Stung

3/4/2011

I HAVE NO FACEBOOK!! If you are trying to contact me on facebook send me an email instead!! SFS Headquarters blocked facebook, youtube and flicker because it kept crashing our internet. Although we still don’t have internet all the time so it was a little pointless! LOL I don’t really miss facebook, except for being able to talk to everyone, so please email me!!  

Right after lunch, while I was hanging out in the duka (the store at our field location) I got stung by an African wasp. Not kidding. I was standing there talking to Moses and some others when all of a sudden I felt a stab on the side of my right foot. I look down and see a bug, I assumed it was a Nairobi fly and freaked out and brushed it off of me. Nairobi flies are really bad because if you squish them they explode acid that can burn you really badly. I realized it was not a Nairobi fly when I saw a stinger in my foot, I don’t think I pulled it out because I brushed my foot again and the stinger came out. It was HUGE! My foot felt tender for the rest of the day and I was so shocked that I was stung! I didn’t even do anything to the freaking wasp; I was standing there minding my own business when it stung me! The next day I awoke to a slightly swollen foot which was very itchy. I restrained from itching it, but the swelling just got worse and worse. When we went on a field exercise to do grass transects next to Lake Manyara my foot was killing me. It hurt really badly to wear sneakers and socks, I had loosened the shoe as much as possible and it still made no improvement. Plus it was around 2pm under the hot sun so my feet were really hot and sweaty which I think aggravated it even more. By that night my foot looked unrecognizable. It was stung right above the arch of my foot, but the swelling extends on the top of my foot all the way to my toes, under the large toe, and above my ankle bone. It looks like I have a deformity or crippled foot. It doesn’t really hurt, but it itches really badly sometimes (I don’t itch it I promise) and feels super tender, plus it bothers my ankle to have it so swollen. I have been taking Benadryl, but it makes me really hyper so I was up really late last night as a result. It was worth it to have some of the swelling go down. Because of this stupid foot I am not going to do our non-program day activities. Almost everyone is going into Mtu Wa Mbu to do a bike ride tour to the lake, or learn how to paint and go shopping for really cool souvenirs. UPDATE (3/9/11): I went to the clinic two days ago where they gave me stronger anti-histamine and my foot is almost a 100% better today.

Besides my freak wasp sting, a lot has happened since Tarangire National Park. Yesterday we were driving through Mtu Wa Mbu after our grass transects and Erica pulled off the road and started driving on the sidewalk. She then explained that there is a baboon named Hominid that walks upright and can open doors and chase human women, who lives in the town. So we drove on the sidewalk following his troop but we couldn’t see him. Then she talked to a local, who was staring up at the trees, “where is hominid” and he said that Hominid was in the tree he was looking into. The locals call hominid Tuesday instead of hominid, I don’t know why. Then he explained how he had a slingshot to scare away Hominid and he would try and get hominid out of the tree for us. We spent ten minutes watching this man look for Hominid, but the baboon is as smart as a human and had disappeared. Erica says we will look for him another time. We got off the sidewalk and drove back to camp.

The other day we went to Ngorongoro Crater, the largest crater in the world and a national park. It was a volcano thousands of years ago that exploded and collapsed in on itself. Now it has so much wildlife and is very lush. I saw 9 lions, a black rhino, spotted and striped hyena, mating Koori Bustards, zebras, wildebeests, buffalo, antelope and gazelles, an elephant, and so much more. I’m bummed we didn’t see a leopard or cheetah even though they are known to be in the region. Nothing happened like in Tarangire! But it was a blast!! It is SO beautiful there! It rained while we were eating lunch which is a good thing because it kept us in the cars. Apparently the baboons and birds are so used to humans that they will take your food from your hands. Last year Erica got a bloody nose from a Kite bird snatching her PB&J. This year Joshie had an orange stolen by a baboon and Kim lost her sandwich to a Kite bird but was only scratched a little bit.

On one of our travelling lectures we stopped at a major agricultural site in Mtu Wa Mbu and interviewed the head farmer. After explaining to us that the rivers dried up after the canals were put in he then told us that the water was drying up because of climate change and not their intensive irrigation. He then proceeded to tell us that their water comes from the Nile and not upstream. The Nile not only is really far away, but it flows in the other direction!! We all just stared at him and then asked more questions. I’m probably only think that is crazy because I’m an environmentalist, but it is amazing the misconceptions locals have here. 

There are other misconceptions that are appalling. Mwamhanga, our environmental policy teacher, told us in class after I asked about population control not working with polygamy that polygamy stops people from cheating on each other and that they have no divorce here but it is rampant in America. When asked why only men can remarry after their wife dies and women can’t when their husband’s die he said that it is because if the women and men both remarried the family lines would get too complicated. Then he told us that men need to remain the dominant ones because if women and men were equal there would be mass civil unrest. His father had six wives and 50 children… There is a nearby primary school that was built by a man for his 167 children. There is another misconception that was really upsetting. Moses was asked what he thought about rape and he said it is the woman’s fault. She should call for help or fight him off. When asked if he would feel the same way about his daughter being raped he said that she should know better and that it probably won’t happen to his daughter. A secondary school we visited was purposefully built so that girls in the region have a shorter walking distance to school so that there are fewer pregnancies. These pregnancies are from being raped on the walk to school. I love Africa, but there are things about Tanzania that are so different from America that I can’t wrap my head around it.

More later!

-Julie