Expedition In Serengeti! Days 1 and 2

Hello!

Time to talk all about our amazing expedition to Serengeti National Park for a week!!!  This expedition was a day shorter than the one that we took in Kenya before, but was filled with amazing animal sightings and some really great experiences!

The first day was again a full day of travel.  The entire trip takes a total of 7-8 hours with a few stops along the way.  We left bright and early, like always, and I rushed to get a front seat in one of the cars so I could have plenty of room for my legs and all of my things for the week!  I got in a great car with a bunch of my friends and our SAM, and we were off towards the park!

The first stop on our way was pretty soon after we started.  It was once again at the gate of the Ngorongoro Conservation Area where we had been the week before!  You must drive through the conservation area to get to the Serengeti, so not only do they make tons of money from people visiting the crater, but they make money on tourists and locals that are forced to take that road to get where they are going!  It was a quick stop though, and before I knew it, we were climbing up the side of the crater on the bumpy and extremely narrow roads.  The drive to the next stop took about 2 hours, so I was thankful to curl up with my Maasai blanket and pillow and sleep until then.

The next stop was something that I had never expected to see in my life, but was so happy when we found out that’s where we were headed.  The place that was stopped was Olduvai Gorge, the “Cradle of man”.  It is where the oldest humanoid remains were found by Mary and Louis Leakey.  There have been remains found of homo erectus and foot prints preserved alongside ancient mammals that resemble the ones that we have today.  We had a lecture by one of the local guides telling us about all of the amazing skulls and bones they have found in the area and how many more they are expecting to find!  They have archeologists coming from all over the world to excavate and hopefully fill in more pieces to the puzzle.  We learned a lot about the Leakeys and they were seriously incredible.  They picked up everything and moved to Tanzania with their pet Dalmatians and lived here almost their entire lives!  They dedicated over 50 years to excavating the area and finding what can be considered one of the most amazing archeological finds in history.  We got to see old pictures of the two of them, and Mary is officially my role model.  Every picture of her is her doing something that was not usually acceptable for women to do in that time.  Every picture, she has a cigarette hanging out of her mouth and tackling some wild animal or covered in more dirt than the actual bones she was finding.  It was insane to learn about these dedicated people and know we were in an area that man has been walking for millions and millions of years.  What an incredible and extremely unexpected experience.

After our lecture, walking through the museum, and buying a few bracelets along the way, we hit the roads again to finally get to Serengeti!  The roads to the gate were terrible though.  They have purposefully not paved them to reduce the traffic in the park and to reduce the amount of animals that are killed in car accidents, so I guess the bumpy dirts roads are worth it.  It was a fine ride, until suddenly, I was leaning on my door, falling asleep, and the door unlatched and flew open!!!  Thank goodness I was wearing my seatbelt and nothing was too close to the door besides my head.  I kinda screamed and was shocked when I could see the ground flying by underneath me, but I was able to get it latched and locked as we continued flying down the dirt road.  Other than that it was a smooth trip haha.

When we arrived at the Serengeti gate, we had to stop while they checked us in and found what campsite we would be staying at.  I got some fresh made popcorn and a soda for the rest of the ride. Serengeti is the largest National Park that we have gone to so far, so even when we got through the gate, we would still have a 3 hour drive before arriving at the campsite.  Lucky, we were allowed to pop the hatches up as soon as we got in the park and do a game drive all the way to the camp site. At that point, I think I had wasted all my energy being excited to get there the entire day, and I passed out for a good hour.  When I finally woke up, we had stopped because one of the cars had spotted a cheetah really far in the distance! I was excited that we were already seeing a cheetah, but it was really too far to see, so we had to keep moving.  Not far from that siting, we saw a bunch of lions right next to a big water hole.  There were two littler lions and three big ones, including a male.  They were doing what lions do best, aka sleeping, so we watched them for around 20 minutes as they rolled around on their backs into one another, and then once again had to get to camp to set up tents before it got dark out!

When we finally arrived to camp, it was around 5 pm and we immediately got to work putting up our tents.  This campsite was so different than where we had stayed on our last expedition.  There was no fence around us at all, meaning any wild animals are able to come right into our camp with us.  After 6pm, we have to be accompanied by an armed guard to go to the kitchen or bathroom because of all the wildlife.  The other thing that was different was these little devil insects called tsetse flies.  They are these evil biting flies that take out big chunks of skin, hurt like heck, leave gross bumps, and can spread scary diseases like African Sleeping Sickness!  And they love the colors blue and green, aka my entire wardrobe that I brought to the Serengeti.  It was quite funny actually to watch everyone running around away from these flies trying to set up their tents, but as soon as I got bit once, I realized why they were running…

After all our tents were set up in a row, we had dinner around the campfire sitting in our crazy creek chairs and told campfire stories and hung out after such a long day of travel.  We all had to be in our tents by 10 because of the wildlife, but some of us were in there before then even!  I had three other tent mates this time including Maggie S., Erin, and Paige and I was happy with that!  That night, I was suddenly woken up at 3 am by a dragging and scratching noise outside my tent.  I knew better than to get up and check what it was our leave my tent, so I just put on my headphones and hoped for the best!  The next morning, we found out that a few hyenas had come into our camp and stolen our compost bin and dragged it through camp!  Its so crazy to think that hyenas were right on the other side of my tent, but I knew our two guards would take care of us!

The next day we had a normal morning of breakfast, which is surprisingly amazing with a small kitchen with not a lot of resources, and packing up for the day!  We were all a little intimidated by the day that was ahead of us because we were leaving for a game drive at 8am and were not coming back to camp until 6pm!!!  I was so excited to be in the Serengeti doing this game drive, but it was destined to be a long day no matter what.  We had three assignments that we were in charge of completed while we were out that day.  The first, which I was happy about, was a giraffe behavior exercise.  Everytime we came across a giraffe or a group of them, we had to observe their baheavior for 30 minutes, including what they were eating, how long they did each activity, and then we got to name all of them to keep track of all the different giraffes.  THe other exercise was almost identical to the giraffes, accept with elephants instead.  I wasn’t too upset about these exercises since those two are probably my favorite animals to see!  The last exercise was a birding exercise, which at first, I was not excited about.  The Serengeti has over 300 bird species, so trying to identify all of the birds we saw was not my idea of fun.  I knew we would all make the best of it though!

Probably the most amazing feature of Serengeti National Park is the open grasslands.  I know it sounds  like a typical description, but it literally looks like a giant ocean!  It goes on for ever and ever and when the wind blows across it, it moves in waves.  It is sometimes as tall as the windows on the car and you can easily lose yourself just staring at it and the way it moves as the car passes it!  I have never seen so much open space with gorgeous healthy grass going on for miles and miles.  It was amazing!  However, the chance of you seeing an animal in this kind of grass was nearly impossible, so it was definitely a trade off.  In the morning, we literally saw nothing the entire time.  We drove and drove and didn’t even see any giraffes or elephants.  Surprisingly, I LOVED birding!  We had this giant checklist with all the names of birds and our guide books, and everytime we would see a bird, we would stop and have to try and work together to identify it and then check it off the list.  It was literally a giant ISpy game and so fun to work with everyone in the car to try and figure it out.  It was frustrating some times, but overall was surprisingly fun! 

After driving for around 4 hours, we stopped at this place called Maasai Rock.  It was a picnic spot that was lofted up on a rock that overlooked a huge part of the Serengeti!  It was boulders stacked on boulders and we were able to find some nice shade to have our lunches in!  We scarfed down out PB and J’s and then went exploring on the top of the rock.  I found hundreds of lizards and bats in the dark areas and even a skull of an antelope that a hyena had chewed on!  There were some Maasai paintings at the top as well! The best part of the rock besides the view was this amazing rock that when you hit it with another stone, it makes a hollow noise that changes tone where you hit it on the rock!  You could literally play an entire song on this rock and we all had our turn making songs on the Maasai rock.  We finally had to climb back into the cars and head off for more exercises, but it was a nice stop!

For the rest of the day, we drove and drove and did not see much.  I even fell asleep for a an hour because there was nothing to look at!  At one point, we saw two lions, which we nicknamed Mary Kate and Ashley, but other than that, we started to head back to our camp.  We were all sort of bummed that we were almost back, and hadn’t seen a lot, but I still had faith.  As we were driving back through the woodland to camp, all of a sudden, the tsetse flies went nuts!!!  In a matter of a few seconds, the entire car was filled with them and they were all over us biting every inch of skin possible!  It was so scary, but also the most hilarious thing I have ever seen.  Our professor and driver in the front seat were swatting and climbing out of the cars and yelling like little girls.  I was laughing so hard that I could barely swat the ones off of my own legs, which turned out to be a bad decision later on.  When we made it back to camp, we were over an hour early than when we needed to be back so we begged our driver to take us out a little bit longer.

We were excited to see a lion right after we left camp!  It was a momma with 4 baby cubs that we estimated had only been born a month before!!! One of the little babies was stuck in a tree and squealing for its mom!  We watched and watched as the mom walked away, and finally the baby made the leap of faith into the ocean of grassland!  I was laughing once again when I heard all of us cheering for the baby lion leaping from a shrub haha.  These are my kind of people.  The final thing that we saw before going back to camp was a dead hippo that was not there when we had driven in that same area that morning!  It was belly up in one of the hippo pools, and we were shocked when we realized what it was.

Thanks for reading!  I hope everyone is having a great time kicking off spring time!

Love,

Mollie Ann

Finishing Classes, But Its Not All Hard Work

Heri ya Pasaka! (Happy Easter!),

I hope everyone has had an amazing holiday filled with happiness and friends and family.  I am so behind on my blog due to our camping trip and something going on everyday around here, but I am doing my best to catch up! Thanks again for reading!

The next day in Tanzania, we had another early morning because we were heading back to Mto wa Mbu to have more lectures and do another exercise.  The first exercise that we were completing that day was a birding exercise where we had to find and identify birds in the middle of a rice field!  One of the groups got to stay on the nice and wide dirt path to look for birds, but I was assigned to the group on the narrow path barely wide enough for one foot and rice fields with foot deep water on both sides!  It was quite a balancing feat for over an hour and half with 15 other students in the middle of this tiny path, looking through binoculars and trying to look in books to see the kind of birds we were seeing.  Somehow, none of us fell in at all and it was a pretty great challenge that we overcame that day.

As soon as we were finished with this exercise, we once again found a nice green grassy spot, set up our crazy creek chairs, and had a lecture on the bush meat industry in Tanzania and the challenges that come from both poaching and the fact that Tanzania legally allows hunting of wildlife animals if you have a permit.  I was so fascinated because Kenya does not allow hunting at all, so it was a whole new issue to learn about specific to this area.  Kioko gave this lecture to us and it was really cool to start a completely new project.  The only issue that I had during this lecture is that there was a group of around 5 kids climbing the tree right over my head!  They were so distracting and whispering the entire time and I was so scared since they were right over my head!  It was funny at the same time because I would look up to make sure it was all still ok and they would be staring straight back down at me and we would all start laughing.  It was definitely a distraction that I didn’t need during this lecture, but at least it kept me entertained!

When we finally got back, we all went straight to work on our baboon papers to try and get them done by the due date and do really well on them!  After about 2 hours straight of working on them, I really needed a break from the silly baboons that I don’t really like in the first place, so me and a few friends walked down to a local t-shirt shack that has lots of clever Tanzania shirts and some purses and sandals!  It’s around a 25 minute walk, so it was a really great break and before coming back straight to camp, we stopped to have a nice cold orange Fanta downtown before having to go back to work.  We always sit on this tiny bench outside of the duka (shop) and people watch the cars going by and talk about camp and Tanzania and what we think of everything.  I think sitting on that bench is one of my favorite parts of this area because it’s relaxing to sit with friends, feel like a local, and just feel like we are finally at home in Tanzania.  We had to be back to camp by six, so we headed back and finished our papers up the rest of the night to get them turned in on time before heading for some well-deserved sleep!

The next day was our first and only trip to the Ngorongoro Crater, one of the most world renowned conservation areas.  The crater is home to some of the highest concentrations of mega fauna in the world and is sometimes even considered the 7^th wonder of the world.  Needless to say, I was so excited to go that I could barely contain it any longer.  I had my stuff in the car before most people were even done eating breakfast, and I got an amazing car with a really great group of girls and Christian, our WM professor who I heard is really good luck when it comes to spotting animals!

The drive to the crater is about an hour and a half total, including the stop at the gate.  We stopped there to pay to go in, and then continued the scary one lane road drive to the top of the crater with amazing views into what was to come down below.  At the top of the ridge of the crater, we had a lecture with a warden that is in charge of the conservation area.  The lecture that this man gave was amazing and really showcased what an amazing conservation area this is and how successful it has been in the past several decades.  The Ngorongoro Conservation Area (NCA) is completely self-funded from tourist fees, tour company fees, and lodge fees that must be paid to be in the area.  They have banned farming completely from the crater, but still allow livestock to graze so that the people that have always lived in this area still have a place to live!  They have even moved some of the Maasai people out of the crater, guaranteeing them housing, farming money, food, hospitals, and schools, as long as they leave the area to help with the high population using the resources.  It was amazing to see how differently this park was run compared to others we had been to and I was definitely impressed as we walked out of that lecture.

We loaded the cars back up, got our worksheet out that we would be completed and started our descent into the crater.  The drive down is insane, super steep, and needs four wheel drive to be done safely! The drive reminded me of a drive I had done once with my parents in Utah and I definitely found myself holding my breath at certain twists and turns along the way.  When we finally reached the bottom, I just knew this was going to be an amazing day.  Right off the bat, our professor directed our car away from all of the other cars so we would be able to see different things.  And boy did it pay off immediately.  Only two minutes from the bottom of the drive, we saw a group of 5 adult hyenas sleeping in a water hole really close to the road.  Then, just on the other side of the road was two little hyenas and their mom in a different water hole! I couldn’t believe how close they were to us, especially because I had not seen a hyena that closely until that point!  Our professors decided that he was going to be a fortune teller and decide what animals we would see throughout the day and when and the next thing he called was a Serval cat.

As we kept driving, I was literally amazing at the number of animals that we found in the park.  There was not one second that I could not see some sort of animal really close to the car.  This included lots of Thomson’s gazelles, grant’s gazelles, zebras, wildebeest, and elephants.  I have never been in a park with that many animals the entire time and I couldn’t stop looking around on all sides!  I almost made myself dizzy in the process not wanting to miss anything that was going on!

Just when I was about to take a break and get out of the sun, someone in my car suddenly saw a Serval cat, just like Christian had told us!  They are really hard to see because of their small size and the tall grass, so we were so luck y to see one!  It quickly moved away from our car unfortunately, but we all got some great pictures as it moved toward the thicker and taller grasses.  I was so happy to see a new animal that we haven’t yet and was sure hoping to see a cheetah since we hadn’t seen any of those either.

Unfortunately, Christian’s next prediction was a herd of Simba, and once again, he was right!  We saw a male lion and a few females passed out on the edge of a water bank only a few feet from where the road weaved around!  They were very sleepy and not moving anytime soon, so we decided as a group that it was definitely time for some lunch.

Lunch at the crater is taken by the hippo pool, where there are a few hippos in the distance and some insane birds that will take your lunch right out of your hands!  We had to eat our lunch in the car with the hatches and windows closed, but fortunately for us, one girl in our group forgot that rule and walked outside with an apple in her hand.  In only a few seconds, a giant bird with a 5 foot wingspan swooped down and stole the apple she had been eating.  I was laughing so hard, but she didn’t find it as funny as I did.  After we finished eating, we took some picture by the hippo pool and the zebra around it and left quick to have more time in the crater looking for cheetahs.

The first animal we found this time was another simba, once again what Christian had suggested, and it walked right by another car filled with our students!  It was one of the bigger lions I had seen, and right after that, we found another entire pride of lions hiding in thick long grass away from the road.  We couldn’t even figure out a total number of lions because of their intense hiding spots!  Suddenly, as we were watching these lions, a huge rainstorm came over the top of the crater and we started to feel rain.  We drove around it, trying to avoid the storm and its weird movements!  But finally, it caught up with us and we had to close the hatches and curl up inside the car together.  It always feels so small when the hatches are closed compared to the free feeling that you get being half out of the car as you fly through the park.  I was not very happy about the rain though because the big cats hate the rain and always find places to hide to avoid it.  It rained for around 40 minutes, and when it finally stopped, we didn’t have a lot of time left in the crater.  I was starting to realize that once again I was not going to see a cheetah, but I couldn’t really complain after all of the other animals we had seen.

We opened the hatches for a little bit longer and once again came across a pair of lions and some baby zebra running after their moms.  It really was a great day, and as we approached the road that headed out of the crater, I was exhausted and content with what an amazing day it turned out to be.  The bumpy roads always put me to sleep, and before I knew it, I was passed out like a baby in my seat.

When I finally woke up, I had a huge surprise waiting for me right in front of my face.  As I slowly opened my eyes, realizing we had stopped again at the gate, there was a huge female baboon sitting the driver’s seat of my car!!!  It took me a second to realize what it was, especially because my driver had gone to check us out of the park and the rest of the people in my car were asleep also.  Finally, my instincts kicked in, and I started screaming and yelling and waving my arms to scare the baboon!  At first it just seemed surprised that I was saying anything and then when my hands got really close to it, it realized that I was serious!  I almost punched the monkey in the face before it decided to retreat and attempt to get into another car and steal their food and whatever it could get its hands on!  I was so shocked that the baboon was right there, but was pretty proud of my quick response of courage instead of fear like I thought would happen.  I think that I pretty much saved my entire car with my bare hands hahaha!  It was a hilarious way to end an amazing day filled with incredible animals and I feel asleep happy with everything that had happened!

The next day was filled with more lectures, but a very pleasant surprise waiting for us after suffering through the lecture.  The place that we were going for the lecture this time was almost two hours away, so I thankfully took a great nap on the way there after waking up early for cook crew.  Our first stop was a visitor’s center for a Wildlife Management Area that is attempting to have more tourists come visit and bring in more money.  The entire point of the day was to learn about WMA’s, their purpose, and what they do with the money they raise.  We were only at the center for a few minutes and then had to continue on to the lecture with the committee in charge of this Burunge WMA.  We had a question answer session with this group of people like we had done in Kilimamoja and I enjoyed asking questions about their real objectives.  The point of a WMA is to conserve nature and the animals that live there, but unfortunately this group had forgotten that little detail, and instead was just trying to exploit the land to make more money for themselves. Around 50% of the money earned went back to the community for schools and health centers, but the other half goes to the pay checks of the people working on the committee.  Almost none of the money goes toward conservation, so it was sad to see something that could be such a position as a negative impact on the environment instead.

When we had finished with this lecture, we went to a local basket shop that the local people run as another way to bring in money from tourists traveling in the area.  The baskets are made out of palm leaves and every single one is completely different than the others!  Some of these huge baskets are under $5, so my group of students managed to wipe out a huge portion of their stock and we were all so proud of the purchases we had made.

When we were done with all of this, our professors told us that we would be going to a nearby lodge to have our lunches and a drink if we wanted!  We had no idea that we were going to do this, and I was so excited to relax with my friends.  The lodge was so gorgeous, and walking down a boardwalk, I discovered the pool and an amazing overlook of the entire savannah and Lake Manyara National Park!  I found a pool chair, an orange Fanta, and my chapatti and I could not be happier.  Another one of my friends joined me and we just sat, listened to music, and talked about traveling after the program.  Not that anything lately had been really stressful in Tanzania, but it was great to have nothing else to worry about and just enjoy being in Africa with an amazing view that reminded me a lot of Kenya!  We enjoyed every minute before having to leave and taking an amazing nap on the entire trip home!  That night, in continuation with the relaxation, we all cuddled up together in the gazebo and watched O Brother, Where Art Thou?  It was a great night to end a great day and I went to sleep very peacefully.

Somehow, before I even realized it, it was another non-program day!!!  We had lots of options of things to do, and I decided to take advantage of all of them and was so happy that I did so.  The first stop on the list was a visit to a local clinic started by an American husband and wife.  This clinic was absolutely amazing!!! I cannot even put into words what an incredible resource it is to have in this area.  The buildings are gorgeous and very modern, they have their own lab for blood and other testing, they have lots of modern machines for ultrasounds and other things, and in addition to that, they are building an entire new hospital so that they are able to accommodate patients that need to be there overnight!  It was amazing and we even had the opportunity to meet the people who started the clinic.  It turns out, they had come to climb Kilimanjaro in the past, and the husband got very ill on the mountain and almost did not survive.  He was so thankful for the doctors, that he decided, as a doctor himself, that he could do a lot more for the people in this area than he could for people in California!  Frank and his wife sold everything they had and picked up and moved to Tanzania!  He worked under a doctor in Arusha to learn general medicine for this area and then opened a clinic in Karatu!  He does amazing fundraising all over the United States and I definitely left a donation!  After all, only $0.60 allows a local citizen to be seen and treated by a doctor, so it felt great to be able to contribute.  If anyone is interested the name of the clinic is FAME in Karatu, TZ if you want to learn more!  I was so happy that I chose to visit the clinic and meet these incredible people that literally have become my role models after everything they have done for this community.

The rest of the day was dedicated to shopping and the best American food that I have had in Africa yet!  We headed down the escarpment to Mto wa Mbu to go shopping at this big touristy town.  We were encouraged to stay in small groups because that way we are less overwhelming and can get better prices for things than if we were in a really large group!  I stuck with my friend Ally the entire day and we had a blast together!  We wandered all over town looking for Maasai blankets, fabrics, sandals, scarves, paintings, and whatever else we could find!  It was like a giant scavenger hunt looking for the things we wanted, but we found a local Tanzanian guy named Paolo that helped us with everything that wanted! He literally knew everyone in town and could help us find anything we wanted for the cheapest price!  It was so fun, and when I was done, I bought a necklace from him to thank him for all of his help.  It was just about lunch time, and there is this amazing pizza shop in Mto wa Mbu that is around a 25 minute walk down the road.  The walk is actually really pretty and it wasn’t too hot that day so the walk was really enjoyable!  We finally got to the pizza shop and surprisingly there were no other students there. We got two cokes and split a margarita pizza.  It was really fast to come out, even though they made it from complete scratch, but it was AMAZING!!!  They had awesome cheese, lots of spices on top, fresh tomatoes, and a crust that rivals a lot of my favorites in the United States.  Ally and I finished it easily and were so happy with our choice!  It was so good and then walk back to town was definitely a good thing after stuffing ourselves with the entire thing!

When we got back to town, we had a little more time, so I bought some other really cool things before having to lead the cars back up!  I almost fell asleep in the cars again on the drive back!  We took another walk into Rhotia when we got back so that I could pick some things up from the tailor and I was so happy with how everything turned out.  It was a great day and I was so happy with everything that I bought that day!

The next day, it was time to get serious for exams and final assignments.  In fact, by that Sunday, we would be completely done with our four classes and from there on, we would only have our directed research project to complete the rest of the semester.  In the morning, we woke up and had a giant group discussion on all of the topics that we had covered since we got to Tanzania!  It was really fun to work in groups and present what we had learned and it was a great review before starting to study for exams.  As soon as we were done with presentations, our professors told us what we really needed to focus on for the exam that would be on Sunday!  It was great because they really focused the topics and told us every single thing that would be important! I wasn’t as worried about these exams as I was in Kenya.  After the review session, we finally got to find out what out Directed Research projects were going to be!  We had no idea what the topics were at all, so each professor presented what they would be doing research on and what we would be doing as our project.  We all had to listen closely and turn in our preferences so that we could work on the project that was most interesting to us.  I definitely wanted a project in WM or WE, but I decided that any would be ok since I am in Africa doing research.  How can any project be bad in those circumstances!?!

After our classes and reviews and everything in the morning, we had lots of time to study and work on papers that were due that day.  After finally finishing a paper for EP, Chelsea and I decided to take a really long walk around the long loop around camp.  The path is probably around 2 or 3 miles and filled with tons of huge hills up and down.  We were on a very relaxing walk, so it took us about an hour and a half to do, but it was great conversation with one of my best friends in gorgeous weather with amazing views.  We were gone for a long time, but I was so happy and peaceful when I returned that I had no regrets.  We even watched Peter Pan when we got back until dinner so that our brains could have a nice break before our huge study day the next day.

That night, we had a huge camp fire outside of the kitchen, and it started as only a few of us sitting around and talking.  Someone turned on music and of course, I got up and started dancing like a freak around the fire pit!  Before I knew it, around 15 other people had joined and we were making up ridiculous dances around the fire to songs from 1960 all the way until songs from before we came to Africa!  It was so fun and we were all laughing so hard and getting an amazing workout in the process.  I of course showed off my dance moves that I had been saving since Maasai Prom and we all had a great time haha!

The next day was an ALL DAY study day, which I always get overwhelmed with!  I woke up early, started studying before everyone was up so that I could focus, and then took a nice break for breakfast and a movie break!  I kept studying all day, sitting in the library with a few friends and typing up all of my notes that I had taken while in Tanzania.  After lunch, I walked down to the tailor to pick up my hoodie that I had made and had a soda with a few friends to have a mental break.  The rest of the day, I locked myself in my banda and studied non-stop!  I felt really prepared and was happy to get a nice dinner break after studying!

Then, to make the day amazing, Jenna and Sipaya from Kenya showed up in Tanzania to bring our huge car that we needed to take on expedition with us!!!  None of us knew that Jenna was coming and we all screamed when we saw her in the front seat of the car!!!!  I was so excited and then we found out she was coming on our entire expedition with us!  I don’t think any of us could contain our excitement when we heard the news!  It was a great surprise and it made me look forward to expedition even more!!!

Finally the day was here: Exam Day.  The exam this time in Tanzania was one big exam that counted for 20% of our grade in all three classes!!! Each class had one question with several parts, and we had 2 hours to finish the exam.  The questions were really tough and I took to the last minute to finish all parts of every question!  It was somewhat stressful, but as I walked out, I felt very confident with my answers and couldn’t contain my excitement that we were done with classes!!! 

The rest of the day was filled with packing, cleaning, and learning all the rules of our next expedition since we would be leaving the next day bright and early!!!   I somehow was packed really early, which never happens if anyone knows me, and I got to watch another movie with some friends and relax now that classes were DONE!!!  I could barely sleep that night in anticipation of camping in the middle of the Serengeti for the next five days!!!

Stay tuned to hear all about our amazing trip to Serengeti and all of the amazing things that we saw within feet of our cars while we were there!  Thanks again for reading all of this!

I love and miss you all!!!

Mollie Ann

Karibu Tanzania!!!

Hi everyone!!!

Time to move on to my Tanzanian adventure!!!!

When we first got to the border, everything was such a blur.  We were being told to fill out this form and that, go through Kenyan customs, move over to Tanzania, say goodbye to people along the way, grab all of our stuff, leave all of our stuff.  It was so hectic and we were all running different ways just trying to get out of one country and into the next.  When things finally calmed down and we were waiting to get our passports back, we finally got to meet the other SFS group that had been in Tanzania.  I literally felt like I was in an alternate universe seeing all these mizungu at the border, some that I had seen at Penn State before.  My entire group from Kenya was bawling our eyes out having just said goodbye to most of the staff, whereas the other group seemed to have barely any attachment to their staff!  It made me so worried that we would not have such an amazing staff to get close to when we finally got settled into Tanzania, including the SAM, who was hard to replace Tara and Jenna!  We talked to the other group for about 10 minutes before having to move on and exchange money so we would have it at our first stop.  We gathered our bags, and it was finally time to say goodbye to Tara and Jenna.  I have never seen just a giant group of people bawling their eyes out like I did when we had to say goodbye to them.  Jenna and Tara hugged all of us and told us what an amazing group we were and none of us could pull it together.  I am talking 28 people crying in the middle of no-man’s land at the border.  It was so hard, but it made me realize that we meant as much to them as they did to us.

We finally got to meet our SAM from Tanzania and after a few other logistics, we loaded up the cars.  I introduced myself to my driver, whose name was Pascal, but the problem was that he spoke almost no English.  Swahili is much more prevalent in Tanzania than in Kenya and I knew right then that I was going to have to start practicing.  Pascal told me to sit up front with him and keep him company and I did so, even though I wanted to be in the back being comforted by all of my friends.  Everyone in the car fell asleep very quickly as soon as we started rolling accept me.  I just couldn’t stop thinking about Kenya and the staff and what an adjustment this was going to be.  Kenya had literally become home, and it was like being ripped away from my family and comfort zone all over again.  Don’t get me wrong, I was unbelievably excited for all of the excitement in Tanzania, but lack of sleep and being sad is a terrible combination.  On the plus side, the drive was beautiful and I enjoyed looking around at a landscape filled with green rolling hills, so different than Kenya.  At our first police check, they collected our passports, and of course, mine was the one with problem.  The officer at the border had forgotten to write that I had paid my visa in my passport so the officer didn’t think I had paid.  Luckily, the site manager was close behind and got it handled quickly.  All that was in my head was “oh well, guess I have to go back to Kenya!” hahaha

Our first stop was the shop rite center in Arusha, which is one of the largest cities in Tanzania.  There was a lot of hustle and bustle going on and we had the opportunity to go to the grocery store, chocolate and coffee shops, and other art boutiques in the area.  It was so nice, but filled with so many white people, probably more than I had seen my entire time in Africa.  It was nice to get out and stretch and I got this amazing iced coffee with vanilla gelato in it.  It was just the comfort food that I needed to get through the rest of the day!

The rest of the drive took about 2 hours to get to camp, filled with lots of livestock, agriculture, and big hills to climb up and down.  I started to dose a little bit, but still remember almost all of the drive.  When we finally hit the dirt road pulling into camp, I was excited to see the camp I had looked at so many times in pictures. 

The camp is literally surrounded by huge agricultural fields, huge hills, and giant drop offs into the Great Rift Valley.  It is so beautiful in such a different way than Kenya, but at that moment, I was so tired that I couldn’t really take it all in.  Once again, we were all greeted by the staff, had a quick intro, and received our new banda mate assignments!  I now live in Simba Left with Maggie P and Rachel, which is great because I haven’t had a lot of one on one time with either of them.  The rest of the night, we just unpacked, talked around the campfire outback, and went to bed early.  We have bunk beds here, but I hate them because between the mosquito nets and the mattress right about your face, it gets a little claustrophobic. I didn’t sleep great, but it felt nice to lie down for a while!

Day two in Tanzania was filled with orientations to academics and the rules of the camp and the area that surrounds us.  The town that we live in now is called Rhotia and it is a small town with a couple of tailors, a few dukas, and lots of people sitting out front of stores.  Whitney, our SAM introduced us to the camp and all of the ground rules and when she was done, we had our camp managers walk us around camp and around town so that we got accustomed to the areas around us and where we can go for walks and runs.  It’s really great because in Tanzania, we are allowed to leave camp whenever there is time and go into town for a soda or just for a walk all around this area!  It’s so fun to go exploring and allows us to break out of the borders of camp a little bit since this camp is about half the size.  We had class in the afternoon to get to know the professors and the projects they have been working on in their time here.  We have Mwanhanga for EP, Kioko for WE, and Christian (a mizungu from Germany) for WM.  They are so different than Kenya, but I think in a very positive way!!!  It was a great day to get to know the area and hang out with friends in this new crazy camp where we are so much more divided.  In our bandas now, we have showers AND power, so sometimes people don’t have any reason to leave.  We have all decided to make the effort to stay as close as we were when we all basically lived in the chumba in Kenya.

Our next day in Tanzania was already filled with excitement and I couldn’t believe how quickly we jumped in to everything here.  We had an environmental policy class early in the morning, and as soon as lunch was over, we packed up our stuff and got to head to our first National Park in Tanzania!!!  The park that we were going to was Lake Manyara National Park.  We packed in the cars and only had to do species association assignments, meaning that we got to enjoy and really know the park that we would later be doing our research in.  The park is very unique compared to where we have been in Kenya.  It was very densely forested when we first entered, and we hung out at the visitor’s center for a while so that we could get all checked in.  After getting back in the cars, we were so excited to get going.  The problem is that finding animals in the beginning of the park is like playing iSpy!  It’s so hard to see them among the dense vegetation and most of the animals we saw were baboons, which I am so over at this point after seeing them everywhere we go.  And to add to that, the baboons in this area have syphilis, so they are all gross and losing weight and nasty.  I was kind of bummed after we stopped at the hippo pond and had barely seen anything interesting.  There weren’t even hippos in the hippo pond!!!  The rest of the day pretty much went the same, only seeing giraffes from a distance and elephants as well.  It was nice to get to know the park though, and I can’t wait to see more of it and hopefully all the animals that live there somewhere.

We got back just in time for dinner, ate, played some campfire games, and went to sleep since we were actually going back to the park the next morning!  We left for the park again right after breakfast, and this time we had more of a purpose to our visit to the park.  We were completing a WE assignment looking at the behavior of baboons and what it means in context of the park.  When had different cars this day, and my car was the little safari car that only holds 4 students.  We got to the park and started driving, but we could literally not find any baboons anywhere!  The day before, less than 24 hours before that, we had seen hundreds of baboons.   We got so lucky and saw a huge herd of elephants right on the road near us.  Some of the elephants were less than 5 meters away from the side of the car and I probably could have touched them if I wanted to!  There were tiny little babies and huge males, all right by our car.  I was so excited, I could barely control it. The problem was that the assignment required a certain number of hours for the study, but we didn’t find any baboons until this study time was almost over.  We just extended it so that we could collect enough data to write a paper on.  The study involved doing 5 minute scans of baboons and noting their main activity, minor activities, food sources being utilized, and if any other species we present in the area.  After starring at the silly monkeys for around 45 minutes, I had hit my limit and we all decided that it was definitely time to head back for a well-deserved lunch.

That afternoon, we had time to go over what our professor was looking for on the assignment with the baboons, and had the rest of the afternoon to do whatever we pleased.  A couple of my friends and I decided to walk downtown and get a soda and visit the tailor for the first time.  I wanted to have something special made for family members, and I was so excited to drop it off with the really cool fabric that I got in Kenya.  The women tailors are so fast and they told me if would be done the next day.  I enjoyed my soda and hanging out with my friends the rest of the day until it was time to head to sleep.

The next day, we had the opportunity to leave camp again!  It seemed like we were never trapped in camp, which I really liked!  The first thing on the agenda for those days was a traveling lecture for all three classes combined!  Our first stop of three was at this hill called Kilimatembo (hill of elephants) that in the past had been a dispersal area for elephants and wildlife from one park to the other.  It is currently covered in agriculture, so we learned about the policies that forced that change and the effect that it had on wildlife.  The next stop was near huge rice field close to Lake Manyara and we had an agricultural extension officer give us a guest lecture.  We learned about the area that this land used to be and how it has been reclaimed.  He told us about the conflict that occurs in the area and what is being done to prevent it.  I had a little bit of an issue understanding what he was saying, but luckily we were right in the middle of everything he was trying to show us, we I was able to figure it out.  Finally only about 3 km down the road, the land change was completely different.  We went from green and agricultural to dirt and dust with no vegetation.  We stopped at this AMAZING baobab tree that stood out on the landscape like a sore thumb.  We learned about biosphere and the NGO’s that had come to this area to help conserve the wildlife and the land here!

In the afternoon after returning from the traveling lecture, we had an introduction to the exercise that we would have the next day with Christian and I returned for my tailored items and fell in love with what they created!  It was a long day in the heat during our lecture, so a good night’s sleep was definitely in order!

The exercise that we were doing the next day was for Wildlife Management and how animals use water and the vegetation that surrounds it!  To do so, we completed a transect walk from a water source outwards to a distance of 250 meters and counted dung piles and vegetation cover along the way.  The best part of the entire exercise was that there were elephants standing right on the other side of the water hole getting water!  I had never seen an elephant in Africa while standing at the same level with them, so I sort of freaked out when I saw them.  After they disappeared back into the vegetation, we kept counting our dung piles and recording what animal they came from!  It was a hilarious exercise because I was with a great group of friends and we all just found it funny that we were counting poop in the middle of Africa!

The project that we did with dung was due that same day.  Chelsea and I volunteered to enter all of the data that the groups had collected that day, and after lunch was over, we all got to get together to do data calculations and figure out what the data meant.  After finishing that up, we had to go and write a paper based on the results and what suggestions we would make if we were in charge of that protected area.  It was so stressful to start research in the morning and already have the assignment due that night.  I understand why our professor did that because of the time crunch, but it was quite packed in between data collected, analysis, and the writing of the paper.  It was definitely a sense of accomplishment that I could complete an entire project that quickly!  I even had taken a break to play volleyball with the staff for a bit right outside the kitchen building at camp.  Speaking of sports, we also love playing soccer and volleyball with the staff here and I think it is the best way to get to know them!  Our soccer field is actually outside of camp at the local primary school so sometimes we have some little guests.  The field actually has some grass unlike Kenya, but eh corn bordering both sides causes a little bit of a hazard!  One of our askarais named Marta always plays with us, as well as Kioko and Christian who are both really good!  It is such a great time every time we get to play!!!

After a week of nonstop lectures, exercises, and papers in a whole new place, it was finally time for our off day and I could not wait any longer!!!  We had so many options of things that we could do that day, and I made sure to take advantage of all of them since it was really the first time to go exploring in Tanzania.  The first thing that we did bright and early was a hike called the Elephant cave and waterfall.  It was in the Ngorongoro conservation area and we had two awesome guides to show us the way.  It was a long hike that took most of the morning, but the stops along the way were so awesome.  The first stop was obviously the Elephant caves, which were huge stones made of tons of minerals that elephants scrape their tusks against to eat the minerals for their health!  The rock is huge and really steep and I would have given anything to see the elephants standing there.  The rocks are bright orange and have dark orange marks where the tusks have scraped against!  The place where these marks are is so smooth and almost feels unreal compared to the rest of the rock!  I was obsessed with walking through the rocks and caves and feeling all of the amazing tusk marks throughout the cave!  We all got to explore and I was talking about camping out to see the elephants at dawn when they come there for those minerals!  Finally after resting for a few minutes more, we continued on our hike, seeing tons of ants that formed tunnels along the paths so that the ants carrying important things would not get squished.  It was fascinating to see the teamwork of the ants along the entire trail.  Finally we made it to the waterfall!  But not at the bottom of it, but at the top!  It was so high up and our tour guide jumped right to the edge and started taking awesome pictures for us.  We all stood near the edge and took pictures like we were on the edge of the world!  Eventually, I got the courage to sit where the tour guide had been and me and Erin got our picture taken sitting right on the edge of the waterfall!!!  It was amazing to look down and see the free fall of the water to the next ledge down below!  I was in love with this spot sitting in the sun with a slight mist from the water.  I never wanted to leave, but it was getting close to lunch time and we needed to meet the rest of the group in one of the nearby towns!

We finished the hike, much faster than it took to get to the falls, and ate our lunches on the way to Karatu, which is one of the nearest towns to where our camp is!  The town is pretty big and has a lot of back alleys and cool places to explore and get new things!  We got dropped off and dove right into town, looking for the next big thing that we wanted to buy!  The people were very friendly in this town, but trying to bargain prices was so much harder here than it was in Kenya!  The people would get so mad when you would suggest a price and I think most of our group paid a lot more than they should have for some of the fabrics and shukas they got in town.  It was so fun to wander all over though , because the stores had unlimited supplies of fabric and you never knew what you would find around the next corner!  I got lots of neat fabrics, a shuka, and a few bracelets!  It was so fun and I hung out with Sarah for a lot of the day!  We had to be back at the car at around 3:30 to head to a local tourist restaurant and bar to try some of the food! 

The restaurant is called Happy Days and they have things like Hamburgers and Macaroni and Cheese, which was nothing like any of the food in Kenya!  Me and my friend Emily decided to split a cheeseburger and mac and cheese and it was a great choice!  We ate so much and I loved the mac and cheese since it was some of the first cheese we have had in Africa!  We were so full by the time we were finished!

After getting back to camp, full as can be, we walked back into time to a local tshirt shop nearby and back to the tailor to pick up things that people had made!  It was a nice walk after eating all that food and dinner came too soon because I was barely hungry yet!  We all picked at some dinner, sat around the campfire, and went to sleep.  I curled up in bed, watched a Disney movie, and fell asleep feeling pretty great about life!!! haha

Thanks so much again for reading!!!
I leave tomorrow for another expedition in Serengeti National Park!  I hope everyone has a great week!!!

The KBC Staff!!!

I just wanted to take one blog entry and talk about the amazing staff from Kenya.  It’s for you understand how amazing they all were and for me to be able to look back and remember all of the funny memories with them!

·         Tara—Our Student Affairs Manager and one of my best friends at KBC.  I loved all of the amazing conversations that I was always able to have with Tara.  We could talk about anything from our experiences in Europe to where both of us want to go in the future.  We had so much in common to talk about and it was great to have someone that has done so much with their life and still be so young.  I envy her for her ability to just pick up and leave to go do whatever her heart desires.  I hope that is something that I can take from her and take advantage of all of my opportunities the way she has!  She played soccer and volleyball with us and we got to know her in so many different situations.  She was like my mom and my best friend all at once, and when we had to say goodbye at the border, she told me how amazing I was and to never change.  I look forward to seeing her again in the future!

·         Jenna—Our intern and friend in everything that we did.  Jenna is only a little bit older than all of us so we always had something in common, whether it was her singing “look at me now” or talking about college life.  One of my favorite memories with Jenna was sitting with her in one of the huge trees at our campsite in Lake Nakuru.  We sat there for over an hour, talking about our future and where we wanted to be, her past in Tanzania, and what our ultimate goal for our future it was.  She is so easy to talk to and I literally felt like we could sit and talk forever.  I loved playing volleyball and soccer with her because she was always laughing and never had a problem giving the staff a hard time when we played.  She was best friends with all the staff and I loved her interactions with all of them. She had to fill in a lot for Tara this semester and she did amazing and I really appreciated everything she did for us.

·        

 Arther—The head chef and probably my best friend at the entire camp.  At first, I had no idea what to think of Arther.  He came to play volleyball with us and smashed the ball in our faces and was always so bossy in the kitchen.  But it was only a matter of time before I realized how awesome he was and how genuine of a person he was.  He was always joking around with us, calling us names in other languages, but also could be really serious and have great conversations.  I would always catch him waving at me or winking when he was in the kitchen cooking and I was working on assignments.  One day before leaving Kenya, we had the most amazing conversation about his life goal to open a coffee plantation and export his coffee to the united states and how he has been working toward that his entire life.  The machines for it are so expensive, so he has been saving since he starting working.  I promised to come back one day and come visit him on his coffee plantation and we shook on it!  I miss his smile and his joking personality tons.  I hope to see him soon in the future!

·         Ernest—Our driver and most smiley person in the world.  Somehow I always ended up in Ernest’s cars, like 90% of the time.  We never planned it, but I was so happy that it always worked out.  Ernest had the best smile and the best voice inflections when saying things like “oh yeaaaa” and “I don’t knowww.”  He always came to play volleyball and soccer with us, but was always a little behind compared to the rest of the staff.  He wore these ridiculous red genie pants whenever he played so anytime he missed the ball, I just blamed it on the pants!  Ernest would never tell us anything about his life, like how old he was or whether he was married or not, but we had fun trying to interrogate him and figure it out.  I could always count on him to put a smile on my face, no matter what was happening!

·         Sipaya—another driver with a pretty funny fashion sense and personality.  Sipaya wears this ridiculous h and m hat that makes him look like a bum in New York, but he loves it so much.  He won’t even take the tag off.  Sipaya is Maasai as well and always try to con us into making him food.  I was lucky enough to be Sipaya’s Valentine on Valentine’s Day and got the most adorable card that didn’t even make sense in English.  I loved it so much and have it tucked away to look at when I get home.  I loved playing soccer with Sipaya and am so happy that he will be joining us for our expedition in the Serengeti as well!  I sure do love his grin when he is trying to trick you or tell you some ridiculous lie.

·         Charles—My brother.  Charles asked me all the time if my parents would adopt him and he could just be my brother and come visit the United States.  He was my first driver in Kenya when we first arrived and was one of the last people I said goodbye to at the border.  He has this adorable really shy grin and always says my name with that smile on his face.  Before I left Kenya, Charles demanded that we got a good picture together and wrote all of his contact information down for me so that I could keep in touch with him.  Charles had this amazing Maasai beaded belt with his name on the back that would make me laugh every single time I saw it.  I will miss that grin so much but there is no doubt that I will see my brother again.

·         Kioko—My Grandpa.  Kioko was always convinced that he was so old and thought he should be a grandpa.  He sure watched out for me like one though.  One day I got stuck on nasty dish duty and he came over and helped me with everything and kept me company along the way.  I think I would still be washing dishes if it wasn’t for him.  One day, I decided to show Kioko where I lived in Colorado and the animals that lived around me.  I showed him a picture of a bighorn sheep and you would have thought it was an alien.  I loved watching his reactions, and I even showed him my house on google earth.  In return, he told me about his family and showed me pictures of the new house they were building.  Kioko was the first face from SFS that I saw in Kenya greeting us at the gate and the last face I saw as I crossed the border into Tanzania.

·         Harrison—The soccer playing mechanic.  Harrison was always happy and would always say hi to me, even if I was really far away from where he was.  He always played soccer in this red white and blue jersey and a baseball hat and blew me away with how fast and good he was.  At the end of our time in Kenya, a lot of the drivers took their days off, so Harrison always seemed to be driving my car. We got really close in those last two weeks since we were always stuck together!

·         Shem—Our Wildlife Management Professor and Family.  Shem was one of the most soft spoken people that I have ever met, but has some of the best stories.  He told us about all his crazy experiences in Lake Nakuru when he worked there and had us all laughing.  Shem was also obsessed with Waterbucks, and he was always calling them majestic creatures and telling us he wished he could have one as a pet.  He was really obsessed.  He made me cry so much before he left when he called us all his children, and he was definitely the most amazing professor that I had in Kenya.  I worked with him one on one a few times when I had questions, and he was so understanding and really wanted you to learn.  Such good qualities in this setting.  I will miss him as a professor and just a friendly face sitting with us at dinner.

·         Daniel—The first person I got to know.  Daniel was the first person that I actually knew his name.  He was the first person to introduce us to playing soccer out in the dirt and invite me and a few friends to watch the Africa Cup of Nations in the TV room with the staff.  He was our Swahili teacher, with a natural resources background and a very competitive personality.  Sometimes Daniel would get so over the top when we would play sports that no one could handle it.  He loved his Maasai culture though, and was a great person to learn the culture from.  He would always be singing Maasai songs and talking about all their crazy traditions.  He knew all the Maasai in the area and was the reason we got invited to the wedding we attended.  I loved how Jenna and Daniel would literally argue like siblings, and Jenna called him bebe (which means grandma) because of the way that he drives.  I am so happy I got so close to him and had him looking out for me on the field and in the classroom!

·         Kiringe—Our Wildlife Ecology professor.  Kiringe had so much knowledge that he was able to share with us about everything and I enjoyed the way he taught his class. He would get a little annoying when he thought he was in charge of the whole program and would ring the bell to summon us obnoxiously and way overdone.  No one ever knew if Kiringe was kidding, but by the end we had gotten much better at interpreting him.  He was a great professor for that class.

·         Ekisa—Our Environmental Policy teacher.  Ekisa was always so ice, greeting us and sometimes eating dinner with us.  He liked keeping his distance though and we never got to know him very well. My first impression of him was the KFC red polo he was wearing the first day we met him hahaha! His accent was the most difficult to understand and that mixed with a topic that no one was super interested in made it difficult sometimes to keep up.  He was really nice though and I wish I could have gotten to know him better.

·         Askaris—We had tons of Askaris to watch over us during the night and the day and you could always count on all of them to smile and wave no matter what time of day.  One askari had the greatest smile I have ever seen and that smile greeting us at the gate when we returned was the best welcome home ever.  They started to learn my name at the end of the session and would just yell my name but then would just laugh because they didn’t know any other English.  I loved the two that came with us on expedition and I will miss them joking around with me and greeting me when I returned home.

·         Judy, Susan and Mutero—the rest of the kitchen staff.  The kitchen staff at KBC was awesome!  They made cook crew in the morning so fun and were always joking around with us, especially Mutero!  Mutero loved torturing us and pretending to hit us with towels, but I could always get back at him by tickling him.  Susan and Judy were always so sweet and nice to us, but every once in a while would throw a few tricky jokes in there.  I miss cooking with them!

·         Martin—Our main mechanic.  Martin was so quiet, but seriously had the kindest soul.  I don’t think he ever was unhappy or didn’t greet all of us when we returned.  I could always count on his kindness and smile under his baseball hat.

·         Moses—The manager of the Duka.  Moses always talked to us and wanted to hear about where we were from and how our day was.  I loved playing banana grams with him and giggling at the words he would try to get away with.  He definitely convinced me to get a soda more often that I needed to, but it was the best time to get to talk to him.  He was so great and really interacted with all of the students, even those that didn’t reach out to him.  He was a great store owner because of his personality that he added to it.  I loved the duka only because Moses was in there.

I will miss  KBC mostly for the amazing staff that I met there!  I hope to meet all of them again in the future when I return to Africa!!!