Meet Hank

On my past trips to Kenya, I have driven some interesting cars. The first year, there was the intrepid, decrepit Suzuki that Corinne and I nicknamed Twiga ("giraffe" in Swahili) due to its resemblance to a giraffe carcass we saw on our first trip in the car. Twiga was very little more than a tin can with wheels, but it ran faithfully and gamely tackled every obstacle it encountered.

Last year there was The Matatu, Dan's white pop-top tourist van. While miles above Twiga in terms of comfort, The Matatu had its own issues: no four-wheel drive, very low clearance, a steadily worsening oil leak that eventually required a refill every two days, and an increasing unwillingness to start in the mornings without a lengthy push-start by five or so Ol Pej security workers. Add to this the ridiculousness of me driving an entire van for just myself and the constant hassle of being mistaken for a tourist van that had found something interesting to watch, and I would prefer to drive Twiga any day. But I take what I can get and regard the problems generally with amusement rather than frustration.

This year, I once again have a new ride, graciously purchased for me by Dan. I cannot overstate how thankful I am for this purchase, as it has saved me from being stuck with the Matatu (whose engine was entirely rebuilt since last summer and apparently runs fine, but still lacks four wheel drive and clearance and is generally an unwieldy field vehicle). I knew this car, a red Suzuki Maruti, from last year as it previously belonged to Stefan, who went to Ol Pej with me last summer and studied Grant's gazelle. While I was recruiting people to help push-start my giant white van in the morning, Stefan was motoring effortlessly away to begin his fieldwork. To say I coveted Stefan's car is an understatement. I first drove the car three weeks ago when I left Mpala for Ol Pej. To my delight, it ran beautifully and got me to Ol Pej with no problem. I spent the hour-long drive contemplating the car's name, and by about halfway it was clear that its name is Hank. Hank is simple, with no frills, but friendly and accessible.

In the past three weeks I have spent probably as much time with Hank as I have asleep and have gotten to know his various quirks quite well. First, Hank is not a morning person. I have to choke him a bit to get him started in the morning, but after that initial coaxing, he runs fine the rest of the day. Hank's tires are balding, which makes for interesting adventures when it gets muddy. I was wary of going out during or directly after rainstorms for fear of the mud, but I was assured that it is nearly impossible to get a Maruti stuck because of its light weight and good four-wheel drive and that if I did manage it somehow, all I had to do was call the Ol Pej Control office and a truck would come pull me out. It turns out that all of the Maruti's mud-proof qualities are negated by tires with too little grip. I got stuck two Fridays ago without even lodging my wheel in a hole. I just did not have the grip to motor through the slick mud and once I lost momentum I was done. Control came to pull me out, scoffed that I wasn't even stuck, but conceded that maybe I had been right to call when they couldn't get me going without using another truck to haul me out. They blamed the tires, but aside from this one stuck incident and some slipping and sliding after it rains, I really can't complain too much.

Last year I was amazed when Stefan told me Hank's tape player worked and that he could play his iPod through a tape hook-up. I brought my tape hook-up this year and after some fiddling, found that the stereo does indeed work, but that the volume for some reason does not get high enough to be of any real use. Perhaps some more fiddling will fix this problem, but looking at the stereo, which is barely attached to the rest of the car and constantly jiggles loose from its casing, I think I should consider myself lucky to have achieved the functionality I have.

Hank's grey hard top is technically removable, although I am not sure quite how. I think it would be amusing to motor around with the top off at some point, but the difficulty of removing it and, I'm sure, replacing it as well as the exposure to the elements probably makes the effort not worthwhile. Removing the top would probably also be the only way to get more dust in the car than there already is.

True to the Suzuki name, Hank has all the shock absorption of a cardboard box and rough roads can be quite jarring. The windows don't quite close all the way anymore, and when it rains, water leaks onto my feet through a mysterious hole by the clutch pedal. The backseat is very high up for some reason, so that passengers cannot even see out their windows, and there are a handful of unexplained noises that periodically issue from various parts of the car. By my American standards, Hank is a heap of junk. But by my field standards, Hank is awesome and perfect. He gets me from A to B with very little hassle and is generally comfortable to sit in hour after hour while watching antelope. What more can I ask for?

Big Cats

Zebra Plain, where I've been watching my tommies, has been the place to be the last couple of days. Yesterday afternoon when I arrived after lunch I noticed that the ungulates were more clumped to one side of the plain than usual and were a bit jumpy. Things were also unusually quiet: usually the buffalos are grunting and the zebras are making a commotion as they chase each other around. It didn't take much effort to figure out what was up.

Many ungulates exhibit "fascination behavior" when they detect a predator which involves not running away but rather staring at and even approaching or following it so as to keep and eye on it. Gazelle are faster than all their predators except for cheetahs, so as long as they know where the threat is and are not surprised, they can generally escape with ease. Even cheetahs typically must get within a certain distance of their prey undetected to be successful at killing it, so by keeping tabs on the predator, the prey avoids a surprise attack and is relatively safe.

Thus by following the gaze of a group of fixated hartebeest I was able to find the cause of the ungulates' strange behavior: two cheetahs, a mother and a nearly full-grown cub, were crouched in the grass, with just their heads peeking out. I watched for awhile, but they were a fair ways off and all I could see where the tops of their heads. I snapped some pictures and headed to the end of the plain where all my study animals were grouped.

As evening approached, I finished up for the day and started heading back. I checked for the cheetahs on my way, figuring that they had probably moved on since it had been several hours and all the prey on the plain knew to avoid them. Not so! I spotted the cub near a small bush about twenty meters off the road. Soon mother's head popped up in the grass nearby. It was clear that she held out some hope of snagging and unsuspecting meal, since she was well-hidden in the grass, surveying the distant herds. However, junior was bored and not cooperating. While his mother tried to keep a low profile, he stalked and pounced at birds, gnawed on the branch of the bush, and generally made his presence known. He ran up and pounced on his mom, who gave him a bite on the head to get him to pipe down. He caught on to his mother's plan at this point, but proceeded to botch things up anyway: a group of zebra with a young foal crossed the plain a couple hundred meters away from the cheetahs. They were way too far away for the cub to hope to catch the foal, but he tried anyway with only a half-hearted attempt at stealth. As he sprinted towards them and they ran easily away, his mother sat up in the grass, giving up. The cub got another bite on the head when he returned and mom flopped down out of view in the vegetation. I had gotten many excellent shots, but junior decided to help me out some more. He approached my car until he had about halved the distance between us and sat there modeling for me for about ten minutes, until the light was too low for photos and I just sat and watched.

This morning I set out bright and early and as soon as I arrived on Zebra Plain I spotted two lions. I had seen lionesses before, and gotten some good pictures, but had never gotten a good look or photo of a male lion. Here was my chance: it was a female and a male with a big dark mane. They were in a hurry to be somewhere, so I only got a handful of photos, but as far as I was concerned that was a great start to the morning. Things got even better when, continuing on, I found another lioness and two tiny cubs on a small unidentifiable carcass. These were less obliging than the cheetahs and stayed mostly hidden in the grass, but I got some good photos and got to watch them for awhile before the lioness got antsy and moved the cubs a bit further off the road.
Remarkably, none of the tourists who are constantly passing by during my focals and even interrupting to ask if I've seen lions or rhinos or cheetahs were around for these sightings, save for a carful that stopped by the cheetahs as the light was fading. It was nice to be able to enjoy these amazing moments quietly by myself.

Home Sweet Home for the Next Three Months

Now that I have gotten my modem working, I am back to hopefully semi-regular blog updates. Last Wednesday the insurance sticker finally came for my car. After another short delay (the latch on the back door was stuck, so that had to be fixed) I was on my way to Ol Pejeta. I had no idea what to expect really; I had arranged for a place to stay, but I was supposed to have arrived two days earlier and my emails about my delay had gone unanswered. I did not know if there would be others there, if I would have to go into town for food immediately, if I would be able to get fuel at the conservancy, if the roads would be mush because the entire conservancy is on the soupy black cotton soil.

I arrived with no trouble on the roads and was greeted inside Ol Pejeta’s gate by an elephant that literally trumpeted my arrival when I passed (not even that close!) in my car. I found the research station buzzing. It was full to capacity and they had to set up an extra room for me. There were several people here who were working with the chimps in the Sweetwaters Sanctuary and there was a big group of people here to help with the release into the conservancy of several Northern White Rhinos from the Czech Republic. There were also a couple people that were doing marketing work for Ol Pejeta. I was relieved that I would not be going it alone, although the glut of people forced me into the room that opened onto the dining room, right next to the kitchen. Since the dining room is the only room at the research station that is not a bedroom, whenever people were awake and not out in the field, that’s where they were. Since the door to my room was a visual barrier only, whenever anyone else was up, so was I because of the noise. This was particularly unfortunate the first night, when I, struggling with the last of my jetlag, tried to turn in at 9:00, but instead listened to the Czechs discuss their photos from the day until 11:30. Then at 4:15 the first of the groups were up to head to Lewa for the day. I tried to go back to sleep, but ended up lying in bed fighting bugs until I finally got up at 6:15.

Ah yes, the bugs. I tend to prefer the tent-style housing of Mpala’s river camp to banda housing for several reasons, one of which is that tents are much better at keeping bugs out. It is currently beetle season apparently. Hundreds of small golden-colored beetles inhabit the research station. They are fairly innocuous during the day, but at night they are attracted to light, and if there is none, they fly about frantically trying to find some. There were many such beetles in my room by the kitchen. The only light in the room when I closed the door came in from the top of the door and cast a beam on the wall above my bed. The beetles for some reason were not attracted to the actual light source (which would have lured them out of my room and into the kitchen) but rather to the strip of light over my head. They would make their buzzing, bumbling way over to this strip, collide full-on with the wall, and fall buzzing into my hair and face. Any dead beetles that fell to the floor were soon swarmed by tiny black ants, which was also mildly unpleasant, but not too obtrusive. There was also an abundance of spiders, including one silver-dollar sized one that inhabited the corner opposite my bed. The only thing worse than having that spider there would have been trying to get rid of it, so it got a stay of execution provided it stayed in its corner, which it did. After my first night, I spent a few minutes before bed searching for and destroying golden beetles. Other bugs, such as the spider and a giant moth, were inspected and urged to remain quiet and out of my bed corner. This worked fairly well and after the first night, I mostly only had to deal with the late nights and early mornings of the other research station inhabitants.

A couple days ago, some of the rhino people left and I was able to move to one of the outdoor bandas. It’s not one of the nice double ones that I think are four times the size and meant for double occupancy, but it does have a full-sized bed, a small desk and a set of three shelves for my stuff. The bed is big, yes, but the mattress is thinner than most bathmats and the pillow has the approximate consistency of gravel. I can make do with the mattress, but I have been sleeping with my fleece folded over the pillow to try and make it softer and less lumpy. Next time I go into town the first order of business will be to find a new pillow. There are many fewer bugs in my banda, which is wonderful, and I am generally satisfied with the accommodations except for the pillow. In about a month and a half, the people inhabiting the double bandas will depart and I hope I will have the option of moving in, mostly to satisfy my curiosity about what they are like.

Hurry Up and Wait

Yesterday my goal was to get my car and get to Ol Pejeta. But that wasn't going to happen until 8 or 9 am, and a group of Masters students from University of Leeds needed an extra pair of eyes in their van for a morning ungulate transect. They were driving a 14 km loop along the river, up to the airstrip and back to MRC, counting and recording locations of ungulates along the way. I was eager to see Mpala in all of its green glory, not to mention check up on the state of the ungulate populations, so I volunteered. They were leaving at 6:30 and expecting to be back by 9:30 so that would leave plenty of time to get the car and get to Ol Pejeta early in the day.

We didn't see much of interest on the transect, but the greenness was amazing in its own right. I proved to be useful in the identification of species and genders and had a good time. When we got back to MRC, I sought out Joseph, who told me that my car was in fine mechanical condition, but had no insurance sticker. The sticker should be here Wednesday. Great. If I drove without insurance and the police stopped me I could be arrested, so in the interest of avoiding African jail, I am grounded until Wednesday. There is little I can do here to prepare for Ol Pejeta, so I am stuck spinning my wheels. I read a bit, dithered around on the internet and generally hung out. In the evening, I went on another ungulate transect with Leeds. Again, nothing of particular interest. No young babies, which I am trying not to worry about. Same thing for the transect this morning, although there were a

couple solitary females, which are promising baby-wise. I am re-honing my ungulate spotting ability, which will be helpful at Ol Pej, but not being able to get anything done is frustrating.

In other news, elephants have been causing mischief around the center. The first evening I was here, I was in the library sending email before dinner. There was another girl in there with me who left about ten minutes before I did. When I left it was very dark and I had forgotten to bring a flashlight. I walked hurriedly towards the dining hall and got about halfway before I was met by an askari (guard) who was alarmed because I had walked within ten meters of an elephant that was browsing calmly on the nearby greenery. Apparently there were elephants all over the Mpala lawn, but no one had bothered to tell me or check the other buildings for unaware people. Great. The girl who had left before me told the askari that I was still in the library, but he didn't do anything about it. Wonderful. Luckily everything turned out alright and I have a permanent mental note to not forget my flashlight again. We watched the elephants grazing on the lawn for awhile before dinner.

Yesterday evening there was more elephant trouble. I returned from the evening transect eager to freshen up a bit before dinner, so I walked back to my banda. When I emerged to go to the washroom to wash my face, I noticed three or four elephants coming out of the woods right for the washroom (or rather, the basins of water behind the washroom). I decided to forgo the facewashing and booked it to the dining hall, where I found some others who were living in my building cluster and an askari. The askari drove us up to the bandas where there were now at least a dozen elephants, all but one of which were directly in front of my door. A little revving of the engine got them to move off, but I was stuck in my room until the askari returned to fetch me for dinner. When I arrived at dinner some of the elephants had taken up their place on the Mpala lawn and we watched them again before dinner.

While I was confined to the bandas, I decided to take a shower. Easier said than done. There was not enough water flow to allow me to get water out of the shower head. I could only get it from the thigh-high faucet. So ensued a bent-over head washing and an awkward series of contortions to get myself lathered up and rinsed. Somehow, despite the miniscule amount of water (inexplicable given the amount of rain that apparently has fallen) and the abundance of sun yesterday to bake the solar panel, the water did not even approximate warm. Oh well. I was cleanish and it was probably worth the effort.

This morning's attempt at cleaning myself was less successful. I just wanted to wash my face before heading out for a transect. I wet my face and lathered it up and then found that I could get no more water from the sink. Not even with both handles turned on full blast. No water from the shower either. Rats. I wiped the soap off with a towel and used a handful of water from my water bottle to rinse a little. So much rain! Why no water? Perhaps because the elephants drink it all.

There is a slim chance that my insurance sticker may arrive today, but I am not getting my hopes up. It looks like another day of reading and emailing, dithering and waiting. I will probably look back longingly at these low-key days once I get into the full swing of my research (at least I hope I will be that busy!)

Hopefully my next post will come from Ol Pejeta!

Safe & Sound

I have finally made it to Mpala! The trip was long but relatively free of set-backs compared to what I was prepared for. The only snafu was a possible block or cancellation on my debit card due to my activities in London, but it looks like I will be able to get that resolved with little problem.
The flight to London was unexpectedly short: only 6 1/2 hours compared to the 8 I expected. I suppose it is closer than the rest of Europe. Unfortunately, this meant I didn't get as much sleep as I expected. They kept the cabin lights on for about the first hour and a half and the last hour, which made it impossible to sleep during that time. All told I think I got to Heathrow with three or so hours of broken up sleep. The plane was a bit late getting in, which, combined with some confusion about how to navigate the Tube, resulted in my being about 20 minutes late to meet Caroline and her friends. They were still waiting though, so we were united and off to the British Museum soon enough.

The British Museum was very cool. I am still shocked that it is entirely free and open to the public. It truly is the museum of stuff the Brits stole from everywhere else. It was very cool seeing some of the stuff, like the Rosetta Stone, but for a lot of the artifacts it was just a shame that they could not be seen in the proper context. The best examples of this I think were some of the Egyptian and Greek statues. Some of these things were massive and imposing even in the sterile museum. I can only imagine that they must have been even more so in their intended context. But an impressive museum nonetheless.

From the museum, we found a lunch spot where I had a delicious burger with prosciutto & avocado as my last meal in the Western world, and then hopped the Tube to go see Big Ben, Parliament & Westminster Abbey. This is when I found out that my card wasn't working and started to stress & panic a bit. Luckily I was able to send a couple emails to Mike and Mom to see if they could contact the bank, Caroline lent me enough pounds to get me out of the country, and everything seems to be working out just fine. In a weird coincidence, I found out that James, one of Caroline's friends, went to Wake Forest with Christopher Browder, Martin Schindler & Will Rawley (from Collegiate). What a small world.


The flight from Heathrow to Nairobi was awesome because I got an unexpected upgrade to business class. I was sitting in my assigned seat and a guy came up to me and asked if I would switch with him. He had been upgraded but was traveling with his brother, who was sitting in my row, and they wanted to sit together. I jumped at the chance. It was lucky that he asked at that point before everyone had boarded: I was the only person in his brother's row, but we were on opposite ends. Later the plane completely filled up and he would probably have tried to switch with someone who was next to his brother. Anyway, business class was great: more room, more comfortable chair, better service and more sleep!

I got through the Nairobi airport with no trouble at all and found my ride to Mpala. Once I stepped off the plane I was hit with the earthy, human smell of Kenya's air and finally started getting excited about this trip. The ride up to Mpala only increased that excitement. Kenya is at once a familiar and foreign place at this point, so as I watched out the van window I felt weirdly both at home and out of place. The most amazing part was how green everything is, especially in Laikipia. All the plants are lush green, there is a carpet of grass where I am used to seeing dusty brown ground, and red, yellow and white flowers dot the landscape. It is very beautiful. My first wildlife sighting (besides a Maribou stork eating trash by the Nairobi airport) were some impala, but shortly after I saw two huge leopard tortoises. They were a fair way off the road and I know I wouldn't have noticed them if the ground had been its normal brown color. But against the bright green grass they stood out plain as day.

There are some familiar faces here at Mpala, which is nice. Since it's Sunday (and Easter) not much official business is happening and I will have to wait until tomorrow to obtain my car. It's nice to relax anyway. I took a low-pressure but semi-hot shower and zonked out for an hour and a half. Dinner will be served soon and the board says we'll be having chicken curry. Yum!

Day of Departure

I leave tonight at 9:00 pm from Newark. From there I'll head to London, where I have a 12 hour layover. By a crazy coincidence, Caroline left for a European vacation yesterday and will be in London tomorrow, so I am planning to go into the city to meet up with her, see some of the British Museum and perhaps get my picture taken in front of Big Ben before heading back to Heathrow. Then it's another 8 hour flight to Nairobi and a four hour taxi ride to Mpala. I'll spend the night at Mpala, collect my car and some field equipment and head to Ol Pejeta, which will be my home base for the next three months. Sounds easy enough; we'll see.

I am usually a very light traveler. My two previous trips to Africa (1 and 2 months in duration) were conducted out of one medium-sized red suitcase. My crowning light-packing achievement was the week-long spring break trip two years ago to visit Paige in Ireland, when I packed entirely in a large carry-on. That was fine despite my mother's attempt to sabotage me by pouring leek & potato soup down one of my two pairs of pants. However, this trip is not a light trip. Three months is a long time and I've opted to bring along extra items that I hope will make my stay a bit more comfortable. I'd like to feel settled there, not like I am traveling for three months. On top of that, I have a fair amount of necessary and bulky field equipment. So for this trip I am taking the normal red suitcase, plus a duffel bag that meets the Virgin Atlantic size requirements (just barely) and a carry-on backpack that carries my computer & camera equipment. Both checked bags are packed right to the weight limit. My carry-on is a problem. Virgin Atlantic puts a 13 lb limit on carry-on bags. With only my computer & camera equipment, the bag weighs 17 pounds (I do not have *that* much camera equipment; Virgin's carry-on expectations are just ludicrous). I cannot check these items for fear that they will be damaged or stolen out of my bag. I have put everything else I would normally have in a carry-on into my very large purse, which I hope I will be allowed to bring on board despite its size. I just have to hope that they don't actually weigh my carry-on, but since Corinne was made to check her carry-on a couple months ago, I am not expecting such a free pass.

So we'll see! Hopefully I come out of this with all of my belongings and don't have to spend the whole journey worrying about the fate of the backpack.