June 23

Hey ya'll I was going to upload a picture from Ngorongoro, but I can't find my uploader, so this will have to do.  Just took a picture with my computer showin everyone that I'm alive. As you can see I've developed a nice form of dreads-  created from a combination of kids braiding my hair at the orphanage today/ myself braiding my hair then showering with the brainds/ not showering for a few days after/ dirt. this is on top of my bunk by the way- you can even see the mosquito net. ok I'm off to dinner, but I'll be back either tonight or tomorrow (probably tomorrow since our exams are tomorrow afternoon) to post about the past couple of days. Baadaye

June 17-20

Jambo jambo y’alll. I’m posting a little bit later tonight, just because I’ve been with Moses for about an hour in the Duka with some other girls talking about our issues haha.  Moses is basically the “shopkeeper” of the Duka, which is this little shop next to the dining room where we buy postcards, sodas, soap, etc- except the Duka usually ends up as a hang out place half the time (even though it’s literally 4 feet wide).  I also did my RAP today, which is actually just a reflection slash presentation, with announcements from the staff in the middle.  I ended doing a game for my presentation, in which everyone wrote 3 rando facts about themselves and then I read them aloud and everyone tried to figure out who the person was.  It actually turned out a lot better than I thought- especially since Daniel was wearing a head wrap the whole time and his new name became mama queen. Ok so anyways- just catching up on things I haven’t blogged about yet--- n Tuesday, We went around to the farms near our site in Rhotia on Tuesday and interviewed the local farmers about the conflicts they have with wildlife.  I’m actually in the middle of a paper about it right now, which is due on Wednesday.  I think I talked about the interviews in an earlier post, but just as a side note, it was incredible to hear what the farmers had to say- literally every farmer said that elephants and hyenas eat and destroy their crops almost every night.  We also got information on their methods of prevention/ methods of dealing with the animals while their destroying the crops, etc.  Then, on Wednesday, we carried out a field exercise in the Tarangire National Park- just a basic counting exercise except we used range finders to calculate the distance of each herd/ animal.  We turned in a project yesterday, which revolved around this field exercise, just basically making graphs of our results and finding connections between animal density/ diversity within the park to conservation efforts.  We also used the Simpson’s Diversity Index method to calculate the species’ diversity (following the field work). It’s a little difficult to explain so I’m just gonna post two small parts of my presentation that will shed a lil insight on the project –

Intro- Since 1980, researchers in the Tarangire National Park have noticed increasing land use changes outside the park (Nelson 2005). These activities are reason for concern, since wildlife migrate into dispersal areas (outside protected areas) during the wet season (Kissui 2008). Although, dispersal areas ensure the park’s non-isolation. In our study, we calculated how isolated the populations of each species are, to see if the increasing destructive human actions are taking a tole on the park, and assure that the Tarangire National Park isn’t close to becoming an isolated, ecological island.

Methods- The study was conducted on June 15, 2011 in the Tarangire National Park using a sample, road-count through open vegetation. We divided the group into observers, recorders, and counters, and used a range finder to calculate the width of each transect. With a 500 m. maximum width, and a 2 km length, our sampling unit areas were about 1 km² each. For each habitat sampled, we started a new transect after 500 m. Using these methods we were able to find the number of species in a habitat, and per km², in order to find each component of the Simpson’s Diversity Index (D_s)

So yeah, this basically just sums up the exercise- it was actually really enjoyable to do though haha-.  But anyways, apart from the fieldwork, we spent 8 hours in the park it was amazing I can’t even describe it.  Coming from Lake Manyara National Park, where we only saw about 3 elephants- this park was incredible- having one of the highest densities of elephants out of all the wildlife-protected areas in Tanzania. There were toonnss of zebras and wildebeests literally counting one herd took about 12 minutes.  It was hard filling out our assignment and taking good pictures at the same time, but I ended up getting a lot of shweet pics anways.  After lunch, one of the interns Jenna was birding with her binoculars and then she saw lions sleepin, so we drove on down there right away.  After driving down there though, the lions were about 50 meters away and they were all sleeping in really tall grass, so we only could see the top of their lil heads. It was still awesome though seeing ma first wild simbas. On Fridaay, we ended up going to this Maasai Boma/ Manyatta, which is basically an actual Maasai village in which tourists can pay to visit the manyatta and get an inside view on their lifestyle.  This was reaallly really interesting, except I wish I hadn’t left my camera on the night before because I wasn’t able to take pictures the whole day. It was actually awesome just being able to watch their presentation/ dance though. A lot of us were freakin out because the flies were literally being little devils- they swarmed all the little babies too which was awful to see- though we found out the flies aren’t seen as a nuisance since the more cows you have, the more flies you have-aka sign of wealth in the Maasai culture since they’re pastoralists. Theeennn on ma burrday it was actually a non-program day (since we have 6 day school weeks) which was awesome- so we first went to a Catholic church mass in Rhotia for about 2 hours, then went into Karatu to shop around, etc. It was hilarious we actually ended up dancing in the middle of the street since one of the interns wanted music- some people were judging majaa and definitely thinking like crazy mzungus (white people) over there, but a lot of people were actually joinin in and dancin along with us.  OK so anyways, after Karatu, the guys ended up going to the Happy Days bar, and the girls ended up going to this art gallery slash restaurant which was the no joke one of the most beautiful places ive ever eaten at.  I’m definitely gonna have to share some pictures later, but just in description, the restaurant is owned by South Africans and they’re mainly artists, who collect and sell art, though also run a restaurant inside too.  It’s not very popular, as it’s hard to get to and pretty secluded, but the view is absolutely amazing- all of us were saying it felt like we were in the Italian countryside or something haha. The building was wooden with glass walls, and most of the sculpture art was made out of scrap metal- they also had a lot of recycled products/ bags made out of bottles, etc.  It’s hard to put it into words but it was awesome hhaha and their cinnamon ice cream tasted like heaven. Ok quahiri yall we’re going to the Ngorongoro crater at 6 in the morning until really late at night- so excited ive been freakin all day. OOH also later that night they sang happy birthday and made a cake which was delish it was so cutie and yummo. OhH and today we went to this wildlife management area that was preeetty cool i guess since the area was full on protected and it was located in the dispersal area between the Tarangire and Manyara national parks- though we saw no animals after driving around for about 3 hours haha. It was actually really fun though since we had a really good truck group, one of our teachers Kioko was our driver, and we had the intern Jenna in our car who's hilarious and had iPod speakers- aka we blasted Shakira and American music mostly rap-esque stuff the entire time. Ok I ahve to sleep lala salama 

June 14-17

Mammbbo! Aka sup. One thing that get’s really upsetting about living in Africa is that I constantly think I’m getting really tan but then I take a shower and realize it’s all dirt.  I guess that’s what you get when you shower every 4 days though.  I’ve been hanging out with one of the cook’s kids, Hilde lately- he’s literally the cutest little pumpkin.  It’s so weird though everyone here looks about half their age.  One of my classmates Shelby and I saw him playing on the grass with a soccer ball and we tried to ask him if he was 3 or 4 and he said sita (six). There’s also this small man named Safari who fixes our computers, and we all thought he was around 40 or so- then we found out it was his 60^th birthday that week. ).  It’s so crazy – this has happened multiple times.  We finally met some of the guards that stand around our site- and all of us are now obsessed with one of them- Bura- who we call Askari Bura (Guard Bura; Bura the Guard).  He doesn’t speak much English but we’ve been teaching him a little bit.  It’s the funniest thing though, every time he sees us he walks over and points to himself and says- “me, Bura” “you?” and then we say our name.  Then he points to himself and says “Bura, Tanzania” and then points to ex) me and says “KK where”?  So we say where we’re from and he repeats it a few times.  TheN he usually just starts singing this song with a huge smile on his face and starts dancing- singing the jambo song- which he changes the lyrics every time- but almost everyone in Tanzania knows it.  We know have been singing it nonstop- literally though, I was singing it to myself during our whole volleyball game today (we play volleyball or soccer almost every day- usually with the staff members Arthur, Charles, Nina, sometimes Livingstone, Daniel, Jenna, and John; with soccer, we play with the locals and some of the staff). Anyways the basic lyrics are like so- Jambo, jambo bwana, habari gani?, mzuri sana, wageni, wakaribishwa, Tanzania, hakuna matata. It’s a little hard to understand without a tune. Ok im off to play volleyball but I will be back to describe Tarangire, our project on Tarangire, the Maasai Boma, and otha fun stuff.

June 11-14

Sorry about the goat post that was kinda nasty. Anyways, we went on a hike near the Ngorongoro Crater on Sunday and visited a few elephant caves, which are actually deep indentations in the rocks made by elephants.  The place where we hiked to actually serves as a gateway between the Ngorongoro Conservation Area and the Lake Manyara National Park, where elephants travel back and forth between the parks.  The soil in this area is extremely vitamin-rich, so when they travel through the gateway, they gnaw at the rocks and dig up the soil creating the caves.  We had a lecture here as well, discussing the importance of these gateways- as inbreeding between elephant species would occur if the gateways didn’t exist.  We also talked about similar issues in our travelling lecture yesterday, as we learned about the effects of local land uses on wildlife conservation. We had class on top of a hill looking over Lake Manyara it was beautt.  Today was actually really cool as well we did interviews of local farmers (with the help of a translator) – asking them about the effects of wildlife on their crops, what methods they use to stop this, how effective these methods are, and how the damage done by wildlife effects their views on wildlife conservation efforts. A boy who starting walking with us, was holding a baby goat, and it was literally 3 weeks old and the cutest thing I’ve ever seen. It still had its umbilical cord and everything- so precious. I have to go finish a project now, about olive baboon activity patterns and their feeding ecology- based on research we did in the Lake Manyara National Park on Saturday. We also went there on Friday, but we did a different field exercise of large mammal (anything bigger than a dikdik haha) counting/ looking at their population dynamics, etc.  We saw elephants, giraffes, hippos, zebras… a lot of baboons haha. It was awesome, although I really wish I had found my camera charger by then (couldn’t find it for about a week).  On Saturday though, we tracked groups of olive baboons in different cars, and followed/ made notes of their behaviors, activities, and feeding details for about an hour and a halfà following up every 5 minutes. It might seem boring, but they’re constantly fighting/copulating/playing, etc. that it never got tiring. Ok I have to go but I’ll follow up later. Adios

June 8-11

Hello again. It's actually around 7 30 in the morning on Sunday, so weird how that happens since y'all are still in(?) Saturday.. Anyways, so two nights ago after I blogged the first time I tried to take a shower in our banda, and about 4 minutes into it the lights turned off and the water got freeezing. So scary.  We'd found large slugs and spiders in the bathroom earlier so I was freakin' a bit, plus our window doesn't close so it was muuy frio.  I also couldn't find a towel, which now I realize I forgot to pack, so I had to put on the cover of my sleeping bag and knock on my neighbor's door asking for a towel.  After getting a towel, I ran over to the next banda (whose lights were on) (thank god there weren't any people outside) and finished my shower there.  I was a bit shaky when I came back and had to change in the dark, though I hadn't showered in three days so it actually felt quite nice to be clean.  The next day we had our goat roast, which was very interesting.  At about 4 the goat was brought to a tree and tied up, which was already pretty upsetting because she was crying and was completely doomed.  SO, after one of my fellow students (and hunter) Billy came over and started hitting the poor dear with an obnoxiously huge smile on his face, I began to yell out of pure instinct.  I only screamed at him a few times to stop hitting the goat and that he was being completely rude and disrespectful to the already terrorized little thing, and (kind of) quietly threatened him as well.  I tend to get extremely angry in these types of situations.  About an hour later, after the goat was completely killed, I surprisingly came outside to watch the skinning, as I thought, you know, you've already dissected a cat, why would it be any different? Yeah? No, not exactly.  I ended up staying the entire time, up until the point people started making goat skin bracelets, though I realized witnessing the dissection of an animal you've seen alive is much different than the dissection of one you've only seen as deceased.  I felt extremely queasy and unstable when I first walked out and the blood was still dripping from her neck, and her legs were tied to the tree so she was completely dangling.  Sorry for the details by the way.  SO, once I regained some balance after sitting down and eating a banana, it actually became quite interesting, as Daniel (one of the staff members) turned the gruesome experience into a somewhat educational one.  Following the discussion about her 4-chambered stomach, we encountered something completely unexpected.  She was pregnant. Oh boy. After removing the placenta, we found oout she was actually pregnant with  (fraternal) twins and that the fetuses were about a month old (out of a 3 month gestation period).  A few of us, including some staff, got pretty mad at the person who bought the animal, as you're not really supposed to buy female goats for meat.  PLUS, the continuation of her pregnancy, resulting in two perfectly healthy goats, could've provided either meat, milk, etc. for a few of the extremely poor families in Rhotia that we were surrounded by.  Ok I have to go to breakfast so this is to be continued :D

June 4-8

Jambo!!! Haha. Sorry I haven't posted until now, we haven't had internet and I had to borrow a converter from my neighbor).  I'm probably gonna do a small post right now because I have to wake up for cook crew at 6:30 and it's about 9:13 at night. Just as an overview, we flew from LAX to Newark, Newark to Heathrow (London), Heathrow to Nairobi (Kenya), and then Nairobi to Tanzania.  During our 12 hour layover in London, about 17 of us took the Tube to the main part of London (at a stop I forget the name of) and saw Big Ben, the Eye, Buckingham Palace, and some other big touristy places.  Then we took the flight from London to Nairobi and had a 10 hour layover there, which wasn't nearly as exciting since the airport is super small.  We were all wiped out though so a few of us, including myself, ended up sleeping on the floor of the airport.  After the 20 minute flight from Nairobi to Tanzania, we landed at around 8, then got our visas at the airport.  From there, around 6 of these huge trucks picked us up, then took us to our hotel in Arusha (about an hour away).  We weren't in the best area of Arusha, thought the hotel was really nice in comparison to everything else.  I had a fun time with the showers, there being no hot water... though I survived after practically hand washing each limb with a towel and soap haha. We were all extremely happy to be at the hotel though, since we'd slept on planes the past two nights.  We had a really great breakfast the next morning, though it was odd to see sausage without coloring.  After breakfast we took a 2 hour drive in the trucks to Rhotia, where our Moro Hill compound/ living site is.  During the drive, we crossed through a lot of towns, and received a lot of mixed reactions from the villagers.  Most people just stared, or rushed to to the car to sell their things, while others motioned angrily at us.  Almost all the townspeople are extremely poor though (except for this one man with 40 wives and a whole village comprised of his family) and many just want money from us, which is why we got pulled over by the police for a "random police check."  While searching the trucks, they look for anything to accuse us for, so we'll make a bribe with them.  While our drivers refused to make bribes with them, they accused us of faults such as as having a white license plate, while everyone else had yellow ones.  Since we were in Tanzania, they were also angry at our drivers (who were from Kenya) for taking away jobs from Tanzanians.  While one police officer checked our car, I made the mistake of taking a picture of him, so he came over to my window and started yelling at me.  I was pretty scared though our driver (Daniel) assured me that he was reacting that way so I would bribe him and give him money.  Along the way, we stopped at this cliff, looking over Lake Manyara National Park (which we'll be going to on Friday and Saturday).  Finally reaching Rhotia, we settled into our bandas, toured the site, and met our teachers/ the staff.  Later that day, we got in our long dresses/ pants, and drove to the Karatu Market, which happens on the 7th of every month.  Although we were only there for an hour, we were constantly surrounded by vendors, trying to convince us to buy everything from tire shoes to buffalo meat.  We were only allowed to bring about 20,000 shillings (about 20 US dollars), because the purpose was to immerse ourselves in the culture, though a lot of us ended up buying products from them.  Entering the market was pretty overwhelming for me, as there were literally thousands of Tanzanians who brought their goods from all over (sort of like a flea market, but less organized).  Although, once we entered the market, I met a 20 year old guy named Jack who helped me navigate the market and showed me around.  We also helped each other with our languages, speaking half Kiswalhili and half English, though we understood each other for the most part and were talking the entire time.  He was from Mosquito Creek and was also a vendor, though he had a different approach (as he explained to me) to selling, as he assured the tourists relaxed and felt at home before he showed them his products. Although he tried to sell me stuff at the end, I willingly bought a few items since he was extremely sincere and practically saved my life in the market.  He also showed me the Banana Bya drink (basically bananas, alcohol, and latrine water- a traditional brew), made sure other vendors didn't bother me, and helped me run away from a vendor demanding me to buy a cloth after I accidentally stepped on it.  I ended up buying a bracelet from him, though he charged a bit more than usual, so he ended up giving me three other bracelets as gifts and one other necklace from one of his friends as a gift as well.  Before I met Jack though, it was really hard to say no to the vendors, as a lot of them tend to be small children.  Our leaders told us that we had to constantly deny them, and that it's not disrespectful but rather disappointing as they want money and tourists usually buy everything.  On the ride over to the market, our driver told us to say phrases such as "Mimi angolia tu" (I'm just looking), "pesa singambi" (I have no money), "mimi ci mtali" (I am not a tourist), and especially, "hapana, asante" (no, thank you).  We were told to say that we weren't tourists because the vendors charge tourists a lot more, and we're technically not tourists, but rather considered as students.  After driving back to camp, we had dinner, played with local kids in Rhotia, and practiced some Kiswalhili. We also played with the kids earlier this afternoon (before a few classes) and practiced speaking to them as well.  Our conversations usually comprise of:
me: Mambo!.... Whats up!
child: Poa!.... Nothing/ it's all good.
me: Geena la ku nani?.... What's your name?
child: Geena langu ni _____.... My name is ____.
me: Geena langu ni KK! Habari gani?.... My name is KK! How are you?
child: Nzuri.... Good.
me: Quahiri.... Goodbye!

The kids are absolutely adorable I literally want to take one home with me.  After going into town, we had a class and a lecture, then had lunch.  After lunch I was reaallly tired, so I chose to take a nap while everyone else ate/ looked at the goat we were gonna slaughter tomorrow for the goat roast.  I really couldn't look at the goat tied to the tree, or hear it's little noises, so I played music and went to sleep.  If the goat was gonna be killed in a Masaai ceremony, as we're gonna watch in the next few weeks, I'm sure I'll be able to stand that (as I want to be respectful of their traditions).  Although, we're just having the goat roast tomorrow in our site, to eat it and have a good time.  After sleeping for about an hour, we had dinner and the "Masaai" group (which I'm in) helped with the dishes.  Some things I missed: seen a few large bugs so far, such as a very large slug and a huge beetle).  A few people saw a puff adder, which I was very jealous of.  We also became aware of Jiggers, these small bugs which burrow into your feet and lay eggs.  Also, we learned of the titi flies, which we would "almost certainly" get bit by.  They only cause big welts and a hurtful sting though, not poisonous.  Oh and also, at the market, there were about 3 different tribes present, out of around 122 in Tanzania.  The tribes present were the Masaai (who buy the cows, as they're pastoralists), the Iraqw, and another one which I forget the name of.  That's all for now, I have to take a shower. Quahiri :D