Excitement is in the air at KBC today and spirits are very high! Tomorrow we leave for expedition in Tsavo National Park! We will be camping inside the park for about five days! Besides camping we'll have plenty of game driving, wildlife observation, trips to Chuyulu Hills, a chance to visit a Rhino sanctuary, a lava flow and Mzima Springs! It's going to be the adventure of a lifetime!

This morning Okello briefed us on some of the logistics of the trip. It ended up being the most hilarious lecture we've had thus far. One his list of things to bring we were instructed to make sure we pack our love of life! Not a face in the room didn't crack a smile at some point during the pep talk. Okello told us stories of past expeditions, and warned us to be especially vigilant to what our drivers say, if a drive says sit down, we need to go, you'd better sit down and not try to snap that last picture of that bull elephant. Apparently some of the wildlife in Tsavo is a little more aggressive, and there are certain things to keep in mind while we're out exploring. However, spare yourselves any worry because no one in the history of SFS has ever been harmed on expedition. In return I'll spare you any more details and write about it when we return.

Quickly though, I'll give a quick briefing of this weeks happenings. Tuesday was non-program day. I went to the market in Kimana and once again did some jewelry dealing with the mamas. I must say my bargaining and haggling skills have vastly improved. I was able to get 6 necklaces for 600 shillings, which is less than a dollar each, so I'd say that's pretty good! Emma and I have discovered that one of the keys to success is getting the mamas to not only compete with your prices but to compete with the prices of the mamas that swamp you. I'm not sure if I've ever clarified in the past, but when you stop to look at one mama's jewelry you have 8 more that push their way towards you. There were times when I had 10 mamas around me, and a dozen bracelets and necklaces in each hand and no idea which article of jewelry belonged to which mama. At one point I just started laughing in the middle of the mamas, a laughed over my indecision, the yelling going on between mama's in Maasai, and because one of the youngest mamas around me started laughing too. I'm sure it was quite a sight, but in the end I came out with a good deal, beautiful necklaces and a cultural experience I'm not going to forget anytime soon.

I spent the last half hour in Kimana walking up and down the main road finding a spot to buy a pop and take refuge from one very persistent mama who would not take "Hapana asante" (No thank you) for an answer. Even when we ducked in a duka (shop) for a Fanta she stood right in the doorway still trying to get us to bargain with her. You have to admire that sort of dedication.

Wednesday we had wildlife ecology field work in the morning. We drove to the edge of the Kimana Group Ranch Wildlife Sanctuary and split into four groups. We were walking transects to take a bird inventory and get an idea of species that were present in the group ranch. In the end each group evaluated the species composition of five transects along their compass bearing and walked about 2 kilometers one way to collect their data. It was a fun morning. My group was led by Kiringe, our wildlife ecology professor who is a great teacher. At the end of our transect we walked to the top of a hill to see if we could spot the elephants who had left behind the fresh dung piles and humungous footprints we kept on finding. Sure enough when we reached the top we spotted some large gray boulders off in the distance that when viewed through binoculars were undoubtedly elephants. I needed some personal assistance to locate them even with my binocs but I did spot several giraffe and zebra on my own! It was very rewarding to see them when we ourselves were on the ground and not in the car for once.

Wednesday afternoon we had a guest lecturer who spoke to us about the traditions of the Maasai, especially the ceremonies, festivals and rituals that men go through as they grow up. The guest was a friend of many of the staff members here and obviously was Maasai himself. He told us about the coming of age sequences, the traditional family structure, the hierarchy of wives, the clan and council structure and a host of other things. It was all really interesting though somewhat confusing to me. Each Maasai male is assigned an age group that plays a large role in defining him, but there isn't a clear cut way that age groups are defined. They're similar to the generational grouping that we talk about, but not quite the same thing. Regardless, it is a very important group for the men. In the coming weeks we will have a guest lecture by a woman and she will tell us some of the parallels for female Maasai.

Then yesterday, Thursday, we had our last scheduled day at Amboseli. (Though we may elect to back there later in the semester for a non-program day.) We had a traveling lecture given by Okello and it was centered on the management challenges facing Amboseli National Park. The history of Amboseli's existence is one of the most commonly misunderstood elements of the park's management and Okello wanted to make sure we understood it. Amboseli is on land that was once part of Maasailand, an area that was at one point most of Southern Kenya and Northern Tanzania. When Amboseli was established as a National Park in 1974 there were several agreements made with the Maasai. One of those was that Maasai in the area would be allowed to bring their cattle to drink at the swamps in the park. Without knowing this a tourist may wonder why they can see cattle as they cruise around in Amboseli, but indeed they are allowed there and it is the only national park in Kenya that allows such practices.

Besides history, the challenges facing Amboseli include a high turnover of wardens and park managers, a unsustainable elephant population, quickly diminishing woodland habitats, and lodges inside park boundaries that have a large and heavy ecological footprint. Of course many people have different ideas about how to deal with the issues facing Amboseli, but it can't all be changed overnight. So the hope for now that as all of us learn more and more about the system we're calling home for three months we will make future commitments to help it in whatever way we can.

After our lecture we stopped by Serena lodge again and those who wanted to took in the buffet lunch. Again I opted out, I'm not craving anything yet and there's other things I'd like to spend my money on instead of food. Once lunch was over we hopped back in the Cruisers, stopped at a few more places for our lecture and then game drove for a couple of hours on our way out of the park. It had looked like rain all morning and for most of the afternoon, but it never crossed out path. However, we did drive through a portion of the park that had received rain at some point and we found six lions hunkered down for a lazy late afternoon. One was so young it still had its spots and was rolling around on its back looking all cute and cuddly for us. A little bit down the road we came across a zebra scratching his butt on one of the stone culverts. That was entertaining in its own way as well!

Last night I was MOD (mwanafunzi (student) of the day). Basically that means I was responsible for ringing the bell to signify meal time or class time, which I only had to do a few times since we were off camp most of the day. The most important MOD duty is to present the evening's RAP, which I can't remember the meaning of. Anyway, during RAP students usually talk about something that relates to wildlife management or to what we've being doing or talks about something that is special to them. There are a couple non-believers in our group that can't think of a more awful state than Wisconsin. I had to settle the score with them so I gave a presentation titled, "10 Things that Would Not Exist Without Wisconsin." As I had hoped it gave everyone a good laugh, but it didn't change one student's mind on Wisconsin. No worries though, I know that it's still a great place and I'll look forward to my return there in a few months!

Anyway, I'd best get to packing now. We're packing up a lot of gear tonight and tomorrow morning we're getting up and at 'em early. Look back in about a week for a full account of Tsavo and don't forget to bring along your love of life in everything you do!