11:25, Monday, 25 June, 2012

Well Dad, remember when I used to tell you I didn’t mean to do something, and you would say “well mean not to”?  I’m not sure that advice works for me out here.  Because I certainly meant not to get stuck on Thursday night; in fact, not minutes before getting stuck, I told Tyler and Ian, “Okay, we cannot get stuck, because we don’t have a phone.”  Someone upstairs has a questionable sense of humor. 

We were following the hyenas over toward Crocodile Den, excited to find out where everyone was going since Juno, Oakland, Alfredo?, and Alice were all headed in that direction with deliberation.  Ian swore there must be a secret hyena club meeting, perhaps to discuss how to save Echo and Foxtrot.  We had managed to follow Juno until she was almost to Crocodile Den, but it was getting dark.  I was afraid of getting stuck without a phone, so I reluctantly gave up the chase.  Trying to be responsible, only to lose the track to dark and find myself in probably the only wet patch for kilometers around since it hadn’t rained in ages.  And I could use none of the getting unstuck tools I had been taught as there were no rocks, no branches, no anything at a distance close enough to get to without risking being eaten or trampled.  There was nothing to do but wait and hope.

We sat in the dark for two hours, strategically leaving our lights off until it was late enough that the others might be missing us at the dinner table, and then turning the car on with them so as not to drain the battery.  I learned how to flash “SOS” based on Morse code from the boys: three fast for S, three slow for O, three fast for S.  We got through a lot of “would your rathers” and “out of these people who would you marry and why,”, before nearly giving up hope.  We had water and granola bars; we could have had one person on elephant watch while the other two slept.  But then the blessed headlights graced the hill; Kay to the rescue!  Unhappy, worried Kay to the rescue. :/  Shan’t be forgetting a cell phone again.  Cold pizza and everyone in bed when we got back.  Sitting around the table, I told Tyler and Ian I was glad it was them who were stuck with me.  They were calm as cucumbers the whole time, encouraging and sweet.  And I still love how there’s a new adventure at every turn out here.  I’m beginning to realize I am an adventure junkie.

22:20, Wednesday, 27 June, 2012

Nora left about a week ago for Serena, switching places with another graduate student named Julie.  We miss Nora tons, but Julie is also very fun to have around.  And I’m so glad there is finally another girl who will play soccer!  No longer the only one on the field who receives surprised yells when she does something halfway right.  And as a side note:  Joseph is absolutely amazing at soccer!  I personally think he belongs on an Kenya’s Olympic team.

Got water with Tyler the other day– we sang Disney songs on the way there and back to pass the time.  I feel like Jake and Joe would really understand how much I appreciated that (and happy birthday by the way, Jake!  yesterday.  Happy birthday very late also to Sam!).  While there, the normal water hose was broke, so we had to use this obnoxiously wide hose that shot water out at about a bajillion gallons a second.  Recipe for becoming muddy and soaked, that’s what it was.  Driving back a mess, I took a wrong turn.  We found ourselves on some gorgeous hills and had a very scenic drive before I nearly kissed the ground upon arriving back at camp.  Note to self: pay attention to which track you turn off of to get onto the main road.

We (Michelle, Eli, Julie, Tyler, Ian, and I) went to a birthday party in Talek town Friday night.  It was Delores’ 24^th birthday, a friend of Michelle’s.  I don’t think I have ever enjoyed a party so much.  It was in the courtyard of a stone hotel/bar, beneath the big equatorial stars on a pleasantly balmy night in humble Talek town.  There was African music and lots of Celine Deon (sp; she is a big hit here), and...I DANCED!  Not like I usually dance – my hips actually moved, and I didn’t feel self-conscious.  I just DANCED.  I don’t know what came over me, but I do know it made me so happy, and that people at home wouldn’t have recognized me.  Michelle and I were in the middle of the dancing circle at one point, and made up a bristle-tail dance in honor of the hyenas, holding our hands with fingers spread out like bristled tails by our bums.  Sometimes you just have to live up to being a bit off the mark, and I think Kay would have been proud. 

The best part of the party was mixing with the people there while dancing; we were no longer the wazungu (white people) riding about in a research car and turning heads, children pointing and saying, “Mzungu, mama!”.  We ceased to be apart and were accepted as a part, and it felt so wonderful.  I wish we were viewed like that all the time, but unfortunately our brains construct differences that aren’t there, only to turn around and generalize stereotypical similarities rooted in history and artificial truth.

It was wonderful when “Happy Birthday” was sung.  Delores’ closest friends danced and clapped, singing it over and over again beside “How old are you now?  How old are you now?”  Then there was a cake cutting song on top of it all; Delores seemed to be cutting the cake for ages, and I swear the “kata” (“cut”) song is still stuck in my head.  “Kata kata, usiogope!  Kata kata, ishirini na nne!”  (Cut cut, do not be afraid!  Cut cut, twenty-four!)  The cake was surprisingly delicious (desserts are not a common thing out here).  I may or may not have had more than my fair share...

The restrooms in Talek town are very male-centered, so we decided peeing to the side of the building between our cars in the dusty street was best.  A donkey gave me quite the start while I was in the process – never thought I’d live to see the day a donkey watched me pee literally in the middle of a  town, albeit dark.

The day after the party, we had a DNA extraction day.  When we shook up our prepared DNA tubes with isopropanol, you could see the DNA separating out!!!!!  I assume all the double helixes were clumped together, resulting in the twisted form of DNA visibly suspended in the tube.  Incredible.  The blueprint for each of our darted hyenas, right there before our eyes.  Science never gets old.

We have added to our 1-horned antelope group, expanded to include Giraffa camelopardalis (sp).  There is thus a one-horned giraffe named Gary to coincide with Sheila the one-horned grant, Jude the one-horned hartebeest, and Derrick the one-horned impala.  While driving around with Kay and Eli once, I suddenly yelled excitedly, “Sheila!!!”, and she screeched to a halt and looked around saying, “Where?!”. Erm, it’s just a one-horned grant we named.  She thought I was referring to some rare hyena or something, hence the dramatic stop.  I cannot help but wonder if she ever questions her choice of research assistants and graduate students based on how easily amused we are. :)

Unfortunately we have since picked up Samburu’s dead signal along the river; the collars start beeping at an accelerated pace if they are inactive for 24-48 hours, I think it is.  Eli looked for the collar down near the river, but no luck.  I wonder what happened to her, and I now know for sure there is no way I will be seeing Humphrey’s again.  :(  Seems to be rough times for the clan lately, but who am I to say whether this is abnormal?

9:34, Thursday, 28 June, 2012

Rain has limited our obs lately, giving us plenty chance to sleep in (“sleep in” having a new definition of 7:30 or so).  The morning in camp is seriously heaven.  Sun raying through waxy green leaves with that smell of post-rain earth ready to be inhaled at every step.  Shy dik-dik poking around the corners, fresh new day on the tip of every bird’s tongue.  Perfumed white flowers drifting down from trees in bloom.  There are many times out here that it suddenly hits me how overwhelmingly alive and exultant this place makes me feel, times it hits me that my being here is actually a reality, my burning dream unfolded.  These are some of the best realizations I’ve ever had.

Kay and Eli have left.  We miss them.  We grow pretty tight out here; hard not to when you live day in and day out with people.  It reminds me of college, how quickly attachments are made.  Dinner is not half as entertaining without Kay, and of course we miss Eli loads as well, especially poor Michelle.  But luckily she will be visiting America before too long, where she can see him again. 

Was sitting preparing for a hyena talk we gave to some tourists on my rock outcrop, peacefully writing up my piece in the 15:30 sun, when I was scared nearly out of my pants by the great blowing sound of a hippo directly in the pool below.  My heart skipped two paces, but once I realized there was no way that hippo could get up onto my rock without ample escape-time notice, I was delighted for its company and continued my work.  It’s head very rarely breached the surface; instead, it would descend, hidden beneath the muddy water, and I would see just its nostrils poke above the surface every now and again before going back down.  Chuckle-worthy indeed.  If it moved around beneath the water, little bubbles announced its whereabouts.  I sincerely like hippos, even if they are Africa’s most dangerous animal.  I shall have to think of a name for that one, likely a male since it was alone.

While out on obs, I periodically run into Isaac, one of the drivers from my BEAM trip three years ago.  It’s always nice to see him, and we help each other find the animals we need/want to see.  He smiles so big, and often wears a bright yellow shirt.  After last time I ran into him, we found elephants a bit further up the road, and a tiny one was playing in the mud again.  It would kneel down in it on one knee, the other front leg extended so that it looked very awkward, flaring its ears out, and near tipping over .  I could just hear it, “Come on, guys!  All we ever do is eat.  Look how fun this is!”  It looked like it nearly had an older kid convinced before we had to leave and get home for breakfast.

The hilux decided it didn’t want to open its gas gauge right before we had to drive to the talk (at least I got to see Maina again yesterday!  Always enjoy his company), so Julie, Michelle, and I piled into the new cruiser.  It was like something from a Three Stooges episode, the three of us cramped in that front seat, me in the middle with my legs to the side in order to make the stick accessible to Michelle and therefore basically on top Julie, each bump throwing us into each other and up in the air as we braced ourselves for dear life.  Fun times!  We met up with Steph’s husband Howard (whose tour group we were gave the talk to) shortly after entering the gorgeous wilder lands nearer Serena, and followed him toward their camp, happening upon...a hunting cheetah!!!  Poor tommies had no idea she was there.  We waited for about half an hour as she slunk closer, shoulders definitively raising, small head low.  I’ve never seen antelope 100% oblivious to the presence of a hunter; normally we count on them to find our carnivores.  The cheetah rolled playfully in the grass after every few creeps, tossing her legs in the air.  Perhaps her need for food wasn’t that dire, or perhaps it’s a normal thing for them to be so lackadaisical during a hunt?  Whatever the case, it was very cute.  Once she was in within 100 meters or so, she suddenly sprung up, and I have never seen anything so fast in my life.  Yes, you would expect cheetahs to make quick work of anything, but seeing it is a whole ‘nother story.  She shot in a perfect line, descending on that tommy in literally like 5 seconds.  We drove up to her after Howard’s tour cars (to my chagrin, as I’m always worried about alerting lions to the presence of a cheetah’s kill), and she bit its neck until it was suffocated, thankfully a fairly quick death for the female tommy (although once while the cheetah was catching its breath she sprung up and nearly got away!).  The cheetah breathed really hard and really fast for a long time before beginning to eat; it’s gotta be terribly hard and taxing work to sprint like that, especially under the midday equatorial sun.  She began by eating the rump of the antelope, which I learned is (oddly enough) every carnivore’s favorite portion of a kill.  Then she would stop and gasp again for breath.  AMAZING.  I can’t believe we got to see that.  Nature = best thing ever.  And it wasn’t quite as hard to watch as I anticipated; cats kill through suffocation rather than starting to eat things alive like hyenas, so it was quick work.  (Luckily, Michelle says that hyena prey usually goes into shock, no longer feeling the pain as they are eaten.  Hopefully the shock also impairs the cognition that would otherwise inform them of the current going-ons.)

The talk was great; I have never met people so interested in hyenas, with so many questions!  We must have been in the limelight for near 2 hours.  And we got lunch to top it off, a lunch that included STRAWBERRY SHORTCAKE.  Before we left, we accidentally walked upon one of the gentlemen taking a leak, and quickly turned our heads, at which point he yelled, “Don’t worry, it’s not a psuedopenis, it’s a real penis!”...playing on the morphology of hyenas we had just enlightened him on.  Really.  He should teach a class in how to make an awkward moment maximally more awkward.

17:56, Sunday, 24 June, 2012

It feels like forever since I’ve written!  The rain forced us to slow down today, offering the perfect opportunity to catch up a bit.  It’s unusual that it should rain during the day in Africa, but today it has rained all day apart from about an hour of the sun gasping for breath.  I FINALLY got all caught up on my transcriptions, which feels marvelous.

Arietti.  Unfortunately, the tale has an unhappy end (something I was not yet aware of when I prefaced it), but I think it’s a good tale nonetheless.  The night before I last wrote, we drove to Talek to do some errands in the evening.  The town has such a different feel in the evening – really lovely .  The children were out of school, playing marbles in the dirt and wheeling about their little homemade toys.  The air was calm, everyone starting to wind down, the sun casting long shadows across the trash, dust, donkeys, chickens, dogs, little shops and alleys with hanging clothes.  A drunken man in Bel Mara (Mama Kristie’s shop) held up a carrot and asked me what it was.  We gave little David the stuffed elephant from Nairobi Michelle and I went halfsies on; he had no idea what to do with it!  Come to think of it, I have never seen a toy in Talek.  Never.  Only the homemade ones, marbles, tires – funny how content the kids are.  You’d think they didn’t need a million two toys to keep them happy or something.  Still, hopefully David figures it out enough that our elephant makes him smile.  And I bet when he does that elephant will be loved to dirty slobbered pieces.

While we waited for Eli to take care of something or another, and most of our errands were done, Nora, Michelle, and I played peek-a-scare out the car windows with Caroline and Juliet (two of the girls from the other day) and a whole cohort of other kids.  After a while, Caroline looked thoughtful at the hyena research decal on our car.  “Someone poured oil on a bird,” she suddenly said.  I didn’t understand, and told her I was very sorry for the bird.  I later realized the hyena decal had caused her to connect us with animals - we must be people who care about animals.  Eli came out and sent Nora and I ducking through short alleys to find some meat for Joseph, Jackson, Wilson, etc.  When we came back, Eli was holding a baby bird, a sort of black swift with white painted across the tail, that some monster had actually poured oil on.  Caroline said it was no accident, and the poor thing was barely alive.  Who would EVER do such a thing?!  It’s darn lucky for that person I don’t know who he is.  But the big group of kids had led Michelle over to a small tree by an auto garage, where a two-chambered nest (the most elaborate nest I’ve ever seen – it had two separate rooms!  Wealthy bird family I guess) with the bird’s sibling aboard had been removed from its original location and placed on a branch.  The kids wanted us to save it.  We talked it over as the ten or so kids stood poking their faces through the car windows.  It was doubtful the mother would be able to find it, and we were going to try and help the oiled one anyhow.  Kay didn’t hesitate to say we should bring them home, so it was decided.

On the bumpy ride back, we went through about a bajillion names, finally deciding on Siri (“secret” in Swahili) for the oiled one, and Arietti for the healthier one.  They made not a peep the whole drive home.  For once in our lives we forgot dinner as we rushed about getting pipettes of water, and  pried their mouths open.  I brought out some soap and worked for a long time trying to wash the oil off of Siri with dishsoap, water and q-tips, trying to remember the methods I was taught while washing oiled turtles from the Kalamazoo River spill (why must our world run on such a harmful substance?).  But birds are endotherms, and although I had Siri tucked in my sweatshirt pocket all through dinner, trying hard to keep her warm, she died shortly afterwards.  Sometimes I wonder if I hope too hard – everyone told me it was useless, but somehow I still thought maybe she would be okay.

So began the adventure of raising Arietti.  As we voiced our need for bugs, which neither Michelle or I could bear to kill, Kay wielded the flyswatter and excitedly proclaimed, “I’ll kill something!”  She swatted at the great gathering of moths on the tent awning, and soon Arietti was falling asleep after a big meal.  I took her to my tent, where she slept in her nest within a box under my bed for the night.  I awoke at one am to her peeping, and a great smile spread across my face when I remembered. I pulled her out of the box and held her, opening her mouth and feeding her some moths we had stored in a cup, pipetting water in afterwards as I held her beak open.  I had to shed my pajama top because she left a great present there whilst I played mother bird.  At last she fell back asleep and I returned her to the nest.

The next few days, Arietti was Michelle and my adopted kid, with some help from Eli, Tyler, Ian, and Nora as well.  Arietti rode around everywhere in my pocket.  While I still had trouble killing things, luckily Michelle lost her qualms, walking around holding the fly swatter high and a mug to catch the falling moths in.  “Watch yourself, Kay!”  “Heads up, guys!”  Moths falling on the table in every direction.  Joseph and Jackson, Wilson, Lasingo and Steven even got in on the fun, although Jackson couldn’t bring himself to kill moths either.  He suggested we just feed Arietti to the genet, obviously catching onto the predictable reaction that my dad and grandpa go through great pains to elicit.  We’d wake up in the morning and our big burly askaris would have spent a portion of the night catching moths.  A couple days in I discovered that Arietti would open her mouth in great gobbly hunger if you touched the side of it, and we realized we needed something other than moths for a more balanced diet.  The hilarity – I stood out in the sunny driveway with my arms out as Michelle swatted flies that landed on me.  Once I misunderstood where she said a fly was when she asked me if she could swat it (we were desperate), and just answered “sure,” at which point she swatted me in a most unfortunate place and I jumped over in surprise just as Joseph was walking up the driveway.  I don’t even want to know what he thought was going on, and we could hardly explain because we were laughing so hard in between Michelle’s profuse apologies.

We even saved a parasitic lion fly in a test tube off of one of the hyenas we darted.  This is when I purposefully killed something other than a mosquito and the ticks on Obama for the first time I can remember.  Lion flies are fast, so I stood with the fly swatter in baseball bat position as Michelle tentatively opened the test tube.  I felt horrible, but I told myself I could do it.  One whack and it would be dead, it wouldn’t suffer.  WRONG.  I whacked that thing over ten times, and it just wouldn’t die!!!  We lost it after three whacks – I looked desperately for it on the ground so I could squish it out of suffering, but somehow it had ended up on Michelle’s shirt, to be found crawling around right as rain about five minutes later.  Back on the table – whack whack whack!  Still crawling.  Whack whack whack WABAM!  Still wiggling!  What kind of unearthly creature was this?  Its legs were still slightly moving when we fed it to Arietti. Needless to say that was the last of Arietti’s meals I contributed to harvesting.

Arietti had such personality.  She loved it when you would stroke her head, falling asleep immediately.  She loved sitting in the cup of your hand and burrowing into small nooks and crannies in your sweatshirt, once wiggling all the way up to try and burrow down in Michelle’s neck.  When we would put her in her box she would fuss around until we picked her up, at which point she was immediately content, clearly spoiled.  The others shook their head at Michelle and I when we would feed her, saying they should really take a video for youtube as we crooned over her, praising her every time she opened her mouth, so excited, Michelle’s accented “Good girl!” above the din of dinner conversation.  Well, we were excited, starting to think she might actually make it and we’d have a bird to add to our genet and bushbabies – possibly some company for breakfast as well as dinner!  Then, well, we got the call from Eli while returning from Prozac territory that she had died.  We think she probably got too cold while we were away, because she had eaten just fine that morning.  Goodbye, Arietti.  But I’m SO GLAD we got to know you, that we tried.

21:37, Wednesday, 20 June, 2012

I was very disappointed to discover that I hadn’t woken up to the elephants in camp the other morning as we gathered sleepy-eyed at the table for pre-obs tea/coffee.  Tyler couldn’t sleep because of them, and Eli said he was afraid they would cause a tree to fall on his tent they were so close (I really may have to move to his tent when he leaves).  But of course, whereas I used to wake up to the tiniest of fruit bat squeaks, I now sleep through elephants crashing through camp. 

Sunday morning I witnessed the most incredible display of animal behavior I think I’ve ever seen; Benson and I drove upon a clan war at the border between the Talek West and Talek East hyenas.  There had been some sort of kill that had stimulated the chaos, possibly made by the lions who left shortly after we arrived.  Twenty of our West hyenas were present, only five Easties – poor guys were terribly outnumbered.  But they gathered about 20 meters from the border at each side, and formed into a circled huddle bristle-tail and sniffing each another as though soldiers encouraging their fellow fighters.  Then, when all were ready, they would rush at the Talek East hyenas, who displayed similar behavior on their side.  Then they would rush back, regroup in a couple of little huddles again, and all at once charge back to the frontlines.  This was repeated several times, until finally our twenty Westies rushed across the border and chased the Easties well back onto their land.  The Easties retreated, and I assume if they had white flags at their disposal they would have been waving them frantically in the air.  Luckily there were no casualties; the Easties regrouped as our hyenas walked back in a proud, solemn but tired line, nearly single file although with odd uneven gaps.  I momentarily thought the five Talek East hyenas were going to try and salvage their reputation with surprise since they were still bristle-tailed and unsettled, but their general must have realized how silly that would be.  They whooped for reinforcements, but the six extra Talek East hyenas arrived too late.  The war was over.  Poor Puma must have been quite distraught throughout.  He fought on the side of Talek West, loyal to his family, yet I’m sure he was a bit confused as to what he should do given we saw him testing dispersal in East not so long ago.

Met two new males this morning, Perth and Lamu.  Perth has no tail!  I shan’t have trouble with that identification!  We have also discovered a new male in the territory, and since we have seen him three times, once interacting with an adult female (Artemis in this case), we will be naming him soon.  All of our immigrant males are named after cities.  I quite like the idea of a “Hong Kong” (Hong for short), “Petoskey,” “Sedona,” or “Tokyo.”  I’m sure this will occupy a dinner conversation soon.

Even more exciting, we finally found Amazon’s cub!!!  We knew she was hiding some offspring since we got milk from her during a darting.  We followed her to Big Bush Den and waited.  Like a new mother, she was very nervous to have us around, and plumb sacked out in the den hole once.  It must not have made a very good nursing position, however, because shortly she was back up on the side of the hole, and a few minutes after she lay down one tiny little black cub came meandering out of the hole.  Its eyebrows aren’t even white, yet its ears aren’t pinned back, making it an estimated three weeks old.  So precious.  Amazon groomed it roughly and it nursed.  Silly old Oakland came wandering about;  I have no idea how he got it in his head that Amazon would let him near her newborn cub.  Once within ten meters of her, she suddenly popped up and aggressively chased him away.  Boy, did he ever start!

I will have to write about Arietti tomorrow.  Hers is a very exciting story indeed, and it’s killing me not to write on it now, but I have to go to sleep – getting up at 4:40 to head out to Prozac Territory in the morning.  I am not looking forward to that alarm ringing.  And Caitlin and Joe and Grandma Signs, if you happen to be reading this, I am dying to call and talk to you guys, but my phone has been dead and a few other shinnanigans have prevented me from doing so (e.g. getting stuck with no phone in the dark out in the Mara and arriving back too late, a story to be recounted soon).  I am doing my best, and miss you all very much!  (Our internet is terrible as well.  I have taken to standing on the fallen log outside my tent so I can reach up and put my laptop there - must look ridiculous - since sometimes it gets better service that way.  But a lot of the time I end up wanting to scream and it’s all I can do to keep from tossing my computer into some abyss where I never have to see that AWFUL spinning color wheel ever again).

10:11, Sunday, 17 June, 2012

Happy Fathers’ Day Dad!  You’re the best dad anyone could ever dream up.

Well, Kay gave me a driving check and I passed, so I’m official now.  Drove Joseph to Talek to get a haircut the other day, a list of errands in my hand that I meandered through town to complete.  Got tons of fruits and veggies at Mama Kristie’s; I like her more every time I interact with her.  She gave me free mandazi to eat on my return trip – they are these delicious pocket bread things that are sort of like a donut but much less sweet and thinner and better.  While walking back toward Rafiki Auto Garage, where Maina was fixing a pipe under the cruiser, a line of great commotion - men on little motorcycles and standing in the backs of stick-shift pickups - came parading and honking and hollering in a circle around town.  I asked Maina, and he said it was a group promoting the Maasai man running for senator.  Fun way to promote him – like something out of the early 1900s in America, before the “My name is so-and-such and I support this utterly slanderous message” commercials.

I was finished before Joseph, and so sat in the dirt and talked with some little girls.  They spoke perfect English!  One’s name was Caroline.  “What a beautiful name you have,” she told me.  I told her I think hers is lovely as well.  They played with my hair and smiled real and sweet.  I had hoped to return to Serena to work because it is wilder over there, but then I think how I would have missed these interactions with Homo sapiens.  We really aren’t that bad a species.

Went to a primary school to drop off the donation from the BEAM program, the same school I visited three years ago.  The head lady was very grateful, and said the money would help to buy new chairs for the cafeteria.  Students in uniform were everywhere, and the children against the backdrop of the African plain and poor simple lines of single story schoolroom buildings seemed like something out of a book.  It awoke a nostalgia for something I never knew in the first place, as though I was somewhere I’d visited in dreams when a little girl, a past I’d forgotten, warm and nice.  Maybe I was connected to this place before I knew it existed, went to school here a long day or two in long ago nowhere.

Joseph and Jackson’s half brother unexpectedly died of an aneurism after knee surgery, and of course they went home for a few days.  Sad.  Old Joseph has left, and so lately Benson has been doing the cooking and camp caring instead of coming out with us.  His friend Wilson has come to help, along with a very quiet but hard-working guy of about the same age named Joseph.  Kay is thinking of hiring them, which would be great fun!  Wilson is wonderful; I don’t know as I’ve ever met anyone so kind.  For example, I all-out kicked him in the shin on accident while playing soccer the other day, and as he was falling over in pain all he could say was, “Are you okay?  Are you okay?”  Of course I am okay, Wilson!  I just walloped you in the shin and you’re worried about me, you crazy?

Wilson and Joseph may be much envied if they secure a position; fisi camp jobs are apparently a golden thing out here.  Just the other day I had two separate men ask me to please get them “kazi” (work) at Fisi Camp while I ran.  Wish I could have said yes, but Kay is already employing capacity.  At least camp will never be wanting for employees!  On the same run a clump of at least eight little kids ran out joyous from beside their mothers’ manyatta soon as they saw me, shaking my hand and smiling.  It’s a bit like being in a fishbowl sometimes, but the kids melt the shy and make for a happy fish.

More new people: the IRES undergraduate students have arrived, one from Duke named Tyler and one from Swarthmore named Ian.  They are both truly pleasant to have around, always wanting to help, AND they love Disney music so naturally we get along just fine.  Michelle, they, and I want to tweak the words to some good songs to be about hyenas.  Looks like we might have some darting help too – during practice yesterday, although neither had shot a gun before, both were right there next to the bull’s eye.  Nice! 

Speaking of darting, we darted Pan’s cub Mino the other day, and I can survive anything if I can survive being hit with that amount of cute.  So soft, so little, 14 kg.  Measuring his teeth would have been fruitless because he still has baby teeth.  We all got to hold him as though he were a little baby human, and I couldn’t help myself – I kissed his small sweet black muzzle before I handed him away.  I never wanted to let go.  But thank God I finally got to cuddle one of those cubs; it’s torture not being able to get out of the car and hug each and every one to pieces. 

We also darted Neon, and it doesn’t get any better than riding in the back of the hilux with a sleeping hyena, because the hilux is like a pickup: open to the wind and sun and fresh view of rolling Africa.  I was reclined back bracing Neon against myself, looking back out over it all while petting her beside me and feeling everything worth feeling.  So happy, a contentment I forgot could be ever since I was eight and my mind learned to endlessly prattle.

13:11, Sunday, 17 June, 2012

Everyone told me it’s a circus your first day out alone, and my experience did nothing to contradict them.  I set out with Tyler; I wasn’t alone by definition, but I was both driving and transcribing, with no one to look to for reassurance or correction.  First, our maglights both burned out, so it was “unIDhyena1” and unIDhyena2”, 3...4...Then one with a collar started sprinting after a tommy – I had never seen a hyena do anything more than lope, at most gently test out an antelope; you’d never guess one could have so much get-up!  It matched the frantic zig-zags of the tommy, and I was sure we were going to see a kill – something not often seen and important to transcribe!  I made a move to follow the competitors.  Well, while it probably would have been hard to follow whoever it was in the light, we hadn’t a chance with a burnt-out maglight.  Shortly we were trucking back to get a location and dejectedly continuing on, having seen nothing, only to come upon more hyenas at once than we had seen in days.  UnID’s 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10....missing behaviors, incomplete CI’s (critical incidents) all over the place.  At last it started to get light, and we could videotape for later identification.  Once it was appreciably light, I recognized my first hyena with no one there to help me, and it did indeed feel the promised good, like finishing a race or something. Thanks, Alderaan!  With a new boost of confidence we headed to the den.  Well, there is an enormo deep hole there that every other time has terrified me enough to give it an unnecessarily huge berth.  But today, what the heck?  I’ll just forget about it.  Good day to do so, with someone who has never been out on obs with me in the car, while the others are darting and can’t pick up the phone.  It’ll be fun, sitting lopsided in a hole for 40 minutes.  (Tyler claimed to still be having a great time.  You’ve never met anyone with such a splendid attitude.)  Eventually I remembered Benson was at camp, and he came to rescue us.  Tootling along again, the car starts to make a funny sound.  Out we hop, looking under the hood, checking all the fluids, but we could find nothing wrong.  Kay drove up while we still had our heads stuck under the hood.  Great position to be in when your boss drives up.  But thank goodness it’s Kay; upon hearing of my morning she laughed and merely assured me that’s how it goes.  And nothing was really wrong with the car; my mind had been playing tricks (can you blame it?).  One way or another I had completed the infamous maiden voyage, of which there can be only one.

The den is not so cheerful as usual.  We watch Foxtrot and Echo sacked out against one another, gradually growing skinnier and weaker.  They still wait out by the track as though expecting Drake to come back.  My eyes are welling up writing this; it’s no picnic to witness, and more than once den sessions have ended in tears.  I have decided to pray that some miracle adoption occurs; after all, we now know nursing from unrelated females is possible!  It could happen, right?  Still no Humphries, and shortly we are going to have to head up in a balloon with the tracking wires to locate Samburu’s collar – most likely without Samburu.  Haven’t seen Centaur or Gobi in ages; still haven’t seen Zenny at all, last summer’s favorite.  Good thing this job has an excess of rewarding aspects to outweigh the heartbreak! 

On the upside, I have discovered that one of my favorite things in the world is watching hyenas play.  Pantanal, Endor, and Crimson were really going at it the other night, wrestling and flopping on top of one another, ranks to the wind as Endor and Crimson were allowed to chew on Pantanal. Yummly bravely joined in the tussle with the big kids.    They get us all laughing so it sounds like I am watching “Everybody Loves Raymond” or “Frasier” at home with the family.

My love for these animals on a whole progresses, as though that were possible.  While I have always loved seeing hyenas, they were on par with other animals.  But now, while I am still outrageously excited with any animal, it’s special with the hyenas because I know them individually.  When we see one from afar, it’s like, who is it gonna be?!  Who am I going to get to see today?!  What are they going to be doing?  Are they looking okay?  It’s a whole different feel when you know a group of animals by name and have discerned their personalities.  While I used to have favorites, it’s getting harder and harder because they are all so perfectly unique that you can hardly say you love one more than another.

Saw a leopard this morning!  Lord, they are gorgeous with their light blue eyes and rosette spots, this one with black lines across its white chest.  It was balanced on a short limb of the aptly named Kay’s tree, jumping down and shyly refusing to return to the tommy it stashed there until we left.  It slunk about, poking its head up to see if we were gone yet, so that eventually we decided to leave it in peace.  We had followed Helios to this leopard from about a mile away, and I was surprised to see the leopard hiding from her.  Kay says that hyenas can actually steal food from and do some damage to leopards!  (So different from lions, who have as of late been staring fixatedly in pounce-position at the hyena decal on the hilux, so that I half expect them to follow our car in circles like last summer.)  Of course hyenas can’t climb, so we wondered why the leopard didn’t just stay in the tree.  Kay thinks Helios probably smelled the tommy from way far away, and hypothesizes that there is in turn some high frequency sound undetectable to our ears that antelope make when being killed; she has followed a group of suddenly perked-up hyenas four kilometers to a fresh antelope kill!

Saw one of our lab tent bats nursing!  All nestled up next to its reluctant mother, who flew away to a different area of the awning pole the first three times it attempted. The monitor lizards by the trash pit and river continue to crack me up in how skittish they are.  They make so much noise trying to get away from you that their run can hardly qualify as an antipredator strategy.  Granted, they are somehow very quick, if only in an awkward undulating primitive horizontal-upper-arm-and-leg fashion.  I did have some success as I lay on my rock peering over the edge at a lower outcrop last Sunday, finally getting an agama lizard to chill out enough for proper observation.  But that’s a far cry from the monitors, who have no meditative ability whatsoever.  Every anxiety order under the sun rolled into a species right there.

Well hello talkative baboon eating outside my tent window!

13:52, Wednesday, 13 June, 2012

So, hyenas.  Pieces of the drama of a world hidden continue to unfold. 

Some time last week we tracked good old Alice, now about 15 years of age, to the heart of a bush where she was feeding on a dead male cape buffalo – for the time being, low-ranking Alice had it all to herself.  She was FAT, fat and happy.  I have always been quite fond of Alice. At first this was mostly because Eli and Brian called her “Fat ugly Alice”, and I felt she needed a fan.  But now I love her for her own merit – not caring to be part of the hustle and bustle, a low profile low-ranker who does her own thing and has the most amazing cub ever.  Poor Alice though, her reproductive output has been quite awful.  Rebman is her only surviving offspring in fifteen years, compared to Helios who is only six and has popped out 8 babies, 6 of whom are doing very well.  It pays to be high-ranking, but Alice isn’t caught up in worrying about rank.  Living is enough for her.

Well, we left Alice to her buffalo and continued on to search for other hyenas.  Unable to find any, we returned to the buffalo, and Alice certainly no longer had it to herself.  The hyenas were absolutely everywhere, aggressing and squealing and alarm rumbling, and they were FAT.  We have to record into the DVR whenever a hyena is gaunt, fat, or obese.  Almost every single hyena I recorded was fat or obese, out of at least 30 of them.  Amusing transcribing the notes: “Endor is here, and he is fat.  Loki is sacked out, also fat.  Titan is obese, Hendrix is obese...”, and Benson going “Wow” in the background every time we’d see a new hyena, each heftier than the last.  I seriously cannot believe they could move – it was unreal. 

We buried ourselves in the bushes with our well-fed hyenas, several still gorging, and Eli had me just watch behaviors to learn, rather than stressing over recording them all.  It was extraordinarily helpful, not to mention terribly interesting.  I had never noticed the intricacy of behaviors devoted to appeasement: head bob, open mouth appease (hyena waves its head with its mouth open), submissive posture (a kind of sideways cower, exposing one’s side to the other while curling around, often with a “grin” of fear), giggle, back off, ears back, squeal, carpal crawl (hyena grovels about on its wrists like a feeding warthog).  And there are in turn many ways of asserting one’s dominance, starting with “t1” (least severe) and going up to a “t3 bite shake”, the most severe.  The t1 aggressions include intention movements, such as an aggressive look, a stand over (hyena raises its neck as though proud and stands over another like a statue with its nose pointed downward), a point (hyena approaches another with purpose and ears forward).  T2 includes lunging at another hyena, and half-hearted motions to bite.  The t3 bite-shake is very unkind, and looks rather painful.  It is just as it sounds, one hyena grabbing a hold of another while shaking its head.  Most times I’ve seen it the dominant hyena grabs the shoulder of its inferior.  Most aggressions are performed while “bristle-tail,” meaning the hyena’s tail is raised and the black wiry hairs all fanned out.  But you can imagine it’s absolute chaos trying to discern all of these behaviors left and right between a bajillion pairs of hyenas who are half-hidden in bushes, not to mention having to keep track of who is who and who is doing what.  Another thing hyenas do, rather human-like, is take out their anger on innocent bystanders.  If one hyena is aggressed upon, it sometimes turns around and aggresses on another, who has done nothing to deserve such treatment.  I feel this is because of something akin to embarrassment, or at least a need to reassure oneself that at least you are still higher than somebody, which that somebody better realize even though they may have just witnessed you being beaten.

Enjoying the show, learning lots, laughing at Foxtrot (one of the cubs – I think I remember it being Foxtrot) biting so hard on a piece of the head while trying to get a morsel that its back legs kept lifting right off the ground.  And before we knew it, there was only the enormous vertebrae and head of a once live and healthy buffalo, quite the stinky and impressive sight.  I began a final scan, but angry elephant trumpets in the bushes next door made all of our eyes widen and we cut the scan short and got out of there.  I loved listening to the DVR and hearing the elephants in the background, before I hear myself say, “Annnnnnnd elelphants are coming so we terminate this scan and leave.”

I got to draw blood from Hendrix the other morning! We were up on a hill with homey distant thunder and a rainbow.  With Kay directing, I got her nice big vein on the first poke.  Strange being on the other side of taking blood for once, tapping into physical diffusion and watching the tubes fill up with liquid.  You couldn’t even tell she’d had a needle in her when I finished, and I still have a couple drops of browned hyena blood on my jeans from when I pulled it out.  I almost don’t want them washed because the idea of having hyena blood on your jeans is just too awesome. 

Fun times at the den lately!  Juno has been sitting in den hole 4 for the last couple nights, staring out at us wide-eyed through the bushes, praying we don’t discover the secret we know must be nursing.  If only we could see them!  She has brought them to the communal den at last.  The other two little black six-weekers have been out some, head-bobbing at everyone and nearly falling over when they try to lift leg high enough so a big nose can fit beneath to greet them.  Amusingly, Sloth (sins lineage) is frequently sacked out and moves little during den sessions, and his sister Lust might have better been named Gluttony since we have seen her wandering around with an empty whiskey bottle!  Sloth and Lust’s older sister Vanity played with the cubs the other night.  She is Michelle’s favorite, and I can see why.  Although she is low-ranking and gets picked on by all the cubs, she keeps returning for more fun, happy to be accepted into romping with them at any level.  At one point Sloth was attempting to t2-lunge Vanity at the same time Rebman was play-mounting Sloth.  As Eli pointed out, it looked as though Sloth was saying “hold me back!” and Rebman was obliging, as Vanity submissive postured in fear.

Found two new cubs at Res Den!  We think they might be Magenta’s, as we have been picking her frequency up nearby.  She may have finally moved them from the natal den to where we can find them.  About time – they look to be as old as any of the others, 6 months or so.  We have dubbed them “Garbanzo” and “Chickpea” before we confirm our suspicion, and so can name them in accordance with Magenta’s “Pokemon” lineage. 

Tracked Moon Pie a couple days ago.  She always buries herself in bushes that you swear a mouse couldn’t fit under, and only leaps up when we are nearly on top of her.  Moon Pie is fairly easy to identify; her jaw is all off-kilter because she was kicked in the face by an antelope once while hunting.  She told us what she thought about our disturbing her slumber and left a smelly treat.  After dinner I began to wonder why I ever enjoyed scraping poop last year.  It felt so sciency, yes, but now I have blood work to satisfy that need, thank you.  The trick is to just not think about what you are doing.  And an interesting new fact I learned – some outrageously high percentage of hyena defecations (of which Eli could not quite remember) take place between 6:15 and 6:30 at night according to note analysis.  What on earth could cause such a weirdo phenomenon?

Met Moon Pie’s lovely daughter Honey, as well as the male Hartford.  Adding and adding until alas some day I will have seen them all, and their spot patterns might stop swimming in my head and settle down solidly beside their names.  I’m sure trying!  It takes so much practice though.  I once asked Benson for a hint when I was stumped on two subadults, and Nora, Eli and I busted out laughing when his hint was, “It’s Ted and Cy.”  Thanks, Benson.  I can sure get him laughing over that one now.

Humphries is missing and I am worried sick.  He was quickly grabbing my heart and becoming a favorite, eating right next to the car and looking up at us with big and sweetly expectant eyes.  We haven’t picked up anything from Samburu’s collar in ages, and I regret insulting her mothering skills because it seems something has happened to her.  Nature can be cruel, and it’s the challenge of all challenges for a zoologist to have to know a cub is starving and be unable to do anything about it.  But it’s not the only challenge.  The other night we saw Foxtrot and Echo sitting a ways outside the den, waiting for their mother Drake, but we knew she would soon be there to feed them.  But she wouldn’t be, and she never will be again.  Two days later during evening obs we received a call from Riz the balloon pilot.  He found her while out riding on his motor bike.  We expected Samburu, but were told this hyena had a green and yellow eartag, something only Drake has.  We had just collared her days before, and drove somberly to the darkening and deserted field above Talek town where she lay.  It is the weirdest feeling having just seen her alive and well, nursing those two precious cubs only days before, walking about being a hyena, unusually small and cute Drake.  And now she was lying in a field, with a few hyenas scattered in the distant bushes, doubtlessly responsible for the part of her stomach that had been eaten away.  We looked for a spear hole, but found none.  There were no lion bite wounds, no wounds at all in fact, and we were perplexed.  Had it been a poisoning, there should have been other dead hyenas around.  We collected the head and the collar – Eli bravely whacked off the head of one of his favorite hyenas with a machete, doubtlessly emotionally destroyed but hiding it well.  That’s when the tears started for me.  Maybe it seems foolish crying over a dead hyena, but it’s not only people who have complex lives and loved or loving ones to leave behind.  Life is so fragile.  So amazingly resilient, and yet so fragile.  This time it was fragile.

It was a quiet and gruesomely smelly drive home.  We all knew we were going to have to watch Foxtrot and Echo starve, or at least know that’s what had happened or was going on.  Michelle had stayed back after the long drive from Nairobi, and she was having a hard time when we returned, wishing for all the world she could go to the den and return with a cub under each arm.  Didn’t we all.  I kept her company while she said goodbye to Drake.  Kay told me before dinner this is the hardest part of the job, so I guess I can make it through the worst. 

While cleaning the head today Kay found that the zygomatic arch was crushed.  Drake was hit by a car.

Bye, Drake.  

10:59, Saturday, 9 June, 2012

Happy birthday to my godson Adam!  I love you very much, and I hope your day is wonderful.  Think about you often, pray for you always.

Fun-loving, or at least something akin to it, must be in the job description of a balloon pilot.  A few days ago, right before Steph left, we had Ellie, Milton, and Andrew over for lunch.  Ellie is very bubbly, Milton wittily funny, and Andrew like a big grumpy bear with a fitting sense of dry humor.  Ellie brought us a coleslaw salad – it tasted SO GOOD.  We don’t get salad out here past sukuma and other assorted vegetables that definitely don’t include leafy greens.  She also brought CHOCOLATE.  If there’s anything I miss about home right now, it’s the ice cream.  Ellie’s chocolate got me halfway there, biding some time before I am forced to faint for lack of mint chocolate chip in a cone.

Thursday night we extended our association with the pilots by going over near Tipilikwani Lodge to have a poker night.  Ellie and Milton live in a lovely little house – a house, I might add, with a flush toilet.  The luxury!  We had to trek at least a mile around a huge fenced-in field of some kind to get to the house, a Maasai man escorting us with his spear.  About halfway through, Kay exasperatedly exclaimed something to the effect of, “This is madness.  There must be a way along which we are less likely to meet Magenta for heaven’s  sakes!” in a voice that would cause even Mona Lisa to crack a genuine smile.  (Magenta’s GPS points show that she is hanging out in that very area.) Upon arriving, we met three more jolly balloon pilots named Sebastian, Sean, and Steven, and ate grilled cheese with tomatoes and chips and scrumptious bean dip.  I had forgotten how to play poker, but soon remembered – I like to think it was merely the cards’ fault that I was the second one out of chips.

On our return trip we all unknowingly stepped in a line of safari ants, save Eli.  We were crossing the foot bridge just before reaching the car, when Kay all of a sudden yelled “ow! ouch!”  About a minute later Ali was hopping up and down, and I knew I was next.  It was like walking a plank of unknown distance with your eyes closed, waiting for the splash.  Sure enough – the first little bugger had made it all the way up to my bra!  The car ride home was rather comical (however painful), filled with intermittent “Ouch!”’s and “Ow!”’s.

21:50, Sunday, 10 June, 2012

The following day Kay, Eli, Ali and I set out to fixing camp’s electricity.  My tent and two of the others lacked a working bulb – kind of hard bumbling about half asleep in the morning, trying to get dressed with only a headlamp.  Having never done anything electric, it was a learning experience.  Yet we didn’t have to be near as careful as you normally would since our power reaches 14 Volts at most, supplied by the sun alone (which for the record works splendidly).  We pulled up all the wires and scrubbed away corrosion; Kay showed me how to properly tighten connections and Eli how to apply toxic-smelling silicon afterward.  And all of this against a background of vervets jumping up and down on the top of my tent like circus clowns.

Speaking of vervets, we have friends old and new in camp!  When the balloon pilots were here for lunch, a whole troop of banded mongooses ba-bumped along out of the bush, at least 10 of them.  We discovered they trill like tenor dwarf mongooses, and are very fond of chipate indeed.  I sincerely hope they return.  I’m very envious of Kay, as she saw a small rock python on the way up to her tent – she said it was beautiful. Someday I am going to see an impressive snake!  It sounds like the numbers have been down lately, which worries me ecologically, but should probably make the place a bit more attractive to my parents come Christmas.  I awoke from a nap to a pretty woodpecker on the fallen log just outside my screen, very similar to a larger version of the downy woodpeckers back home, except with gentler colors such as a sandy brown.  The bushbabies are at dinner every night now, eagerly reaching for the things we offer.  Often I look down to find two enormous eyes looking up expectedly at me.  The other night I gave the littlest bushbaby a piece of chipate so large that its vision was obstructed as it hung from its mouth; it went to do its normal bounds back into the trees only to leap right into a tent post, momentarily confused but mostly unfazed as it regained its track and hopped around the post undeterred.  Then just tonight I got it to venture up onto the chair next to mine – it has come a long way since the days it huffed like an olympic athlete due to mere proximity.  Although Kelsey hadn’t been around for a while, making me worry, three genets were at the table tonight, and I’m certain one must have been her.  And so cute – when genets come into contact, they raise their necks and sniff one another in the air, making light chuffing noises and the most adorable squeals before parting ways.

Out in the field, the widow birds are lekking, jumping ridiculously up from the weeds before immediately descending back down as though on pogo sticks, so that when scanning the plain you see these black birds popping up and down like whack-a-moles.  I chuckle every time.  Two gorgeous storks of a kind I’ve never seen storked about the grass last night, bright yellow at the top of their beaks between their eyes.  A family of bat-eared foxes lives by the landmark Paul’s Tree; we see them near every morning and evening on the drive out/back.  We also have two new 1-horned antelope to go along with Derrick the impala: Jude the hartebeest and Sheila the female grant.  As for our hyenas, they are doing very well; I am going to free myself to write solely on them next post.  

Went down to the river a couple of days ago to check out my old crossing spot.  I jumped across to the little sand island, but the water on the other side was running too fast for comfort, and I got the crocodile heeby-jeebies and ran back to the safe bank.  There was a lone shoe sitting on one end of the sand island that didn’t help my wild imagination;  perhaps it belonged to the last person who tried to hop over!  I still haven’t managed to see a crocodile – much though I want to, I think it would result in my running along the fire break for weeks on end before finally working up the courage to cross again.  I ended up crossing by where we cross to play soccer, this time using some steeper rocks that offer a drier route.  It was nice to move outside of camp some, especially with the mountains as a backdrop.  I dreamt of climbing one of those mountains last night, and now I’m itching to do so while awake. 

When the laundry mamas came the other day, I was out reading on my favorite rock outcrop above the river.  I heard them laughing and chatting away as they jumped over, something you don’t hear much from Maasai women, who tend to have a silence embedded by their culture.  It made my heart happy to hear them so free-sounding when alone.  Once one of the mamas saw me, she got a huge smile, and ran over to warmly shake my hand and inquire as to how I was.  It was enough to make my entire month.  And just as quickly as they had come in their colors and cheer, so they left me to quietly read, except this time with a new smile to keep me company.

Ali has been gone for a few days now.  We were sorry to see her go - something I really liked about her is that when she talks she talks to everyone, looking even at the people such as me who don’t necessarily care to talk a whole lot.  Now the grad student named Nora has come for her two month field season; she is so fun and kind, easily amused and always hungry like me.  A kindred spirit.

15:07, Thursday, 7 June, 2012

Darting – officially one of the most amazing things I have ever done.  And the last three have involved quite the experiences.

Tuesday Eli darted Radon.  As I was taking teeth measurements, we looked up to find three lionesses not 75 meters away and coming closer, clearly unafraid and the leader swishing her tail back and forth in what appeared to display an appetite for mischief.  They must have smelled the cruiser, still reeking of the meat it no longer contained.  Well, pardon my French, but there’s nothing you can possibly think when you have a sleeping hyena laid on a stretcher before you, tools everywhere, and look up to see lions approaching but “Oh, shit.”  Well, we obviously had no choice but to finish elsewhere.  Quickly loaded Radon and jumped in the back of the cruiser with him and Eli while Benson kept an eye on the lions and the other three shoved the tools away.  Luckily we were able to finish a couple plains over unscathed.

Wednesday we darted beautiful Shadowfax, and found out he is a she.  It’s hard to tell from regular observation when the only really reliable difference in cubs and subadults is a pointed (male) versus a rounded (female) tip of the phallus, which is not always out in the first place.  I measured teeth and took bacterial swabs, quite fond of those two jobs.  As I was going for the occlusal surface of the lower third premolar, Shadowfax pinched her jaws together slightly, and I found my finger being squeezed by hyena teeth: Ouch.  Someone pried her mouth open for me and no damage was done, but I sure as heck would not want to be bitten with any sort of force behind those jaws!

Today was my favorite darting yet, although also heartbreaking and angering.  We darted Obama – the hyena, not the president, no worries.  We won’t have the FBI coming after us.  She’d had a huge snare constricting her neck for quite some time now; it’s incredible that she survived.  This hard metal snare was many times the thickness of most snares, about that of a pencil, and it’s a testament to the strength of hyena jaws that she was able to chew out of it.  Kay cut the snare off, and we dressed the enormous wound with what seemed like gallons of antibiotic powder, along with some corn flour to assist in clotting.  Poor Obama; how awful!  She must have been in some severe pain.  But the feeling of having freed her was so great that the thought of becoming a wildlife veterinarian is suddenly extraordinarily attractive.  It just felt so wonderful to be able to help with conservation in such a direct way.  It’s hard to say whether we get further with theory and education or hard labor against such attacks on wildlife.  What is plain is just how frustratingly slow science and education and the attempt to spread a sense of moral responsibility can be; it feels like fighting a losing battle, and can become quite disparaging at times.  Just the other day Eli found the severed head and paws of a lion.  You have to wonder if things are improving at all sometimes.  Yet the only thing there is to do is keep fighting regardless, because our world would already be decimated otherwise.

But drawing back from that tangent, I had the honor of riding in the back of the car with Obama, keeping her steady.  I pet her and held her gushy paws and applied more antibiotic powder when the pus started to ooze again, and then the height of true love –  I pulled several tics from her.  Found myself singing quietly to her in a way that the others couldn’t hear.  Good ole Obama.  She is going to be fine now.  I can only hope this is a good omen for the election.  Perhaps Barack will win despite the snares of greed and misconception that all too often suppress the voice of democracy.  And Lord knows Romney is a name that will never be given to any hyena in the president’s lineage regardless.  The only thing more pathetic would be a hyena named Bush.

13:29, Thursday, 7 June, 2012

Life has settled down into the old happy routine I remember from last summer.  It is a routine full of animals; what could be better?  Get up at 5, hit the snooze button four times, roll out of bed at 5:16, arrive at the lab tent at 5:27, leave at 5:30 for obs.  See tons of crazy cool things on obs – work hard to id hyenas and record everything.  Get very excited with each familiar face.  Good morning Monopoly!  How’s it going Twister?  Oh hey, there’s a baby giraffe with the most ridiculous tufts that look like brown sea anemones coming out of its horns.  And try your best not to hit the guinea fowl while in third gear.  Maybe get a darting, return and do bloodwork around 9:30.  Finish at 10:30.  Delicious breakfast from Joseph.  Type of notes, camp maintenance (which sometimes takes up most to all of the afternoon), free time to watch the plethora of camp life or read or write or attempt to learn how to use your awesome new camera or play the harmonica, cold shower after exercise every third day, nap every other day, obs again at 5.  Lots of interactions as the sun begins to set, cubs playful at the car side.  Keep an eye out for elephants on the return trip at 8:30 – they’re huge but hide amazingly well after dark.  So hungry by dinnertime when we get back.  Share half my plate with Kelsey and the bushbabies.  Sit around for a bit after dinner talking.  Head to the tent at 9:20-9:30ish, watch out for hippos on your way there, and for heaven’s sakes don’t use the actual choo.  Read for a bit, lights out at 10, fall asleep to the music of a sawing leopard or roaring lions or hippo burps or elephant rumbles or the crazy starling above your tent and always whooping hyenas.  Coolest job ever. 

But things are never too routine.  For instance, lately we have tried a whole new experiment.  Michelle has gone to Nairobi to help Dave and Julia pick up the IRES students, and in her place for a few days we got Steph and a lion researcher from the Serengeti named Ali.  Ali brought some lions with her.  Finally, lions you can cuddle!  A little oversized, however, and very fond of standing in one place.  Transvestites too, with Velcro where a mane can be attached if desired.  A few places where some stuffing is popping out, but very realistic eyes.  Enough to fool the hyenas, at least for a bit.

The point of our experiment has been to record lion-hyena interactions for later study.  So, for the last three or four days, we’ve used a good chunk of evening obs to get a feel for where the actual lions are hanging out; that way we can pick a spot far away to set up ole Lethario and Fabio (don’t want to give them any more holes, or unnecessarily cause hyena injuries). Then, just before dawn, we would set them so they poked out of some bushes.  Kay attached rope to some dead goat from Talek (RANK!), dragging it around – hilarious – the lions and across the nearby grass to spread the smell.  Next, we positioned our cars in order to tape from two different angles, and played recordings of lions roaring and hyenas whooping at a kill.  This is a useful tactic Steph used during her dissertation research to draw hyenas to the supposed action.  Eli and Benson recorded the going-ons into DVRs, Ali and I taped, Steph played the recording and then she and Kay sat back to take in the gestalt of combined behaviors.

Our trial in Talek East the first morning was a bit of a bust; only about five hyenas showed, and they were too nervous with such a small number to approach the fake lions.  But that’s just as well, seeing as it enabled me to retain my head after somehow getting the pause and record buttons on the camera confused. The second morning we drew in at least 30 of our Talek West hyenas, giggling and bristle-tailing and whooping to draw in more troops.  However, they figured that something was fishy before forming any of the desired coalitions.  It was funny watching them approach the lions, waiting for a roar or a swat, only to make off with some meat unchallenged.  Some stared from 3-5 meters away for prolonged periods, clearly confused but too nervous to approach.  Eventually their bristle-tails relaxed some, and Loki actually came up from behind and sniffed Lethario and Fabio.  Our cover was blown, and the hyenas began to disperse and have side squabbles over the meat chunks.  We hastily picked up the lions before the hyenas could decide fluff tastes good. 

One of my favorite things about this second run was the jackals – they never cease to amaze me with their boldness!  Such tiny little carnivores, but among the very first to arrive when the roars and whoops were played, as though they enjoy eating at a table with carnivores many times their weight who might easily add them as a side dish.  But they, unlike the hyenas, never hesitated.  Not five minutes passed before a jackal was trotting off, head in the air with a chunk of meat half its size.  Some of the hyenas decided this just wasn’t fair, but that jackal was up for the chase and kept its prize.

Well, we were going to try to fool our friends one last time.  But this time we tried harder to elicit coalitions.  Eli got some lion roars from the internet so that we could play them once the hyenas started feeling comfortable, which would hopefully keep the situation more realistic.  We also bought a fresh sheep from Lasingo.  I made sure not to set eyes on that sheep, and to be absent from camp when the guys slaughtered it.  Much of it went to meals (Kay made a delicious mutton dish!), but the things that are impossible to stomach (head, bones, intestines and other organs) plus a few cuts of meat were run about the savanna two days later (we took a day off due to a lion sighting in our spot the previous morning) by Eli in front some bushes near Fig Tree Territory.  We had to stifle our gag reflexes with all our might, it was so horribly fowl.  Then, not two seconds after alighting at our posts, what should come out of the very bushes Eli had just been running about with meat attached but six lionesses!  That probably could have been bad.  No time to think about that though – time to rescue Fabio and Lethario!  The cruiser blocked the lions, and we jumped out to heave the fakes into the back of Kay’s new pickup and drive off, leaving the ladies with a stench-ridden meal.  Well, in came 15-20 hyenas, and we had ourselves a real lion/hyena interaction to record!  The lionesses chased off and roared at the hyenas, but eventually the hyenas banded together enough so that they retreated.  Although the hyenas won, it was after the lions had a good share, and Kay is inclined to think that lions don’t care for old meat so much.  But I must not sour the victory of my friends!  They were heroic.  And of course, there were a couple of jackals trot-trot-trotting around in the mix, as well as a lone obnoxious guinea fowl that belted on the sidelines during the entire escapade.  A good end to our latest adventure.

13:29, Thursday, 7 June, 2012

Life has settled down into the old happy routine I remember from last summer.  It is a routine full of animals; what could be better?  Get up at 5, hit the snooze button four times, roll out of bed at 5:16, arrive at the lab tent at 5:27, leave at 5:30 for obs.  See tons of crazy cool things on obs – work hard to id hyenas and record everything.  Get very excited with each familiar face.  Good morning Monopoly!  How’s it going Twister?  Oh hey, there’s a baby giraffe with the most ridiculous tufts that look like brown sea anemones coming out of its horns.  And try your best not to hit the guinea fowl while in third gear.  Maybe get a darting, return and do bloodwork around 9:30.  Finish at 10:30.  Delicious breakfast from Joseph.  Type of notes, camp maintenance (which sometimes takes up most to all of the afternoon), free time to watch the plethora of camp life or read or write or attempt to learn how to use your awesome new camera or play the harmonica, cold shower after exercise every third day, nap every other day, obs again at 5.  Lots of interactions as the sun begins to set, cubs playful at the car side.  Keep an eye out for elephants on the return trip at 8:30 – they’re huge but hide amazingly well after dark.  So hungry by dinnertime when we get back.  Share half my plate with Kelsey and the bushbabies.  Sit around for a bit after dinner talking.  Head to the tent at 9:20-9:30ish, watch out for hippos on your way there, and for heaven’s sakes don’t use the actual choo.  Read for a bit, lights out at 10, fall asleep to the music of a sawing leopard or roaring lions or hippo burps or elephant rumbles or the crazy starling above your tent and always whooping hyenas.  Coolest job ever. 

But things are never too routine.  For instance, lately we have tried a whole new experiment.  Michelle has gone to Nairobi to help Dave and Julia pick up the IRES students, and in her place for a few days we got Steph and a lion researcher from the Serengeti named Ali.  Ali brought some lions with her.  Finally, lions you can cuddle!  A little oversized, however, and very fond of standing in one place.  Transvestites too, with Velcro where a mane can be attached if desired.  A few places where some stuffing is popping out, but very realistic eyes.  Enough to fool the hyenas, at least for a bit.

The point of our experiment has been to record lion-hyena interactions for later study.  So, for the last three or four days, we’ve used a good chunk of evening obs to get a feel for where the actual lions are hanging out; that way we can pick a spot far away to set up ole Lethario and Fabio (don’t want to give them any more holes, or unnecessarily cause hyena injuries). Then, just before dawn, we would set them so they poked out of some bushes.  Kay attached rope to some dead goat from Talek (RANK!), dragging it around – hilarious – the lions and across the nearby grass to spread the smell.  Next, we positioned our cars in order to tape from two different angles, and played recordings of lions roaring and hyenas whooping at a kill.  This is a useful tactic Steph used during her dissertation research to draw hyenas to the supposed action.  Eli and Benson recorded the going-ons into DVRs, Ali and I taped, Steph played the recording and then she and Kay sat back to take in the gestalt of combined behaviors.

Our trial in Talek East the first morning was a bit of a bust; only about five hyenas showed, and they were too nervous with such a small number to approach the fake lions.  But that’s just as well, seeing as it enabled me to retain my head after somehow getting the pause and record buttons on the camera confused. The second morning we drew in at least 30 of our Talek West hyenas, giggling and bristle-tailing and whooping to draw in more troops.  However, they figured that something was fishy before forming any of the desired coalitions.  Funny watching them approach the lions, waiting for a roar or a swat, only to make off with some meat unchallenged.  Some stared from 3-5 meters away for prolonged periods, clearly confused but too nervous to approach.  Eventually their bristle-tails relaxed some, and Loki actually came up from behind and sniffed Lethario and Fabio.  Our cover was blown, and the hyenas began to disperse and have side squabbles over the meat chunks.  We hastily picked up the lions before the hyenas could decide fluff tastes good. 

One of my favorite things about this second run was the jackals – they never cease to amaze me with their boldness!  Such tiny little carnivores, but among the very first to arrive when the roars and whoops were played, as though they enjoy eating at a table with carnivores many times their weight who might easily add them as a side dish.  But they, unlike the hyenas, never hesitated.  Not five minutes passed before a jackal was trotting off, head in the air with a chunk of meat half its size.  Some of the hyenas decided this just wasn’t fair, but that jackal was up for the chase and kept its prize.

Well, we were going to try to fool our friends one last time.  But this time we tried harder to elicit coalitions.  Eli got some lion roars from the internet so that we could play them once the hyenas started feeling comfortable, which would hopefully keep the situation more realistic.  We also bought a fresh sheep from Lasingo.  I made sure not to set eyes on that sheep, and to be absent from camp when the guys slaughtered it.  Much of it went to meals (Kay made a delicious mutton dish!), but the things that are impossible to stomach (head, bones, intestines and other organs) plus a few cuts of meat were run about the savanna two days later (we took a day off due to a lion sighting in our spot the previous morning) by Eli in front some bushes near Fig Tree Territory.  We had to stifle our gag reflexes with all our might, it was so horribly fowl.  Then, not two seconds after alighting at our posts, what should come out of the very bushes Eli had just been running about with meat attached but six lionesses!  That probably could have been bad.  No time to think about that though – time to rescue Fabio and Lethario!  The cruiser blocked the lions, and we jumped out to heave the fakes into the back of Kay’s new pickup and drive off, leaving the ladies with a stench-ridden meal.  Well, in came 15-20 hyenas, and we had ourselves a real lion/hyena interaction to record!  The lionesses chased off and roared at the hyenas, but eventually the hyenas banded together enough so that they retreated.  Although the hyenas won, it was after the lions had a good share, and Kay is inclined to think that lions don’t care for old meat so much.  But I must not sour the victory of my friends!  They were heroic.  And of course, there were a couple of jackals trot-trot-trotting around in the mix, as well as a lone obnoxious guinea fowl that belted on the sidelines during the entire escapade.  A good end to our latest adventure.

21:44, Saturday, 2 June, 2012

The cutest thing:  Humphries was following Harlem the other day!  I’m not so sure about Samburu’s mothering skills – we have seen Humphries far from the den multiple times with her nowhere to be seen.  He’s our brave little wanderer.  But to see him tagging along after a male was certainly surprising!  I wonder if Harlem is possibly Humphries’ dad?  I doubt a hyena could know that.  Genetics account for many affinities in the animal world though, true.  Maybe there is some way they can sense it?  Doubtful, but doubtlessly possible.  I cannot wait until we can dart some of these cubs and discover their parentage!

I sense trouble in Hyenaville.  We have seen FOUR alien females in the Talek West territory over the past couple of weeks – four!  An alien female hasn’t been confirmed since the summer of 2010 or something, and is a rare occurrence for sure.  It makes me wonder if things are shifting, and I feel nervous for our hyenas.  And the four alien females are not the biggest of recent oddities.  While we were compiling three months’ worth of notes and updating lists (new cubs, new landmarks, missing hyenas, aliens, new hyenas, master hyena list...), I was looking casually through the ID book, and noticed that the cub named Xena is the same individual as the cub labeled Hoth.  But Michelle had seen “Hoth” nursing from Loki, while we know that Xena is definitely nursing from Parcheesi.  Almost 25 years without a cub ever observed nursing from more than one hyena, and here it’s happened between two sets of hyenas in the last few months!  I have an extremely out-there hypothesis that the rising occurrence of aliens and this multi-mother nursing might somehow be connected.  Perhaps these females are more cooperative because they sense a clan war is brewing on the horizon?  Doubtful, but doubtlessly possible.

Vervets and baboons rampant in camp yesterday.  You can’t help but chuckle a bit when you’re sitting under a tent awning and energetic vervets are crashing onto the tarp above as though it were a trampoline, chasing each other and hollering and creating a colossal ruckus.  And apparently vervets do not like mongooses, as about five of them started throwing a tantrum and chasing a slender-tail, jumping at it from the trees above, poor little dude.  Then I was sitting reviewing notes with Michelle, and next thing we know there’s an enormous baboon just chilling to the side of the lab tent.  It gave me a start to turn and have that big guy right there!  Michelle and I took turns shooing his troop and the vervets away from the unguarded kitchen tent about every three minutes.  (British accents even sound amazing when the English are angry.  I don’t know why the settlers couldn’t have just retained them.  That’s the least they could have done in repentance for massacring the Native Americans and plundering their land.)

We went searching for Juno’s natal den last evening; her GPS points show she is spending a lot of time at so-termed Crocodile Den near Talek.  Although tracking showed her to be very nearby, we couldn’t find her in the tall grass, driving slow over the holey ground.  I was so hopeful we would see tiny black cubs!  Maybe another day.  On the way to Crocodile Den, a teenage elephant decided to throw a tantrum in our direction.  I must drive better when I panic, because normally all of the starting and reversing would cause me to stall at least once, but when that elephant was coming I moved the clutch fairly flawlessly and had us going back in the other direction in no time.  Looking back once we were at a safe distance, we realized it wasn’t personal.  The elephant was throwing a tantrum at all of the other elephants now that its more reasonable-seeming provocation was removed.

Some things about nature break my heart.  Derrick, our one-horned impala, has a limp.  I don’t think he will last long amidst carnivores looking to make the hunt as painless as possible.  We also saw a young topi with a broken leg that hung limp as it hobbled along after its playmate.  Eli insists that when you see a carnivore chasing something, it’s necessary to pick a side; it’s only natural to root for one or the other.  I don’t know about that.  What I do know is that in the heat of the moment it would be awfully hard to see anything killed.  Yet starving carnivores are also a worry, therefore  I find it hard to hope for either outcome.  It’s really too bad there isn’t a third option, such as carnivores deciding they feel vegetarianism is the only ethical option.

While on the subject of injuries, I am concerned over Kelsey’s right eye.  She is holding it more closed than her left eye lately.  It must have been awfully nice for Jesus in that he was able to heal.

11:02, Sunday, 3 June, 2012

Yesterday I named a cub!  It is in the Alien lineage, one of ET’s cubs in Talek.  R2D2, Spock, Mork, C3PO, Yoda, and some other names I don’t remember were already taken.  I came up with Jar-Jar, after Jar-Jar Binks on Star Wars.  Little Jar.  It’s so exciting naming animals!  Especially when they will be recorded in the master list for decades to come.

Speaking of hyenas I’ve had a hand in naming, Deanna (one of the RAs from Serena) came up yesterday to spend a night before heading to Nairobi to leave.  I asked her about Ratchet, and she said he is doing well!!!  So are Dru and Panda and Luta and Biggie, but I was unbearably sad to hear that Rotten has gone missing.  Rotten was my absolute favorite little dude, currently the background on my computer.  Rest in peace, Rotten.

Was walking above the river yesterday and met some Maasai kids: John, James, and a little one whose name started with an “L” but I couldn’t quite understand.  John loved my watch, and they were all very fascinated with my ipod.  I put it in their ears and told them to listen, and smiles cracked across their faces.  John allowed me to hold the stick he herds cows with, a big group of whom were behind us.  It’s very long and thin and whittled.  John, who I talked to the most before his brothers lost their shyness, asked me if he could have my shoes, and I looked down to see that his toes were poking through enormous holes in his worn black tennis shoes; in fact, the whole bottoms were starting to come off.  The things we take for granted.  I told him I need them now, but maybe I would give them to him in a year when I leave.  After all, I bought a used pair just for here.  I won’t need them when I go home.  I especially like living here because it is living simply.  I love only having a tent to return to – that’s all you need.  I love only having four pairs of pants and ten shirts, some shorts and tank tops, sweatshirts and pajamas, although it’s still more than I need.  Americans are too wound in the clutter of capitalism.  It’s nice not to have to constantly have THINGS promising empty happiness shoved in my face at every turn.  I can put my fists down.

I rode with Eli last night, and we saw lots of neat things.  There were many lionesses and subadults out.  I know some of the lionesses were the same as those I identified last year, but I am very rusty, so I took a picture to discover who they are later.  Artemis walked so close to a group of four that I worried for her safety.  We saw Gaza!  He is still looking well, although he was chewing on a wildebeest skull that was at least a year old, judging by the worm tracks shooting out the sides of the horns.  Pole (I’m sorry in terms of sympathy in Swahili, pronounced “po-lay”) Gaza.  Should have been born a female.  Puma is back in Talek West, although we saw him testing his dispersing skills not two weeks ago in Talek East.  Maybe it didn’t suit him, which might be for the better since many hyenas in Talek East get speared by Maasai :(.  Twister was hanging around Aqua without her mother Adonis, which was surprising!  I just love Twister.  Loki arrived and approached and she politely head-bobbed and they lifted leg for a greeting.  Loki also lifted leg over sacked-out Aqua’s head, and Aqua cracked us up by totally ignoring her.  Luckily Loki didn’t mind, and just continued walking.

Many elephants out on Lone Tree plain – probably 40.  We followed Helios and Loki up next to some of them.  One young one, probably a year old, flared its ears out at the hyenas, slightly charging them.  Super adorable.  But, like hyenas, Loki and Helios didn’t even look in its direction or start.  Just kept sauntering across the plain.  They never cared about being popular anyway.  And then we saw a TINY (well, as far as eles go) baby.  Deadly cute, absolutely deadly cute.  It curled its itty trunk up to a bit older one, who gave it all the attention it desired and more.  We later saw it nursing from its mother.  About 500 meters down the plain two big males (one especially ENORMOUS), were charging at and wrestling with one another.  A whole group of elephants was standing watching them, as though at a boxing tournament.  The smaller of the two fighters must have decided he was out-matched, because suddenly he turned tail and fled, the other close behind, reaching out its trunk to try and grasp the first , just out of its reach.  Running elephants are truly hysterical.  Their knees barely bend, big tree trunk legs attempting to move in a coordinated-enough fashion that they don’t fall and shake the earth, their awkward lumbering shape failing at to properly expand and contract so that they are lopsided in a new direction after every step.  Then you realize how much ground they are covering; these mammoth creatures are fast indeed, but certainly not due to agility.  Thank you, elephants, for that display.  The bigger male finally gave up the chase, turning our way and staring instead, the sheer breadth of his trunk and tusks taking my breath.

Eli tried to convince me that ostriches look somewhat like hyenas if they are positioned correctly in the grass.  Right...he said I will mistake an ostrich for a hyena eventually, and he will receive a message on facebook from me apologizing and telling him how right he was.  I told him not to hold his breath.  Ostriches.  Was there ever a thing further from a hyena?  I think you would have to be four plains over to mistake the two!

A couple of extra stories that I have let fall through my fingers in terms of sharing: one night I was out with Benson, me in the driver’s seat.  We were heading back from the den when all of a sudden Benson started yelling “STOP STOP STOP!” like bloody murder.  I slammed to a halt, alarmed, and Benson returned to his normal very soft voice, pointed to a male Thompson’s gazelle on the side of the road, and said “He is confused.”  It was the sweetest thing ever.  He made me switch off my lights until the tommy was no longer frightened and tiptoed to the other side.  Only then was I allowed to continue.  If ever I forget why I love working with Benson...

Then Michelle told me of an afternoon when she was sunning outside of her tent with a leopard-print top on, and all of a sudden the vervets start going crazy, alarm-calling and ganging up and throwing things at her.  They mistook her for an actual leopard!