The last dance

    This post will be my last of Kenya. I'm going to warn you all now that this will be a long post with lots of photos, so buckle in and get your reading glasses! I got back to Cedar Rapids a week and a half ago after three and a half months abroad. I loved Kenya and loved my semester abroad, and I'll miss it dearly. But for now, here are the highlights of my last two weeks in Kenya!

    Most of our time was dedicated to finishing up our research papers. I correctly assumed that writing the discussion would be the most challenging part. I wasn't exactly sure what I was doing, since I've never written a discussion section for a scientific paper before, but I got it done! Our draft came back with quite a few corrections, but we fixed it up nicely and moved onto the next part of the paper: The conclusion. Surprisingly, I enjoyed writing the conclusion more than I enjoyed writing any of the other sections. After turning that draft in, we did a couple rounds of edits to the whole paper (some minor, some more major), and turned it in early. I was happy with what we turned in, and incredibly relieved to finally be done.  

Crane? Egret? Heron? IDK but it was in ANP

    My research group got a head start on our presentations to the faculty on our research. Originally, the schedule was designed so that we would turn in our research papers on the 3rd and we would have to create our presentations and present to the faculty on the 4th. However, the crane group asked our research advisor if we could get the information for the presentations early so we could work on it ahead of time. Luckily, he had it ready for us, and we completed the presentation and were able to get some practice in before having to present it. I think our group did quite well! We then tweaked the presentation a bit for use for the community on the 7th. 

On observation hill (ANP)

    The community presentations, while tiring, were incredibly fulfilling. We had approximately 100 community members attend, and we rearranged the chumba to accommodate them. The community started arriving around 8:30am and our presentations started around 10:30 after a short video documentary on the Kenya SFS center. The lions presented their research first, then the cranes (my group!), and then the giraffes. The lion group researched the efficacy of Lion Guardians in conserving lions in the Amboseli Ecosystem. My group researched the health of the grey crowned crane population and their utilized environment (the swamps) using multiple environmental proxies (bare ground, vegetation height, trampling, overgrazing, openness) as indicators of environmental health. The giraffe group researched the giraffe bushmeat trade. Each presentation was incredibly interesting! 

Full chumba for community presentations

    The presentations took a while. Each was 20 minutes long in English, and more than 40 minutes when accounting for the translation to Maa. Then, community members were invited to ask us questions. I really enjoyed the Q and A section. Honestly, I thought that the community wouldn't care as much about the cranes as they would about the lions (who kill their livestock, so are a heavy focus of conservation and retaliation) or bushmeat, but they asked a lot of questions and seemed quite interested in it! I enjoyed answering the questions and feel like I got into a good groove. The community was particularly focused on why they should care about conserving the cranes (as in, what benefit did the cranes have to them). They understand the importance of lions and giraffes for tourism, but not the importance of cranes. I explained that while the cranes themselves don't benefit the community much, they indicate the health of their environment (the swamps), which the community is entirely dependent upon for survival. After serving the community lunch, they headed back to their homes, and we put the chumba back in its typical configuration. I found the community presentations a wonderfully fulfilling cumulation of our directed research efforts. 

    In between the faculty and community presentations, we had one last trip to Amboseli National Park. It was amazing! We saw many carnivores: first saw a melanistic serval, then, we saw a typically colored serval. Later on, we saw a group of six male cheetahs, who were feasting on something. My personal favorite sighting was the same mama hyena my DR group had seen feasting on a baby hippo a couple weeks ago! I felt very lucky to see her again. She was with her baby again. This time, I think they were eating a sheep they had hunted. Further proof of human-wildlife conflict! We got to see a small spat between mama hyena and her baby versus another hyena who was trying to get a bite of the sheep. It was incredible to hear them yipping at each other. I tried to put a video of it in here but it wouldn't load, so just contact me if you want to see it! One of the other hyenas in the group had a scar across its left eye, which was also very interesting to see (and to consider what had happened to the hyena). 

Our final group photo at ANP's gates

Scarred hyena

Mama and baby hyenas

Mama hyena with her snack

Group of cheetahs feasting

Melanistic serval

Serval with typical coloration

    We also saw many of the classic species we've seen throughout the semester: buffalo, hippos, wildebeest, flamingos, elephants, grey crowned cranes, ostriches, storks, and, upon leaving the park and heading back to camp, some zebras. And my car got temporarily stuck in the mud, which really added to the memorability of the trip. 

Elephants (ANP)

A sign in Amboseli National Park

Stuck in the mud

    In the last couple weeks in Kenya, I also spent time painting (watercolor for fun and house paint for our cohort mural), cooking with James (the KBC chef), playing sports (soccer and volleyball) with the other students, and, of course, packing. We also went as a group to the Tuesday market in Kimana, which was really cool! It was a bit like the downtown farmers market, just twice as many vendors in half as much space, and with different products.  

Tuesday market

    On the last full day at KBC, we had our end of the year party, which mirrored the party from the beginning of the semester. We had two goats this time (and ice cream!). The wonderful Maasai came back as well, and we participated in one last dance with them. We feasted, chatted, and learned about all of the rules past cohorts had broken. Okello, our wonderful program director, gave us some final words of wisdom, and we had one last lovely dinner of chapati, guac, and all things lovely back in the chumba. The staff came and ate with us for this final dinner, and I had a wonderful time talking to them. It was difficult to say farewell to the staff as we left KBC the next day, and I know we're all missing them. They were so wonderful and welcoming, and we owe all of the happiness of the semester to them. 

End-of-the-semester party

    My emotions didn't really catch up to me until I was waiting in the airport and the rest of the group got to go through security, while me and one other student had to stay behind because our flight was later than theirs. I realized that I really wasn't ready to leave, though I was excited to get back home. I had a truly magnificent time in Kenya and am so grateful I got to have this experience. I've learned so much, not only about endangered species and the world, but about myself. I learned some things I need to work on, and other things I do exceptionally well. I learned things I love and some of the things I can do without. I learned a lot about how the world works, where change needs to happen, and when change isn't realistic. 

Flamingo (ANP)

    Most striking to me throughout my time in Kenya is the happiness and hospitality of the Kenyans, and, particularly, the Maasai. I think a lot of people had misconceptions when I said I was visiting Africa. Many people were rightfully concerned for my safety as a woman travelling abroad, but equally as many had misconstrued notions showing ignorance. I had a wonderfully positive experience in Kenya (and Tanzania), and this was almost entirely due to the incredible people who live there and welcomed us. They were some of the kindest, most genuine people I've met. And yes, there were many things which were different, but different does not equal wrong, nor worse. In many (most) ways, I think I would much rather live like them. I'm grateful I got closer to the fruition of that want, even if only for a few months. I will take what I learned in Kenya and carry it with me for the rest of my life, implementing it when I can. I will also carry with me the overwhelming gratefulness I have for my life and the people who make my life what it is. 

Our individual paintings (mine is the hyenas and elephants under the '25)

Thanks for coming along on this adventure with me<3 Until next time, 

Jaedyn

walking swamps and writing stuff

Oh hi!

Grey crowned crane (Amboseli National Park)

After my last post, I had a few more days of work in the field. We had two more days in the community swamps, neither of which had nearly as much water as the first two days in the swamps. In fact, my boots hardly got wet at all. Then, we went and censused Amboseli National Park for three days. Since it's a national park, we weren't allowed to get out of the safari vehicles and walk through the swamp on foot; Instead, we recorded our information from the cars. We saw many more cranes in Amboseli National Park than in the community swamps, and we also saw a lot of other cool wildlife, including an elephant in musth who walked after our vehicle, a caracal cat (and my professor said he wasn't aware that there were any living in the park, so this was a very rare sight!), some itty bitty elephants (my professor thought they were less than a month old), and 14 hyenas in one day (who had just hunted a baby hippo, which the very pregnant alpha female was carrying around the head of). I do love Amboseli and am going to miss it. We have one more optional, all-day game drive next free day, so I'll be able to see it one last time. It'll be a very bittersweet moment.

Community swamp

Elephant in musth

A beautiful grassland mosaic in Amboseli National Park

A baby vervet visitor during lunch!

Me, zero, and mom as elephants

We finished the field work portion of DR a week ago. Then we worked on creating data tables summarizing our group results. We also had a very quick crash course of QGIS so we could make a map showing where exactly we saw each crane. A few days ago, we split into small (2 to 3 person) groups to begin writing the research paper. I'm working with two other students. So far, we've revised the introduction, drafted the results, and revised the methods. Next, we'll work on the discussion, which is both the most difficult part and the part I'm most excited for. We'll be done writing our paper in about a week. After finishing our paper, our whole DR group of 8 will get back together to create the community presentation, which we've invited all of our interviewees, other members of the community, and some NGO employees to attend. 

A curious giraffe (Amboseli National Park)

Aside from schoolwork, I've been trying to figure out my class schedule for next semester (they dropped me from stats but then made an exception for me, which, while nice, made all of my searching for replacement classes at the other 4 colleges for naught) and I've been helping the chef at KBC in the kitchen! I've made guacamole and salad for dinner a few times, and I made nana's lemonade recipe for the end of DR fieldwork (everyone loved it!) and deviled eggs for Easter (people also loved these). I've been enjoying being in the kitchen. I'm waiting to get back in the kitchen again so I can learn how to make chapati and egg curry. I also learned to bead a few days ago when one of the mamas came to teach a small group of us. I've made a bracelet and a necklace since then. 

Cranes prepping to fly (Amboseli National Park)

Yesterday, we took our free day to go to Tsavo West National Park. Though there weren't a lot of animals there, the Chyulu Hills and the lava rocks made it beyond worth it. Also, I saw five baobabs! That's a lifer. 

Baby gator in Tsavo

Klipspringers standing on the Shetani Lava Flow with the Chyulu Hills in the background

Momma and baby hippo in the Mzima Springs (Tsavo)

Mzima springs pond

Yawning hippo (Tsavo)

The first baobab I've seen! (Tsavo)

With only 13 days left of the semester (and 14 days until I'm back home), I'm starting to get nostalgia for this place that I haven't quite left. I feel like I've done a fair bit of reflection on the last 13 weeks. This has been a wonderful and unique experience. I hope to one day come back to Kenya, but I'm not sure that'll happen. So, with these last two weeks, I'm trying to absorb as much as possible. It's amazing how much faster each day goes by the older you get. This is one of the times where I wish it would go a bit slower. I'm grateful for the experiences I've had here, and I know I'll carry my knowledge with me through the rest of my life. 

An awful photo of the caracal (Amboseli National Park)

The reflection of Mt. Kilimanjaro in a pool of still water (Amboseli National Park)

Thank you all for tuning in!

Jaedyn

Tiny baby elephant (Amboseli National Park)

Hyenas post-hippo hunt

The Chyulu Hills

Beginning directed research

Hello and happy April!

With the last month in Kenya, we're completing our directed research projects. After my last blog post, we spent a bit more than a week working on writing up our proposals for our directed research projects. As I understood it, I believe it was supposed to mimic the process of requesting grant money. There are seven other students in my directed research group, so we split it up and submitted a draft, revised the draft, and then submitted the final version. Then, we started field work!

The directed research I'm participating in is examining the health of grey crowned crane habitats (swampland) and how it is affecting their populations. The grey crowned crane is an endangered species and is heavily reliant on healthy swamps, especially for breeding. There is conflict between the cranes and the local community, who utilize the swamps for agriculture, livestock grazing, and settlement. The redirection of water and the use of swamp land are contributing to the decline of grey crowned cranes. Our research involves two parts: a quantitative assessment of the vegetation state of the swamp and interviews with locals on the communities' opinions of the grey crowned cranes. 

The infamous grey crowned crane

Our first day in the field, we did a vegetation assessment at the Iichalai community swamp. I haven't ever really been in a swamp, so I didn't know exactly what to expect other than the one comment my professor made on how you're on solid ground and then, all of the sudden, you're in water up to your calves. As it turns out, this swamp was rather tame. Aside from the occasional puddle and the one stream we had to cross, which brought the water up to above my knees, there wasn't much water or mud. There also weren't very much agriculture happening. However, it was wet enough that I had to get accustomed to having perpetually wet boots. Gombe was just a preview, I suppose!

Crossing the stream

My research director on a phone call and literally knee deep in water

The next two days, we did community member interviews. The interviewees had already been decided, so we just had to go meet them. Two students and one local guide interviewed two informants at a time. We did two sets of interviews the first day and another two the second day. It was interesting and I enjoyed talking to the community members, but I'm grateful that we only did a couple of days of interviews. The other two directed research groups are doing all interviews, nothing in the environment like we are. I'm grateful I got the research that has hands-on environmental sampling. 

Puppy at the boma

The fourth day in the field, we went to Namelok community swamp. This swamp was much denser, much more wet, and had much more agriculture. In the last swamp, there weren't very many active agricultural fields (it's okay for us to walk through out-of-season fields, but not active ones), so we didn't have an issue until our very last transect, where there was an active field directly in our path. However, in the Namelok swamp we weren't able to sustain any one transect bearing. We are supposed to have a transect bearing and continue in that direction for a certain number of transects until we change bearings, but in Namelok we just had to walk on the path in between the fields. Where we were walking, it was very muddy. We also were walking in shallow water more often than not. Luckily, Nana let me borrow her gators, so my pants didn't get too muddy. My shoes turned into elephant feet, but I'm happy to pay that price for some fun field work. 

Agriculture fields

Elephant feet

After a few hours in the field and a run-in with a river, one of our guides, Francis, was kind enough to get us some sugar cane from a family living right by where we were walking. Sugarcane is a common snack in the area, and I've seen people taking breaks and eating some in town and at the livestock market. I had just been thinking about asking our lovely chef, James, to get some for us to try, so I felt super lucky that Francis got some for us! You peel off the hard outer layer with your teeth (or, as was in my case, you have Francis take a machete to it) and then peel off small strips, suck on/chew them until you get all of the flavor out, and then spit out the pulp. It was delicious! It tastes like sugar water (big surprise). It was a very refreshing snack and got us through the last leg of the transects and back to the cars, where we had our lunches. 

Sugarcane snack!

Today, we went to the Nice Place Foundation, a boarding school for some of the local children. They have a few great programs there and welcomed us with song and tea! We split into groups and had some team-building games. The kids were lovely. Then, we had a KBC vs NPF soccer game! They beat us 3 to 1 (even though we had some of the KBC staff playing with us), but it was still super fun to watch! I chose not to play and instead sat and watched. There were a couple little ones who were having a good time looking through the photos I've taken of Kenya, playing with my watch, and examining my skin and hair. I also talked with some of the older girls. The whole experience was a lot of fun, and we're hoping to come back to play some volleyball (which I likely will participate in). 

The rainy season has started, so we're getting wonderful downpours nearly every day. I love the rain (especially when napping), but it admittedly does make it rather hard to get my laundry dry. It's funny to watch the animals spook just before the storms roll in. Other than field work, I've been working on figuring out my classes and housing for next year. I've been having a lovely time and am really enjoying field work. We'll be done with field work in a bit over a week, after which we'll start working on writing our research paper and our community presentation. I'm admittedly less excited for that part, but I know I'll still find fun in it! The duality of missing home and wanting to be fully present here (because I know I'll miss this just as much when I'm without it) is not lost on me. I love Kenya and know I'll miss this place and this time for the rest of my life once I leave, but I'm also excited to go back home for the summer, see my friends and family, start my summer job, and eat all of the food I've been missing. Sometimes it's hard to live in the present when you're simultaneously planning for the future and developing nostalgia for the moment you're in. Taking photos, writing in my travel journal, talking to everyone back home, and writing the blogs have been good for me. 28 days isn't enough time left here. It's really too bad the world isn't closer together, isn't it. It would also help if we all had unlimited money and no jobs. But alas, those things probably keep us grounded (or something... if I'm being honest I don't really know how to transition from this topic).

A walk to town in my CC shirt! (photo cred Sophia Fabrizio)

Anyways! Thank you all for sticking with me. I enjoy sharing my experiences and having the chance to write down the memories I'm making. Hopefully I'll be able to make two to three more blog posts before it's time for me to go back home. 

Until next time,

Jae

P.S. I totally thought it was "great" crowned cranes until two weeks ago. Honestly that's a way better name for them anyways though. 

Tanzania and exams

Hello again!

The shore of Lake Tanganyika from Gombe National Park

When we last 'spoke,' the cohort was still in Angiri camp in Kenya. The day after my last post, we went to the Nairobi airport and shipped ourselves off to Tanzania. We had a layover in Dar Es Salaam, which I absolutely loved flying over. It was so beautiful! We boarded a sketchy little boat and had a three-hour ride to Gombe National Park, where Jane Goodall started her research on chimpanzees. Gombe was beyond gorgeous, and I loved being in the forest. My first lodging was seriously at least three-quarters of a mile from the beach where we arrived, which was not even a little ideal to walk at 10pm after a full day of travel. However, I woke up the next morning feeling much more at peace with my mildly rustic shack and all of the cutesy spider inhabitants who allowed me to stay in their spare room. I started my day with a swim in Lake Tanganyika, which has the clearest water I have ever seen. The depth was deceiving because of the clarity of the water: more than once I thought I could touch the bottom, just to reach down and realize that where I was wading was easily ten feet deep. 

The aforementioned Sketchy Little Boat™

Later that day, they told me that my stay in Spider Inn was a one night special, so I lugged my stuff back to the beach and then another quarter-mile beyond that to a cutesy little tent with some super adorable ants rotating a dead lizard they had found! It just spun and spun! Seriously though, I know I joke, but being in Gombe was most certainly one of the best experiences of my life and I don't have anything genuine to complain about. I woke up every morning and walked 3 feet from baboons, and I fell asleep at night to the waves of Lake Tanganyika.

The chimpanzee feeding station

In Gombe, we had a tour of the veterinarian's lab, the herbarium, and the osteology lab, many lectures, and two field exercises: one on chimpanzee vegetation, where we got to see Jane's Peak and ran back down the mountain as it down poured, and the other we were chimpanzee trekking! My group went chimp trekking after it has been storming all night and into the morning, so the path the other group took was flooded and we got to go through the bush rather than on the trail. We detoured again, going along the shore of the lake, and the waves were crashing up to us on the shore. I was not able to appreciate the beauty of wet boots in the moment, but I'm there now. A bit further into the hike, we climbed what our guide called the "baby hill" which was very deceiving. The baby hill consisted of the steepest incline and decline I've ever had the pleasure of hiking, and a muddy hillside where we inched side by side downhill with our hands uphill in front of us. We learned about how slave traders planted mango trees to mark their paths. Those same mango trees stand today. We followed four chimps: a baby, a mom, a grandma, and a male. At one point, the male came down his tree and walked right by me. I expected him to walk around me, but if I hadn't side-stepped at the last second, he would have brushed up against me. It was a really incredible experience. We took the boat back to the research center and visited Jane Goodall's house. 

Baby, mom, and grandma

Walking up to our vegetation study plot

Once leaving Gombe, we went to Kigoma, Tanzania, where there's the Kigoma branch of the Jane Goodall institute. We got to go canoeing on the lake on our free day, and the next day had lectures on TACARE, Jane's holistic approach to conservation and the betterment of local communities, and on the national forest. We got to swim in the lake one last time and went to the director of the TACARE program's house after dinner. The next day, we headed back to Kenya. 

Once we got back to KBC, we had a debrief, a day of rest, and then one day working on our final films for our human dimensions of the environment class. After presenting those films to each other and a few members of the community, we had two days of studying for our three finals, and then two days of actually doing the finals. Yesterday, we were introduced to our directed research options and had many hours of statistics class.

Mount Kilimanjaro! It's good to see her again.

Yesterday marked the crossing over of the halfway point in this program! It's a bittersweet moment: I've loved my time here and I've learned so much, I'm also excited to go back home to see my family and friends, and part of me never wants to have to leave Kimana. I'm sure that the final half of the program is going to speed by and be over before I know it, which makes me sad. On a happier note, I immensely enjoyed my time during expedition and am excited to properly start directed research. The project I'm in is on grey crowned cranes and the degradation of their habitat. 

My habitat study group and me in front of a waterfall in Gombe National Park

Kitwe Forest Conservation Area

Jane's Peak

Canoeing on Lake Tanganyika

Thanks for tuning in! Hopefully I'll be able to update the blog more consistently now that I'm back at KBC. Til next time, 

J