Kilimanjaro Bush Camp

4/4/2011

UPDATE: I just got back from Tsavo and was unable to post this before my camping trip because I didn't have internet. If you emailed, facebooked or sent any technological communication to me I was unable to open it or even respond. Please stop telling me to watch youtube videos, etc... because I rarely have access to internet and then sporadically to certain websites. I'll have a Tsavo blog soon!

This past week has been a whirlwind of activities. We have had a full week of classes, papers due, travelling lectures, community service and volleyball tournaments before our Directed Research Projects begin. We are leaving tomorrow for Tsavo West National Park where we will be camping for a week, similar to Serengeti I will have no technology for a week and again won’t be showering. Tsavo means Place of Slaughter because the Maasai killed so many Kamba back in the day. It is well-known for having man-eating lions and male lions without manes. And we will be camping in the middle of the park. Molly, our Student Affairs Manager now that we are in Kenya, says that every year animals come through the camp while we are sleeping and one time a pride of lions was hunting a group of girls walking to the bathrooms but a car driving nearby scared them away. Terrifying! But as long as I stick with the askari and armed guards I’ll be safe.

Pause: We are in the middle of watching a video about the hippos in the springs of Tsavo and it was super cute showing us the baby and its mother swimming around. The baby is so small in comparison to the mom and it was really cool. Then it began to discuss the male hippos and how aggressive they are and how they practice infanticide (killing of the babies). So when the mother is introducing the baby hippo to the dominant male who is also the father the male KILLS the baby. They showed the whole horrible chase scene and how he used his massive jaws to clamp down on the baby and you could hear the screaming and then after it died the mother comes up and nudges it to try and wake it up. Then she tries to lift the baby to the surface to breathe because she can’t believe it is dead. I’m so horrified and traumatized.  That was literally the worst thing I’ve ever seen and I hope I never see it again.

I guess I should describe where I’m living. I have moved to Kilimanjaro Bush Camp, in Kimana, Kenya, the other SFS site where I will be doing my directed research for the next month. From my banda I have a view of Kilimanjaro every day and it is literally the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. When you see the sun rise and set over the mountain it just makes you want to cry it is so stunning. The bandas have these high pointed thatched roofs that look stereotypically African and every banda has a view of Kilimanjaro. When we shower, communal showers, you can see over the door a cool view of the mountain. Well if you are taller than 5’4” you can, unfortunately I am shorter than that but if I hop I can see it. LOL The camp is much larger than Moyo and feels much more like a research center. There is a mile long track only the perimeter that my friend Jess and I run every morning. At least we were until the past couple of days where we have had to leave really early every day for lectures and transects. There is a volleyball court, soccer field and a forest in the camp. It is beautiful here and since it has been raining everything is awesome and green. We are surrounded by wildlife too. There is a troop of baboons that live behind my banda, we have vervet monkeys, bush babies (which are the cutest little animals EVER and have the largest eyes), friendly local dogs, and elephants sometimes break through the fence and browse on our trees. But we haven’t had to deal with that yet. There are bad things here too, rats in my banda, black mambas (one the most poisonous snakes), red spitting cobras and very poisonous scorpions. I’ve so far only seen two black mambas, both after they had been killed and I killed a scorpion in the bathroom yesterday. Overall this camp is amazing, the library is huge and the food is much better (although still the same) and I really like the chumba (classroom/cafeteria). A huge issue is how bad the internet is. We only have power from 6:30pm to 11pm from the generator. In the day it is solar, very unreliable. And our internet is a satellite dish that sucks. Like right now, I can open up google but can’t open facebook, my emails, or any school websites. It makes it really hard to communicate or apply for jobs.

Two days ago we went to Amboseli National Park, famous for its thousands of elephants, but we only saw a group of ten elephants, two hippos and a cheetah the whole day. After Serengeti it was very boring and couldn’t compare. All the animals leave the park after it rains and it had rained for the past three days so no wonder it was boring. There is a lodge in the middle of the park that has been abandoned for the past ten years and it is very creepy looking. There are two really nice lodges immediately nearby that look so bizarre next to these abandoned rundown buildings overrun by monkeys. We hung out at the Oldupai lodge for an hour after our lecture in the park and it was really nice.

Last week we went to this gorge and hiked down to a beautiful waterfall that is only flowing after heavy rainfall and we are in the wet season (but still in a drought). The hike looked very much like America and we all forgot we were in Africa because there were corn fields and trees that looked very similar to East Coast trees. One side of the river was Tanzania and the other side was Kenya. So we were hopping back and forth joking about being in different countries. Afterwards we went to Loitoktok to this AIDS support clinic that does free testing and is a support group for people with AIDS. We had these women from the clinic talk to us about how they found out they were positive, what their families did to them, how their lives have changed and what they are doing now. These women were so inspiring and so strong. We all bought all of their jewelry and souvenirs they sell at the clinic to raise money for medications and testing. The stuff I got was so cool and unique and cheap, I felt bad so I gave them more money than they asked for because the work was really good quality.

I need to pack for Tsavo because we leave really early. I will update you again after my weeklong camping trip. Cross my fingers I come back in one piece! Hehe

The funny thing is I probably won’t be able to post this until after Tsavo because I have no internet and have had none this whole day.

Baadye,

Julie