Wednesday November 26, 2008

DR Fieldwork is complete! It ended with a good note too, because Sunday afternoon, we we spoiled with a trip to Serena Lodge in Amboseli. Last Thursday was our actual last day of interviewing locals. Rocky and I were dropped off amongst the Chyulu Hills. It was a beautiful drive through Mbirikani Group Ranch to reach our destination, and we were lucky enough to see plenty of wildlife: giraffe, elephant, zebra, wildebeest, and ostrich. Richard Bonham, a rich dude from the States who has raised his family here in Kenya, has a lodge in the area, so there's a lot of land that's been set aside for conservation purposes. We talked to several men who were employed as game scouts and work in collaboration with conservation organizations to reduce the impacts of human and wildlife conflicts. We also were offered chai twice as we sat inside dark, cool bomas conducting our interviews. I've picked up a little bit of Kimaasai, but it's not at all like Kiswahili, so unfortunately translation is still the main mode of our interviews. Oh well.
Anyway, due to a lot of land being set aside for wildlife uses, the human settlements in that part of Mbirikani are clustered together, with many families living in one boma. So we only actually visited two bomas to get our 8 interviews. At the first one, our first two interviewees gave up on us half way in because they needed to go pasture their goats. So there were a few idle moments where we stood in the middle of the boma, waiting for someone to have time to talk to us. Well, while we were waiting an old mama came up with her hands full of cow dung. Oh god I thought, am I going to have to shake her hand while it's full of cow pie? Thankfully she didn't try to shake my hand, she just wanted to greet us and welcome us and happened to be in the process of putting together her new home!

The plan was to take a short walk from the first boma to the next and final boma for the day. Just before we wrapped up our last interview Maurius poked his head in the dim house to say he'd be driving us because he had just seen a bull elephant chasing a young moran out pasturing his goats! Sure enough when we hopped in the Cruiser to go to the next boma we saw two BIG bull elephants in the bush, keeping a careful eye on their surroundings as they 'foraged noisily.' (As Okello would say!) So rest assured we didn't get charged, though that has the potential to be quite exciting!

Over the course of Friday, Saturday and Sunday we interviewed key informants. They included the small vendors who flock to our cars at check points and national park entrances. We also met with a KWS Tourism director at Amboseli, lodge/hotel owners in and around Amboseli National Park, and group ranch chairmen/directors. The vendors were great to interview because they were very welcoming and filled with hopes that if all went well we would make a deal with them. At Amboseli they've seen us several times now over the course of the semester, so they've learned who can't pass up the chance to make a deal! Our last trip out the Amboseli Gate was therefore pretty jovial; it was like saying good bye to good friends!

The KWS guy we met with painted a pretty rosy picture of benefit sharing between local communities and revenue from conservation, but he too agreed that there's room for improvement. He even acknowledged that the 25% of Amboseli' revenue that's supposed to get to the local community has yet to make it all there. I guess there's something to be said for him recognizing all that, and he did have a lot good information to share with us, so it was a pretty good interview. Plus we got to go into Amboseli a little ways and crossed paths with some elephants, which are very plentiful in the park right now!

Sunday we went to 4 lodges in the Amboseli vicinity and met with managers and an executive chef to learn about how lodges view conservation and community involvement in conservation. We first stopped at Setao Elerai Lodge, owned by a dude from the UK who doesn't care about money at all, he's just passionate about conservation. The rooms themselves were already built when he acquired the property, and it's by no means a huge lodge. It sits on 4,500 acres and Andy, the manager, hopes to expand the property to 8,000 within the next couple of years. He leases the property from local land owners, 8 farmers in fact, and in return donates a lot of his revenue to local community conservation projects and other things like digging boreholes for water. He works very closely with the community to make sure that the money gets to where it's needed most. It was so refreshing to meet with someone who was truly dedicated to conservation, too bad he's also a white dude! Anyway, we 9 ladies in Tome's DR group all agreed that his lodge is the perfect honeymoon destination. Anyway, if you're interested try Googling Southern Cross Safaris and look for Elerai lodge! You'll be impressed! One set of rooms overlooks a valley where animals roam. The other set of rooms are actually HUGE canvas tents that zip wide open to reveal a view of Kilimanjaro form the queen sized beds. The choo (toilet) also is perfectly positioned so you can look at Kili while doing your business. Impressive!

Our next lodge stop was at Oltukai, one of the lodges in Amboseli. We've been to that lodge before, it's also pretty big, has a pool (?) and also not very busy during the current low season. Anyway, the manager was off site so we spoke with the executive chef, who had quite a bit to say. He said the lodge gives money and donations to schools and orphanages in the area and also enlists them to help with reforestation projects. That was all good news I guess.

Third stop, good old Serena Lodge in Amboseli, the lodge we've visited multiple times, mostly for their buffet lunch, which I never actually ate. At Serena we met with the assistant manager who has only been at the job for about a year. She didn't have a lot of details to give us, expect that locals generally are employed as unskilled laborers (i.e. monkey chasers). So again, there's definitely room for improving communities in conservation.

Our final stop of the day was Sopa (which is a Maasai greeting) Lodge, which is actually located outside Amboseli, half-way to Kimana. It's newer lodge, only 5 years old, and we were able to meet with the entire management team! There weren't any guests that day so they gave us a lot of their time, had 5:00 chai with us, and gave us an extensive tour of the lodge. Unique to Sopa is a HUGE Maasai beadwork market, a dangerous place for those who can't pass up Maasai jewelry. I had no money with me at that point, so I was able to escape with no unnecessary ornamentations! We also saw a whole bunch of striped mongoose while we were at the lodge. It was a nice change of scenery from the big lodges in the middle of Amboseli, that's for sure!

Anyway, Sunday was an amazing day. I had a great time, and I love my DR Group!! In fact, I love all the students here and saying good bye is going to be really difficult. It's amazing that we have been able to spend day after day with each other, every waking moment, and little drama has erupted, few feelings seem to have been hurt, and laugher is always plentiful. I got back to KBC Sunday evening and was ecstatic. It was a fantastic day. I think it started with the drive to Setao Elerai. Our Land Cruisers only have tape decks and the KBC staff only has a limited amount of tapes, so we've been listening to the same tapes the entire semester and by now have memorized most of the songs. So group sing-a-longs are now pretty much a part of daily life here. We had a great sing-a-long to Z. Anto's song that has three languages in it, Swahili, English and Spanish (!?). I can't really do it justice in words, but all you need to know is that every time it comes on it's accompanied by lots of laughter.

As we left Setao Elerai we also got the closest we've been yet to elephants, and they were massive, and probably dangerously close, but what can you do. So I'm not sure if it was those two things alone, but everyone was in a great mood on Sunday, and I enjoyed every minute of our data collection/interviews.

The fun wasn't over yet though, just a kilometer or so from KBC on our way home from Sopa we got a flat tire. Thankfully, after driving the Rhino and getting through 2 flat tires on the way to NPS Sipaya had us back rolling in no time. Flat tires are just a part of the experience and that one didn't even come close to putting a damper in our day.

Monday was nonprogram day. We took one final trip to Amboseli National Park and Serena Lodge. There was less wildlife in the park than there has been, but we also saw a record number of elephants. It was fabulous! The park is much greener than it was. It was nice to have one final game drive and time to enjoy one another's company before the real storm of DR paper writing begins. (Which by the way is what I'm avoiding right now as I type all of this).

Tuesday we actually went to Kimana market again. We said our good byes to the mamas who we have been bargaining with all semester. However, I'm not sure how they feel about us leaving, one pinched me when I tried to ignore her tries at making a sale!

So anyway, today the dirty DR work begins, we have over 200 cross tabs to due with all the data we collected. It's going to be a lot of work and exhausting. I stayed up 'til 2 AM yesterday with Tommy and Rocky. We were getting all our data entered into our statistics software. Back home 2 AM wouldn't have been a big deal, but it's pretty rare that I stay up past midnight here, so 2 AM almost killed me. Tonight's going to be much earlier!

Don't let that fool you though, even with DR work hanging over all our heads, life at KBC is still exciting. On Sunday night we were up not too late, maybe 12:30 or so, and there was all kinds of racket coming from the shambas on the other side of the river. Firecrackers were going off, people were screaming and yelling. Then our askaris came running out of the woods, only to walk back in, flash their lights back and forth and run back out. Then crash, snap, we heard large branches being broken. ELEPHANT!! Yes an elephant was crashing through the farm fields and headed for KBC. Well, Monday morning some of my classmates went to investigate, and sure enough, two fence posts lay on the ground cracked right in half. Even today, three days later, the giant footprints are in the mud where the big guy tried to get in! Exciting!! The night before that we also heard lions roaring from our banda! Apparently the rainy season brings out the best in biodiversity!

Well, I'd best get back to work. Only two weeks left to live it up with all my friends. DR work also calls my name. In the meantime, HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!