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.