A Brief (Unexpected!) Update

Hello hello!



So, I now have computer access for one afternoon, completely unexpected, as we make our way from the bush -- Part Two -- back to the Coast. We have one night in Arusha with all the general culture kids -- it's Devon's birthday! -- for a brief reunion, a barbeque, and this completely unexpected and brief access to the internet world.



For the past ten days, I've been solely with the Bio kids as we ventured back to Oldonya Sambu -- this time in full green flush; it's been raining for the past week -- for 9 dyas to commence our Independent Study projects and bask in all day biology lessons, including some more formal ones at night, followed by late night on rocks watching stars and campfire lessons from our ever-ethusiastic, and amazing professor, Ken.

Originally, Anton and I wanted, desperately so, to do our project on baboons. We knew there was a troop nearby (we had seen them last time), and the idea of following them around for a full day for nine days straight sounded immensely appealing. They have some of the most subtle societies of the animal world, with lifelong friendships formed and a fascinating hierarchy that keeps the whole thing together. Plus, their eerie similiarity to our own expressions and mannerisms makes them sounds like a riot.

On the first morning of our project, we rose at 5:30 and drove off to the side of the mountain with Killerai (our guide) and Ole-Maria, a Maasai guide at camp who has the best smile ever, hoping to catch sight of them as they made their morning voyage down from the rocks where they sleep at night down to the savannah for a day of gorging on the abundant food of the rainy season.

We heard them before we saw them, and you can be sure that they saw us before we even caught the slighest hint of them. The barks of the lookouts on the rocks rolled down to us from the tips. Anton and I exchanged "holy-shit-I'm-excited" glances, and started our voyage up the hill, Ole-Maria with a rifle over his shoulder, and Anton and I peering ahead with the verve usually associated only with third graders at snack time.


Not two minutes into the stalking, Ole-Maria pointed ahead through the trees at the bottom of the slope, and with a shushed voice said "Tembo. Ile."

So... Tembo in Swahili is....

ELEPHANT!

(And "Ile" is the demostrative "there")

Unbelievable. We're walking 50 meters from a family of elephants.

Elephants have these uniquely padded feet so that, deespite their massive gait and size, they made almost no sound as they pad through the forest, adding even more to the surreality of seeing one of the most massive mammals on earth, who walks right in front of you without even making a sound. We treaded around them quietly, and made our gradual way up the scree.

About halfway up we caught sight of Papio anubis, the Olive Baboon, and the chase began. We ran up the 30 degree slope with as much energy as we could muster, and with as much stealth as that running could allow, following the family around the curvature of the mountain. There must have been fifty baboons in that one troop. And they all we looking at us.

Aided by an evolutionary histroy that requires agility and manueverability on steep ground, the baboons left us in a wake of freshly dropped dung. (If you corner a family, or end up coming upon their roosting site inadvertently, they are know to throw liquid feces your way, without warning.) And given the departure from our own evolutionary history towards a rather sedentary life, we lost them within the first few minutes.

After summitting the mountain and taking a well deserved break (while the baboon got further and further away), a cloud rolled in overtop of us, and we were left walking through a dense mist that made us feel like we were an island in the sky. Beautiful moment.

We descened the other side, having long lost all traces of our primate friends, and had Killerai pick us up, slightly defeated, but elated at the adventure we had just gone on.

All this is to say that we didn't actually follow baboons around for the week, and gave the idea up after our one taste of the challenges of actually stalking something that is on par with your own intelligence. A humbling moment, but one that is beautiful in its own right.

Insterad, we followed Zazu around. You know, the Hornbill from the Lion King. There are three different types of hornbill in the area -- Red-Billed, Von Der Deckens, and African Grey -- and we decided to follow this guys around -- in the hey-day of their mating season (love was indeed in the air) -- measuring the strength of their pair-bonds: how often we find them together, and how often we find them apart, and what sort of crazy antics we find in the inbetween space.

It proved to be challenging to no end -- science in the field reveals the staggering mystery of everything around you, and how you really never quite know what's actually happening in the ecological tapestry around you -- but some of the most memorable time in the bush of the whole trip. Walking around eveyday with a Maasai guide (I swear, he spotted about 90% of the hornbills for us; all of us Americans proved to be, despite our actually pretty-good field skills, horribly deficient at spotting what we needed to in a timely manner), watching the overtly sexual behaviors of our study subjects (they have this courtship dance that involves pelvic thrusts), and soaking in some of the most stunning landscape I have ever walked through.

In the past week, we've been having almost daily thunderstorms and rain bouts -- the long awaited rainy season has finally arrived, and the world around us is rejoicing. Green everywhere, all in the course of three days. Animals starting hundreds of mile long migrations. Fat frogs gorging on the explosion of termites in the air (the winged fellows launch out from their mound as soon as the rain starts and try to start new colonies by breeding mid-air and falling to the ground wherever they may). Suessical flowers sprouting from the most unexpected of places. And the sounds of thousands of birds filling the air with their courtship appeals to the rest of their species, a time of the year when "kupanda"ing (kupanda is the swahili word for "to mount") seems to be happening everywhere. All said, pretty cool time to be out here.

We probably logged a solid 15 hours worth of actual observation time of hornbills (at least a good 40 hours of hiking time) over the course of our study, and we saw some crazy things. Hornbills, after they have copulated with their wooed female (bird sex is basically two birds rubbing butts together -- only about three species of the avian class have real penises), then have the female retreat into the nest they have arranged for them -- which is a hollowed out cavity in a tree, lined with mus that they have collected around the rim -- and then essentially lock them into there for the entire time the egg is incubated. They do this by filling in the rest of the opening with mud, leaving only a slit by which the male feeds the caged female insects for her entire stay in there. We were lucky enough to find a few of these nests (which many of our guides had never seen before), and to watch the male bring the female food. We even were able to see the eye of the molted female inside. SO COOL.

They also have the courtship ritual where the male tries to feed the female (while they are still dating and the female is not encased in her hole yet.... what a bizarre way to go about nesting) an insect that her has caught; if she takes it, they will probably be together -- if she doesn't, she flies off leaving the male looking dejected and lonely. We actually saw the female take the bug and then, after appeasing the male, drop the insect onto the ground. She then flew off. Poor guy.

And that isn't even the beginning of it -- there is so much more to explore.

At night we would have biology lectures from our professor, Ken, who is so obviously in his element that he can barely hold his excitement back. It's a fantastic atmosphere to learn in; we all love him. What a crazy place to be learning -- everything we've been absorbing in "class" is then displayed in the field right before our eyes. It doesn't get much more exciting than that.

Almost every night Anton and I would go up to the rock outcropping above camp and sit and watch the stars, often staying up there for hours as we talked and talked and thought about everything within us and around us. I'll be cherishing those hours for years to come.

One night we even heard lions roaring, not a kilometer away. AHHH. Going to sleep hearing lions; man, that's the stuff we dream about.

We also danced with Maasai, threw spears, and talked around embers of acacia long into the night. But lets not even get into that.

Life feels natural and at ease here; there is so much of an ancient vibe that rings though the place and that sways the savannah grasses that I can't help but feel like life will always be this way, that this place is so immutable, so inextricably human, that leaving it will feel like leaving a bit of yourself behind.

One more month left in this outrageous place.

Off to the coast for Ind. Study project part two: the sagas of the butterfly fish. Stay tuned.

I'll be back to computers on the 2nd/3rd of December.

And then! -- it's off to Lake Vistoria with a small group of wonderful friends, gradually making our way up to Uganda for some rafting on the Nile and jungle exploring. Heck yes.

Miss you all, of course. And much love from the land of Simba, the birthplace of us all. :)