Wednesday, 8 August, 2012

Happy birthday Alex!  Wish you were here to turn 23, because I sure do miss you.  You would love it here in Africa, but you are in a place presumably more beautiful than a thousand Africas.

11:48, Thursday, 9 August, 2012

Sunday dawned bright and early.  I arose to take Nora, Julie, Ian, and Tyler to say goodbye to the hyenas at the den.  With a promise to be back at 7:00 for breakfast before the Nairobi take-off, I thought it would be an easy transcription.  Wrong!  Michelle had discovered where most of the cubs have gone: Croton Edge Den.  The mystery of why Oddish, Hydrogen, Helium, Gypsum and Violet were the only ones we ever saw at Dave’s Den was solved.  Croton Edge Den is amazing, very open on a hill with only one group of bushes (not to mention a glorious view of the sunrise).  Individuals and behavior are ten times easier to see, but Sunday morning still brought a challenge as there were about 30 hyenas!  It was a great farewell for the soon-to-be departers; even the males braved the den for them to say goodbye.  Aqua and Harpy were there as well, two hyenas we see relatively rarely. Lots of data for only 40 minutes!

After breakfast, Jackson started to take my Serena bag back to my tent, telling me I was not supposed to go.  I smiled as he slung me over his shoulder and assured he needn’t worry, I would be back.  The others, however, wouldn’t (at least not for a long time).  I got a bit more time with them, riding squished as an ant beneath a shoe with 6 plus luggage in the hilux to Sarova, where I would catch a ride to Serena.  A kind Spanish safari guide agreed to take me in his ridiculously enormous bus-truck thing, a vehicle I have never appreciated as it seems to terrify the animals.  Yet I was hugely grateful.  I gave Ian and Tyler extra long hugs, unsure if I would see them again, the goodbye lump risen in my chest.  Nora and Julie got slightly shorter hugs, because I will doubtless see them either in East Lansing or when they return next summer.  Then it was off with the smiling Spanish man.  I sat in the front facing a sea of somewhere around 20 Spaniards, frantically trying to remember some Spanish as they flung questions about hyenas at me, failing miserably as every time I spoke it came out in Swahili.  The guide kindly translated for me; the tourists were especially interested in hyenas’ resistance to disease, and very excitedly pointed out a hyena to me on one of our wildlife-viewing stops.  I beamed; I absolutely love being associated with spotted hyenas.  Concerning the gas-guzzling bus, I have to admit it was fun standing on the front seat, facing forward high up through the open top in a Jack and Rose Titanic-esque pose, wind making a mess of my hair. 

At the Mara River Bridge, the safari guide scoffed and slapped away my hand when I tried to pay him.  He arranged a ride with some of the most jovial Kenyans I have ever met: so friendly.  One of them moved to sit in the bed of the large truck on top of the sandy gravel they were transporting to Serena Lodge so that I could sit in the cab, sandwiched between the portly driver and a man who looked about 20 but was 34 with six kids.  The men were delighted to discover I speak Swahili, and we spoke it the entire way, a challenge as I felt like falling over from lack of sleep.  But I still had enough in me to swell with undiminished elation as I began to recognize Serena.  The place has such a beauty that no human memory could fully sustain, and holes were poked in whatever holds our emotions so that every feeling of clarity and joy known to man pulsed through my veins.  The men insisted on driving me right to camp.  I was sorry to see them go; wish people in America could seem the type of content that people I meet here do.

I relished in being reunited with Dave; we always have so much fun.  But I most especially loved being reunited with Philoman and Jorjio.  I cannot begin to describe what it felt like to see them again.  Such a soul as Philoman’s has never existed on this planet, and Jorji’s laugh and smile are more contagious than chicken pox.  I truly love them, and I would be fine if the world were filled with mostly Philomans and Jorjies.  Then I got to see the Majis again (maji = water): Amanda and Chris, some of the coolest people I have ever met.  Chris has obtained his masters (hooray!), so they are here collecting more river samples for Amanda’s Ph.D.  They joined us for dinner, bringing beer and cheese bread to compliment the meal of chipate and lentils fit for a king from Philoman.  It was like I had never left, if only Lia had been there.

And the wildness, oh the wildness.  The camp, oh the camp, with the view, oh the view, on the red-dirt stoned treed grassy hill, oh that hill.  A shard of heaven come to alight on earth.

Seeing the Serena hyenas again was like seeing those of Talek again:  strange to see how the little ones have grown, how little some of the adults have changed.  I’m only sorry that I was not here to be a part of their daily lives over the past year.  Zoe, the newly queened Waffles (crazy low-ranking Waffles who banded with almost equally low-ranking Peepers to overthrow RBC, a crazy anomaly in hyena behavior), Peepers and her new cub Droopy, Hooker (professions lineage...), Sauer, RBC and her cub were all about North territory or at the den.  Cracaw (sp) Den, of the Eastern European cities plain, tucked away in the changed topography of tall grass and African Dr. Seuss Trees where the waterbuck roam.  It lightly rained and the smell was all I ever need to smell.  Droopy, with his unique face, cutely hunkered down in the drizzle as Waffles’ head suddenly materialized above the grass.  She lay in/on the den hole, completely blocking Sauer from accessing her little black cubs.  Dave helped me polish my behaviors as it grew dark.  When we drove home hippos punctuated the side of the road, their orange eyes glowing in the headlights.  Funny to think these are the ancestors of whales.  Such strange, strange, strangely marvelous animals.  And they went so far as to grace us with their presence at camp that night, burpy bellows reminding me of the time I thought I was going to die a hippoine death last summer trekking to the choo after bedtime.

Monday morning we set out in hopes of deploying at least one of Dave’s last three GPS collars in South territory.  Almost immediately we came upon Bartlet, one of his targets, and followed her this way and that almost all morning in hopes of a good opportunity.  We came close several times, but no cigar due to tall grass and her funny stashing behavior.  Bartlet had a baby wildebeest kill, and she kept going off to stash body parts, returning time and again to the carcass and refusing to hold still.  She could barely carry the biggest piece, and had us giggling as she walked with the entire ribcage and bloody hanging hide, nose up, ears laying back and perking forward as she parted the grass while struggling to keep from tripping.  She couldn’t give a care in the world that we were following her so close, the first of several instances that have really struck me with the differences in behavior and overall demeanor of the hyenas in Talek versus here. 

Bartlet stashed the greater portion of the little wildebeest in a water hole!  Dave says hyenas have been commonly cited as storing food in water, probably as a safeguard from other carnivores.  I imagine the water probably diminishes the smell.  Clever clever hyenas.  Never cease to amaze.  Dave’s attempted coaxing, “Come on Bartlet, you’ve had a long day of stashing, why don’t you sack out and rest?” yielded nothing, and eventually we lost Bartlet in the tall grass of a lugga.  But the morning was as yet fruitful in terms of darting; Dave walked me through assembling and dissembling a dart, and he has some excellent tricks to dispel air bubbles and keep from losing even tiny drops of Telizol.  The calm atmosphere was great for being shown maneuvering tactics, and the whole experience was much more chill than I knew an attempted darting could be.  My confidence increased one hundredfold just by listening.