9:36, Friday, 24 August, 2012

Wow!  So busy lately as we compile transcriptions from the past three months while simultaneously adding new ones every day.  Once again, a stint during which I am not able to write much. 

I’ve been back in Talek since last Sunday.  My time in Serena couldn’t have been more lovely, yet it’s great to be back.  My last full day there was quiet as I proofread my notes to leave behind.  I looked out my tent window once to see a couple of eagles alighted in a tree above an alarm-calling dwarf mongoose.  Dwarf mongoose alarm calls are hard to describe on paper; compared to their normal trills, they are much lower-pitched than you would expect.  It’s sort of a perfectly even reeeeeeeee that stops abruptly.  The mongoose looks straight ahead during and after its calls, paradoxically appearing not at all alarmed, before reeeeeeeeeeing again, possibly turning its head nonchalantly to the side after this bout before starting yet another.  It’s really cute, that’s what it is.  The same dwarf mongoose trotted over to my tent after the eagles had gone, and  I was startled when it jumped out of my empty little yellow trashcan the next time I left my tent.

The evening light fell on the view from the lab tent my last evening.  The clouds and the sun combined in such a way that made it seem almost foggy, but a very light fog in which every drop was tinged with the sunlight that bathes the nostalgic dreams of an afternoon nap.  It was beautiful.

Julia came back Saturday night; it was excellent to see her!  After dinner she, Dave and I went over to hang out with Amanda and Chris (fondly known as the “majis” for their water research, if I haven’t already made that reference).  Chris made us peanut butter cookies in his new little camp oven whose use he has recently perfected.  Friends, fire, food in a wilderness just as wild as I ever could have hoped.

I bid goodbye to Jorji, Moses, and Dave the next afternoon.  Julia drove me to the “cell phone tree,” a landmark halfway between the two camps where Charlie would pick me up. (It’s a cell phone tower made to look like a tree, but for Lord knows what reason it is dressed up like a pine tree.  Because there are a lot of pine trees in Africa...).  We saw four cheetah cubs in the road on the way.  They were in the stage where their manes are in full bloom; I would guess a few months old, although I don’t know much about cheetahs.  Their mother left for a few minutes as we watched, causing them to chirrup with those big eyes and little freckled faces, at which time she came bounding back.  It was very sweet.  One of the cubs was an odd ball out.  While the others would be in a clump looking for their mother in one direction, this one smartly headed a short way toward where she had gone.  Then, when the others followed their mother in a straight line upon her return, it bumbled about in the back, about ten meters separated from the others.   I liked this cub; it walked to its own tune.  I hope the cheetah mother can take care of all four until they are adults; we could do with some more cheetahs!

Greeted everyone amply upon my return; it was great to see them all!  I also met the two Israelis who are visiting; one is going to do a post-doc for Kay, and the other was his advisor in graduate school.  Amyal (sp), the post-doc, is extremely kind.  He was a joy to have around.  As for Ellie (sp), his advisor: the best author could not write up a better book character.  He always had something to say; once we learned to listen, we found his constant advice actually very helpful.  He has a sense of humor like none I’ve ever encountered;  it’s subtle, but once you realize he is joking the hilarity becomes palpable and hard to withhold.  If we got it wrong, thinking he was joking when he wasn’t, he would say most seriously in his foreign accent, “I am not joking.”  So I learned to look for the light in his eyes when he jokes.  I thoroughly enjoyed meeting both visitors, and especially loved to hear them talk in Hebrew.  Both also had great stories of their past adventures that made me go wide-eyed.  Amyal has convinced Charlie and me we must climb Mt. Kenya; apparently there are rock hyraxes so habituated up there that they will jump in your hat, and the vegetation is like nothing you will ever see.  I also had Amyal and Ellie tell me about Israel, a place that only ever existed in the bible to me; I was especially interested in how they dealt with the constant unrest in their daily lives. The tumult apparently is not often felt in Tel Aviv, where they reside.  But the Gaza Strip is far from no one in such a small country, and Amyal says the conflict is creeping nearer.  Good thing for his family they will be moving to the US, but what about all the other families?

It is good for the health of my blog that I will be going to Nairobi soon, where I should have plenty of time to catch up on all of the wondrous happenings of daily life in the Mara!