may have been dreaming, and just stared after them when they moved off after five to ten of the best minutes of my life.

13:06, Friday, 29 July, 2011

Wednesday was Market Day. On the way into Talek, Jackson had to get out and run at a bunch of cattle, tapping them on the butt with an old dead vine because they were blocking the crossing that requires speed to get up the other side. It looks as though you are going to go off the edge of a cliff, a definite hubcap-locker and consequently my favorite crossing.

At the market, we got mobbed from every side by women trying to sell us their jewelry. It is extraordinarily stressful; people literally surround you and shove their bracelets and necklaces in your face, saying “this one, this one.” And then if you see one you like, you have to haggle a price, almost certain to pay too much because your skin color gives away your lack of knowledge concerning worth in a Kenyan economy. Heaven forbid you settle on a price and buy something, because obviously if you can afford one bracelet you have enough money to buy something from everyone. Thank goodness we found Julianna and Lucy, sisters who are old friends of Fisi Camp, and bought the majority of our things from them. Lia, Eli and I got dressed up as Maasai with the whole town looking on. I felt like a legitimate Maasai woman in my flowered shukas, kanga, beaded belt and jewelry, like I actually belonged there, which I loved. Eli aged himself with an mzee blanket and sword. It was so much fun! And I saw Ana; she came up to the car window while Eli and Benson were out getting eggs, along with several other women who had followed the car and were holding their jewelry through the window repeating prices. Ana remembered me, and I gave her the orange cloth headband I was wearing because she touched it in admiration, telling her now she wouldn’t forget me. She was wearing it when we passed her on the way out of town.

Thank goodness Joseph got a haircut, because his hair was getting pretty darn long (also known as it looked like a buzz cut from the states). It was fun teasing him, telling him he was right, he sure needed a haircut! Now he is completely bald. Joseph, Jackson, Benson, and Joseph Mzee made a great fuss over us in our Maasai garb, telling us we looked “very smart.” Jackson said that he would get some husbands for Lia and me, and they would send the money worth the cattle bride price to our parents. Sorry Mom and Dad, but I professed that I could never live as a Maasai woman because of the lack of choice. Thinking back, I really hope I didn’t offend anyone, because it got pretty quiet when I asked “Well what if a girl doesn’t want to marry someone, can she refuse?” Sometimes maybe it would be better to bite my tongue and respect the fact that things are different here. I could not love Maasai culture more for the most part, but I struggle with the fact that I might just as easily have been born a Maasai been married to a forty year old man who already has two wives at the age of twelve, have undergone female circumcision, left school, and have three children whose names I hadn’t picked. Suddenly relativism doesn’t cut it. Much though I hate change, there are some things I would change if I could.

On a brighter note, I got stuck in a downpour while running! It was glorious throwing my arms out to catch the fat drops that were causing dirt from the dry ground to spring up into tiny dust clouds, mountains and savanna all around receiving a well-deserved drink. I slipped in the mud on my way down a little hill, and waved at a biker coming down the path sheepishly while absolutely covered in mud. The children who had yelled at me that they were lions on the way out had ceased their game on the return trip, nowhere to be seen. I literally surfed down the bank, crossing the river as quickly as possible because I would have been helpless to do anything but slide to my doom should a hippo or croc be around (a very rare occurrence in that particular section of the river, Mom and Dad, and I always check very carefully before going down). I reentered camp relieved and exhilarated, where sweet Lia was worried and about to send out a search party. Our shower is currently broken, so I washed up by dipping a pitcher directly into the bucket of river water and pouring it over myself as the rain had currently lulled.

We ended up getting forty millimeters that night within the span of maybe an hour and a half, twenty being the cutoff for not going out on obs at all the entire next day. It was coming down like crazy! We sat cozily in the lab tent drinking chai and playing cards; Eli taught us a new game called “Durack” (sp). It’s got to be one of my favorite card games ever. We had sweet potato soup for dinner, and gathered around Brian’s computer to watch a terrible exhibition of American culture; I don’t even want to know what Benson, Jackson, Joseph, and Lasinko thought of The Big Labosky (sp). What a stupid movie, but I must admit it cracked me up at parts, especially the character Walter. He was pretty great.

By the time we went to bed, the stars were glittering through the acacia branches, the clouds all rained out.

Next morning, we slept in until ten, played some more cards, and did some work (found a new Serena lioness and named her Cranberry for The Cranberries). The rain had brought the safari ants out like crazy, and I sustained my first bites, luckily only two, neither from a warrior. They have infested the choo-most unpleasant. We have to dance our way to the seat, and then hold our feet out in front of us while precariously sitting crooked. It’s not easy, let me tell you. Brian, Eli, Lia and I went for a walk to ease our restlessness around 5:30. It was wonderful out, the ground still freshly wet, everything glinting and wide open. Everyone had boots except for me, and eventually I got sick of sliding around in my sandals and left them under a bush for the return trip. My feet have never been so muddy, which is saying something; it took two thirds of a jerry can to get them clean. We saw some elephants and three hyenas though! No snakes, although it would have been the ideal time to see one, far from camp with three other people to keep you brave.

Everyone was at dinner: Kelsey, Roberta (“Mama Kelsey”), Triple B, Mama B, and a new addition named Chuckles, the boldest of the bushbabies. Kelsey crouched under Lia’s chair, giving off the most endearing little growl at the babies. Triple B climbed the pole right in front of the table, effortlessly holding himself in place to its side while staring at us with enormous eyes. I nearly died: SO CUUUUUTTTTTE! We discovered that bushbabies both sniff very loudly and love spaghetti noodles; at one point Triple B stood on his hind legs with noodles in both hands, unable to eat them fast enough and unsure which fistful to go for first. I coaxed Chuckles (we needed a “ch” name for “creepy hands”) up to grab noodles from me with his adorably weird digits. Before we parted for bed, Kelsey was running around, hissing and playing, jumping on her mom’s back and rolling into the lab tent, chewing on the zippers. She was full of it! She also crunched through a dung beetle that Lia set in front of her; apparently genets like to eat insects.

Before bed I got some news on the phone that has made today very hard; Minerva is missing back home. Her personality is not one in which she should have been gone four days, but I don’t want to give up hope. It really hurts to imagine that I might never see her again, and that Albus is all alone. My little baby girl.

19:42, Thursday, 28 July, 2011

The following morning, the 25^th, we got to see Super Mom and her six cubs take down a tommy. It wasn’t too heart wrenching, because seven cheetahs make short work of anything, most especially something as small as a tommy. Talk about a hunting dream team! Top speed times seven. After the tommy was down, they all lay around with their heads in a circle centered around the food. It was annihilated in about five minutes. Super amazing.

Back at camp there was a pygmy kingfisher on the clothesline. They are such beautiful birds, a multitude of colors: oranges, purples, greens all crammed into a bird smaller than a robin, with a lovely slender, long orange beak to match. There was also a very impressively thick line of safari ants by the kitchen tent. It snaked along like a river, and far away looked like a squiggly track of red dirt, while close up safari ants scrambled every which-way, running right over the top of one another. I have never seen anything like them. And banded mongooses wandered into camp just before we left to get water at Keekorok Lodge. They are so much bigger than I thought, having only seen them from the car. The troop was comprised of at least ten individuals, all quite bold, paying us no mind while hastily perusing in the dirt for insects.

At Keekorok, we got to talk with Janie and Adrianna for a while since we were giving the other camp one of our vehicles. The four of us had a good story exchange. A few days prior, they had had a spitting cobra under their tent, the very tent that we had stayed in. Apparently Janie was writing alone in her bed, and saw its hooded form move beneath the canvas. Zach wouldn’t let the staff kill it, but instead of merely chasing it away, apparently tried to wrestle it from under the canvas into a pillowcase. Bad idea; he got spit at, the venom narrowly missing his face. The cobra shot away off into the woods; the girls said they had no idea a snake could move so fast. I tried not to be jealous that they got to see a cobra, and realized that I probably wouldn’t sleep as well at night with the knowledge that cobras tend to dwell beneath the floor. They also told us that the river is absolutely rank with the smell of thousands of wildebeest carcasses right now; Amanda and Chris did a census and counted THREE THOUSAND carcasses in THREE KILOMETERS. Geesh, those crocodiles didn’t need to waste their energy after all of those drownings. I think swimming lessons should be mandatory for wildebeest before the big crossing, poor guys.

Back in camp, baboons, vervets, and slender mongooses abounded. Two baboons were mating right next to the stone path, their cohorts foraging and screaming at one another about them. The female in estrus’s butt was extremely swollen, just like Jane Goodall always said of her female chimps in estrus. The vervets were all over in the lab tent, running and jumping and peeking around branches as I approached (previously they had knocked over and eaten through our breakfast bucket that was sitting on the table). They about gave me a heart attack when they jumped on top of the tent; it makes a sound like the entire thing is about to collapse inward. One adult monkey couldn’t decide if it should return to the kitchen tent while I was sitting there eating lunch. It would walk up, stand on its hind legs to investigate, bobbing as it crouched and stood, crouched and stood. Another jumped down right behind a slender mongoose on the leaves, sending it scurrying away into the bush, probably just for fun. I thoroughly enjoy the vervets, even if they do steal our food and pick on the slender mongooses. It’s new having so much contact with primates, such a different experience because of their intelligence. Interacting with them is more like dealing with a primitive version of you than with mammals of other orders, ones whose behavior is more foreign and less instinctually understandable.

That night we were all cursing Dave quietly under our breath as we undertook the near impossible task of counting shoats and cattle for his dissertation project (not really Dave; we love you! :) ). Eventually we got smart and just asked the herder, since the constant motion of the herds made an accurate count highly unlikely, and averaging numbers with a range of 100+ doesn’t exactly scream scientific. Later at the den, the hyenas were interacting with giraffes. First the adult giraffes crossed the road, with some younger giraffes straggling behind on the side of the den. The cubs chased the younger giraffes, obviously not serious and keeping a safe distance should they notice. Pretty soon the tables turned, and the adult giraffes began to run at the cubs, who bolted away. It was a blast to watch. I had been driving for a little bit of practice, and carefully inched slightly into the bushes so that we could get a better view of the action at the actual den. While we were sitting there watching the hyenas, a sudden ruckus erupted to our left. Benson said there was an elephant, and we all chuckled and waved it off because we knew he was joking around, surely it was only hyenas being their socially interactive selves. But a couple of seconds later, he shouted (as much as Benson ever shouts), “Elephant! Let’s go!” Um, terrified. I am not comfortable enough with driving a stick shift to try and evade a disturbed giant. Brian and I quickly shot out of the car and switched spots, and he speedily reversed us to safety. The elephant had been about twenty feet from our car; Benson had gotten a glimpse of an enormous foot right next to us. It remained perfectly peaceful, munching away. We had nothing to worry about, but that could have changed at any second in such close proximity.

An interesting tidbit on culture: while driving between destinations, we asked Benson why some of the Maasai pull their lower middle incisor out. It had come up in dinner conversation the previous evening, and we had developed a theory that it’s to help the herders whistle (loud whistling traverses the savanna at night as the Maasai men, who stay out all night long, whistle to keep the cattle moving). But Benson said that has nothing to do with the custom, and explained that there are three things Maasai men traditionally do when coming of age to display their tribe: 1) extensively gauge their ears, 2) pull their lower middle incisor (ouch!), and 3) burn themselves to leave scars. Some of the more modern Maasai like Benson and Jackson haven’t done most of these things, though. Benson only has the burn marks, scars that cover his arms. He explained that it’s a sign of bravery to burn yourself more than you friends, and he tried to prove his bravery when he was about twelve or thirteen years old, leaving the many scars.

Tuesday morning we saw Obama. He was looking quite hyenaish. (President’s lineage; turns out Obama is actually a female, quite fitting since male suffrage has not yet hit hyaenidae.) I started humming “Hail to the Chief” while Lia and I saluted. It’s now a tradition every time we see Obama to hum and salute, just like when Dad used to hum the tune, stand and salute when Joe would come stumbling downstairs in the morning with his eyes barely open. Pretty soon we found our sixteen lions. One of the cubs was trying to play with Dad, play-walking up behind (walking wider than normal, paws swinging unnecessarily out to the sides) and tumbling over his big mane. Dad wasn’t feeling it this morning, and just looked at the cub, who lay down in front of him in the exact same position, facing forward with tail flipping.

For fun, we now play “nose goes” and rock, paper, scissors to see who has to get out and collect poop. I don’t think it really bothers any of us that much to do it, but the added competition makes it more exciting, and when someone has diarrhea it really pays off to be quick.

Tuesday evening at dinner Kelsey came up onto the table! Lia has some granola bars that have spoiled Kelsey’s taste for anything else, and she hopped up onto the table, walking timidly from one to the other for food (Mom’s nightmare). The bush babies, now regulars, showed up for their scraps as well. One of the guys offhandedly suggested I use the big spoon to catapult rice over to them, since I already “triple the food bill every night” by feeding everyone (gross exaggeration). I was doubtful it would work at all, and so I put all of my force behind it, only to find out how powerful a spoon catapult can be. Poor Triple B got nailed with rice square in the face; I tried to feel awful, but we were all doubled over laughing as it just stood there blinking and moving its head from side to side, still apparently processing what had just happened, rice sticking to its fur. Eventually it began to nonchalantly eat the surrounding tidbits, then sprung back off into the darkness.

8:50, Wednesday, 27 July, 2011

Oh my, so much to write about!!!

Let’s see...Saturday evening we found our first Prozac lion. He is an old and decrepit-looking male; at first we thought he might be dead because he wasn’t moving a millimeter, but then we saw that his belly was rising with breath, thank goodness. It would have been a little too weird to come upon a dead king of the jungle. Unfortunately, I am WAY behind on naming lions, so I haven’t even considered what to name him. It turns out that it can be extraordinarily frustrating trying to ID lions; I am still working on pictures from Serena. It’s all in whether you have a good photograph. With good photographs it’s fun, like a mystery you have to solve, matching whiskers and ears, and you feel accomplished once you figure it out after a reasonable amount of time. On the other hand, I have looked at a blurry picture for three hours, going back and forth whether I think it depicts a new lion or matches up with one I already have, only to end up with an asterisk beside whatever I decide with a corresponding footnote that I’m not sure. And just yesterday, I discovered that Jack Johnson and Seger are the same lion!!! That’s what comes of studying animals that can’t be bothered even to raise their heads. Jack Johnson and Seger were two of my favorite lion names, and it would be hard to choose between them, so I just rolled them both into an Elvis for Dad, since no new males seem to be popping up. The current list of Serena lions is as follows (perhaps including everyone, since I am nearing the end of my pictures): Alanis, Amelia, Aretha, Ben Folds, Bieber, Carole King, Coltrane, Daisy May, Denver, Emmylou, Elvis, Evacassidy, Fray, Gin Blossom, Hoobastank, Ingrid, Joplin, Macy Gray, Midler, Mumford, Murdoch, Nada, Radin, Regina Spektor, Script, Shakira, and Weepie. Twenty-seven total thus far, no young cubs. And, based on the evidence, I strongly suspect that Coltrane, Elvis and Mumford are a foreboding coalition of brothers that have taken over several of the lionesses, excluding those that hang out with Murdoch.

For a good portion of the rest of that evening, we sat in our car back in the bushes next to a leopard kill as it grew dark. Since Murphy died, the RA’s have been keeping extra tabs on Talek West, and have just recently returned to Prozac. Therefore, no one is very good at IDing them, so the transcription notes come out something like “There is an unID sacked out next to an unID, who gets up to lift leg for another unID, who then walks over and goes ears back for the first unID.” Thus, we felt our time might be better spent trying to track down this leopard and record it into the general carnivore census. It never returned for the wildebeest kill while we were there, but we turned out our lights to try and convince it to return. For once I was happy to be sitting in the middle as we started to talk about the possibility of wildebeest zombies and angry leopards jumping through the windows.

Sunday morning after breakfast, Brian took Lia and I to the bat roost just down the path from the kitchen tent. At least one hundred fruit bats hung upside down from an overarching tree, sleeping peacefully. I have come to really love bats since I’ve been here, after not having much contact with them at home. The two that hang in the lab tent are some of the most adorable creatures I’ve ever seen. They always sleep face-to-face, exactly as though they are hugging, right above the table during the day. Periodically they will stretch their little wings or yawn their dot of a mouth or swivel their enormous ears and look around with their fuzzy faces if disturbed, always to curl up into the other one again when finished. And I love watching them catch moths at dinnertime. It’s such a thrilling chase, the ultimate coevolutionary arms race at play, moths bigger than the bat’s head darting this way and that with the bat fast behind, doing loop-de-loops in the air until the moth evades or the bat has a new pair of wings coming out of its mouth. And what an amazing difference in the amount of bugs on the nights our bats are absent! It’s insane. I had an additional little bat pasted to my tent window when I went to zip it up a couple of nights ago. I think it hangs out under our awning sometimes.

Running on a Sunday means that kids are not in school, and so if you are a hard core exerciser and don’t want to stop and shake hands with a dozen kids herding donkeys and shoats (sheep + goats), it isn’t a good time to go. But I loved it. The first boy right by the road stared at me in disbelief when I stopped to shake his hand, and pretty soon all of his brothers and sisters were running in to say hello. It was wonderful, even if it did mean I had to cheat by stopping.

Kelsey came around during the day while we were all in the tent. This time, when I knelt down with some buttered bread, she stayed on my lap while chewing it, her tiny gray paws on my jeans, pointy face staring up at mine. It was magic. I am in love with that little genet.

Sunday night we found the big pride of Talek West. There are ten cubs, four females, and two adult males in total, and the cubs were play-ful! Gosh it was great watching them crouch down in the grass to pounce on each other walking by, romping around in the grass or jumping up onto Mom’s back so that she couldn’t help but join in a little. UNBEARABLY CUTE. And they had a poop fest; Dave would have gone nuts! Knowing this, I pushed for its collection, and Benson and Lia watched the lions while Brian, Eli, and I got out to search. The big males were lazy as ever, sleeping out of sight and of no danger. However, it was a little unnerving when one of the females about a hundred meters away noticed us, and we didn’t stray far, trying to search faster. But we knew it was time to give it up when I looked up and said, “Uh, guys, there’s an elephant right there.” Zoom, back into the car! A group of five suddenly emerged from behind a big row of bushes directly ahead. It was very interesting; there were four adult elephants and one baby probably around six months to a year old. While the lioness still had her eye on our car, probably trying to figure out why it had just spawned out of nowhere, the matriarch in front quickened her pace with ears out to the side, charging her with the baby close behind. The other three elephants followed suit in a line, and the lioness forgot us, threw her ears back and promptly fled. There is no being at top on the African savanna.

It must have been a night for charging carnivores, because a buffalo with a considerable limp when walking immediately forgot his ailment with two hyenas near, probably trying to convince them that he was no easy get despite the circumstances. He would run at them and stop, turn and limp his way back to the starting point, and run at them again. They paid him no attention and kept walking. I’m glad for the buffalo that they didn’t seem particularly hungry.

Two words: BUSH BABIES!!! Two bush babies came to dinner that night, and have been coming every night since. Just like the genets, it is a mother and her baby. We have dubbed “Triple B,” for “Baby Bushbaby.” ADORABLE. They are fuzzy and black (I was expecting gray, but I think I was thinking of pygmy bushbabies), with big eyes and oddly convoluted hands, and they jump around like they are on springs, from tree to tent pole to ground and back again. The only unfortunate thing is that Kelsey is kind of afraid of them, but we have been able to keep the peace so far. I swear I am going to die of happiness.

I will have to finish catching up later, because right now we are going to head to market day in Talek. One of the guys needs a haircut (there are like 4 barbershops in a town a fortieth the size of the one where I went to grade school...must have something to do with the shaved-head custom), and we need to get food.

13:10, Saturday, 23 July, 2011

I don’t think I could ever get tired of going out to watch the hyenas morning and night, being a part of their day-to-day lives. Perhaps unfortunately for the reader, their culture continually amazes me, the fact that they have a society all their own, with social norms and a language. It is so different from anything I’ve ever seen; does every species live such a complex yet hidden life? It makes one realize how truly anthropocentric the world is.

For example, consider how radically different the hyena greet is from our handshake. It centers around the phallus-oh dear. But it isn’t like it’s anything personal; it’s so weird, because I would be mortified to talk about such a thing normally, but the hyenas have made it so it’s not such an embarrassing thing (well, almost). It’s polite in their world to say hello by lifting a leg so the other can sniff their phallus, and sometimes they even groom that of their greeter. But who knows, maybe paws are something they’d cover if they had clothes, and would never dream of shaking hands. I love it when cubs lift leg, because they can barely balance while trying to get it high enough for the adults to reach their noses down and sniff.

One of my favorite behaviors is the squitter. Cubs squitter when their mother stops nursing them while they are still hungry. I think Mom would agree that I would have squittered endlessly as a hyena cub. It is the most pathetically adorable (although Kay finds it very annoying) “Eeeeeeeeeeeee!”, with the corners of the mouth raised high. The other day Gucci (fashion lineage) was ignoring her cub Pene’s (Italian foods) squitters, so he deliberately stepped in front of her so she couldn’t move away. After almost tripping over him, she still refused him food, and walked away so that he followed right at her tail making the most obnoxious little fuss. No wonder he and Ziti have yet to be weaned, although long graduated from the den. Lia and I have been practicing our African animal vocalizations, most especially the squitter, although another of our favorites is that of bird that very loudly goes “AWWWWWWWR!” in the bush beside our tent. Everyone must think we are insane.

The best thing is how the hyenas never fail to make us laugh. I think I will add a bit here on their very diverse personalities. Twister is the tiniest cub, but is bolder than any of the others. He is absolutely hilarious! Loki, the adult female who is known to be a bully, neglecting to warn others of her cranky stages with a T-1 (T=threat) aggressive look, speeding through T-2 lunges right into T-3 biting her unsuspecting victim, was nursing her cubs yesterday. Twister decided it would be all right to just up and climb on her, no big deal. His pudgy adorableness didn’t stop her from lunging, but lucky for Twister she couldn’t bend far enough to bite him over her nursing cubs. Twister also has the most energy, constantly running all over the place, tripping over the other cubs and periodically sitting back to investigate us with his front legs placed just on the outside of his little belly. Then there’s Zenny, who is my favorite cub because she is sweet and I can always identify her. I slipped her a dog treat last night when no one was looking (shhhhhh); she often peers around the end of the car with her ears forward looking for one, apparently remembering the rare occasions when treating is absolutely necessary. Then there’s Magenta, the subadult who is always stirring up trouble, sticking her nose where it doesn’t belong. I swear she walks over and steps in the middle of things on purpose, doubtless an adrenaline junkie as she places herself right in the path of sure aggression. Oakland is the only adult male I can immediately recognize; he has a big snare scar on his neck and always seems to be doing fly-bys, which are when a male walks or runs by the den, hoping to be noticed- quite funny, really (although maybe Oakland’s antics couldn’t be classified as such, because he tends to just amble by when females are out and about, not necessarily by the den-males are forbidden to go by dens, hence the need for fly-bys). Last night he decided to add some extra spice by whooping, and his is the absolute weirdest whoop any of us had ever heard; I think the snare must have damaged his larynx. L He sounds like a baritone bullfrog on steroids. And last but not least, I will mention Alice, because she deserves to be mentioned. The boys like to get me riled up by calling her fat and ugly, not worth tracking, so that I yell out the window “Don’t listen to them Alice, I love you!” Besides, in the hyena world it is attractive to be fat. Weight signifies an ability to obtain adequate nutrition.

22:06

It’s not only hyenas I could never tire of. I love seeing elephants every day; we have taken to calling them “effluents,” and today we saw a group of about twenty that was so clustered that their legs looked like a centipede’s, so we dubbed the entire body of elephants an “efflupede.” I love seeing giraffes everyday; they never cease to be incredible. There is a group around that has three little (as far as giraffes go) babies, all almost exactly the same size, and they run around playing together, and I saw one nursing today. And how cool is it to watch cheetahs chasing each other? I witnessed the world’s fastest game of tag the other day as two of Super Mom’s cubs tore about the savanna after one another, like something off of Nat Geo Wild (minus the 38 surrounding combis…geez a lou). I’ll never tire of coming upon whole prides of lions; they cannot lose their majesty. We came upon the biggest pride I have seen out here yet a couple of nights ago, and not only was there a plethora of females and two big males, but there were cubs!!! I think some serious infanticide had just occurred on the Serena side, eradicating any cubs L. So I was happy to see some baby lions! One of the cubs had ears like Dumbo, way too big for its head, and I wanted to pick him up and cuddle him like Albus and Minerva. Let’s not forget the small creatures, such as the hedgehog we observed scuttling away from the first raindrops we had seen in days; Benson turned the car so that we could watch it in our headlights, a prickly little pincushion confused as to which way it should go; back and forth and back and forth in little zig-zags it went until finally happening upon some bushes. And tonight we saw some springhares, or “boing-boings” as Brian would say. They are so much bigger than I remember them, jumping around like overgrown kangaroo rats with black tail tips, just a blast to watch. We saw four in a row, two of them a pair, and one of the pair stood by its partner before leaping up in the air like Rudolph after Clarice tells him he’s cute, almost twisting over backwards before regaining his balance. I could never tire of looking over while eating lunch to see a slender mongoose with a long sweeping tail and red eyes looking up at me, or of feeding Kelsey and Roberta at dinner. Directly after I wrote how I was worried about Kelsey last time, I took a trip to the choo and caught sight of her (midday no less) in the bushes. And two nights ago I stayed in the lab tent after everyone had gone to bed, trying to coax Roberta in with some grilled cheese. While patiently waiting, I saw Kelsey walk up to her mother and start licking her face. I didn’t end up getting Roberta to come any closer, but Kelsey made me the happiest girl in the world by crawling right up into my lap to retrieve some more leftovers- can you believe it?! I almost touched Arthur the vervet’s tail on Thursday as he hung above me in the trees over the camp path, and I can’t get over the brilliant mass of endless birds singing their hearts out, color and chorus surrounding me as I do yoga in front of our tent. I love that there is always something more to see, like tree hyraxes, bushbuck, and monitor lizards. I spotted a hyrax crawling towards the crotch of a tree while watching vervets with Old Joseph. It’s nice to know that they are in camp, and holy wow did one ever screech like a madman last night! Lia came sprinting up the path yelling this morning because several pairs of eyes were coming towards her on the way to the choo. I sure feel safe, because you should have seen the Maasai sprint to aide her the second she yelled! We all rushed to the scene; I was so excited to see some sort of big carnivore, but it was just the handsome, harmless bushbuck that has recently set up lodge in camp. They rival the hartebeest and topi as my favorite antelope, so shy and sweet and gorgeous. And yesterday I heard a new type of noise outside of the choo tarp, a constant sound along leaves that surely wasn’t a bird or mammal. How thrilling: I was finally going to get to see my venomous snake! Very cautiously, I peered around the edge of the tarp, and a great green monitor lizard at least three feet in length had the crap scared out of it and rustled quickly away. Golly, they are neat! I quietly walked to the other side to glimpse it again, and you have never seen such a skittish creature; it whooshed bow-leggedly away. I have no idea how such awkwardly placed legs can move so fast. I love having to step over thick lines of bustling safari ants running every which-way in ordered chaos, the mere potential of coming upon a mamba or a crocodile. I love jogging past herds of impala and baboon troops. Yesterday I came upon an absolutely enormous baboon right in the camp path. When I got back to the tent, Lia’s eyes were huge. That very baboon had just crashed into Julia’s tent, blowing right through it so that ours was literally shaking and she momentarily had no idea what was going on, half sure she was about to meet her death. Poor Lia had had her day of heart attacks, from the bushbuck to the baboon to a bird that made her jump a mile into the sky when it randomly flew smack-dab into her tent window screen with a great thud (it flew off just fine). Finally, I have to give a shout-out to little Roger, the toad that hangs out around our tent much like the one in Serena did.

So surreally wonderful, that’s what it is to be here.

10:26, Sunday, 24 July, 2011

Believe it or not, it isn’t only the animals that I could never tire of; the people here are fantastic as well. Their culture is as radically different from that in America as it could possibly be, and yet fundamentally people are the same. Families are the same; young Joseph’s brother came to visit the other day, and the smile that Joseph had on his face as he reached out to pick up his niece was very familiar to me. Benson’s cousins visited yesterday, and I got to meet all of the guys’ wives when they graciously came to do our laundry, pointing at myself to say my name and wordlessly asking that they do the same. One was named Mary (if I understood correctly), one Marion, and one Liz. I have sat on the stones by the kitchen tent to practice my Swahili with both Old and Young Joseph. Talking with them is one of the most rewarding experiences I’ve ever had; they’re such exquisitely nice individuals from whom I can learn so much. Jackson grabbed my elbow the other day in the dark, intending to scare me, laughing as he claimed it was a hyena. Lasinko, our burly and tall askari, walks us to our tent at night, barking “Lala salama” (sleep well) as he shines his light right up to our door (he gets very upset if we wander too far in the dark on our own). I love the children that I have to yell “Sopa!” (hello in Maa) to a million times while running, the herders I pass who look at me like I’m mad for running without a purpose. (As I ran by one guy, he pointedly asked me with raised brows, “Unakimbia?”, which means “Are you running?” Why, yes, whatever gave you that idea?) Before crossing the river one day, I smiled and waved at a woman walking by, and she stopped me. I thought she wanted to ask me something, but she just held out her hand and smiled so warmly when I took it, saying her name as I said mine. And there is an old man who passes through camp periodically, traditional Maasai in every way. The first time I saw him he was sitting by the kitchen tent, and when I walked over he grabbed my hand with the biggest smile I think I have ever seen on anyone’s face, shifting my hand firmly into three of the brother handshake positions. Although we didn’t say a word, I have never in my life felt like someone was so purely happy to meet me, and I will never forget him for as long as I live. And I can’t neglect to mention Suzanna, the elderly crouched over woman with one eye who greets us at the Talek gate with the bracelets and kangas she has made, hoping to sell them; she barely stands tall enough to reach the cruiser window. Suzanna does not act put out like some of the others if you tell her you haven’t any money on you right now, emphatically bidding you have a good day. She inspires in me a lesson that doesn’t come natural to me; people like Suzanna do not need, much less want, my pity. My brother Joe once explained to me, much more eloquently than I can, that pity for pity’s sake has a diminishing effect on dignity. It’s an amazing realization. People like Suzanna are perfectly capable; pity is of no use to them. It means everything to me to be able to talk to Suzanna eye-to-eye like anyone else, regardless of her feeble appearance, feeling my pity release and be replaced by respect. I hope that makes sense in the way I intend.

And of course, I have an especial love for hanging out with my fellow yahoo scientists, nerdy as I am in every way. It is a wild search for truth, complete with some of the most bizarre activities. Just the other day I was introduced to the collection of hyena paste, the anal secretion left on blades of grass. It’s morning, we see a hyena paste, what follows? We all get out and started bending over to sniff the full length individual stalks in the middle of the savanna, searching for a faintly musky scent. What a riot; it felt like a very twisted Easter egg hunt, and I wouldn’t trade participating in such silly endeavors for the world. And sometimes the people I work with remind of my dad’s side up at deer camp on Beaver Island. There is a landmark named “Pee in the Pond,” where a track crosses between two sides of a water hole. None of us know exactly why it was named that, but Eli decided while we were very near it that he had to take a pee break. Naturally, he insisted on peeing in the pond, hoping to make it feel up to its name. So we pull up onto the slightly elevated landmass crossing, and he gets out. Pretty soon combis are coming from both directions, and we in the car can only laugh at his predicament, imagining what the approaching tourists must be thinking as he is stranded relieving his bladder for all the world to see. He hopped back into the car, completely unphased, disappointed only because the wind had foiled his plan of actually hitting the waterhole. Oh Lord. Further, having Benson in the car makes us all particularly joyful. He has the best laugh, and such a great sense of calm humor; everyone just loves him. When he sees a hyena and can correctly identify it, he yells out excitedly “I know you!” When we go over an exceptionally large bump and flop around like jello, he exclaims “Nice dance!” He always seems to randomly know people even though he is from Narock, and when we are driving around in the middle of nowhere, will shout hello to a passing herder. In the aftermath he will say, in a matter-of-fact and satisfied tone of voice, “I know that guy.” His English is flawless, and there are very few people I have grown so fond of so fast. You would have to meet him to know.

12:20

However, there is one thing I tire of, and that is being half a world away from the people I love the most. (At least I have the knowledge that Caitlin is a little closer.) Not a moment goes by that I don’t wish Mom, Dad, and most especially Joe were here to experience things with me. I miss the fun of Grandma Signs, the sweetness of Grandma Parker, and goodness knows I hardly know what to do without Grandpa teasing me. Every time I feed Kelsey I want for Charlie (the Mr. “Star Beam Student” I keep hearing about) to be there with me, like when we fed the campus squirrels. I miss Lindsey when I get excited over little things, Ania when I think too much, Jacci when I don’t think enough, Ellen when I’m sitting around working by myself, Nic when I jump around in ecstasy like a kangaroo because of something awesome I’ve just seen, Nate’s sarcasm when someone does something stupid, Anu’s laugh, Mallory’s extensive sense of humor, Kristen’s ridiculousness, Margaret’s calm, Climan’s brain when the data is overwhelming, Meghan when someone cracks a joke over my naive head, Natalie when the cattle wander into camp. I miss Caitlin all the freakin’ time, and I hope that A.J. isn’t sitting at the Wheel Inn all alone late into the night. Kenya is not the same without every last one of my BEAM girls (you know who you are), and my plethora of cousins, aunts, and uncles are always coming to mind, most especially those like Jacob, Nicol, and Tee who I know would absolutely love to be out here. Molly and Alison, I feel like you two might not fare so well without the warm shower. Whether or not there is a mention of your name, I assure you I have thought of you all at different points during the days, weeks, month, and I miss you like crazy. And of course there’s Willie and Mr. Midnight Scandal; the zebras are constant reminders of them. I cannot wait to hug them again, and squeeze Albus and Minerva when I get home. Thoughts of corn on the cob, lemonade, and riding my bike with Dad to Scoopy Doos tantalize me. It’s hard not being around to watch "Frasier" and "Everybody Loves Raymond" with Mom. While reveling in the extraordinary wildlife here, I miss the tree frogs, garter snakes, robins, bluebirds, and whitetail deer just the same. Up north, Douglas Lake and Beaver Island, Maple and Oak trees, swimming, fishing, all that is summer at home. And for goodness sakes, I cannot wait to see Harry Potter! I write all of this to assure you, Mom, that you have not completely lost me to Africa. It still rings true that there is no place like home, and that is why I could never stay here indefinitely. Just the same, I hope that somewhere like here might one day become my second home.

13:48, Wednesday, 20 July, 2011

In the morning Bilal left to take his research elsewhere. Our dinner last night lacked the thought-provoking questions he always posed, stirring the pot with suggestions that maybe research subjects shouldn’t be named, or maybe hunting should be legalized in the reserve, etc. etc. It made for some interesting conversation; he held his ground with reasonable arguments even when the rest of us disagreed, only to come out at the end and say that the position he was arguing wasn’t necessarily his.

The hyenas were playful yesterday; even some of the adults romped around with the cubs. I always love to see that. Loki, one of the adult females that is dark and has abnormally long ears, reacted very strongly when Brian began to demonstrate some critical behaviors for Eli and Benson, backing away from the car and staring for abnormally long periods of time. It’s crazy how much human influence affects the psyche of these animals. The adults in Serena never seemed to feel in the least bit threatened by our movements. Loki might even be the new clan alpha. There is a situation similar to that of Happy Zebra in Talek West Territory; the alpha female Murphy was killed by lions, along with the male Fozzy who followed her everywhere. It is currently unclear who is on top; the popular belief was Dionysus, but she was aggressed upon while we watched her carrying food around, and the mystery remains unsolved.

My project is consisting more and more of cheetahs; we saw yet another! This one was a lone male, and it was making an “ow, ow ow” sound somewhat like a squeaky toy, barely opening his mouth each time. I wonder what he was communicating, and am more and more convinced that I want my research one day to center around communication.

Back at camp, young Joseph gave me the first taste of the zucchini bread he was making for the breakfast bucket that we take on obs in the morning. It was absolutely delicious. Suddenly the vervets started screeching like mad. I didn’t recognize the racket as vervets, but Old Joseph knew right away what it was. “There is a leopard or dog nearby, and they are alarm calling” is what he told me. We peered through the branches, and sure enough there was a Maasai dog on the other side of the river. I think the locals already know about the animals here what foreign zoologists take years to discover.

I took my book to one of the flat gray rocks above the river after lunchtime. The scenery there is wildly picturesque, a painter’s dream. On my way back up, I came upon a beautiful little lizard, clear whitish brown with dashes of orange and purple. I couldn’t figure out why on earth she wasn’t running when I was so close, until I saw a white lump squeeze out of her backside into the hole where she stood. She was laying eggs! How exciting; I got to watch a lizard lay eggs! As I stood transfixed, thrilled but pitying her surely pained condition (I have no idea where she put all of those eggs), a group of cows began stumbling over the stones and sand bank islands from the opposite side of the river. They nonchalantly headed right towards me. My immediate thought was to protect the lizard from being trampled. I stood awkwardly between the first cow coming up the bank and the lizard; she stopped and stared at me for a minute or so while a calf tried to nurse on hoof, flipping her tail and clearly confused as to why I wasn’t moving. I had to laugh at the look on her face: “Why isn’t this one moving? What in the heck? Oh, oh well. I’ll go around.” And she back stepped to clamor awkwardly through some bushes beside us. Soon the Maasai herder came along behind me, and I felt foolish standing blankly between his cattle and the lizard he probably had no idea of, blocking their way. I eagerly pointed and explained that a lizard was laying eggs; I think he understood, but just looked at me thoroughly unenthralled, probably wondering how these fisi camper wazungu could be so strange. Realizing it was time to relinquish my position, I waved goodbye and began to walk back towards camp, secretly chuckling but still worried about the lizard laying her eggs in such a poorly placed hole.

More wonderful wildlife in camp, always teeming! Lia and I swept up the contents of a bucket, spilled by the vervets that raided the outside of the kitchen tent, drinking from the dishwater and walking across the clotheslines. Some impala passed by my hidden desk unawares; I swear it is the best place in the world to sit and work, not to mention that I am often serenaded by Eli’s banjo in the tent nextdoor. And, although not technically wildlife, several cattle very inconveniently blocked the path to the choo just as I was planning on using it.

Researchers of unpopular animals unite! We met some vulture researchers on the road to Prozac. The PhD student from Princeton named Korin reminded me a ridiculous amount of our very own Megan Climans, so of course I immediately liked her. She has been going from kill to kill observing vultures, and said that some had actually begun feeding on a dying wildebeest while still barely alive. Weird! I had no idea they would do that. Korin has also been doing novel object testing with vultures. I would love to know how they react to strange objects!

And on the return trip to camp, wait for it, wait for it, WE SAW A SERVAL!!!!!!!! It didn’t even run away after we spooked it with the car, just moved over and sat curled up and alert by the road, huge ears flipping back and forth. It was unbelievable: a SERVAL! How finely molded, the perfect mix of beautiful and adorable, black spots turning into stripes as they hit the shoulders and flowed up towards the neck. When it stood to go pounce on something across the road, its tail proved to be striped with rings, halfway between being bobbed and normal length. I bet very few people can say that they have watched a serval for a full ten minutes, and I count myself extremely fortunate.

Roberta came to dinner without Kelsey last night; I hope Kelsey is okay. According to Brian, it’s not terribly unusual for Roberta to come alone, but I will still feel better if Kelsey shows up tonight. On the upside, Roberta was much less skittish, and even came to sit near my chair and stare up at me with her rust-red eyes and pointy face, waiting for me to throw something other than the pasta and cheese that she refused to eat.

11:42, Tuesday, 19 July, 2011

The whole camp shut down when we returned from Talek, meaning we all took a three hour nap without knowing that everyone else was doing the same. Then on night obs we found our first lion of the East! I am going to name the lions on this side after authors, but I haven’t picked one for this lioness yet. I was thinking Montgomery, but that sounds more boyish, even though L.M. Montgomery was a woman.

I met Pene and Ziti tonight, the subadults who make up what Brian calls the “best bromance ever.” One is rarely seen without the other. We all hope that they emigrate to the same clan.

At dinner Bilal, the Indian professor from the University of Michigan who has been staying here studying the effects of cell phone usage on cow herding, called me out for feeding Kelsey my meat. We rarely get meat out here, and this was “premo grassfed beef.” That didn’t stop me; I’m sure he knew it wouldn’t. There is no resisting that face, especially when she comes up and stands on her hind legs with her front paws resting on your chair. And meat is her favorite thing.

Yesterday morning I was reminded how truly different black rhinos are, with their little eyes that seem to be too far forward on their faces, and a big horn randomly sticking up out of nowhere. How marvelous, though! It’s incredibly rare to see a black rhino anywhere, as I think I’ve made quite clear, but especially on this side of the park. And it was walking so out in the open! It peed the “fine mist” that Julia described on our BEAM trip; it sprayed out from its back end in a sprinkler-like shape. There is some sort of thing going on between the Narock (sp) County Council and Brian Heathe, the former being the head of this side of the reserve, and Brian being the head of the conservancy. Apparently Brian is trying to take over the whole park or some such thing, and every time he does, the council has a black rhino killed. People are unbelievably stupid sometimes; stuff like that makes my blood boil. Dave has made rhinos a CI, or critical incident, so that they hyena researchers record the location every time we see one.

I went for a magnificent run when we returned to camp, fifteen minutes out and fifteen back in, huffing like Puff the Magic Dragon in the inescapable heat. Some silly impala were under the impression that I could catch up with them, and leaped away from the side of the road as I plodded along. A couple of kids yelled “Jambo jambo jambo!” from their post tending the sheep and goats, and this pushed me along with more gusto even though it took everything in me to wheeze a jambo in return.

Baboons ran screaming through camp early afternoon. Geesh, they were making a ruckus! Someone was definitely picking on somebody else. We now have to dodge a few big blobs of baboon dung along our paths, but it’s so worth it. There were at least four juveniles in the troop, hanging on precariously to their mothers’ backs, and one female had an infant under her belly that managed to pull itself up onto her back. A big male didn’t notice me while I was sitting at our desk writing, and I was ecstatic to watch him walk along nearby undisturbed. Later on, still sitting at the desk, I spotted something tawny and moving back in the bush. I was sure it was a lion, and then it mooed. Cattle. Kay would have had her squirt gun on them by now.

I spotted some slender mongooses back in the brush on the way to the choo. They sound identical to dwarf mongooses, but are larger, leaner, and have a very long tail with a black tip. So cute!

Driving out to night obs, we passed a couple of kids, probably eleven to thirteen years old. One of them made a weird face and did sort of an exercise lunge forward as we drove by. We all busted into laughter; Joe and I were totally that kid along DeWitt Road when we were younger. When we regained our composure, Lia turned to me and said, “Kids: universally silly.” So true, so wonderfully true.

And then... we came upon six subadult cheetahs, the cubs of Super Mom, the cheetah famous out here for successfully raising six cubs (whereas most cheetahs are lucky if they manage one). I LOVE CHEETAHS! And six of them! We were hoping one would jump up on our car like it did to Brian last week, but I was out of my mind just watching them lie there and roll over and yawn and be the sweetest and least intimidating big cats in the world. Lia and I have a lot of naming to do; I think we were better off before googling stones and minerals, because now we just have too many excellent choices.

Two thirty this morning, and I wake up to some very noisy chewing. God would have it that I forgot to close my window flap last night, making everything more audible. Hippo? I thought. No, it was eating from the trees, and coming closer. Before I knew it, the silhouette of a giraffe came into view. They were all around us, pulling and snapping leaves off the trees. I shook Lia awake, and we sat on my bed looking out at the one that had moved to within five meters of the tent. Amazing, amazing, amazing. And the best thing about giraffes is that there’s nothing to fear; they are extremely peaceful creatures. We opened all of the windows and lost a lot of sleep to our excitement. A younger one was visible from Lia’s bed. After about half an hour they moved out of sight, and the sound of their eating lulled me smiling back to sleep.

This morning, we discovered that the giraffes had been all throughout camp, and had woken everyone. Brian said he didn’t know what it was at first, but he thought, “Ohp, giraffe” as soon as he looked out and saw only a leg up to the knee. :) Eli was amusingly frustrated because he couldn’t sleep due to their noisy munching.

10:36, Monday, 18 July, 2011

During breakfast on Saturday morning, one of the pretty little brown birds with a yellow underbelly that we see all over the place flew down and started to eat some of the food on our tray :). There is a multitude of birds in this camp; the days are filled with color and song. I need to get Benson to take me around and identify them. He knows loads about birds.

The vervet monkeys first came to camp Saturday afternoon, and of course I had to sit and watch them. They were hilarious, bobbing their heads down, over, and up again while looking at me with their crazily human expressions. I pretended to forage and mirrored their head movements; eventually they relaxed. There were a couple of juveniles that gently played, and a female meticulously groomed an old male that I named Arthur. He didn’t seem to have a very distinct sense of hearing, because when I would move, he would perk up but look in the completely wrong direction; I don’t know if he ever became aware that I was sitting about a meter and a half away from him. Pretty soon the vervets permeated camp, and I could work from the desk on our tent porch while watching them, as afore mentioned. My favorite thing is being able to convince them that you are of no harm enough that they continue to go about their business: foraging, jumping from tree to tent, and interacting with other individuals.

On evening obs, we saw a cheetah! I decided on Calcite for its name; I don’t know if I mentioned it, but I let Lia pick the lineage for cheetahs, and she picked stones and minerals. The one we got pictures of back in Serena is named Obsidian. The cheetahs out here have it worse than Brad Pitt, Julia Roberts, and Clint Eastwood combined; there was a point in time at which EIGHTEEN tourist vans surrounded it. I’m glad people are so enthused about cheetahs, but geez-a-lou!

I can officially say I have stuck my hand in hyena poop. While collecting a sample, I accidentally let my finger slide into the rancid mess. If hand washing wasn’t one of my compulsions before, it became one for the next couple of hours. I have never done such a disservice to the prevention of bacterial resistance. Ugh! To make it worse, I have to deal with people like Eli while putting it in tubes for hormone analysis, who describe it to the person with the pen in very graphic terms, such as “fudge brownie with orange jello”. The people here make everything fun :).

A second sun rose in the sky that night; holy cow jump, was the moon ever wide and glowing! It reminded me of the harvest moons back home, just phenomenal. It’s tilted sideways here, so that its mountains look more like an imitation of the continents than a man in the moon. By the light of that moon, we watched an un-ID hyena dig frantically in a den, a behavior out of the ordinary repertoire. Maybe it was just feeling particularly ambitious that night, because dirt clouds flew up every which-way. For a while I thought it must be Gopher from Winnie the Pooh. Periodically the hyena would stick its head up and stare this way and that; eventually it went to work on another hole before walking away. Perhaps the hyenas had decided it was time for some renovations- new family room or patio.

We returned from Obs about an hour later than we used to in Serena. The hyenas have become markedly more nocturnal here due to human influence, adding to the ongoing conservation implications of Kay’s study.

Yesterday morning we drove out to Prozac, the territory named for its seemingly blasé hyenas. It takes an hour to drive there; no other job in the world could possibly make that 4:45 AM alarm worth it. I really like Prozac; it is directly across the Mara from South Territory in Serena, and it is where the first hoards of wildebeest caused us to rejoice from across the river. There were still many remaining wildebeest, giving me a further taste of the migration. The hyena cubs in Prozac are ADORABLE. We got to feed them popcorn because they have become skittish of the cars, and Eli needed to learn to identify them. Cholera and Ebola from the infectious diseases lineage were present, as was Wings. Curby was a little fatty, hogging all of the popcorn, and Platinum is just beautifully pale. I tried to distract Curby with lots of popcorn so that she could get some, as she was clearly subordinate to him. I accidentally got some popcorn stuck to his back in the process, and when we left he was still walking around with a white kernel sticking out of his fur.

We stopped in Talek for groceries on the way back. I met Mama Kristy at the grocery store, and talked with her daughter Kristy who had just recently traveled to Michigan State (the Mamas often take on the name of their first born, so Mom, you would be “Mama Joseph” out here). Kristy was the most modern-looking Maasai I have ever seen, with long hair and knowledgeable about other parts of the world. Goats, dogs, and donkeys walked throughout the dusty, littered dirt streets and courtyards between the little shops. Three little kids came up to shake our hands, smiling and giggling. Mama Kristy laughed and said that they were playing with the mzungu. We gave six Maasai children a ride in the back of our car on the way out. They were smiling from ear to ear, chewing gum, all with shaved heads. One of the girl’s fingernails were painted bright red, and she was just gorgeous with her pierced ears, dark skin and eyes. I really liked another of the older girls, probably fourteen or so, named Ana. She pointed to the other kids, telling me that they were her sisters and brothers, and walked back to the car to shake my hand fondly when we dropped them off before returning to wave beside the others.

14:58, Sunday, 17 July, 2011

I missed our hyenas on the morning of our first obs; I didn’t like having no idea who anyone was. But I can tell that I am going to love these hyenas as well. The cubs over here are chubby from the migration to the point that they look like teddy bears waddling up to the car, especially Eldor. Genetics are amazing! The hyenas on this side of the park have crazily distinct spots; it’s taking me half the time to identify them, and I already know some by heart. The cubs are also darker, and their faces shorter. I was very excited to see that Mojave had a white spot at the top of her tail, thinking it would be very easy to identify her, only to find out that Crimson, Moushou (Disney sidekick lineage!), and several other cubs have the very same white spot.

The hyenas are additionally much easier to find because of the short grass, and nine females in the Talek West territory have radio collars. The radio telemetry is neat to observe; the co-pilot wears headphones that start beeping faintly within a certain distance of the hyenas, and at that time it is handed off to the driver, who plays hot-cold based on whether the beeps get louder or softer. I have yet to find out the distance at which the beeps can first be heard.

One excellent thing about this camp is that we aren’t confined to it during the day. It was time to explore! Lia and I went down by the river, keeping an eye out for crocs and hippos. The river is much much tinier than the Mara, and very lovely. There are trees, some sand, and big gray, flat square rocks bordering it. Some of the banks are sloped just enough to be easily traversed, and some of the rocks are within the river, so we can cross over as desired. And to top it all off, agama lizards run across them at regular intervals.

21:47

We continued along a faint road, marveling at the perfect baboon tracks in the dirt and spooking some impala. The bush around here is out of a book, so different from anything in the United States. We came upon a Maasai herding his cows. He didn’t speak Swahili past “Jambo” and “Habari yako,” so it was very interesting the way I knew he understood when I introduced myself and Lia even though it wasn’t in Maa. I’ve heard that people of different languages can communicate very effectively in dire situations, and I believe it. Continuing on, we realized that we were in the reserve- oops. Janie had said specifically that she had crossed the river before going running in the morning. Therefore we returned to camp, picked up Eli and went for a walk across the river. Many Maasai women (who usually do the work concerning the cattle, home, children, etc. etc.) and children waved at us. Some of the kids would shyly dart behind bushes, giggling and only at the last moment working up the courage to wave. We marveled at the size of some elephant tracks, and scoped out a running route for the following morning, walking towards the mountains and discussing which American summer foods we miss the most. How delicious watermelon, cherry tomatoes, ice cream and lemonade sounded, especially since it soon became apparent that the dry season has finally awoken. Swirls of dust rose up periodically from the roads and savanna, and the equator sun beat down to burn us through our sunscreen.

On the return trip we got lost, not realizing that the river winds around. We crossed it, only to find ourselves in an unfamiliar bush thicket. We climbed through a troop of baboons up to a high bank overlooking the river to see if we could get an idea of where we were. A hippo peered at us from down below, looking larger than normal since the river is much smaller than what I’m used to. Suddenly the baboons erupted in chorus, and two of the males began chasing one another frantically around, fighting about a meter from us. Thankfully the scuffle was purely between the two them. Eventually, three Maasai boys from across the river asked if we were lost, and we crossed back over so they could lead us back to Fisi Camp. We were close, just a bit turned around.

Back in camp we discovered a fruit bat. Their eyes are so big, and I just wanted to squeeze it as it hung upside down staring at me over its long rostrum. The type of bat that lived in the Serena lab tent live in the lab tent here as well. Just today Eli decided he wanted to pet one, and reached up to touch an individual that was asleep. The bat didn’t even fly; it just woke up and started peering around as Eli retreated, ears flipping back and forth like mad, swinging to and fro from the poke. Poor thing, woken in such a rude fashion. I noticed it was hanging from only four itty-bitty fingers of one foot, the very tips of them barely touching the metal bar. It’s really miraculous that they manage to hang there like that!

Along with bats, there are African grass rats that hang around camp. I was delighted to see one nearby while sitting out at the desk writing. They remind me of Thumbelina, the wee baby rat I caught on the small mammal trap day of BEAM.

On my way back from my tent for dinner that night, I spotted two hyena eyes in the dark. I stopped and shined them, and it stared at me while I stared at it, making sure it was okay with my being there before continuing to walk. The hyenas must know that they are beloved and safe here.

Kelsey let me touch her tail about five times at dinner! She is such a sweet little genet. Her mom appreciated the chapatti I threw her as well.

The following morning brought a cub hilariously tripping over a huge piece of wildebeest skin it was carrying, aggressing at other cubs so as to avoid sharing a meal bigger than he was. Further along, several hyenas harassed a lone male buffalo lying in the bushes. Oddly, the buffalo didn’t seem to mind, and just kept chewing its cud as though it didn’t have five carnivores encircling it, and moving off only after a good solid half hour. Then a huge group of elephants wandered over, stuffing their faces and amusing themselves by mock-charging our hyenas, trumpeting and holding their ears out to the side and sticking their trunks straight out ahead. What an incredible apparatus, trunks. My favorite thing is watching elephants drink with them, curling them around into a little loop to deposit water in their mouths.

Eli, Lia and I went running as soon as we got back to camp. It was invigorating running out in the open towards the mountains, although the altitude makes it more difficult to catch one’s breath. We must be careful to keep an eye on the ground; Janie told us she nearly stepped on a cobra one morning!

Too tired to continue until tomorrow.