12:34, Thursday, 25 October, 2012

Okay, so I should have said “more stories keshokutwa.”  Keshokutwa means “the day after tomorrow” in Swahili.  Clever to have it condensed into one word!

Let’s see, thanks to Benson and Wilson, I can now identify more than just the secretary bird, kori bustard, lilac-breasted roller, paradise flycatcher, sacred ibis, robin chat, superb starling, helmeted guinea fowl, ring-necked dove, Maribou stork, greater flamingo, lesser flamingo and crowned crane.  I have added poppel granadia (sp), cinnamon-chested bee eater, yellow-throated sand grouse, yellow-throated long-claw, common fiscal shrike, rosy-breasted long-claw, red-winged lark, black-chested snake eagle, tawny eagle, marshall eagle, scaly francolin, Rupell’s (sp) starling, slate-colored boubou, common bulbul, Hildebrant’s starling, grasslands pippet, Lappet-faced vulture, white-backed vulture, hooded vulture, black-headed heron, white stork, crowned plover, fire finch, garden blue, spectacled weaver, pygmy kingfisher, Montagus (sp) harrier, saddle-backed stork, and banded starling to the growing list of birds I can identify.  I haven’t opened a book once – all I do is point to a bird we see while out on obs or in camp and Benson or Wilson rattle off what it is (in addition to its scientific name, which I fail to commit to memory).  It’s loads of fun!

I think my new favorite of the birds is the poppel granadia.  These little birds (roughly the size of a goldfinch) are beautiful, the males with a red head, bright blue tail, purple belly, brilliantly orange beak, and orangey brown overcast on their back.  The females are also very colorful, a gentler version of the males.  Poppel granadias hop fearlessly about, their claws making a delightfully satisfying sound to the rhythm of “do-do-do (pause), do-do-do” as they investigate.  They are generally unconcerned with the presence of humans.  There is a pair that hangs around the kitchen and lab tents quite often, and by sitting on the ground I have persuaded the female (whom I call Abaline) to eat from my hand.  It takes much patience, but the reward is phenomenally worth it.

Besides Abaline, we have two other regular visitors.  One is a robin chat with a broken leg named Tiny Tim.  Tiny Tim is shy and doesn’t come very close to the table, but I am always happy to see him jumping on one leg in the brush surrounding the lab tent, the other leg sticking out crookedly to the side.  In stark contrast to Tiny Tim, Gerald is the boldest bird I have ever met.  He is a bright yellow spectacled weaver, and periodically comes to sit on the edge of our plates and snatch bits of breakfast!  He unflinchingly hops about the table or sits on the tall silver tea canister, cocking his head at us.  I’m always overjoyed to see him; he makes me laugh in his complete disregard for our sizeable presence.  Charlie, not much a fan of birds, pretends to dislike Gerald.  However, I once caught him putting pieces of food in the middle of the table for him, an act he adamantly denies.

Two other absolutely gorgeous birds are the little cinnamon-chested bee-eater and the pygmy kingfisher.  The cinnamon-chested bee-eaters are a striking almost lime green with yellow bellies and a straight, pointed beak.  They like to hang out and build their nests along the river, and there is one pair that has recently moved into a tree overlooking my favorite outcrop.  Pygmy kingfishers are wonderful; they are just that – pygmy kingfishers, all the excitement of a kingfisher jammed into a pint-sized pipsqueak possessing a myriad of colors, most memorably blues and orange.  On rare days I catch one perched on the clothesline, and one morning when Wilson and I were staked out at Dave’s den trying to figure parentage one alighted in the bush right in front of us, staring cutely out at the world.  This was the same morning that a scaly francolin walked across the den right before the sacked out Hydrogen and Helium, who immediately lifted their heads and took interest in this strange specimen walking like a chicken about their home.

Ring-necked doves, so much like mourning doves but with a black ring around their neck and several streaks of purple and small spots of sheeny green, spots so radiant and perfectly alone that they remind me of Rainbowfish’s remaining scale in the books I used to read as a child, bob by me when I work at the desk outside of Kay’s tent.  Once I was given a start because an individual digging about in the leaves sounded like a slithering snake, and I could only see the shiny green scale feathers through the twigs, appearing to be the eye of a very close rock python!  I was equal parts relieved and disappointed when the dove bobbed out from beneath the brush.

The eagles are majestic – we’ve sat and watched Marshall and tawny eagles for prolonged periods: impressive animals, much like bald eagles back home.  One morning an enormous eagle swooped down to try and catch a guinea fowl (no small bird!) directly in front of the car, to which Julia and I simultaneously exclaimed “Whoa!”  Unfortunately it didn’t look like an eagle I had learned, and Benson and Wilson weren’t with us.  But the guinea fowl started crowing (sounding exactly as they do on The Lion King) and shot its balloon-self into the bushes along with the rest of its mates just in time.  The eagle pulled its talons back in and returned upward to sit perched high in a tree across the lugga, presumably still hungry.

Being a true ethologist, the thing that interests me most about birds is their behavior.  You wouldn’t think the behavior of a Rupell’s starling, for example, could be likened to that of a mammal, much less an animal so complex as a hyena.  But while feeding a small collection of birds by the kitchen tent one morning I witnessed a starlings came up to where another was eating, and it performed what I can only describe as a t2 lunge at the other bird, who immediately went into a starling’s version of a submissive posture.  The aggressed upon bird turned around crouched over with its wings slightly out to the side, head down and eyes closed for a brief moment until the other left it to go eat.  This was repeated several times when the submissive bird tried to eat, the exact same aggressive-submissive interaction, and if the submissive bird got too cheeky the dominant bird’s t2 lunge would progress into a t2 chase, during which the submissive bird would run in the same appeasing posture before stopping and crouching.  The crouch would then be honored as acceptable by the chaser, who left to continue eating.

Wilson has told me much about the behavior of vultures, which he used to study.  Vultures apparently have dominance hierarchies!  They can differentiate between individuals, and  I’ve seen them approach one another at a kill with their wings stretched and chests out in the ridiculous, apparently intimidating pose that Lia and I had so much fun mimicking last summer.  There is one point during the migration when apparently every vulture in Kenya flocks to the Mara area; tagged ones have flown amazing distances across the country.  Yet my favorite vulture fact remains the reason why they fly in tornado spirals above a kill after eating: post-gorging, they are too heavy to do anything other than glide along nearby currents!  Now if only I had currents to ride post-Thanksgiving...

15:12, Tuesday, 23 October, 2012

Let the wildlife stories commence!

For lack of a good way to organize things, I think I’ll go by size, starting with the littles.  One day after it had rained and we were stuck in camp, I took a short walk around the perimeter, and happened upon two little dung beetles rolling a rounded piece of fecal matter (A.K.A. poop).  Squatting down, I watched them for a long time.  Dung beetles are anything but graceful; they will often crash-land into the dinner table at night, and you wonder how they manage because they literally cannot get off their backs without help.  But seeing them do what they do best is a different story – grace certainly still isn’t the word, but their hustle is every basketball coach’s dream. These little guys are incredible!  Working together in a rough and tumble fashion, they zip right along while rolling something five times their size.  One pushes on one side while the other rolls from a different side, sometimes guiding it backwards, legs in non-stop motion.  All at once the main pusher will be swept up by the rotating mass and tumble down the other, but undeterred it immediately rights itself like a football player jumping back from the tackle.  At this time the other assumes the main pushing position, and the one who took the fall goes to the back or side.  Roll roll roll roll roll until eventually the momentum of the ball overtakes the main pusher and it’s lifted off its feet, but bruises ignored the two merely switch positions and keep going.  I was so fascinated that I went to get a stopwatch and some measuring tape.  I measured their distance for one minute and did a little math to discover that it would take them 33 hours to go 1 kilometer.  That might not sound impressive, but this is not accounting for all of the grass in the way that veered them off course or made them stumble extra times.  The fact that they are rolling something so much larger than they are should also be considered.  I’m impressed.  When Charlie discovered the calculations I had left on the table, I think he was under the impression that I had just defined a new level of nerdom, while Julia said that this is the sort of thing that happens when one is stuck in camp for too long due to rain.  

I had a fun time chasing a little frog around my tent on another day’s night; I think he entered while I was out brushing my teeth and had left the tent unzipped.  Fast little bugger!  I have also been having a case of the toads.  Stepping along in my tent, and I suddenly hear an odd chirrup.  Quickly remove my foot and feel where I had stepped; must have imagined the sound, clearly the lump is just another dirt clump beneath.  But later the same thing happens, and I investigate the lump more thoroughly until it starts moving.  I felt terrible for having stepped on whatever it was, and of course had to make sure it was alright, so I nudged it along beneath the canvas.  I couldn’t just go out and lift up the bottom of my tent since it might be a snake (although its shape was most un-snakelike, and I suspected a lizard of some sort), so I strategically kept nudging until it was pushed to where I could unzip my screen and raise the canvas edge from inside to see what was coming out.  An adorable pair of toad eyes looked quizzically up at me.  Well, I suppose beneath a human-inhabited tent is indeed a good hideout from predators, but I am going to have to be more careful where I step!  Just this morning I had two under there, and played matchmaker by nudging their little moving forms toward one another.  I don’t think there was much chemistry; they shortly moved apart. 

In fact, all of camp has been having a case of the toads.  There was one night I must have run into six or seven on my walk back from dinner, each a little heart attack waiting to happen as they don’t move until you are right upon them.  These are some sizable toads, and their eyes glow mysteriously beneath a flashlight.  A particularly large one gave me an immense start, but I was delighted to see what it was, and watched it hop about in the beam.  It ran smack into a large weed and was lifted off its back legs, nearly tumbling forward to do a somersault, and causing me to laugh out loud. Clumsy little fellow!  It landed back on its feet and gave one huge blink as though still processing what had just happened. 

That same night another was clamoring into the shoe I had left to block the hole where my zippers join.  I carefully moved the shoe aside so as not to scare him, and I think it provided a nice shelter for the night.

Charlie and I stayed long after dinner one night watching a bunch of tiny red ants moving little pieces of chapati about.  Their organized chaos is fascinating as they run this way and that and somehow end up working together.  Some of them are exceptionally lazy however, and end up riding atop the chapati like queens on those carried bed-whatevers.  A little black species also helps me clean my tent sometimes, swarming and eating dead bugs that have fallen to the ground.  Ants aren’t often cited in the category of decomposers, but they belong there!

I saw a millimeter worm!  Very probably a baby inch worm, but maybe even the worms are converting to the metric system (America, even nature’s doing it).  It was fascinating that this itty bitty measurer could as yet produce such a drastic little hillock while millimetering across my arm.

I’ve seen some gorgeous new species of butterfly lately.  One just like the cabbage butterflies back home, but about ten times the size, fluttering about above the river.  Another stunned me as it loop-de-looped like a miniature fluffy white bed-sheet with orange tips.  I didn’t get to enjoy its beauty long, however, because a paradise fly catcher with a gorgeously long tail swooped directly in front of my face to carry it off.  I watched it alight in the tree with the beauty sticking out of its mouth; lucky for the butterfly it must not have tasted very good, and soon was released to fly about as though nothing had happened.

I think that offers a nice lead into birds, which I have been learning so much about from Benson and Wilson.  I can now identify a fair few in this country leading in bird biodiversity.  More stories tomorrow.

13:43, Wednesday, 17 October, 2012

I owe the hyenas for a good deal of my heart health, because they never cease to make me laugh.  Their intelligence is shocking, and I am drawn to the statement written by William Percy:

Partly, no doubt, in revolt against the tendency of nineteenth-century writers to attribute to animals anthropomorphic qualities of intelligence, sentiment, and emotion, the twentieth century has seen the development of a school of thought according to which the springs of animal behavior are to be sought in terms of “conditioned reflexes,” “release mechanisms,” and the rest of a wholly new vocabulary which is regarded as the gateway to a clearer understanding of animal psychology.  To another way of thinking which cannot reconcile that mechanical conception with the diverse character, intelligence, and capabilities exhibited by different individuals of the same species, that gateway to understanding seems as far removed from truth as the anthropomorphism of a previous generation, and more apt to raise a further barrier to a sympathetic understanding of animal behavior than a revelation of it.

Minus word-driven language permitting the abstraction of thought, animals will never be human, but humans cannot be separated from the animal kingdom.  And sometimes the hyenas are just so full of recognizable character that we wouldn’t understand or find funny were we on a separate plane.

Take Rebmann, for example.  Scrabble is sacked out nursing Great Smokey, and Rebmann wants to play.  So she waits until Scrabble is leaned back with her eyes closed, then creeps up and starts to paw at Great Smokey.  Great Smokey ignores her as she sits back in expectation, ears perked forward, waiting for him to respond.  When no response comes, she checks that Scrabble is still oblivious, and starts to paw again.  Great Smokey rolls his eyes upward and momentarily stops nursing.  Scrabble stirs, so Rebmann walks off in feigned innocence.  As soon as Scrabble lies back again, Rebmann creeps in and resumes pawing at Great Smokey.  This time he t2 lunges at her and Scrabble sits up – Rebmann retreats quickly before she can aggress. But sure enough, encouraged by the reward of her potential playmate’s attention – however brief and wanting – Rebmann returns; as soon as things settle, she is right back up there poking the bear, pawing the ground in impatience and sitting back on her haunches with ears perked.  She continued to pester until Great Smokey lunged again. She had us in full giggles, and it was only when Scrabble lost her patience that she gave up her quest for play.

Serena Williams (SWIL) played a similar part a few days later.  Poor girl only wanted to play, but Yummly and Galaxy weren’t having it.  Baba Ganoush would come to the defense of her cubs, t2 lunging Swil away, but as soon as Baba turned her back Swil would be right back up there chewing on the sacked-out cubs’ necks as they tried to rest.  They’d get away from her and go tell mom (walking over where Baba could survey the happenings), and Swil would quickly run in the opposite direction...but only until Baba went back to wandering about, at which point she would sneak-return and pull the reluctant cubs to their feet.  I wished so much that I could morph into a hyena and be the one to play with Swil;  she would have met no such resistance from me!

Unfortunately, the capacity for senseless cruelness seems to positively correlate with intelligence, seen in chimp wars, dolphin rape, and any number of human depravities.  The hyenas can be bullies, too.  The highest ranker, Helios, and her children are ruthless when together.  One morning four of the seven highest rankers, Helios with her daughters Atacama and Amazon and her son Pantanal, walked about bristle-tailed in a shoulder-to-shoulder line formation reeking havoc for no reason.  The hyenas they would approach squealed up a storm, ears pinned back, head-bobbing constantly and crouching to the ground in a submissive posture begging for mercy.  But proper appeasement was ignored; it was a day for instilling rank-reinforcing fear.  The four bullies descended upon Mouse Trap; when her appeasement did no good and they began to chase her, she attempted a hopeless counterattack.  She came out of the clump limping; someone had drawn blood and Helios, Atacama, Amazon, and Pantanal bristle-tail sniffed the spot where it had landed.  (Throughout the morning this conspecific blood drew the immediate attention of newly arriving hyenas, arresting their noses and electrifying their tails.)  When Helios so much as looked at Scamper, he ran off whooping a hurricane until his (presumed, given he’s nursed from two females) mother Alfredo arrived, apparently a smarter tactic than attempting proper appeasement as he was left alone.  Oddish employed a similar tactic upon approach, and Magenta arrived just as her other cub Togepi fell into a squealing submission beneath the gang.  I think Magenta must be paying money under the table to support Helios’s reign, because she was accepted into the gang and aggressive intentions toward her kids all but forgotten.  Magenta is well in the upper half of the ranking order, but she’s certainly not high enough to where one would think she should be allowed to join the likes of this crowd.  But for whatever reason, there she was, and she played a part in making polite good ole Mork bleed when he dared to walk within fifteen meters of the dictator.  Foxtrot was thrown into a carpal crawling crouch by the newly-numbered five.  Then came Burger, an interesting case.  Burger was not bothered much, which is curious because she displayed the most peculiar possession of a notion that she should be included in this gang.  She ran bristle-tail about after Helios, Atacama, Amazon, Pantanal, and Magenta wherever they went, attempting to join in on their coalition aggressions.  A fit-thrower anyway, able to raise an absolute ruckus over the most indiscrete sideways glance, Burger SCREAMED whenever one of the others showed disapproval at her odd boldness by t1 pointing or t2 chasing.  But she was not deterred and kept returning, until only Magenta seemed bothered and continued to periodically give her chase.  And who could argue with the abandonment of discipline given the utter headache of a tantrum that would result?

So is the ever-complex world of the hyena; but where there is ugliness, I find there is always beauty to favorably tip the scale.  I can only describe Oakland’s pure devotion to Hendrix as beautiful.  Wherever Hendrix is, there too shall Oakland be.  We never see her without him, and I’m beginning to think his attachment to her could rival the legendary attachment of Fozzy to Murphy (two previous hyenas whose story is often told among fisi campers).  When Mork tried to approach and greet Hendrix, Oakland quickly asked him with a t1 point to move away, to which Mork hastily obliged.  Everyone seems to understand that Hendrix is his.  The best part is that Hendrix is neither high-ranking nor pretty; her faded spots and hefty nature might be said to leave something to be desired.  But not to Oakland.  And I have never witnessed a female so constantly tolerant of a male.  I don’t know as I have ever seen Hendrix aggress on Oakland, and I would wager a bet that she returns his affections as far as hyena affections can go.  Her children, Bata and All Star, were even seen playing with Oakland!  As far as I know, males are not regularly playmates of cubs, and cubs normally seem to regard contact with them as an opportunity to practice exerting dominance.  Even Hendrix’s kids seem to love him.  It’s as though they’re a little family!  (And who knows; maybe Oakland is actually their father.)  Another story of hyena devotion; I mentioned Santiago rescuing Lu from the baiting in Fig Tree during August.  I was told he saved her, and felt somewhat doubtful, thinking that maybe he timidly tried and the males kind of backed off.  But we were logging videos a couple days ago, and I came upon the video of the baiting in question.  Curious, I took a minute to watch it.  Amazing.  Rescue, save, what have you are not exaggerations; three males were beating up on her, rushing in and nipping at her as she squealed in vain.  About three minutes in, and here comes Santiago, soaring in from the side out of nowhere, and chases these three  males all at once.  Perhaps they could feel the intensity of his intention, because they didn’t even put up a fight and immediately flew away. Santiago stayed by Lu’s side afterward, and she needn’t have worried for even a moment about those males returning. 

Then of course there was the inseparable Echo and Foxtrot, and now there is the inseparable Hydrogen and Helium.  Sauer’s tenderness toward her cubs – most all hyena mothers, in fact, though their styles are variable, sacrifice unceasingly for their cubs.  Harpy was grooming Magenta this morning for no apparent reason; they are not of close relation, and Magenta is lower-ranking than her.  It’s the age-old mystery that evolutionary biology fails to solve; although it may try, I find the formulas for altruism to be a piece of too-small syran wrap that can’t quite fit over the dish of what it’s trying to cover.

I have so many good stories about the other animals that have been around camp, etc., but they are going to have to wait.  Although I could probably write forever (minus the muscles in my eyes going berserk from staring at a computer screen), there are other things to be attended to!

15:22, Thursday, 11 October, 2012

I cannot pass up the opportunity to write about Wilson’s wedding, which is hands down one of the most incredible experiences the human world has ever brought me.  When the anticipated day arrived, we awoke in the dark at five to don our best Maasai clothing; Julia and I wore skirts covered in two shukas and a kanga each, plus two necklaces, earrings, bracelets and belts.  The men wore shukas, belts, swords, and dozens of ceremonial necklaces, belts, and bracelets.  As a crew, I must say we were quite impressive, and I was most amused to notice that burly protector Lesingo was wearing a shuka covered in pink and red hearts and flowers (a mirror of his inner gentle sweetness).  Benson, Joseph, Lesingo, a friend from Talek named Juliana, Wilson’s sister (who looks exactly like him) from the area, a friend Joseph from Talek who often hangs around camp with us, Julia, Charlie, and I all loaded up in the hilux and cruiser, waved goodbye to Stephen and Jackson (who unfortunately had to remain and watch camp), and drove off sleepy-eyed but excited.

Our first trip was to Wilson’s bride’s village.  The drive was long but absolutely gorgeous.  A man on a motorbike led us along never-ending paths, but these paths wound through some of the mountains I have been dying to climb.  Entering the forested slopes was like entering a new world – so different from and much more than imagined!  What looks like bush scrub from the ground far away is a tropical forest of sorts, covered in trees and vegetation doubtlessly hiding all kinds of exotic insects, snakes, lizards, small and large mammals alike, although the birds, dik-dik, and some impala weren’t hiding at all and greeted us along the way.  Maasai women shouldering large loads of firewood climbed on foot next to us alongside their cattle.  My jealousy was incalculable as it was a bit torturous having to observe this place from the confines of a car. 

Three hours later the road spit us out onto some grassier mountain slopes, and we arrived at the bride’s village.  It was unbelievable – to imagine having grown up in such a beautiful, secluded place.  Big purple petunia-like flower clusters covered the gently blowing, half-mountain slopes rising beyond the clustered group of about 7 manyatta homes constructed of only mud and logs.  A cattle boma made of intricately folded thorns sat next to the homes, dogs and chickens ran about, a group of the most dazzlingly colorful Maasai gathered around Wilson and his wedding party.  Wilson was beaming as he greeted us.  His head was covered in a red dye made of soil and lard (most likely blueband from the kitchen), a cow hide surrounding his shoulders.  He wore a red-checkered shuka tied with showy, jingly belts, another checkered shuka over his shoulders beneath the cow hide, a beaded stick with the hair of a wildebeest tail coming out of the end in his hand.  He also held two ceremonial Maasai gourds, something like I was brought by the boy I took to the clinic, full of Maasai yogurt that would be drunk at the appropriate time by both families and used in blessings.  The best man, a guy Wilson’s age who grew up in his village, also had red dye covering his head and was dressed in a similar manner.  A few others had painted red heads; I later learned that these were all those who would accompany Wilson and the bride to his village.

The bride was still inside, so anticipation and waiting filled the air beneath the perfectly blue sky adorned here and there with puffy white clouds.  It couldn’t have been a lovelier day.  I almost died of happiness when a puppy allowed me to pet it.  A mama kindly invited us into one of the homes for chai.  The little mud huts look so small from the outside, but upon entering feel surprisingly roomy.  It was crazily dark within, only one hole in the wall permitting the entrance of day, a fire with an enormous pot of chai in the center of everything.  Branches managed to split the area off into three humble rooms with astonishingly springy beds made of more branches and what I think was cow hide stretched over the frame like a drum.  For how hard these beds felt to the touch they were somehow comfortable when we sat.  A few children stared unabashed at the Maasai wazungu drinking chai in their home, one infant wrapped onto his mother’s back.  When my chai was halfway gone, a small mew from the corner threw me into fits of happiness and made me forget to drink the rest: a kitten!  Benson asked the Maasai mama who said I could untie her, and I removed the tight tether from her neck and showered her with love.  Such a sweet kitten!  She tolerated the children and being picked up by the back of her neck, sprinting outside only to sprint back in and accept some of the milk set before her.  I was asked if I would like to take a kitten back to camp, and seriously considered asking Kay until Julia said the only time a lion entered someone’s tent in the history of fisi camp was due to the meowing of a cat inside.  Well, there goes that idea.

Back outside (the sun and bright were an enormous shock as we ducked back out through the little doorway), and before I knew it Julia and I were having our faces ceremonially painted by one of the mamas with the red dye while all eighty or so pairs of eyes, many of them belonging to little children, looked on.  I smiled when I looked in the car mirror; minus the skin and unshaven head, I was a Maasai (although admittedly those two things were a bit hard to miss). 

At last the bride emerged; I wasn’t sure what to expect, but the sobbing short girl of seventeen clad in  a magnificently beaded cow hide, innumerable earrings – big circles and beaded poles alike – jutting out of her ears, bright beaded bands around her bald head,  a thousand brilliantly colored necklaces hanging over her chest and bracelets covering every inch of skin was not at all what I’d pictured.  The cow hide and pounds of jewelry obscured whatever shuka was beneath.  She would have looked beautiful had she been smiling.  I felt such pity for her, and asked Joseph why she was crying.  He answered that she is sad to be leaving home – a village three to four more hours away by vehicle is no short distance on foot.  She had lived here all her life, and now she was being uprooted to go live with someone she barely knew.  “She will be happy,” Wilson said as he sidled up to me.  “She is just crying a bit now.”  Knowing Wilson, I believe he’s right, but I can’t imagine what it would be like for a girl to marry a less wonderful person in the same situation.

Blessings were said over the bride, most of which I couldn’t see beyond the sea of shukas, and then the wedding party started cramming into one pickup and our hyena cars.  We were a bit taken aback; like Julia said, “I had no idea our cars were going to be such an integral part of the wedding!”  Without them it clearly wouldn’t have worked.  Benson proudly drove beside Wilson and his bride (who is literally half Wilson’s height) in the front seat; they were now officially married.  I rode in the hilux smashed against Joseph and Julia.  We drove long roads through more mountains, children running happily after our vehicles and adults waving their congratulations.  We stopped mid-mountain on one climb, and the men took out machetes to cut branches from the surrounding bushes, weaving them through the bumper and other opportune areas on the vehicles. Who knew a car could so resemble Julius Caesar?  The branches provided a mute shout of the occasion, resulting in even more people cheering as we drove by.  At one point some cows chased our cars like dogs – an odd sight to behold!  Not sure what prompted them, but their congratulations was equally appreciated.

12:39, Friday, 12 October, 2012

Upon arriving at Wilson’s village, a wave of people on pikipiki (little motorcycles) joined our procession.  We all drove in circles, honking our horns until the giggles surfaced.  Getting out of the car, I found myself on a flatter plain than the bride’s village, but  gently sloping with one plateau-like mountain jutting up on one side and an odd grassy butte in the middle of nowhere on the other.  Thomson’s gazelles sprinkled the plains, and there were even more dogs.  Like the former village, a better book setting never existed.

The most memorable part of the day came when we entered beneath an arc through the intricately constructed branch fence.  I was the first to enter, and as a man approached, I smiled and stuck out my hand to say hello, at which point he promptly threw back his head and spit a revolting shower of half-digested Maasai yogurt all over the front of my clothes, some landing on the skin of my neck.  I was so taken aback that I absolutely couldn’t stop laughing as I tried to choke a “thank-you,” figuring that might be an appropriate response.  Then a second man pointedly walked over while taking a swig from a gourd, and I braced myself as I was sprayed a second time.  Looking behind me, I found Charlie’s mouth and chin covered in the stuff, an expression which I cannot find words to describe but the mental image of which still makes me laugh beneath the dripping mess.  As Wilson’s tall mother (head also died red) ushered us into another of the mud homes, Joseph told me I had just been blessed.  Well Hallelujah!

Inside the home we were part of the central ceremony.  We were handed chai as the gourd was passed around for some men and Wilson to drink from.  Then the bride entered and sat on a bed behind us, who were sitting on its edge.  She was passed the gourd to take a drink, but then had to refuse Wilson and wouldn’t come off of the bed and out of the home until he presented her with a cow.  While the bride waited for her cow, I finally saw her smile, and suddenly felt universes better about the occasion.

Leaving the bride waiting for the promised livestock, we went back outside and met with some of Wilson’s family.  That’s when I met Dickson, Wilson’s seven year-old half brother.  While Wilson is a child of his father’s first wife, Dickson is a child of the second.  A more smiley, cute or friendly kid you will never meet.  He took an especial liking to me and followed me everywhere, smart in his little cowhide ceremonial cape.  A more perfect depiction of happiness never set foot on this earth.

Wilson invited us into his newly built home for food.  It was near two and we had ingested nothing but the chai we drank, so cooked pieces of a freshly-slaughtered goat spread across the table was a welcome sight.  Wilson’s home was still constructed of branches and mud, but it had a more modern feel with square windows cut through the mud letting in some light and big spacious rooms, the walls of which were covered with pages from a livestock magazine.  Chipati, rice with potatoes, goat and chai were passed around and everyone ate their fill, although only about ten could fit around the table at one time.

Returning outside, the men had begun their throaty hums, head bobbing, and wild yips as they gathered in a line to jump.  I will never get tired of watching such a tremendous display of culture.  Benson and Charlie (a bit of a conspicuous addition) joined in the jumping.  They processed and carried on for near half an hour, and I just sat back and took everything in with another jolt of hey, this is Africa.  Not to get sentimental, but as I looked around at the faces of these people, especially those of Joseph, Benson, and Wilson, I realized just how much I love them.  Benson and Joseph have become two of my favorite people of all time, and I’m sure Wilson will join that group once I have spent more time with him.  I cannot wait to introduce these people to my three absolute favorites.

We must have missed the presentation of the cow while eating, because shortly the women gathered in a group around the emerged bride.  (I feel bad having to keep referring to her as “the bride,” but I couldn’t understand her name after being told it about three times, and didn’t feel right asking to hear it yet again.  Anyhow, learning it wouldn’t have done much good as it was going to change following the wedding; a Maasai girl’s first name changes when she gets married.  I asked Wilson for her new name, but it’s an equally difficult one.  I will have to ask him to write it down.)  Wilson’s mother stood by the bride; they would be spending ample time together in the future.  Wilson says his wife sleeps in the home of his mother when he is away at work.  Happily there was already the aura of a bond between them.

Before we had to leave to get back through the park gates by 6:30, Wilson brought us a drink made of recently gathered and fermented forest herbs.  I was a bit nervous drinking it since we were warned prior of its strong alcoholic content, but none of us felt a thing following.  It tasted like nothing I’ve ever had – a quiet yet wild forest walk captured and squeezed into a cup of civilization’s making.  I really liked it, and apparently it is served at every Maasai wedding.

Back home, Julia and Charlie were both too tired to eat and crashed.  I am never too tired to eat, and grabbed some leftovers amongst the chatting wedding guest friends, doubtless filling Jackson and Stephen in on the ceremony as they spoke in rapid Maa.

21:23, 4 October, 2012

We are attempting to re-chart the Prozac clan, a clan that has been somewhat neglected the past few years due to distance.  It’s a difficult task; perhaps the most difficult part for me is rolling out of bed half an hour earlier than normal, but then of course there’s the cost of diesel, driving through Intrepid and Stinky and Woe Crossings (two of which go right through the river, so that hippos stare at us like we are idiots as our car goes splashing through the water), and the bushes, hills, and tall grass that make tracking exceptionally difficult.  But now that the migration has come, the latter issue has been mostly removed.  And a carcass of one of those helpful wildebeest introduced me to some excellent individuals on one of our latest Prozac ventures.

Grigsby.  I fell so in love with the light-colored faintly-spotted cub named Grigsby.  What a butterball!  When his back faced us, his sides bulged between his little legs.  Grigsby is such a polite little hyena; he continually head-bobbed to his superiors, and the only thing that tempted him to try their patience was the juicy wildebeest that he obviously couldn’t get enough of.  But he couldn’t compete with Hocus Pocus and Hunt for the food:  why?  Because their mother Gettysburg was there.  I also really love Getty.  She is the most attentive hyena I have ever met, with perfectly defined t1 looks.  Any time Grigsby would come to try and feed when her cubs were feeding, she would give him the look; even as a human I knew exactly what that look meant.  But she didn’t feel the need to t2 lunge – all she had to do was look at Grigsby with her ears forward, eyes intent, maybe take a step toward him. He would immediately head-bob, ears-back submissive posture his way away from the food.  Getty kept him in his place, but it was in a very endearing way.  I am beginning to love maternal interventions, which was the context for Getty’s aggressions.  A maternal intervention is just as it sounds: a mother intervenes for her cubs when they are being picked on or someone is trying to share their food.  Getty might not have been hungry, but she sure as heck was going to make sure her little ones got their fill.  She stood guard by the carcass that morning until Hocus Pocus and Hunt were finished – a long time. (Any time she would wander off a few meters to keep one of the two present males, Brisbane and Nairobi, at bay, Grigsby was sure to wander in and sneak a couple bites, something he needs to perfect as he was frequently caught in the gaze of Getty’s fabulous t1 look when she would turn around to find him there.)

Benson and I may have seen a fair few hyenas that morning, but I am still dying to meet Al Gore and her cub Alfred Russel Wallace, because who couldn’t love a cub named Alfred Russel Wallace?  It’s somehow such an amazingly fitting name for a hyena cub. 

8:22, Friday, 5 October, 2012

On the way back from Prozac that same morning, we found the Fig Tree clan!!!  Where did we find them?  In Prozac territory!  Apparently the boundary needs to be redrawn past Topi Swamp, the current marker.  The Fig hyenas weren’t much past it, maybe 500 meters or so, but they were definitely past it.  Most all of our usual adults were there, sacked out in the road as though children grown impatient of their hiding place in a game of hide-and-seek.   Potter, Carol Doda, Nikk, Einstein, ET, Tudor, Worf, Santiago, annnnnnd...SNAGGLETOOTH!  It was my first time seeing Snaggletooth, the high-ranking individual whose name is derived from the tooth that pokes crooked out of her mouth.  Mom and Dad, I tried hard to think of a better adjective, I swear, but there really isn’t one – Snaggletooth looks badass.  (It’s from hanging around all those sailor mouths at Michigan State – as Pete Motz would say, seven years of parochial school down the drain.)  Further along, Lu, Illuminaughty, and Fort Worth came loping in.  They must have been afraid of not being counted, being our only common adults not present in the road. 

I wish Claire could be counted among our common adults.  Charlie and I saw Moma wandering alone kilometers from where the others are hanging out, desperately chewing on an old wildebeest carcass.  We have come to realize that Smithsonian, her sibling, is gone.  I cannot reasonably convince myself that Claire is still alive.  But we are rooting for Moma, much as we rooted for Foxtrot.  Speaking of Foxtrot – SHE IS ALIVE!!!!  We all thought her dead, and then Wilson (who has returned from his wedding and is being trained as a research assistant) and I found her two mornings ago.  Her growth has been severely stunted – she is much smaller than the other cubs her age: small, thin, and limping, but she is alive, that tough little girl!  I had to hide my welling eyes – the moment I was videotaping this mystery cub and realized who it was: just unbelievable.

We have been seeing so much cool wildlife out on obs.  Three nights ago we saw a striped weasel!  Who even knew there were striped weasels out here?  At first we thought it was a baby white-tailed mongoose, but as if someone wanted to be sure we got the right carnivore for the count, a white-tailed mongoose materialized out of nowhere by the weasel.  Confirmation?  I think not.  The weasel’s tail stood straight up and the hairs on either side of the slender bone jutted out like the barbs of a feather.  It squeaked and spit and jumped to the side, causing Wilson to shout, “It’s a striped weasel!”  That made more sense given the long black-and-white stripes down its back.  Amazing!

It must be calling all unknown carnivores week, because the next night we saw a fuzzy black mongoose-like animal scuttling about the plain.  I made poor Wilson follow it until we could shine it long enough to get a good look at it, but we still don’t know what it was.  I looked in the African Mammals textbook that lives on the bookshelf in the lab tent, but none of the mongooses were described as being completely black.  Perhaps it was a different morph of a rarer mongoose, like the yellow or Egyptian mongeese?  Or maybe I should check with Julia and Charlie to see what a water mongoose looks like.  Wilson suggested a civet, but they surely aren’t described as all black.  It’s exciting to think there are animals out here we in Fisi Camp have yet to discover!  Species everywhere, and that equates to Heaven for someone like me.

A mildly rainy night shortly after I returned from Nairobi, Benson, Julia, Charlie and I were all packed into the cruiser when we happened upon four jackal pups!  They weren’t extremely small, but I had been dying to see young jackals.  The pups were in the bushes near Croton Edge Den, their two monogamous parents trotting off, likely to find some tasty grass rats.  The young ones just sat there with their big ears perked, watching us from beneath a croton bush.  Sitting at the den ten minutes later, no hyenas about, and a porcupine runs right through our headlights!  As if seeing a porcupine wasn’t awesome enough alone, Benson absolutely loves porcupines.  His delight could have put a smile on the grim reaper.  “Small walking forest!” he laughed up a storm.  We saw another one near Paul’s Tree almost back to camp (the rain must get them moving), and Benson wouldn’t let it out of the maglight’s sight.  I cannot blame him for even a second – our world is honestly too amazing to be real.  To think a creature like a porcupine exists!

Charlie and I happened upon an owl in broad daylight a week or so ago, hunkered down in the grass.  We didn’t see it until we were right upon it, and I was sure it would fly, but it just sat there a couple meters away, staring at us with its enormous slow-blinking eyes.  I got a great picture, and although it thought about it once, it didn’t fly away.  Even as we drove off it just sat there, so gorgeous, a size somewhere between the screech and barn owls at home.  Right there, right in the grass!  I can’t get over it.

To finish my “edge animals” stories is something very small but equally amazing.  On obs with Dave and Julia, and I look down to see a stick bug making its way across the ID book, six thread legs unable to go in one direction as it fell about like the leaf of a stalk of red oat grass in the wind.  My fascination turned to constant worry that I would crush it as it willowed about, and I asked Julia to pull over so I could release it.  But even that was difficult, and it flew from my hand before I reached the side of the road.  Luckily I think I was close enough that it should have landed in the grass it was made to imitate.  

21:29, Monday, 1 October, 2012

Phew!  The compiled notes and lists for June-August have finally been sent to Kay, and the whole lot of the lab tent boards reorganized with fresh information.  I feel like I can breathe a little now.

I think I will continue with hyena stories, and maybe each time I write have some other animal and people stories on the side.  Writing in a day-by-day style is starting to wear on me.

The other morning Charlie and I happened upon a border patrol.  Many of our hyenas were there, pasting and bristle-tailing and social sniffing up a storm in order to mark their territory.  It all seemed quite uncalled for; just goes to show that the hyenas have an agenda beyond our perception.  Endor decided to poop in the middle of it all.  We hated to pass up the opportunity for a poop sample, but hyenas were everywhere.  Therefore I decided I would attempt to do a drive-by poop scoop.  This was made difficult by the fact that the poop was “enkorotik.” (Joseph came out the other night while we were scraping a poop sample and randomly started writing something on a piece of paper.  When he stepped away, we read three Maa words: “ingek”, “ingolom”, and “enkorotik”.  Funny the things different languages deem worthy of a word; “ingek” means soft poop, “ingolom” hard poop, and “enkorotik” liquidy poop.  Go figure!)  I awkwardly lowered myself to the floor with the inside-out plastic bag at the ready, falling onto my bum below the driver’s seat and reaching with all my might to collect what I could.  The hyenas, apart from observant Buenos Aires (who intently watched the car), hardly flinched.  I reached to pull myself back up, very proud, when my arm landed on the horn.  Because of the position I was in, my weight was stuck there for a prolonged moment before I could hoist myself the rest of the way up.  All of the hyenas, and everyone in the tourist cars nearby, immediately turned their eyes on us.  Charlie just busted out laughing as I struggled, because there wasn’t anything to be done.  But the joke was on him when I tossed him the bag of Endor’s enkorotik; as he zipped it, a small portion squirted onto his hand.  No hand sanitizer to be found, so he wore a latex glove for the remaining duration of obs.  Satisfaction.

There are three little black cubs!  It looks like we were all right, because one is definitely Tilt’s, but I think the other two are Carter’s.  Tilt’s is a bit younger than the other two.  Technically, I shouldn’t be calling it Tilt’s, because we haven’t seen it nursing yet.  Shadowfax ruined that.  Tilt finally felt comfortable enough to sack out in front of the den while we were there, and the little cub was all nosing up to her belly when Shadowfax came groaning in and displaced Tilt, causing the little one to run back into the hole.  I don’t know what it is with Shadowfax, but she seems to be enthralled with the little black cubs.  She is always groaning up a storm around Tilt, groaning into the den, wandering about and refusing everyone peace and quiet.  Because we haven’t seen the smallest one nurse, it cannot yet be christened “Blanket,” the only famous child name we can think of that seems halfway appropriate for a hyena.  Instead, its temporary cub name is “Adorbs,” because indeed it is adorable.  Riff and Raff have been changed to “Teenie” and “Weenie”; we couldn’t resist when the idea of teenie weenie came to mind.

As if Carter and Tilt weren’t enough new moms to have in the mix, Amazon has started to hang around the den as well.  She lost Rotifer (the first member of the newly decided marine invertebrates lineage!) back in June, but hyenas can conceive amazingly quickly following the death of a cub.  Could there possibly be more little black cuddlebugs stuffed in those den holes?  I suppose “stuffed” is an inaccurate verb; the underground network of a hyena den is quite extensive. Just the other day I saw Marlin, a Fig Tree cub, go out of sight into one of Pallet Town Den’s holes before popping up out of another in the same minute.  Amazingly cool given we are seldom offered direct proof of den holes’ connection!

The males are all about the females lately; there have been several instances of bowing, an act in which the males cross one leg over the other in front of a female, a prelude to mating if she accepts.  Kyoto leg-crossed furiously for Adonis, Hendrix is never seen without Oakland 5-10 meters away, and Wellington stole my heart one day by braving his way to the den hole, where he stood perfectly still (very gutsy for a male to remain so close) with one leg crossed over the other for an unbelievable duration while looking at us.  I’m sure there was a female we couldn’t see in the bushes, but to us it looked like he was just standing up there all alone with crossed legs, and since our car caught his attention I felt I was the object of his wooing.  Woo no more, Wellington!  Sorry Gaza.  Charlie made a list of all the males and females in the Talek West clan, and while driving one evening we matched everyone up, of course leaving some females unmatched given their numbers.  We had reasons and stories for all of them: Mork is a nice guy, so he should be with shy, sweet, snare-necked but beautiful Obama, while El Paso is a newby who needs someone like Juno, chill and relaxed, to let him do his own thing.  We agreed on a few pairs, but argued over whose match was better for most of them.  The best pair of mine was Gelato and Frisco, two outcast-type wild rough-edgers, but Charlie put Frisco with someone so ridiculous that I can’t even remember who it was.  Glad he’s not a matchmaker!

Another ongoing argument is whether or not it is rare to see an aardvark.  I told Charlie sometime mid-August, at which time he told me how much he wanted to see an aardvark, not to get his hopes up.  I had seen one when I studied abroad in the summer of 2009, and our driver told us that in his 30 years of driving tourist vehicles he had never once seen an aardvark until then.  Similar stories are everywhere.  Benson, Charlie, Eli, and Amyaal go to Prozac like two mornings later, and what should run across their path but an aardvark!  Since then Charlie likes to get me riled up by saying, “Oh yeah, sooooo rare to see an aardvark.”  So we are driving to Fig Tree one evening, and the issue comes up.  We go back and forth for about 20 minutes.  “You just watch.  It’s so common, we’ll probably see one tonight.”  Yeah right.  An hour later we are driving around searching for the hyenas; I took to driving out into the grass because we were desperate to find them.  Still broad daylight.  Suddenly Charlie’s jaw drops, and I follow his pointing finger.  An aardvark moseying about in the grass directly next to us.  No. Joke.  The probability of seeing an aardvark is extraordinarily low, but the probability of seeing one in the daylight is somewhat unheard of.  God, you think you are funny.  We couldn’t believe it, and laughed until I cried before realizing we were scaring it without even having gotten to look at it.  We followed it around for a bit: what neat creatures!  The ears are so much more like rabbit ears than I’d ever thought, and the body like that of a rounded, small-boned bulldog.  It bumbled along, although I don’t know if bumbled is the right word because it was somehow quick, and we soon realized we had completely blown our chance for a photo.

Near a week later, I begrudgingly disclosed that Julia and I had seen an aardvark by Pothole Den.  It was beyond odd, at least 10 hyenas about, and then here comes this aardvark as though it had an entrance in some unannounced play.  We didn’t get to see it for too long before Mork chased it off.  But by golly, I cannot believe that I have seen 3 aardvarks!  It really is rare, I swear.  Yet Charlie won’t have it, and given the 0.0001% lottery ticket circumstances blown to the wind, who can really blame him?