Hi
again!
Time
is winding down here in Africa and we are all wrapping up the final projects
and everything we want to get done before heading back home. I have fallen in love with Africa, but I am
also looking forward to be home with my incredible family and some homemade
food from my momma!!!
On
a different note, after our return from Serengeti National Park, we have had
quite a lot of excitement between our off days to go exploring and FINALLY
starting our directed research projects that we have been waiting for the
entire semester!!! The first day back
was an off day, which was definitely needed!
We had the option for an activity in the morning, but around 90% of us
decided to sleep in and have a relaxing morning instead of being up at the crack
of dawn again. Instead, we left camp
around 11 am to head to Karatu once again to go shopping. Unfortunately, my tsetse fly bites and
swollen feet had gotten really bad, so we decided that the clinic was a better
choice for me to see what was going on!
The clinic was the same one that we had taken the tour at a few weeks
before, and I had the most amazing and nice doctor there taking care of
me. They ran a bunch of tests, but
unfortunately couldn’t find anything that was causing the swelling and therefore
didn’t know how to help. They did give
me some lotion to help with the bites and how itchy and terrible they were, and
I was very thankful for that. I am just
praying that my feet go back to a normal size as soon as I get home, because
the elephant feet are not a good look on me! Hahaha
After
me and a few other girls finished everything up at the clinic and got whatever
meds were necessary, we journeyed back to Karatu and I chose to walk around for
the remaining 15 minutes that we had before leaving town. I wandered into a few shops and ran into some
friends, but didn’t have time to really buy anything. Our next stop completely made up for it
though. I have often talked about the
market in Kimana back in Kenya and how crazy it was every Tuesday. Karatu has another market like this one,
accept, it is easily 10 times the size of Kimana’s!!!!
The
market is on this giant open hill made of dirt and nothing else, and everyone
in the area comes and sets up their little shops all over the area!! It was so
huge and really intimidating when we first got there, but of course, we dove
right in and started exploring anything we could find. I found some really great fabric that I had
been looking for, as well as beautiful jewelry and more shukas of course. There was fish being fried everywhere and
nyama choma (roasted meat) everywhere you turned. Anything that anyone could
ever need could be found at this market, including livestock, and I felt like I
had barely made a dent in it when it started pouring and we had to make a run
back to the cars! By the time we actually got there, my shoes had at least 6
more layers of mud on them and I was slipping and sliding all over the
ground. I made an awesome deal with a
guy outside the car selling the necklaces that if he cleaned my shoes off, I
would buy a necklace, and it worked out great for the both of us! Haha After loading back in the cars and showing
everyone everything we had bought that day, we drove to Happy Days to have some
“American” food and a few drinks.
We
all sat together around a picnic table and just had random conversations about
the day and looking forward to DR and everything that we were still going to
get to experience in Africa. We came
back to camp a few hours later, and our Camp Director’s daughter was visiting
during her Easter break. I was one of
the few people that talked to her a lot, so I invited her to play cards with us
after dinner was over. I sat with her and
played go fish for a while, but as time went on I got exhausted and freezing,
and decided to say goodnight, curl up in my bed and watch a movie. I watched the movie “Hard Day’s Night” with
the Beatles and completely fell in love with it. It was a great note to end the day on!!!
The
next day was our Tanzanian homestay!!!
We got our pairs, and I was lucky enough to be paired up with my best
guy friend here, Patrick! We left nice
and early, and with the rain pouring down around us, the entire area around
camp was so foggy! I couldn’t even tell
where we were going as soon as we pulled out of camp. This home stay, we were stay with a different
tribe than the Maasai called the Iraqw.
Our Mama’s name was Mama Beni and she lived in the same town that our
camp is in so it was a quick drive. When
we arrived, Mama Beni, her daughter, and her son met us at the car and gladly
took the gifts that we had brought for them!
The day of our home stay was actually Easter, so we made sure to bring
some more food to help with the Easter feast that they usually have. We had no idea what we would be doing that
day since it was a holiday, so we were wearing clothes nice enough for church,
but not nice enough in case we were working in the field. After arriving, our Mama started making us
chai like always, and we sat in the house with her son, Christopher. Their house was one of the nicer ones in the
area. It had concrete walls and floors
with a metal roof, three rooms with beds and a couch and coffee table. Outside, they had a large barn for their
cattle, shoats, and dogs and because they were farmers, they had things growing
everywhere. We sat for a long time as
the chai cooked, and when we finally got it, it tasted so strange to us. It tasted like they had stirred it with a
stick from this one tree that is very known for being strong tasting and
smelling, and both Patrick and I had to force the tea down to be polite! After we finished the chai, it was still
pouring outside, so we continued to sit with Christopher inside and talk about
their farms and about America and what the weather was like for us at
home. We got to know Christopher even
better than we got to know our Mama, which I had hoped would be the opposite.
After
the rain finally slowed, we got to have a tour of the house, the barns, and
shown all of the farm land that their family owns. They own acre after acre that goes on farther
than we could even see! The grew a lot
of corn, but also had fruit trees and a vegetable garden too! The whole farm was owned by their entire
family, so they always had enough people working on it to take good care of it
and harvest things on time! My favorite
part of the tour was definitely the barns!
There was a newborn baby goat running around under our feet looking for
its mom. It was so small and had the
cutest noises that came out of its mouth when it was scared or excited for its
mom. They also had a baby kitten and cow
that were nearby, so I was surrounded by baby animals.
Soon
after the tour, we had to start cooking lunch for the entire family. It was Patrick, me, Christopher, and another
Mama in the kitchen building outside the house.
The first thing we had to do was cut meat for the rice mix that we were
making. My partner, a devout vegetarian,
was asked to hold the plate, and before he knew it, a huge piece of raw cow was
plopped down on the plate on his lap. I
wish I could have captured his face at that moment. He looked so disgusted and attempted to lean
as far back away from the meat as he could while Christopher cut it. It took a good 20 minutes to cut, and his
facial expression never changed. I was
laughing the entire time at our luck that day.
When the meat was all done, it was thrown in a pot over the fire. We then started to cook rice and cabbage and
tomatoes and got to help cut and prepare all of them before they were thrown in
the pot. We had tons of rice, and it was
a good thing, because out of nowhere, as we were cutting onions and cabbage, a
chicken snuck into the kitchen, flew up in the air, and came down right on top
of one of the rice pots. The boiling
rice flew everywhere, and chicken was grabbed by the wing and thrown out, and
we were back to square one. Luckily, in
our bags, we had brought double rice, which worked out nicely this day. We sat for a long time while the other momma
added a lot of spices to the meat and one of the pots of rice. It smelled so good, and after waiting 2 hours
for the cooking to be done, Patrick and I were starving. Patrick got so lucky because they happened to
keep some rice separate from the meat and rice mix, so he had a nice feast for
himself of cabbage and tomatoes and the plain rice. They even brought us home grown oranges in
from their garden, which was an amazing touch to the meal! We ate and ate, trying to not be rude and
leave leftovers, but like always, they gave us far too much food and we had to
stop eventually. As soon as lunch was
over, we decided that we would go for a walk around the area and meet the
neighbors!
The
houses near us all belonged to relatives of the family we were staying at! The people in this area don’t really know how
cousins and aunts and uncles works, so I couldn’t tell you who we met or how
they were related, but every house we stopped at had family photos with our
family in them too. We even ran into a
few of our fellow students that were in houses nearby. After we had visited and made our stops, we
walked down a huge hill down to a water hole that the cattle use. That area was absolutely gorgeous! It overlooked Lake Manyara far into the
distance, with rolling hills and super green agriculture and trees in
between. It’s so pretty and natural
looking and Patrick and I really enjoyed the view from where we were. We didn’t enjoy, however, the hike back up
the hill hahaha. It was literally
straight up and our guide made it look like nothing. Meanwhile, we were both struggling, trying to
still talk to Christopher, but gasping for breath. It’s so pathetic how much a difference the
elevation makes from Kenya, that was already 4,000 feet above sea level, to
Moyo hill that is closer to 5,000 or 6,000.
We felt pretty pathetic!
For
the rest of the day, we just hung around the house. We had really hoped to help the family more
with their daily chores and farming tasks, but the combination of Easter Sunday
and us being guests did not work in our favor.
In the time we sat there, Patrick and I actually had a really great
time. With some of the miscommunications
over the language barrier and other random things that happened, we could not
stop laughing. The first was this random
yarn ball craft thing that our family was using as a decoration. It was hung on a single string straight above
my head, and was the only thing in the house that was a decoration. Then we misunderstood when they introduced us
to a worker from the farm. Apparently,
he was from another tribe that we had never heard of. When they said the name of the tribe though,
it sounded exactly like Barbarian, so we thought they were calling this man
barbaric! He was not wearing shoes and
he scarfed his food down quickly, and whenever these things happened, the
family just sighed and said “Barbaric.”
We didn’t realize it was a tribe until the second we left! Other funny things were the youngest
daughter, named Foster, who was the Cinderella of the family and was called
loudly no matter where she was and a little baby chewing on a piece of the meat
that we had cooked. Normally, roasted
meat is nyama choma, but a tiny baby with no teeth gnawing at it, we couldn’t
help but call it nyama choke-a. We were
exhausted, so everything was hilarious by the end of the day. I loved spending this time with Patrick and
will never forget that day with all the other inside jokes that happened! We finally had to leave, so we took pictures
with our family and headed back to camp. At camp, they made us a huge Easter
feast with tons of amazing food, including chapati of course and we all talked
about our homestay!
The
next day was the decision day for Directed Research to choose our final
projects and the partner we would be working on them with. All 9 of us that were chosen for WM met
Christian in the gazebo at camp and divided up projects based on
interests. I was extremely lucky and got
my first choice with my really good friend Jen!
We got the project looking at indicator species. An indicator species is one whose presence
can indicate a healthy environment and richness in other species. Our professor is trying to publish an article
for this area based on our information, so after choosing a topic, he told us
that we would be published in the near future!
I was so excited and knew right then that I had chosen the right
project!
As
soon as topics were established, we began working on our proposals that were
due a few days down the road. We had to
talk about a background of the study, what other research had been done, how we
were going to collect data, and so on.
It was a really relaxing day as we all just lounged around, wrote bits
and pieces of our papers at a time, and walked into town for a soda and to head
to the tailor of course! This time
though, as we walked back from town, the entire sky opened up and we got
trapped in the rain. To make things
worse, our gate at camp was locked and the guards were sitting inside where
they couldn’t hear us, so we had to wait in the rain before we got in! It was definitely necessary to change my
drenched clothes as soon as we got back!
The rain of course put us all in a weird mood, so we curled up in
pajamas and watched the movie Madagascar!
It was such a relaxing day!
The
next day, we were scheduled to have a field lecture, but none of us were very
excited. After all, why would we have a
lecture when exams were over and Directed Research was the main focus of the
rest of the program? We had no idea
where we were going, but when we got to the first stop, we all realized what a
great lecture it was going to be. The
focus of the lecture was on conservation and environmentally smart programs
going on in this area. The first stop
was a school that was built by a company in the United States. It was a normal school, but in addition, they
had an entire conservation learning area where they could learn about trees and
plants and water and how they could conserve them. The students even had chances to plant their
own trees. The school also had a chicken
farm that they farmed all of the chicken that the kids would eat during the
school day. The school was gorgeous and
surrounded by fruit trees for the kids to eat from! It was so great to see how small parts of the
community are trying to make the changes and how much of a difference it can
make! When we thought we were done with
our tour, they surprised us and told us that we were going to plant trees for
the school! I was so excited that we got
to do something hands on and would actually make a difference to this
school. We all picked a baby papaya tree
and a hole they had dug for us and started moving the soil around and making
our little trees stand up tall. We even
named our trees and were acting like complete hippies in our long skirts,
planting trees, and singing songs about loving nature! We were all so happy leaving our trees as we
climbed back in the car for the next stop!
The
next stop was at a Mama’s house who utilized natural gas from her cattle’s
manure. They have this really great
system that the manure sits and ferments, and the family collects the natural
gas that comes from this manure and uses it to cook all of their meals and heat
up their chai and boil their water to make it clean. The entire system is so easy to use, and all
of us were amazed that we had never seen this process before! It was so simple and people around the world
could easily use it to heat their house instead of using the high amounts of
natural gas that we all do! It was
fascinating to see another way to do things that was so different than what we
were used to, but worked just as well!
Very eye opening!
The
next stop was at this brick building that had this really large and loud
machine working hard outside the door.
We quickly realized that this machine was making bricks, such as the one
the building was made out of. The bricks
were made from mostly dirt and sand from the local area with a small amount of
cement and highly compacted in the machine to make building materials! It was really neat because it used natural
materials instead of tons of cement like other bricks do. They showed us how the machine worked, and
then, once again to our surprise, allowed us to help run the machine and gather
the bricks from the machine after they were compacted. It was such a neat way to save resources and
use things that are more plentiful and we were all excited that we could help
for a few short minutes!
The
final stop during the lecture was nothing special compared to the others. The tour guides from the entire day showed us
stoves that lodges and certain families use that use alternative sources of
energy than burning tons of fire wood or using gas from the city of
Karatu. It was informative, but we were
in a weird alley in the middle of Karatu, so it did not leave as much of an
impact as the stops before!
After
the traveling lecture, we were all so happy with everything that we had seen
and the positive impacts that it is having on the surrounding community. I think that I especially liked it because it
was the first successful project that the founding company stuck with and it
was really making a difference. In the
past, we hear about conservation efforts, but so many become failures due to
policies and weak institutions. This was
such a positive and hopeful day and made us all think that we could make a
difference in the careers we are pursuing.
Back
at camp, we had another lecture that afternoon with a lion specialist that
worked in Tarangire National Park and used to work at Serengeti. He talked about all of the management her did
in the park and the common problems they face when conserving lions. He was a really cool lecturer because he had
been to the United States to study as well, so he just had so much knowledge
about the world. I really liked learning
about the lions and their struggles and the social structure, especially since
we had seen so many in the crater and in Serengeti! We thanked the lecturer, hung out the rest of
the night, and prepared for another day full of classes!
The
next day was an all morning statistics lab with all of our professors. We were stuck in the classroom listening to
all of the data analysis that might be done during research and how to do it
and what it means and what program you would use to do so. It was a really long morning, especially
since each one of us would only need one of those analysis techniques, but had
to listen to all of the information. It
was informative, but really long. We
also still had to work on our proposals, so that was the main thing on our minds
that morning. We had a well-deserved
lunch after that lecture, a quick safety debrief on DR with Whitney, and
continued writing for the rest of the night.
I stayed up super later trying to get it all done, and it was a great
feeling when I finished the whole paper!!!
Thanks
again for reading! I know things are
quite as exciting as the cheetahs in Serengeti, but I appreciate you still
keeping up! Hope everyone is having a
wonderful day!!!
Love,
Mollie
Ann
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