Here's some back blogging for you. I'll work on updating this after tomorrow, when our last exam is.

Tuesday October 21, 2008

Today we took our three final exams for Environmental Policy, wildlife management and wildlife ecology. They went surprising well, or at least that's how I feel. We'll see in a couple of weeks!

Wednesday October 22, 2008

This morning we left KBC for our two and a half week stay at our National Park Site located just outside of Nairobi National Park. The drive was 7.5 hours of fun! Our first three hours or so were on the dusty dirt road that we all grew accustomed to long ago. It was pretty uneventful except for the flat tire we got about 2 hours in. No worries though, Maurius was a pro and got it replaced in no time. Just before we hit the tarmac road we stopped at the curio shop that we had stopped it back on our first day in Kenya. Again I opted not to buy anything though many of the handmade goods tempted me. We're also stopping there on the way back to KBC next week, so I may buy something then.

The best part of the drive was seeing the changing landscape and fearing for our lives while driving on the tarmac road. The dusty roads are so rutted that you can't ever drive very fast. There's a lot of bumping around and keeping a death grip on the handles to prevent your head from hitting the ceiling, but overall a ride on the dust roads are predictable while still being adventuresome. The tarmac road is little less than terrifying! There are designated lanes, which is reassuring since on the dust roads vehicles zig-zag across the road at any given moment. On the tarmac roads passing can apparently occur whenever and there's often a lot of honking, speeding up, and slamming of breaks. Its fun I guess though!

Anyway, after we got into the dispersal area outside of Nairobi National Park, where our site is located there was a drastic change in the vegetation. We went from dust clouds at KBC to lush, green grass! There was even a slight drizzle coming down, but it was beautiful! The first thing we did at camp was take a walk on the outside of the fence to see the walking/running path, the basketball court and the soccer field. Camp is located in a valley and the path is at the top and overlooks Acacia, the river, and Nairobi National Park! It was beautiful! The view reminded some people of Ireland, given the greenness and the goats and sheep grazing, but I think it's probably just because of the green contrasting with the dust we are used to.

After dinner, with no internet, (Which I'm actually happy for!) we had to get creative. So Catie decided to shave her head! Why not right? After all it's not all that fun to wash your rats nest excuse for hair in this climate! So Spenser and Liz gave Catie a nice mohawk which she totally rocks! Oh and I also got my hair cut, in fact I let Catie chop my entire ponytail off. So it's gone and my hair is as short as it's ever been! Too bad though, I won't be posting any pictures so you'll have to wait to see it. Nicole and Kim also got their hair cut. It was really fun, many of the staff are shocked by the mohawk, but I think everyone will get used to it quickly. They also joked that by the end of our stay at NPS we'll all be bald with no internet to use at night.

Thursday October 23, 2008

Whoo non program day!! Today we had another wonderful non program day and our destination was the Maasai Ostrich Farm!! We drove through Kitengela (the nearest city) and went down another tarmac road and ended at the Ostrich Farm. It was an interesting experience, to say the least. It wasn't so much a farm as a bunch of ostrich in a fenced in pasture area. There is a lodge/hotel at the farm where you can stay, but as far as I could tell there weren't any lodge visitors besides our group.

Anyway, the lunch menu had a decent selection of ostrich meat, I opted for the ostrich burger which was super tasty! The real thrill, for those who participated, was the ostrich rides offered. I didn't ride an ostrich because I felt bad for the big birds. The feathers were ripped off and they didn't seem to be enjoying the rides at all. It looked like fun though and for Rocky and Tommy it's definitely a great way to remember your birthday in Africa!

Oh and I almost forgot, we went to our first large Kenyan grocery store, Tusky's. Tusky's has everything, furniture, fruit, mugs, laundry detergent, whatever you need! I ran around checking everything out, and grabbed some sweet sunglasses and hats! It was great!

We went back to camp around three and chilled for the rest of the day. We also got news that we will have internet here at NPS for those of us who need to put our schedules together for next semester. I am going to forgo using it as much as possible since I think a detachment from internet will be good for me!

Friday October 24, 2008

This morning I went for a 6:30AM nature walk. We saw giraffe, zebra and impala grazing as usual. It was a nice, still morning and the view around here is beautiful! It wasa great way to start the day and on top of that I wasn't tired during class!! Speaking of class, Kiringe did a controlled burn demonstration for wildlife ecology today. He had drip torches and flame beaters and let us have free reign with them! Personally I like the flame beating the best.

Afterwards we had a guest lecture for wildlife management, he was a KWS researcher and one of the chubbier Kenyans we've met thus far. He told us about some of the research KWS has done in regards to elephants. It wasn't the most stimulating lecture, but still interesting. It also was a good introduction to Nairobi National Park, where we'll be going on Sunday!

Saturday October 25, 2008

Today was a typical class day with the exception of the guest lecture we had for Seno's class. Our guest was a Maasai woman who has a Ph.D. from Cornell. She told us her story of how she ran from relative to relative as a young girl to keep her parents from marrying her away. She wanted to continue her education and then return to her Maasai community to help better the position of the women in it. She told us all about life as a Maasai woman including the rituals and responsibilities women have. It was a really engaging lecture. She told us about NIDRA, an organization she started to help give Maasai women jobs, and markets for the goods they make. She told us that if we ever want to return to Kenya and help her out, we should get in touch because she can always use volunteers and interns. So there's one more think I'll keep in mind for a future endeavor!

Sunday October 26, 2008

Nairobi National Park!! Today we obviously went to Nairobi National Park! We ended up actually driving through the edge of the city because the road usually used to get to the park was blocked off for the Nairobi Marathon. There's a lot of trash in Nairobi, the roads aren't great, traffic is crazy like any large city, and there are people everywhere!! Also Coca-Cola is advertised on every corner and sold at every other shop. I really wish we had another opportunity to go into Nairobi, but it was fun while it lasted anyway. I'll have to snag some pictures from some of my classmates to show you just what we saw.

Anyway, the highlight of the day was definitely the park itself. It's been so long since we've done any game driving! The highlight of the game drive was definitely the rhino and baby rhino we saw while we were on our way out of the park! It wasn't that close, but Maya was still able to get some really great pictures of it! My camera doesn't have quite the zoom and had died by that point, so I didn't even try. Besides rhino we saw giraffe, hartebeest, zebra, impala, tommy's gazelles, elands, waterbuck and some other animals. It was a gorgeous day.

We had another guest lecture while we were at the park, Everlyn, a KWS big wig. She told us about some of the challenges of managing Nairobi National Park which include but are not limited to the ever present pressure from the city wanting to expand into the park, planes constantly flying over, and trash blowing in the park. In the parks favor is its close proximity to the city: the gate is actually in the city limits, and the great program that Everlyn started to increase visitors. There is now a shuttle that leaves from certain spots in the city and drives right to the park. It runs on weekends and is very affordable for locals. She said use of the shuttles is continually going up. So there's good news among all the challenges of the park.

So the sun sets on another beautiful day in Kenya!

Monday October 27, 2008

Another fine nature walk stared off the day for me. This morning we left at 6 so we could see the sun rise. I know that the sun rises every morning in the United States, it's just one of those things you take for granted. It's strange though because this morning when I saw it rising, it was as though I'd never seen it before. It was absolutely gorgeous, before the sun peaked above the hill on the horizon I saw the silhouettes of a herd of impala. The clouds were outlined in reds and oranges as the sun slowly poked above the ridge. It was absolutely breathtaking. In addition as we continued our walk a giraffe ran alongside of us, about 50 or so meters away. He was close enough to hear his hooves pounding as he ran and every time he stopped running he'd look directly at us.

Traveling lecture was the name of the game today. Tome took us around Kitengela and our NPS camp to share with us the issues facing the ecosystem here. Kitengela is the closest town and has seen a huge increase in its population in the past few years, it's now more than 50,000 people and grows almost over night. Along with the population increase there are other challenges in the area. First, there are several large cement factories here that disturb wildlife and are not great for air quality. As with many other things they are also encroaching on grazing land both for livestock and wildlife. There is a strong Maasai community in the area that is struggling to keep its pastoral lands open for grazing use.

Second, this area, with its more reliable rainfall, is very appealing to horticultural companies. You don't have to go far from camp to find them, right down the road there are lines and lines of greenhouses, stretching out into the horizon. They are home to thousands of plants that become cut flowers for Europe. It's intensive horticulture at its worst and almost makes me embarrassed to be majoring in such a harmful field. No worries though, I'm looking to combat that ugly horticultural industry with whatever I end up doing after I'm done with college. Anyway, these greenhouses require huge amounts of water and energy to heat them. Some of the heat energy is sourced by geothermal means, which is a renewable source, but it still cuts back on the energy available for more sustainable purposes.

We also discussed another land use that is occurring in the area adjacent to Nairobi National Park and that is quarrying. There are a lot of quarries right around our camp. Rocks from the quarries are being used for building materials in the rapidly growing suburbs of Nairobi, and towns like Kitengela. Our guest lecture at the quarry we stopped at was a Maasai woman who owns the quarry. She told us about her profits and why she quarries. Basically it's because she can make more money off her land by having the rock extracted than she can by using it either way. Quarries obviously create an issue for wildlife since they lose any land put into quarrying. Honestly I have a mixed opinion on the quarries because the rocks are needed for construction and in the US there are quarries everywhere. Plus people have to make a living somehow. So it's a game of give and take like any land use is.

After our lecture Tome agreed to another stop at Tusky's. Today I just went for the essentials: laundry detergent and Passion fruit juice - which is absolutely amazing!! Now I am struggling to finish my essay for Tome which is due at midnight! Guess I should have started it before 6 PM!

Tuesday October 28, 2008

Non program day again!! I'm not sure why we had another non program day so close to the last one, but I won't complain! We headed into one of the wealthy suburbs of Nairobi and visited an elephant orphanage, a giraffe breeding center and a bead factory.

The elephant orphanage is a KWS sponsored operation that takes in young elephants orphaned by poaching or other ways. I'm not sure how many elephants are there in total, but we saw two groups come to their keepers for feeding. One group was composed of elephants that were not much more than 1.5 years old and the other group had elephants that were slightly older, 1.5 to 3 or so years. They were all adorable and playful. They drank milk from bottles, played with a soccer ball and branches, and toyed around in the watering hole. We got to pet the elephants and take lots of pictures and videos.

At the giraffe center we got to feed and be kissed by Rothschild giraffe. The Rothschild giraffe's native range is in Northern Kenya, but due to the use of the giraffe for target practice the numbers were dramatically cut down. The center started with a male and female and has been breeding and releasing giraffe back into the wild. We all had a great time feeding giraffe and accepting their kisses. Oh and apparently giraffe saliva has some great antiseptic properties!

Our final stop, at the Kazuri bead factory, was a quick but great stop. The factory was started a few years ago to create jobs for single and disadvantaged women in the Nairobi area. There are currently about 340 women employed at the factory. They make thousands of clay beads by hand. The beads are beautiful and it was really difficult to choose just one necklace to take home, but due to finances I limited myself to just one. In addition to the beads, the factory produces a large amount of pottery ranging from plates to tea kettles. Again they were beautiful but my space limitations didn't allow for me to purchase any.

So finally, after a long day out and about we arrived back at camp around 5. However we won't rest for long, tomorrow we're starting our Lake Nakuru and Hell's Gate expedition! So I'd better get to bed soon! It's been a great day and tomorrow looks like it will be great too!