15:09, Tuesday, 12 February, 2013

One quick interesting tidbit that I have neglected to mention: I had a conversation with Dave a long time ago concerning African history, and he told me of a theory that Africa never became industrialized because the zebra could not be tamed.  In a way, maybe we have zebras to thank that large wildlife like there is here, near extirpated in America, still exists.

We saw a nursing elephant on the way home from Thanksgiving.  It and its mom were right by the road, and it reached its long trunk out asking to be fed, trying to keep up as she walked along.  Finally she decided she’d stop for it, and we were treated to watching a member of the largest land animals guzzle some milk right next to our vehicle.  Elephant mammary glands resemble those of humans an astonishing amount, present up front on the chest .  Fascinating how evolution picks different routes; hyenas only have two nipples as well, but they are present in the back, like a cow’s utter.

Vervet monkeys: always distracting me from my work.  One late morning or early afternoon a couple months ago, they decided to jump all over the top of my tent.  I don’t think they knew I was inside, and  I could see the shapes of their little hands indenting through the canvas.  Eventually I stood up and traced the perfect black shadows with my finger, only canvas separating my hand and the monkeys’.  They didn’t notice at first; but then I got a little greedy.  I pushed up on a small monkey, lifting it on my hand, and I couldn’t believe how long it sat there, its little weight heavy on my palm.  At long last it decided something was up, moving to the side and causing me to chuckle at its assumed confusion.  A game of chasing the monkeys with my hand from within the tent ensued.  After a minute or so they must have gotten creeped out, perhaps because a few back on the ground had begun bobbing their heads back and forth while peering through the screen, trying to discover what creature was hiding inside and daring to join in their fun.  Their thick vibrato croaky trills alerted the others, who came down from the canvas.  But they didn’t stop playing amongst themselves (I tried not to be insulted at being left out).  One little tyke eventually became tired of playing, and ran off into its mother’s arms.  She hugged it, and then rubbed its back.  It wasn’t nursing, it just sat there with its head to the side against her chest, and she moved her hands up and down its back several times exactly like a human mother trying to comfort her child.  Unreal.

I had never seen a group of hyenas seriously hunt until the morning Charlie, Wilson and I saw Helios and her daughters, along with Ted (very randomly, as she is Aqua’s daughter and not of terrifically high rank) try for a zebra.  They had been bristle-tail social sniffing with noses together on the ground, parallel walking in affiliation and pasting on stalks all morning long, fatiguing poor Wilson who had only just begun transcribing.  All at once they loped together toward a lone zebra.  In one of the most impressive national geographic-like sights I’ve ever seen; they massed around the zebra as it ran, closing it in on all sides so it appeared as though the zebra was running atop a sea of hyenas.  I was afraid for it, even as my mind insisted our hyenas must eat too.  For five minutes we chased them through a maze of bushes, trying desperately to get some data on video, the hyenas all the time right against the zebra’s front, shoulders, sides, flanks, and tail.  I was sure of the zebra’s impending doom, but all at once it found a group of five other zebras. That was too much for the hyenas, who slowed and dispersed.  Slightly relieved that I didn’t have to watch a zebra disembowelment, yet also slightly disappointed for the feast Helios et al. lost, I took a deep breath and watched the zebras run off.  Strength in numbers successfully demonstrated, and I bet that zebra didn’t wander off by itself for a long time thereafter.

16:14, Monday, 25 February, 2013

We may study hyenas, but it’s nice to know that the local herders don’t think less of us.  In fact, thanks to Benson and Wilson bridging important gaps between our understandings, one herder came to us for help when one of his cows went missing.  She had been pregnant, and wandered off to give birth somewhere unbeknownst to her owner.  We told him to hop in the car, abandoning our pursuit of Tilt (at the time we couldn’t figure where she had hidden little Blanket), and drove around shining the bushes and luggas.  It seemed funny, driving around a herder in a car plastered with hyenas looking for a cow lost within park boundaries, and yet it was a wonderful sort of funny.  We were working together, easing toward even further understanding.  I feel within the past year something lovely has blossomed in the hyena project: we aren’t as separate from the Maasai anymore.  We didn’t find the man’s cow; adding to the obscurely excellent relationship, he asked us the next morning if perhaps our hyenas were bloody or showed signs of having eaten a cow.  No, we replied, they rarely have cow for dinner.  He later found the cow, and thanked us very much for our help. 

In the same vein, there were several nights during which our guys left their beds to help with lion attacks, more common since the migration left.  Hungry lions will attack cattle– to them, they’re just walking beef patties, but these beef patties are accompanied by the all too unpredictable Homo sapiens, and therefore best avoided.  But nothing is best avoided when you’re hungry.  For several nights in a row, cries for help either woke me or entered my dreams.  Our guys are wonderful, and always run to help regardless of the hour.  One morning, Wilson told us he had helped chase a lion away from some cattle.  Once things had settled down and everyone had moved off, he, Joseph, and Jackson knew of the lion’s whereabouts right next to their vehicle.  When the herder asked them where it had gone, they sent him a different way: “I think it went over there.”  Not only do the herders owe our guys their cattle, and the cattle their lives; that lion probably owes them its life too.

The hyenas may not be stealing from the Maasai, but in a crazy turn of events we watched a bunch of them (low rankers no less) steal from a lioness.  We predict that perhaps the hyenas are becoming the top predator in these parts due a decrease in the lion population; recently they seem to be harassing the lions more than vice-versa.  Charlie, Wilson, and I had just left Hendrix when we noticed her suddenly perk up and begin loping with purpose to the south.  Before long we came upon Mork loping toward where Hendrix was disappearing into the bushes.  I don’t understand what sort of sixth sense these hyenas have; we had heard nothing, but somehow everyone knew that a lioness had killed a topi.  It was Aaliyah the lioness; she was still breathing hard from her catch, and I felt sorry it had been stolen.  She lay off about 30 meters from where Hendrix and several other hyenas were now absolutely tearing the topi to pieces. Other hyenas loped in from all directions, until there were about ten to fifteen present.  The rate at which that topi body was strewn into several parts and assimilated to become hyena mass is one of the most amazing things I have ever witnessed.  It took ten minutes at most for there to be only bits left, no form whatsoever. What a sight, what sounds of giggling, what smells of stomach contents and digestive juices (thanks to Allstar popping out of the bushes with the stomach, of whose wall she proceeded to open...rank), what a feel of exhaustion as I narrated nonstop.  It was phenomenal.

15:30, Thursday, 7 March, 2013

There are more reasons than the overwhelming amount of work that I find it difficult to find time to do something I love doing, which is writing this blog.  They are good reasons though, and reasons that I decided it’s time to completely surrender to.  Like stopping my transcribing to play soccer with Wilson’s little brother Dickson when he comes to visit, trying to kick the ball into a wheelbarrow stood on its wheel against the big tree-like bush by the kitchen tent, while Joseph cooks a delicious Maasai food called ge (pronounced gay) on his little grill nearby.  After soccer, Dickson and I get to try some of the ge, and it tastes like a mixture of bacon bits and corned beef, except in a perfect way, umame defined.  I cannot regret taking time to do these things.  One afternoon I sat and ate lunch with the guys as they took a quiz on Kenya out of a little book.  I participated, but literally the only question I knew was the one about which animal has females bigger than and dominant to males.  Yet the atmosphere was perfect in every way, and something so simple but such that I will never forget.  Or there are the nights when I decide to relax my mind and more fully take in the surroundings, letting my constant writer’s thoughts of how am I going to describe this for the people I love who cannot be here, how can I possibly make them see? go loose and I simply feel.  I feel the lightning jumping between the clouds with my eyes, absorb in pure elation the new area of Fig Tree I have never visited full of bushes and bounding juveniles of the rarely sighted side-striped jackal through tall grass, sink to a level of calm cognition with the rolling lioness wise enough to have known to take such times of joy by the wings without question, rhyme or reason. 

As the time nears to say goodbye to this place I cannot get enough of, I need to truly feel, absorb, and sink to levels of calm cognition.  Things feel okay as long as places like this exist, and I need it to exist somewhere other than my mind while it still can.  Last night, driving along, Wilson asked me when my leaving date is.  I told him, and suddenly had to turn my head because my eyes were welling with tears.  He comforted me, and in the typical Kenyan optimism told me not to be sad because I will return.  Probably true, but I won’t be 23, my family here (Joseph, Benson, Wilson, Jackson, Stephen, Lesingo, etc.) will likely be scattered, who knows how the Mara will have changed and whether I’ll ever be able to drive around, sometimes alone, and experience the deepest magic of this place and if any of the hyenas I love will still be alive, if some of the species (I’m a hopeful idealist, but that doesn’t put me past being scared by our persistent refusal to acknowledge what we are doing to our planet, much less to do anything about it) will still be alive.  It plain and simply won’t be the same.  And so I came to the decision then and there to do away with my new year’s resolution of writing three times a week (something I clearly haven’t kept up with), and in fact to make a new one until I get home.  I will continue to keep detailed notes in the notebook of happily colored elephants, flowers and suns – daily notes.  And when I get home, everything worth writing will be written.  It’s a promise I’ve made to myself, for myself, to keep this place as it is now alive for posterity.  But for now, I need to put aside something I love – this writing – for something I love even more, and that is this place.  It will all be written, but until mid-May, as the thunder rolls in conviction above and the raindrops fall on my home that is a tent and that I half wish could always be a tent, kwa heri (goodbye).  Kwa heri for my Kenya, kwa heri so that I can write more fully of it when the time comes.

14:59, Saturday, 9 February, 2013

I cannot believe how I get to start my days.  Waking up in a world still sleeping, stars remain twinkling across the heavens given it’s clear, Rupell’s (sp) starlings and the other earliest-rising birds excited for the day and impatient to get it going.  Some fruit bats still chiming in the trees, perhaps a genet whispering past the solar tent, its day coming to a close.  Then we go out into the field, still trying to shake off sleep with the main cue to waking yet absent.  Go to the dens and say good morning to the hyenas, lit only by the beam of a magilght, or have them say good morning to you in the case of curious cubs scrambling out to the car to look up at you beneath the window before returning to their tumbling play.  Driving back out, and there it is – the cue the diurnal primate brain waits for.  It’s as though someone has liquefied the sun and dipped a paintbrush in it, spreading just a few strokes across the dark sky over the mountains in a contrast that makes me forget, or perhaps fully remember, my being.  I can hardly breathe some mornings; I know I have described sunsets as painfully beautiful, and perhaps sunrises already as well, but to see them is a realization of somewhere inside that only the most intense beauty makes you remember is there, and it’s impossible to keep my fingers from writing it again and again.  And each morning is a bit different; if there are some clouds, the liquefied sun might be tinted pink by some heavenly hand, and then brushed carefully so as to outline the lower hangings of the clouds, each cloud with different thins and thicks so that’s it’s faultless in its inconsistancies.  Light pink paintball streaks and fainter yellows are often featured, the colors generally gentler than the glory of the sunset, when the sun feels pressure to make a grand exit in its closing of the curtain.  The start of the day it likes to ease in tenderly, like a mother softly waking her sleeping child.  But the gorgeous beginning and grand exits are unimaginable in this the land of the big sun and sky; one sunset the other day looked like a child prodigy had been given finger paints of whose oranges, reds, and yellows cannot be found on the entire land masses or oceans of the earth, and then this prodigy spread them thickly across a sky I was sure would burst at any moment.

Midday the sun, if it’s not hidden behind clouds of some sort (also impossibly lovely in their variation), becomes distant now that it’s woken many creatures and sent others off to bed.  One afternoon I can remember looking at the sky, and there was not a cloud in sight, which rarely happens in these parts given its vastness.  And I wondered how anything could be so blue, so perfectly blue.  An unbroken mass of blue, and now that I try to describe it, it sounds just like any other day of blue sky that everyone enjoys and marvels at, but it wasn’t.  It cast a different brightness, perhaps given its enormity, and most blue skies you don’t feel like you could stare at all day.  This one I could have.

The sun does exquisite, less noticeable things in the evening before divinely lowering itself.  For instance, it might be cloudy, and then it glows quietly like an unearthly streetlamp turned on early during a hazy city afternoon.  Or it might cast brilliant pink or dusky purple over a sheet of rain in the distance, so that a thin slant of angel mist falls in a curtain nearer the horizon.  Or it might make the fattest rainbow you have ever seen, blocking a small portion of a large purple hill that might be called a mountain, each color thick as your hands held a foot apart even from such a distant viewing point, and not in an arc!  In perfectly vertical stripes banding down to touch the earth with no bend. 

I must mention the flowers as well.  The flowers that open and close, bloom and disappear in response to the activity of the sky.  One day I noticed lovely yellow flowers, morning-glory types growing on long stems in bush-like gatherings along the camp paths.  They are closed tight when I walk past them in the as-yet dark of the morning, then open wide with the sun, then if I pay attention when I walk from dinner to bed I find them closed again in my flashlight beam.  One evening after a previously rainy day we were stuck in camp when the sun went down. I got to watch these yellow flowers progressively close, and was convinced again that we are out on obs during the most wonderful times in camp.  There are also little purple flowers that hide in the grass, unnoticed by me until I walked with Wilson to church and there they were in tiny adornment here and there.  And after every heavy rain the shorter-grass parts of the savanna explode in little white flowers.  It’s lovely.  Naturally, the clowning baboons (as Joy Adamson terms them) walk along and delightfully mar the idyll by picking and eating them.  Finally, following consistent rains, the savanna becomes a sort of horse pasture full of every type of cloverine flowery grass you can imagine, a meadow of dotted blowing long and short yellows, purples, pinks, whites, and blues.  I never knew a savanna could bloom like so.

Even Nairobi has its typical show of flowers, any time of the year, but when I went in November there was a surprise show of magnificent trees in bloom.  These trees’ branches showered down in a waterfall of light purple flowers, sweeping the earth before kissing it with petals floated down.  I momentarily forgot all the unjust ills of the city looking at those trees, and everything seemed happy driving along the streets of Karen.

Overall, I think weather and plants unite places on the earth in an odd way, although they are cited as things that differentiate them.  Climates are so variable, and yet nothing takes me home like the wind or the smell of wet tall grass on a rainy morning.  Although the sun is like I’ve never seen it here, there are some things just so familiar in it, and in the clouds, rain, the wind that makes them old friends unchanged by place.  They have both produced and relieved the few instances of homesickness I have felt during my time here.  Most of all, they just make me smile.

12:23, Saturday, 2 February, 2013

I write so much about animals, and yet the people here could comprise a whole separate blog of their own.

There is a little girl I periodically see down by the river.  She is probably eight or nine years old, and not shy like most of the other children.  The first time I saw her I had just hopped across the river to go running.  She ran up to me with a huge smile from where she was watching her family’s goats, embraced me, and then stroked my white skin and blondish hair, pausing to look up at me, beam and laugh in one breath, swinging my arms to and fro.  She was particularly fascinated with my moles, touching them and looking up at me questioningly.  I spoke Swahili to her, but she didn’t respond, and so I thought, maybe she just doesn’t talk much.  About a month later she found me sitting by the river, talking to my mom on the phone.  She sat by me, eating sodom apples and tossing their pits into the water.  When I had finished, I attempted to ask her how she was; again no response.  We sat, tossing rocks and pits into the river and laughing.  Soon Jackson came by and asked her how she was – when she responded readily, it became clear to me that she only speaks Maa.  Jackson asked her why she was not in school, something that hadn’t occurred to me, and he translated that she doesn’t go to school, quietly cursing her parents under his breath.  I immediately felt horribly sorry.  We just never seem to remember how blessed we are, but then why me and not her?  It doesn’t make sense, never has.  But at least I will discover her name if I see her again.  I have been learning a bit of Maa from the guys (something they find VERY amusing, especially Wilson, who likes to teach me all the bad words).  “Enkijigae?” = “What is your name?”  Still, I find it amazing how well I could communicate with her sans words.  Jackson periodically asks me where “my friend” is, referring to this lovely little girl.  I look forward to seeing her again.

I am no longer dating Maina, our mechanic, and haven’t been for some time.  But we are still friends, which is nice, and I have gotten to show him camp due to the cruiser’s gearbox failing some time in October.  It was fun to have him here, and he even came out to see the hyenas with us one evening.  He especially loved Princess Peach, Koopa Troopa, and Blanket, who were still little black cubs at the time.  He asks after them almost every time I see him.  Funny how Kenyans supposedly despise hyenas, because I have found every one we have taken out exceptionally receptive to how interesting and wonderful they are.  Yet my sample size is very small, n of about 5, and none of those we’ve taken out are Maasai herders whose livelihood is their cattle or goats.  Cattle and goats are just another hamburger to the hyenas.  Very difficult explaining why hyenas should be respected, especially when these herders have had their land stolen without receiving any of the resulting tourist income benefits.  Sometimes I wonder if I have a right to be taking any sort of side after having been so remiss in my understanding of how complicated the problem is.  I think the only answer is for human beings to learn to love animals in their own right, and to find that they have ethical value far beyond what they can do for us, or even despite hindering our (sometimes warped) view of progress.  They make our world beautiful, and I pray our species not only learns to share it with them, but desires to.

Other people stories: there was one afternoon when Charlie and I were in Talek for nearly five hours (yet again having the car repaired).  I swear every kid in Talek came over and wanted to play.  We tossed around blueband caps as frisbees, played something akin to five hundred with little bottlecaps, learned new songs and corresponding hand motions from the older girls, swung the littler children up in the air until we had to say no due to backache, had our hair played with by 10+ children at once, and collapsed dirty and happy into the car on the way home.  There was one especially sweet tiny kid, wearing nothing but a dirty sweater, whose smile is forever embossed onto my brain.

Pretty sure playing with those kids was around the period we became so busy that I showered about once every five days.  Charlie made me feel better, as his record became a week and a half.  Really, though, we Westerners waste a lot of water in showers.  My hair ceased to get oily in the absence of having its essential oils stripped every other day.  I think every third day will become my norm upon returning home; time to question those blindly accepted societal expectations.

I went to church a couple of times with the guys at Mara Leisure Camp on Sundays.  It was an extremely peaceful experience, sheep grazing right outside the windows of the humble building that had been cleared of its usual furniture to align several rows of folding chairs, children wandering in and out to play in the yard as they pleased.  We stood in a circle and sang simple repetitive hymns, clapping our hands and swaying, for fifteen minutes or so before we sat to listen to the preacher.  He talked about taking care of the environment.  Praise the Lord, Hallelujah!  I cannot begin to express how frustrated I am with the Catholic Church for shunning one of its claimed social justice teachings, and one vitally necessary for every one of the others.  Speaking of which, I attended a Swahili Mass while in Nairobi.  I was the absolute only white person in the church, and only had jeans and a glorified T-shirt at my disposal in comparison to the magnificently colorful skirts of every other woman there (apart from the nuns), but dang that was the most invigorating Mass I have ever attended.  Children danced up the aisles, the priest was even clapping to the songs over the Eucharist, the choir was alive, was it ever alive.  A lady sang like a hornbill except ten times as loud (sounds like an insult, but not an unfair comparison as they sound like opera singers), and the whole place shook with alleluia praise be!  Maybe I will start clapping back in our conservative German town and see how it goes...

Always wondered why the Maasai have two names, one their original Maa name and one your average English name.  I have taken to calling the guys by their actual names: Jackson is Meitiaki, Joseph Olojukar, Benson Malit, and Wilson Nkoiboo.  Their other names, they told me, are actually given them by their teachers, who often find their real names too hard to pronounce.  But really, is that a good reason to call someone by a different name?  Maybe, but I like their Maa names best.

Nkoiboo is a character.  Since he has begun training as a research assistant, I have discovered what a load of BS he possesses, making each obs supremely entertaining.  Wilson used to be a tour guide, and has great stories of the tales he told his tourists.  One morning, he kept asking me if I have ever seen a pygmy rhino.  I repeatedly insisted that there is no such thing.  He told me that he always told his tourists, “I cannot guarantee that we will see a black rhino, but I can guarantee that we will see the famous pygmy rhino.”  I will show you Jenna, he said.  That night on obs he shouted, “Look, a pygmy rhino!”  I looked up to find him pointing at a warthog.  He said he would have his tourists taking pictures of these “pygmy rhinos,” allowing them to believe that’s what they really were (and somehow being believed) before he finally set them straight.  Come to find out he also told tall tales of how cape buffalo are actually cattle that have gone feral, and some of the vultures here fly over the Atlantic from America.  He claims he always set them straight in the end, but apparently one day his vulture nonsense caused an unbeknownst bird expert to get out the car in anger.  On quiet evenings when we aren’t seeing many hyenas, Wilson will pretend to be an annoying tourist in the back of the car, asking me ridiculous questions as we drive along.  One day I about had Benson falling out of the car laughing when Wilson asked me what one of the usual cut tracks is for, and I said, “It’s for you to get out and walk.”  Other days Wilson tries to convince me to go “give that big male lion a hug, he will just think you are a singing cisticola” or “those elephants won’t notice if you walk out amongst them, they will just think you are a sort of beetle or something.”  Still other days he becomes a prophet, claiming how much rain we will get and when.  When I pointed out that he is always, without fail, wrong, he paused, turned around with crinkled brow (this silly look he always gets on his face when you know he’s full it) and raised finger.  He pointed at me, and in the most perfect of Kenyan accents, shook it and said, “Jenna Parker, do not play with a prophet!”

Then there was the day Benson was away, and Charlie, Wilson and I stopped at the Mara-Talek Confluence at the end of a morning obs in Prozac.  This is the place where the Mara and Talek Rivers come together.  After viewing a sunning crocodile, storks and hippos from the bank above, we walked down to the water.  The hippos stared unconcernedly at us, and we Indiana-Jones-ed it a bit across the banks to go stand out on a sandbar near them.  Wilson started chatting with a guy from the camp across the river, while we kept a close eye on the hippos, one foot ready to dash back to the bank should it become necessary.  Eventually we found ourselves sitting on the bank playing bocci ball with dirt clumps, attempting to hit a rock sticking out of the river.  It was idyllic, playing bocci ball with an enormous pod of spouting hippos looking on.  There are some things I will just never forget.  If Benson was there it would have been perfect.

Charlie and I found the game “Memory” tucked away on the shelves holding mugs and board games, and I immediately made him play it with me.  Now Memory is a thing, a great competitive occasion.  To my utter chagrin, Charlie usually wins, although I’m starting to settle down enough to beat him.  Most times I would get so angry (and become “abrasive” as Mr. Sensitive Pants Charlie claims) that I couldn’t concentrate.  The cocky little attitude he would adopt because he knows it drives me crazy made me go insane with a desire to win, which would then act against me, and pretty soon the whole of the lab tent would be quiet with my inner simmerings and his flipping over one pair after another.  I would feel better if I got the elephants though – they are my favorites.  Charlie always wanted the little yellow planes with the face, soon termed “Plane with the Face,” a name excitedly yelled upon its flipping.  Soon Benson loved the game too, and we even persuaded Julia and Dave to join this ultimate competition a few times. We (supposedly) grown adults have great fun with this (supposedly) kids’ game, probably left here by the five-year-old son of one of the graduate students.

There are some Nairobi experiences I have been debating how to write about for some time.  Basically, I have discovered what it is like to be a minority, an experience I never dreamed could be so aggravating.  When I was in downtown Nairobi with Jack during our November trip for errands and supplies, we accidentally took a wrong turn down a side street, ending up in the so-termed slums.  People had little things laid out for sale on blankets in a huge yard surrounded by their decrepit homes, trash piles here and there.  Overall, the atmosphere was happier than I expected, and I would have loved to get out and experience it a bit (although please don’t worry Kay, I would never actually do such a thing and leave the car alone).  But it was far too dangerous, and the biggest reason was my skin color, followed closely by my gender.  For the first time in my life I felt hindered because of these things.  The thought crossed my mind that maybe it would be better if everyone looked the same, and although I might have hoped it would be a fleeting thought, a thought quickly overtaken by realizations of how boring that would be and how we would never learn anything that way, it lingered, and for a long while none of that seemed worth us being free from judging anybody based on ethnicity.  People pointed and laughed at the wazungu in their fancy hyena car.  White people never come to the “slums,” they are all too rich, and the jeers I got for being a white woman driving a car here became all at once too much and I just wanted out.  Racism has bred racism, and although it’s hard to blame these people thrown to the edge of society in their own country, I was fit to burst in anger at the people yelling, “Madame, madame!” at me while laughing.  I was also scared by the amount of men who came up and wanted to take me to get chai.  Thankfully we somehow got turned around,  but even then I continued to get jeers while stuck in traffic, until I rolled up my window and refused to look around.  It opened my eyes and gave me new respect for the peaceful protests against racism raised by those like Martin Luther King Jr.; it’s hard to stay calm in situations of prejudice, and my experience was ridiculously tame in comparison to some of the horror people have to put up with.  Another day on the same trip, a man on a corner street who obviously had nothing started yelling and pointing at us when we drove by.  It was clear he blamed the likes of us for his situation.  Again, although I could hardly blame him, I not only felt but knew there would be violence were I to exit the vehicle.  It might sound childish and naive, but I was very shaken by the experience.  It’s impossible to know the best way to remedy the situation, and  I am somewhat ashamed to admit that being removed from it will be a great relief of going home.  I am even getting impatient being asked for sweets and money from bold children I’ve never seen before.  I don’t want the first thing a child says when they see me to be, “Give me money,” or “Give me sweets.”.  Boy how they look at me when I ask them to explain why they would be so rude, which I know they can understand because, at the very least, to say anything without a greeting is considered very bad manners in East Africa.  I hate how everyone who is rich here is white, how white Kenyans don’t even take the time to learn Swahili so that every time I speak it people’s jaws drop at an mzungu speaking Swahili, how no businesses are owned by blacks (made worse by the fact that it’s their country!).  Only Middle Easterns and whites who might claim to feel on the same level as the black people they employ own anything, and seem ignorant that their employees are subdued when in their overbearing presence and relieved when they leave the room.  I don’t want to generalize and blame everyone in a group of people, that’s exactly what got me worked up that day in Nairobi, and there are awfully nice whites and Indian owners; yet something is just so wrong with how such overt racism and classism is accepted.  Quite frankly it’s disgusting.  I even feel awful entering lodges, with so much rich amidst the surrounding poverty, as though the locals aren’t worth what the tourists get, or even a fair share of the profits that come from them.  What once seemed charming, being different, is now causing me to grow weary.  I had a good talk with the guys about it, and they agreed with everything I said and feel the strain of the situation.  I told them sometimes I’m ashamed to be white here, to which they put their arms around me and told me that not all wazungu are the same, and that I shouldn’t feel that way.  But I do, and even going to play poker with the balloon pilots at the lodge is starting to bother me, because you can see in the faces of the people who ask to get us drinks that we are just the typical loud, bossy whites to them, and although I love our balloon pilot friends they do nothing to discourage the former part of this view.

Well, I debated how to say all of this without sounding awful, and then everything just ran out with no thought for organization or worry for how I sound or undermining how much I love and appreciate it here.  But perhaps that’s how it should be, because Lord knows it’s confusing trying to sort everything out in my mind, how I should act and be in response to the injustice I see.  I love the people here so much, and I only wish I could make them see that my white skin means nothing, yet most every experience they have had screams otherwise. 

On the bright side, there are those that realize these things, for instance the guys in camp.  And I got to visit Jackson and Joseph’s sister Maria in Nairobi, and although she lives in a poorer part of town with her two boys, I felt confident walking into her home because she was proud to have me there as her friend, and this seemed to make people accept my presence as somewhat normal.  She also actually listened to me when I said I love to speak Swahili without English, and spoke no English to me.  Maria makes beautiful clothes and jewelry, and conscience of the fact that I didn’t want to be in jeans and a t-shirt when I returned to the church on Christmas, I bought a red beaded skirt from her.  This skirt, in typical African-style, is tight around the hips and buttocks.  When Maria entered the room to see how it looked on me, she loudly exclaimed, “Oh my, an mzungu with hips!”, and proudly proceeded to show how well the skirt fit to her friend as I stood there embarrassed.  I have never thought of myself as overly hippy, but there you go.

I will end this enormous entry with one of my favorite things Maina said to me when we were going out, something pertinent to some of what I’ve said here and overall something I need to work on.   On a night we were getting funny looks in Talek, he said:  “Sometimes people say things, and you just have to let it go in one ear and come out the other.” 

16:27, Thursday, 24 January, 2013

There is one evening obs I remember with especial vividness, not because we saw anything particularly out of the ordinary, but rather because of how it felt.  I was with Julia and Jackson’s cousin, who had never really been out in a reserve before.  (Many, if not most, Africans have never seen the parks within their own country because they can’t afford it – an infuriating topic for a different day.)   Homey gray clouds hung low over the savanna, and everything was bathed in a sort of hush.  We knew rain would come, we just didn’t know when, and we knew it wouldn’t be a heavy rain.  Driving around in such an atmosphere made me want to write all kinds of poems, perhaps one about what it would feel like to be a topi on such a perfect evening, when all hung sedate and still, or maybe about that acacia tree standing alone beneath the world’s biggest and gentlest blanket.  Finally we found a hyena, perhaps an hour into obs.  It was Swil (Serena Williams), and we followed her to where Buar (Buenos Aires) and Mork were loping to the east.  We watched in quiet fascination as Buar and Mork waded into a pool of water and each pulled out a stored piece of skin to snack on.  Swil wandered off into the gray by herself.  I felt like going with her and cuddling up next to her in some tall grass to watch the rain and night come.  Unfortunately I’m not a hyena, so when the nice rain came we had to return home early.  Bullocks on having to count a car that might get stuck.

Another night in October, after an eventful obs session alone (I was the only RA in camp at the time), I had to drive and pick up Wilson, back from his wedding leave, at the village of Sekanani.  Driving solitary in the dark where animals bigger than my car might step out ahead concocted a most marvelous feeling of vulnerability and excitement.  It turned out to be one of the neatest night drives I have had, yet I wasn’t offroad for a second.  Elephants munched right by the road, elephants that I didn’t notice until mere meters away (funny how well such a mammoth creature can hide).  Cape buffalo lined the road where there were gaps in the elephants.  A group of four lions, two subadult males and two females on the prowl, crossed the road directly in front of me, a picture of smooth and silent power.  Even a hyena loped across the road near Sarova Lodge, and good thing, because everyone knows no night is complete without an extra hyena.  I felt so intriguingly small in this Jurassic Park.  Then, I nearly became disoriented because I couldn’t figure out what was producing the huge lamp-like glow behind the mountain I was heading toward.  What on earth?  There are certainly no villages around these parts large enough to make such light.  Then the sun rose; or that’s what it looked like.  I have never witnessed such a moon.  It bathed everything in moonshadow such that I could suddenly picture Kat Stevens’ song somewhere other than at home in the winter, when the moon lines our maple tree’s branches in flawless intricacy on the snow.  Except the shadows here are more compact and move for reasons other than the wind.

One more snippet before I run off to obs – one night at Pothole Den, the excellent Talek West den without any bushes that the hyenas didn’t stay at for long (of course), Hydrogen and Helium were wandering about the main hole.  Suddenly Burger walked up, and the two immediately went to either side of her and started to ears-back groom her face.  Burger just stood there and accepted it all as though she thought herself some queen.  After a while, Hydrogen must have wanted Burger all to himself.  So, being the dominate cub, he lunged Helium away.  But when Hydrogen was reabsorbed in vigorous grooming, Helium snuck back in to continue grooming his side.  This face grooming is one of my favorite hyena behaviors, so sweet and affiliative.  Apparently that night was a younger cubs/subs groom older cubs/subs’ faces kind of night, because ten minutes later we found Gala doing the same thing to Satyr.

13:42, Friday, 25 January, 2013

Alright, auctioneer time.

Story about poop: We collected Warwick’s poop one day, and I offered to scrape it.  Benson, who had already been preparing to scrape it, uncharacteristically agreed and stepped aside.  Thinking nothing of it, I knelt down to stuff/pour the liquidy stink into the tubes.  But it wouldn’t go into the tubes, and initially I couldn’t figure out why; it was all stuck together in a foot long string of some sort.  As the realization hit me and I exclaimed, Benson started laughing from the lab tent.  It was an enormous tape worm!  He had seen it while collecting the poop, and so knowingly allowed me to do the dirty work.  I threatened to toss it at him, and busted out laughing at his devious ways. In the end he graciously pulled on gloves and knelt down to help me cut the dead worm into manageable pieces.  Should have known something was up!

Some lovely hyena moments: little black cubs’ ears poking out of the den holes, with nothing else to be seen.  A thing I will never stop loving or cracking up aboutt.  Tracking Moon Pie to where she was snuggled up beneath a bush in the midst of a herd of elephants.  Tiny Gala aggressing on fully grown hyenas and watching them “politely” appease, not because she posed any threat without Helios around, but rather because when you’re a hyena you don’t question rank.  Funny animals.  Happening upon Helios and her daughters and sons (Amazon, Buar, Atacama, Acon, and Pantanal) hunting in a group when we ventured out at four in the morning to get to Prozac earlier than normal – we lost them in the dark, but watching the chase was thrilling, probably one of the only things that could thrill me at four in the morning.  Meeting the hyenas Brazil and Hillary Clinton in Prozac; Brazil is Hillary’s mother, and always having been fascinated by the first ladies lineage, I was delighted to come across these two at last.  I also became aquainted with Al Gore, the female with very recognizable butt spots.  Going through pictures of her later at the table, Charlie: “I never thought I’d say this, but I really like Al Gore’s butt.”  Listening to the Talek East hyenas at night when their den was close to camp, and finding myself whispering what I knew to be happening.  “Someone is likely t2 lunging at someone else, who giggles, probably ears back and backing off.  Oh, there’s a t3 bite given that intense squeal.  Listen to that cub squitter!  Where is its mother?”  This job is doing something to my head.  Standing on top of the car when Helios had her natal den back in the bushes at the “Kinda See ‘Em” dens.  Gosh dangit, I was tired of not being able to see anything!  However, the hyenas noticed our birds’ eye view, and we didn’t get much viewing.  Still fun!  Naming Maree’s cubs in the boxers lineage Blue Bomber and Red Rocker.  Picking up a dead signal from Mill’s collar and realizing with relief that it just fell off; removing the telemetry from the car and hand-tracking that collar for an hour out in the open (liberation!) before triumphantly finding it beneath a bush, and later feeling somewhat proud of Mills for outsmarting us when we found her and her four-week-old cub (Whachamacallit, candy bars lineage) at a natal den.  Endor coming to the den with his head horrendously split open, blood dripping into his eyes.  Worrying about him endlessly, and then watching him heal in the amazing way that hyenas do.  All that is left over is a misshapen skull sporting a huge bump in the middle of his forehead; I told him not to worry, it’s endearing, and the ladies will love it.  Discovering Parcheesi and Burger feeding on a warthog head, only to hear massive giggling from the nearby bushes, easing the car into the bushes, listening to the giggles in despair because we couldn’t see what was going on, then finally relenting to risk pulling a couple feet further ahead and behold!  The hyenas surrounding and eventually chasing off two subadult males, also chewing on a warthog.  Bad day for warthogs.

Other animals: baboons getting into the cabinet by the table.  They love to pull down the sugar and chew on the tea bags, and someone should really teach them to play board games so that they can do more than scatter our whole collection across the ground.  Not to mention the havoc they reek by the kitchen tent; being stronger than monkeys, they can easily pull down the large garbage can.  Watching marabou storks adapting to anthropogenic influence, nesting in acacias in the middle of Nairobi.  Walking to get the car registration, and hello, right in the middle of the parking lot there sits a marabou sitting with its knees bent forward.  Up close on the ground they are quite an intimidatingly large bird.  Dwarf mongooses (yay!) showing up in camp unexpectedly.  Imitating their alarm call to see what they’d do, and watching them all lift their heads and look around for the danger in complete earnest.  An aardvark hanging out by Dave’s den so that we saw it not once but twice, two different nights.  I’m starting to give in and agree that it’s not all that rare to see an aardvark; I think it’s just that most people aren’t out in the night like we are.  One of the times we saw this aardvark, Dickson (Wilson’s younger brother) was with us.  His eyes got so wide, it was excellent!  Watching vultures walk around with their wings stretched to the side in a Big Mama from The Fox and the Hound waddle  style (the part where she sings about hunters to Tod), and having Charlie muse that they look to be airing out their armpits.  In fact, that’s exactly what it looks like! :D Moses the male monkey coming about while I’m eating lunch and folding his hands while sitting perfectly politely below me, looking up at me with begging eyes and making it very difficult to resist sharing.  But then there’s Dinkleberg, the monkey that despises Charlie, and his boldness makes me remember why it isn’t a good idea to feed a monkey.  Although Charlie has never fed him or done anything to him, Dinkleberg follows him to his tent and threat yawns at him.  Hilarious.  He has also mock-charged at him, so that I’ll come to the lab tent and find them having a stare-down, broom in Charlie’s hand.  Delightfully, Dinkleberg respects my authority more than Charlie’s, but there have been a couple times I’ve had to grab the broom as well, just in case.  Once he was bold enough to walk unflinchingly across the table and steal food right from my plate, even as I pulled it away!  A character, and we always know it’s him because he’s missing the ring finger on his right hand.  Continually watching younger vervets behave out my tent window, one leap-frogging over the back of another to get to its mother, who immediately started grooming it.  Finding a subadult leopard in Prozac.  Crowned plovers going berserk chasing one another through the sky and on the ground, giving off their obnoxious call (the one that Dave loves so much) until one finally backed off and we saw the reason for the drama as the remaining male and an apparent female copulated for about half a second.  Such a fuss for that?  Eating spaghetti at dinner and feeling a brush on my arm, looking down to find a little black hand reaching for my garlic bread that was sitting on the table.  Karma crawled up right up onto the arm of my chair beneath my elbow, and looked up at me in expectation and timidity when she couldn’t quite reach the bread.  Of course I obliged, extremely pleased but surprised I didn’t hear the normal thump on the tent post that announces her arrival.  Naming a buffalo with a unique ear Jebediah, regularly seeing Derrick the one-horned impala, periodically happening upon Gary the one horned giraffe.

And so much more, but here’s to progress!  Progress and an extremely sore right pinky finger.

15:11, Tuesday, 22 January, 2013

It feels unrealistically wonderful to be writing again.  Just as it was unrealistically wonderful to have my family here.  When they left, I had a pile of work to return to, and thank God my mom brought me a yoga DVD therapeutic for back pain!

Now let’s see if I can’t reach back and patch together at least a rough picture of some of these bullet points I have, running now on a list that looks like that of Santa the year no child was bad.  I must maintain a concise journalist (or perhaps auctioneer would be better) voice in order to catch up to the present before my eightieth birthday.  Plus, it’s much easier to create a picture with the full emotion of an event if it’s recent.  Before I launch, here is a quote from the intriguing book True at First Light by Ernest Hemingway, which my Aunt Chris sent along with my family for my birthday.  I find it perfectly true:

“Something, or something awful or something wonderful was certain to happen every day in this part of Africa.  Every morning when you woke it was as exciting as though you were going to compete in a downhill ski race or drive a bobsled on a fast run.  Something, you knew, would happen and usually before eleven o’clock.  I never knew of a morning in Africa I woke that I was not happy.”

And without further ado, here begins the disconnected blurb of things I was hoping to share.  I’ll try not to cringe, but rather think of it as a new, artistic writing style I’m experimenting with (one with no flow whatsoever).

Something new we are doing is focal animal samples (FAS’s).  These samples are when you watch one or a couple animals alone, focusing only on them and transcribing only their behavior.  Behaviors other than our normal critical incidences might be added based on particular studies.   For example, we have begun to do paste FAS’s for the graduate student named Kevin, who is studying the bacterial composition and behavioral significance of paste and pasting.  We pick a hyena at den sessions to watch for ten minutes, recording every critical incident it participates in, as well as any time it “intently sniffs a stalk,” and who else has pasted on a particular stalk that the hyena might paste on.  Someone other than the primary transcriber does these FAS’s, so they are a bit of a pain to insert into one another’s notes, but overall I have found I really enjoy doing them.  It feels much better to know that you are catching every behavior you have set out to catch since you only have to focus on one individual, it’s much less stressful, and you catch some interesting nuances along the way.  Julia does FAS’s for 30 minutes on mothers and their cubs, since she is studying (a rough description indeed) the development of cubs under different circumstances.  There you have it, FAS’s.

One morning Benson and I were in Fig Tree, back in the days before we hopelessly lost the whereabouts of the clan, and we were watching three of the young subadults playing.  They ran about in the sun, and Benson said something that made me smile.  “They seem happy,” he said.  And I thought yeah, they seem happy.  And anyone who has nightmares of anthropomorphism can just step aside, because they did seem happy, and it was good to be with someone who wasn’t afraid to admit the obvious.  “Yes, they do,” I responded.

Still back in Fig Tree, still in the good ole days, Mr. Darcy became fond of chewing on our car.  We had to bang the side to make her stop when she would explore beneath it; I would be watching Jar-Jar or Zurg, and suddenly the parts beneath the car start to move about of their own accord, or so it seemed.  The curiosity of hyenas never fails to amaze me.  One of my favorite things in the world will always be looking out the car window to see the small face of a hyena cub staring up at me.  It’s priceless, although the chewing bit is not allowed, because that can become quite pricey.

One morning Julia and I were out, and I saw something I will never forget.  Our hyenas started to play in a pool of standing water by Magic Culvert (or maybe Culvert 13 Lugga South, one of the two).  The adults completely lost all vanity and pride, any need to maintain rank seemed momentarily blown to the wind.  Probably about seven or eight were in the water at one time, and I could have watched the scene forever.  How they splashed about and mouth wrestled in that water!  Good thing our collars are water resistant.  Pan wrestled with one of the males, who it was I can’t recall – perhaps Oakland or Kyoto, and he just played back without appeasing.  Periodically one of the subadults present would burst out of the water and run away and back, full circle, defining why it is we love to be alive, perhaps one of the saving graces that allowed evolution to relentlessly strive for survival, even succeeding the development of a more complicated brain.  I have heard several times that mating often involves water, and that the male and female might play in some water before and after mating.  It makes me happy to think that hyenas can have such fun in water; water is not something I pegged them as enjoying.  It’s also always brilliant to see adults playing.

Prozac clan:  they FINALLY came back to this side of the river, so no more hour and a half excursions of bumping over rocks in a smelly part of the river from all the hippo dung, a hippo or two lazily watching you with its eyes poked just above the water as you pray you don’t get stuck in the dark in the water with a hippo twenty meters away.  Exciting, but exhausting, and so when we realized we could stay on this side of the river it was a slice of heaven.  And the place they were denning was like another piece of paradise, rolling hills and little pools of water and a den OUT IN THE OPEN for once so “Incomplete CI’s due to bushes” is not a necessary addition to every session.  And I look around and think, good for Blue Bomber and Red Rocker and all these little new cubs who can’t have names because Lord knows who their mother is that get to grow up here.  I could grow up here.  It’s almost like Serena sometimes the way we can get close enough to hear and wonder what that enchanting trickling sound is…nope, not the lovely babbling brook that would fit in here, this hyena is just peeing in the water two feet from our vehicle.  But at the same time, although I enjoy Prozac every time we go, woe to the transcriber.  With how little research assistants have been able to visit the clan in the past years, we haven’t learned the animals as well as we should, and you’re looking at 6+ hours going through pictures, some of hyenas who refused to hold still or turn so their side is facing you, and by the end of it you’d better stay away from the high rocks by the river. 

Charlie and I are way too proud of some names we have given a couple new dens in Prozac.  Prozac now sports a “Den Tist” and a “Den Tary Bone,” (both mine), and the next one is going to be “Ash Den Kutcher” (Charlie).  The simple joys in life; I laugh every time I transcribe “@D Tist” or “@D Tary Bone.”  Dad, you have really gotten me too attached to puns.

Dave has been sending us the points from the GPS collars, each of which sends a point every hour except during the middle hours of the day when hyenas are usually just sacked out sleeping.  These GPS points are incredible!  Dave has constructed a map of the territories, inserting all our landmarks so we comprehend full well where the points are. The cumulated points are amazing, opening doors to all imaginings of new discovery.  The high rankers, like Helios, stay tight to the territory.  They don’t need to venture away as they can just steal food, etc., or so that’s what would seem to be the main cause of their unwillingness to leave Kansas.  But then you have lower rankers like Baez.  She travels amazing distances, further than here to Serena in some circumstances.  We joke that on one of our trips to Nairobi, while shopping for food in Nakumatt, there will be Baez in one of the aisles.  Yet when the migration was here, Baez stuck much more tightly to the territory, assumedly because there was ample food during that time.  Remarkably fascinating trends.  But then there’s always the outlier, in our case Magenta.  Magenta is fairly high ranking, so you might wonder what incentive she would have to spend 40% of her time outside the boundaries of the reserve.  Perhaps a preferential taste for garbage?  Recently we gave a talk at Riverside Camp near Talek, and when the head of the study abroad told me she had a night motion-sensor camera and that she’d like to show us a couple hyenas (one with a collar) to see if we knew them, I guessed right away who one of them would be.  Sure enough, there was Magenta, the big shoe-thing I see on her side glaring in the flash of the camera.  She had better be careful given snares and spears. 

In Serena, two hyenas have even been observed (through GPS points) to climb the escarpment!  I would love to know their incentive.

That’s all for today, more to come!  One of my new year’s resolutions is to write more, and I intend to keep it if at all possible.  I like to think I’ve gotten better at managing my time since coming out here, because without that skill this job would be impossible.

10:14, Sunday, 23 December, 2012

It is absolutely KILLING me not to write, and I apologize profusely for my unexplained absence.  The bullet points are growing, and everything possible will be written about in due turn.  But I have been working on lists and ill with some stomach flu, and now that I'm well I have guests coming, so I will be silent for a two and a half weeks more.  But Africa is beautiful and amazing as ever; the sun is shining here making even Nairobi seem like a place of beauty, nearly succeeding in masking all of the colonial social class segregation that makes me sick.  I miss the Mara as I have been away for nearly ten days, but when my guests step off that plane I'm worried I should weep with joy, and so the time away from my beloved hyenas is worth it.  Until next time, Krismasi Njema (Merry Christmas) and Heri ya Sikukuu ya Kuzaliwa (Happy New Year) from Kenya!

13:42, Wednesday, 5 December, 2012

I feel incomplete when I cannot write, because it is my reflection, my way to examine my life and therefore perhaps, as Socrates would say, make it worthwhile.  This job is everything I could ever dream of, but in my quest to do well, my blog suffers.  It is one of the curses of science, losing a connection with the general population, tucking experiences and findings away where only a stressed-out student with a paper or dissertation to write will ever dig them up.  But science confined to conferences among researchers does no good, and I find that to be the discipline’s biggest failure: communication.  Things will not change without communication.  So amidst all of the proofreading and compiling of notes, creating lists of new and missing hyenas, typing up prey transect counts and new landmarks and clan lists, etc. etc. (it’s that time again – somehow three months have passed since the relief of finishing June-August summaries to send back to the lab), I have to take a breather and return to knocking off the bullet points I have been saving to share.  It’s good practice, even in the form of a most humble blog. 

We are going through a drought right now.  It hasn’t rained in a month, unusual for even the dry season.  Beneath the Equator sun things have been mercilessly fried.  It frightens me, staring out across the plains that used to be green and healthy browns to find dried up remnants of grass.  The plain closest to camp, in the Talek East clan territory that we drive through every morning and evening on our way to and from Talek West, is nearly a plain of nothing but dirt.  Thankfully the territories farther from human influence aren’t quite as parched-looking, but the change is still, quite frankly, a little terrifying.  Things get especially worse for our side of the park because there is pressure to allow the Maasai to graze cattle within its boundaries since the grass outside has become inadequate.  Our livestock count inside the park for the latter half of November, taken on one evening as a measure of anthropogenic influence, numbered over three thousand.  Drought and floods are things we are increasingly going to have to deal with in the future, and finding good ways to provide for both people and animals is going to be an enormous challenge, most especially as resources are limited and less than 1% of water on earth is fresh, less than thirty percent of that one percent accessible.

But while Dave finds profound evidence of declining numbers of ungulates in this part of the park over the years, as the elephants move out to Fig Tree and Prozac and Serena (hopefully only until we get some precipitation, something we cross our fingers for every day, especially in the former half of December as I selfishly pray that obs will be performable when my family arrives), the hyenas are booming.  Such adaptable creatures!  So many little cubs are present at Central Park Den, the current den of choice, and one located out on a lovely little peninsula wrapped by the drying river.  It’s lined with bushes that make observation an absolute bear, but it’s so charming I can hardly dislike that they’ve chosen to move there, especially given the numerous cinnamon-chested bee eaters, pair of dik-dik who have made their home (oddly) next to the hyena den, and baboons that hang out in the Fig Trees lining the river, their harsh barks offering a nice accent to an evening out.  Tilt did turn out to have a cub; his name is Blanket (famous people’s children lineage), and he immediately stole my heart with the quizzical look he gave us one of his first nights out from the bushes.  Carter is mom to Koopa Troopa and Princess Peach (Mario Cart), slightly older than Blanket but his main playmates who accept him into their sackout pile so that the three of them are often resting against one another in a clump of cute.  Koopa Troopa is a female, and the boldest of the three her age.  Princess Peach, to our chagrin (and I’m sure his too, were he to understand), is a male.  I was so excited to have a low-ranking adult female in the clan called Princess Peach – such a cute name – but alas!  He will end up emigrating to another clan after three or so years where no one will call him by his unfortunately assigned name.  The project umpire rules that three sightings of a pointed phallus, and you’re out!

Hydrogen and Helium were the little black cubs, now they’ve grown into what Satyr, Bata, Burger, et. all used to be.  Then Blanket, Princess Peach, and Koopa Troopa were the little black cubs, but their spots have sprouted beautifully, and they are growing at what seems to be an exponential rate.  Then Titicaca and Chile (places in South America) became the next-in-line to the thrown as Helios’s new litter.  But even their faces are beginning to whiten, and now Taupe and Amazon have the little black wonders, Taupe’s estimated at a mere three weeks.  Precious little tiny black balls with miniscule ears, eyes, and noses.  Taupe is a first-time mom, and she is very nervous when we are around, not taking her eyes from us for one second.  She sacks out right in the den, nursing her little ones so they are out of sight, protecting her precious secret.  We assigned her the lineage of Dr. Seuss, compliments of Julie, and her first litter is comprised of Cindy Lou Who (CLOU) and Grinch (GRCH).  With our luck, Cindy Lou Who will probably turn out to be male.  Although I suspect Amazon might have two cubs, we saw her carrying about and nursing one the only time we caught confirmation of her current motherhood.  Amazon seems to have a habit of misplacing her cub.  More than once we have watched her digging down in the den holes, dirt flying every which-way.  She will disappear completely into one hole, reemerge (possibly too big to travel underground) empty-handed and try another, then another.  Finally one time she came up with an itty-bitty cub hanging from her mouth, and carried it to where she plopped it down in front of her to nurse back in the bushes.  This cub, to my utter joy, we have name “Barnacle” (BNCL).  Amazon’s lineage is one of my favorites: marine invertebrates.  Poor Rotifer, the sole cub of her first litter, didn’t make it.  Better luck this time, we hope!

Artemis, Juno, Obama (Hail to the Chief!) and others have been hanging around the den as well, and I can only imagine the number of potential cubs hiding underground.  Cubs aren’t the only influx we’re having; males are coming from every which-way.  We have a new one that looks just like Juba, so we named it Khartoum, since both these cities are in Sudan.  One night we were almost certain Khartoum was Juba, only to have Juba pop out of a nearby bush and greet with Khartoum.  At that point we were referring to Khartoum as “Not Juba,” so the transcription was sounded “Not Juba ears-back head-bob greets with Juba.”  Another one looks just like Frisco, so we have name it Fresno.  And Dodoma, a very handsome male, light and small with striking dark spot patterns and a beautiful arrow on his left shoulder that makes IDing him a whiz, has joined the ranks.  Kisumu is a spotty thing that has a very endearing face, as yet slightly nervous of our presence.  And then there is a male waiting for his third sighting that we have seen in Fig Tree twice and Talek twice, with epic ear damage on one side.  Ear damage is always welcome, making the IDing of even a sacked-out hyena a cinch.  Kisumu and Fresno have already left us fecal gifts to scrape into RNA-later for DNA analysis in the lab.

And that is about all the time I have for today.  Everyone in camp is still well; we are a tight-knit family now.  We had a lovely Thanksgiving in Serena; Philimon and Jorji surprised us with an actual turkey, gravy, and sweet corn, and the Majis (Chris and Amanda) brought stuffing made in their little camp oven.  We stayed up late playing games and talking, a couple of us offering a bit of a show for the rest of us after a tad too much alcohol (I couldn’t stop laughing at the volume of some of the inebriated individuals’ voices, the poignancy of their statements, and one’s persistent rearrangement of chairs about the table for no reason).  My favorite thing was that the conversation late into the night was still sciencey and nerdy intelligent amongst the grad students, and they made perfect sense even when a bit tipsy.  Like going to Lyman Briggs at MSU – feels like you’re in an episode of “The Big Bang Theory” as a drunk guy on your floor slurs “Did you know they used to think that DNA was made up of a triple helix instead of a double helix?” before taking his next shot at beer pong.  Wilson is doing great becoming a research assistant; he has learned the hyenas very fast, and is coming along on behavior.  He, Benson, Charlie, and I have so much fun out on obs.  Joseph and Jackson, Stephen and Lasingo are all well.  Dave and Julia came on the first to stay for five weeks in Talek Camp.  I can’t believe how the time is flying.  Wilson said the date into his DVR as we left at 5:15 in the morning of December first:  “On December 1^st – Ooooo, Christmas! - BMP, CEK, JMP and WNK leave camp.”  Hilarious to see the realization hit him.