Subjects/titles of next 7 posts:
- Last Bastion of Colonialism
- In Which the Honeymoon is Over and I am Seeking an Annulment
- What I Am Actually Doing Here
- Sundowners
- Ndofu
- Sarah Knows Her $#!%
- Starstruck
Friday, February 6, 2009
Spoilers
So, for the last few days I've been in an awkward position, blog-wise. I saw SO many things that I wanted to talk about in so little time, that when I sat down to write about it I felt I couldn't really do justice to any one topic or experience, and in trying to summarize everything I started writing a "What I did over Summer break"-type essay, which was boring for me to write, so I knew it would be boring for people to read. So I didn't get around to writing it, and I would have ideas for compact, manageable posts that I would write once I got this one post out of the way, but it wouldn't get out of the way... anyhow, I've finally just put out That One Post, and I now offer promises of things to come.
Subjects/titles of next 7 posts:
Subjects/titles of next 7 posts:
First Few Days
Monday was the first day we actually stepped out into the African savannah. Corinna, the instructor for our first course, drove us around the southwest end of what now seems to me to be the very large Mpala territory. The places we stopped gave us a good feel for the different microclimates and plant/animal communities
We went down to Hippo Pool, where there was a colony of penguins, and we saw one get eaten by a leopard seal. Actually, there was a big group of hippos, and nobody got eaten. Of all the animals I've seen, I think the hippos have the most attractive lifestyle. They spend all day taking a relaxing soak in the water, they get up at night to eat a bit, and if anyone tries to disturb this pattern, the hippos maul the hell out of them. Around the pool were tall Yellow Fever trees. Although the Yellow Fever tree grows in other places, it only reaches a shrub height of about 7 feet, similar to most other trees, because savannah trees are caringly pruned by giraffes, elephants, and any other browser that can get its teeth beyond the fierce barrier of thorns on its branches. Elephants sometimes get so involved in their topiary design that they knock the trees completely over, and then, artistically frustrated, abandon their project. At Hippo Pool, either because there is enough water for them to shoot up quickly, or because elephants won't graze down trees next to the water because they're harder to reach, or maybe the hippos chase everything else away, there are really tall trees right by the water. In one of the trees we saw a family of baboons, and there were also a bunch of birds whose names I don't quite remember. A little ways away from the river's edge was a big clearing where just about every savannah ungulate at some point went to graze, or at least to relieve their bowels. I'm beginning to see why so many field studies involve fecal samples: the stuff is everywhere, just asking to be analyzed. We also saw a warthog in the clearing. There was no meerkat or baby lion by his side.
We went to an old boma site, an open glade that is particularly fertile because herders used to keep their cattle there at night, and the cattle trampled down the area and thoroughly fertilized it during their stay. We drove up a hill to a high, very flat plateau which was covered in a mix of grass and shrubby acacia trees. The road we drove on at the top of the plateau was actually an airstrip, and was about as wide as a four-lane highway. From the airstrip we saw some very sleek antelope and some larger hartebeest grazing a good distance away. This is becoming a bit of a laundry list of sites with different soil and plant compositions which host certain typical animals. I'm not going to give summaries of all of them now, but if they are actually interesting you can count on hearing about them later. One last sighting from Monday: we caught a glimpse of elephants through a lot of bushes, but not enough for it to count as a real elephant encounter.
Tuesday we spent more time looking at sites that were definitely not ideal places to look for wildlife. We drove along a road that is used by community members to drive their cattle from one side of Mpala to the other, which also took us to the drier northern half of Mpala land. The roadsides grew increasingly barren, turning from overgrazed grassy patches to larger and larger stretches of bare dust. Euphorbia-- a tall, succulent tree, the African analog of cactus-- began to take the place of acacia scrubs. There were some insects and evidence of dik diks there (they create middens, which are designated pooping areas, which are pretty clear evidence of dik dik presence), and plenty of evidence for cows, but it didn't seem anything like a thriving savannah habitat.
My impression of the land on Monday was strikingly different from that on Tuesday: on Monday it seemed idyllic and on Tuesday it was bleak. Now having seen even more of the park and having re-visited some of the areas we saw Monday, I'm not sure if it was really the differences in the landscape itself that created those impressions, or the way I looked at the landscape. On Monday, it was wild savannah territory, where we could see Real Wild Animals, and if it was dusty, that was because it was the dry season, and if there were buildings or livestock, well, that was all a part of savannah life, and they really don't do much to the Wild Animals. Then, on Tuesday, it was ugly, degraded land where cattle ruin everything. There is truth and error in both of those outlooks (as we've discussed extensively in class), but anyway you see it, the area is certainly an interesting place with a lot going on, for better or for worse.
We went down to Hippo Pool, where there was a colony of penguins, and we saw one get eaten by a leopard seal. Actually, there was a big group of hippos, and nobody got eaten. Of all the animals I've seen, I think the hippos have the most attractive lifestyle. They spend all day taking a relaxing soak in the water, they get up at night to eat a bit, and if anyone tries to disturb this pattern, the hippos maul the hell out of them. Around the pool were tall Yellow Fever trees. Although the Yellow Fever tree grows in other places, it only reaches a shrub height of about 7 feet, similar to most other trees, because savannah trees are caringly pruned by giraffes, elephants, and any other browser that can get its teeth beyond the fierce barrier of thorns on its branches. Elephants sometimes get so involved in their topiary design that they knock the trees completely over, and then, artistically frustrated, abandon their project. At Hippo Pool, either because there is enough water for them to shoot up quickly, or because elephants won't graze down trees next to the water because they're harder to reach, or maybe the hippos chase everything else away, there are really tall trees right by the water. In one of the trees we saw a family of baboons, and there were also a bunch of birds whose names I don't quite remember. A little ways away from the river's edge was a big clearing where just about every savannah ungulate at some point went to graze, or at least to relieve their bowels. I'm beginning to see why so many field studies involve fecal samples: the stuff is everywhere, just asking to be analyzed. We also saw a warthog in the clearing. There was no meerkat or baby lion by his side.
We went to an old boma site, an open glade that is particularly fertile because herders used to keep their cattle there at night, and the cattle trampled down the area and thoroughly fertilized it during their stay. We drove up a hill to a high, very flat plateau which was covered in a mix of grass and shrubby acacia trees. The road we drove on at the top of the plateau was actually an airstrip, and was about as wide as a four-lane highway. From the airstrip we saw some very sleek antelope and some larger hartebeest grazing a good distance away. This is becoming a bit of a laundry list of sites with different soil and plant compositions which host certain typical animals. I'm not going to give summaries of all of them now, but if they are actually interesting you can count on hearing about them later. One last sighting from Monday: we caught a glimpse of elephants through a lot of bushes, but not enough for it to count as a real elephant encounter.
Tuesday we spent more time looking at sites that were definitely not ideal places to look for wildlife. We drove along a road that is used by community members to drive their cattle from one side of Mpala to the other, which also took us to the drier northern half of Mpala land. The roadsides grew increasingly barren, turning from overgrazed grassy patches to larger and larger stretches of bare dust. Euphorbia-- a tall, succulent tree, the African analog of cactus-- began to take the place of acacia scrubs. There were some insects and evidence of dik diks there (they create middens, which are designated pooping areas, which are pretty clear evidence of dik dik presence), and plenty of evidence for cows, but it didn't seem anything like a thriving savannah habitat.
My impression of the land on Monday was strikingly different from that on Tuesday: on Monday it seemed idyllic and on Tuesday it was bleak. Now having seen even more of the park and having re-visited some of the areas we saw Monday, I'm not sure if it was really the differences in the landscape itself that created those impressions, or the way I looked at the landscape. On Monday, it was wild savannah territory, where we could see Real Wild Animals, and if it was dusty, that was because it was the dry season, and if there were buildings or livestock, well, that was all a part of savannah life, and they really don't do much to the Wild Animals. Then, on Tuesday, it was ugly, degraded land where cattle ruin everything. There is truth and error in both of those outlooks (as we've discussed extensively in class), but anyway you see it, the area is certainly an interesting place with a lot going on, for better or for worse.
Sunday, February 1, 2009
Long description of a long distance travelled
ed. note: this is post-dated. I started writing after getting into Mpala, but I was tired and fell asleep before finishing it.
We drove from Nairobi to Mpala today. Most of the length of the drive was through fairly populated areas, and in many ways that landscape seemed familiar. Along the highway were the sorts of buildings you might find on a back road in San Martin, a very small town near Morgan Hill: lots of fruit stands (here, selling fresh mangoes and bananas. I had a delicious mango for breakfast this morning, although I didn't get it from a stand) and old wooden buildings (although in CA they would usually be abandoned farm/orchard buildings, and here they are stores and churches and restaurants and homes, which are clearly not abandoned). The plants and the soil near Nairobi reminded me of Hawaii, in a vague way. The landscape was tropical, but clearly home to lots of people, and vehicles. The hand-painted signs on stores and the markets made from improvised materials was a lot like Mexico, as were the large number of people travelling around by foot. After about an hour of driving, we were out of the urban/suburban area. While there was a lot of agriculture in Nairobi and the surrounding area- plots of corn and banana trees were tucked into most of the available space, and there were large fields of coffee along the roadside- this land was more used for grazing. At one point it seemed that the terrain was pretty much indistinguishable from some parts of California: lots of rolling hills and some flat fields covered in brown grass, sometimes crossed by fences or railroads.
While there were definitely aspects of scenery in these areas that were distinctly African, like the signs in Swahili or the ubiquitous ads for Safaricom, the number one Kenyan phone service, these parts of the drive did not seem that foreign to me, or if it was foreign, a sort of usual type of foreign. Once we entered Nanyuki, however, and left the highway for dirt roads, things did start to change.
For one thing, we started seeing weird animals. Well, first the landscape was different. You could see more shrubs in the far-away grasslands, and more of the sort of plants you would associate with the Lion King rather than a nearby abandoned field. Then we saw zebras. It was like noticing cows on a nearby hill from your car, but they were striped. And they were zebras.
As we kept driving, the shrub cover moved in closer to the road, and you could imagine travel photos looking like the view from the comvee up the dirt road. For the most part, the only animals we could see were cattle and goats, but it seemed much more conceivable that there might be a giraffe. And then Josephine saw a giraffe. I squealed like a 15-year-old being introduced to [insert male pop-star here. Or the twilight guy]. I didn't get any pictures, since we were in a moving vehicle, but there was definitely a giraffe.
Pretty soon we entered into wholesale savannah. There were acacias and big rock formations, and an electric fence to keep the rhinos in (or out, depending on whether you're an optimist or pessimist). We saw a herd of impala, a few antelope, two cape buffalo, and one dik dik, which is a ridiculously cute, amusingly small deer (deer-chibi, if you will) that I will probably mention frequently. The drive from Nanyuki to Mpala was long, since we were on very bumpy dirt roads, but it was in no way boring. We all had our faces up against the windows, taking in the scenery and searching the landscape for other animals. Well, I did, but as a consequence I can't really speak for Sam or Jo. Our driver was very friendly and accomodating, stopping for us to gawk at the pretty commonplace impala and antelope, and telling us about the landmarks we passed.
Mpala research center was everything I hoped for, and more. As soon as we got there they fed us. The area is open, and the buildings blend in well with the surrounding vegetation. While Nairobi was permeated with the unpleasant hydrocarbon smell of exhaust and burning charcoal, Mpala just smells like the outdoors. Our housing accommodations are lovely. Josephine and I share a 7-person suite, and Sam has one all to himself. There are indoor toilets and mosquito nets and the keys are the old-fashioned rod-and-flaps-of-metal type that they use in cartoon prisons. I finally feel legitimately excited to start my semester here, not just an excited mix of anxiety, uncertainty, confusion, doubt and disbelief.
We drove from Nairobi to Mpala today. Most of the length of the drive was through fairly populated areas, and in many ways that landscape seemed familiar. Along the highway were the sorts of buildings you might find on a back road in San Martin, a very small town near Morgan Hill: lots of fruit stands (here, selling fresh mangoes and bananas. I had a delicious mango for breakfast this morning, although I didn't get it from a stand) and old wooden buildings (although in CA they would usually be abandoned farm/orchard buildings, and here they are stores and churches and restaurants and homes, which are clearly not abandoned). The plants and the soil near Nairobi reminded me of Hawaii, in a vague way. The landscape was tropical, but clearly home to lots of people, and vehicles. The hand-painted signs on stores and the markets made from improvised materials was a lot like Mexico, as were the large number of people travelling around by foot. After about an hour of driving, we were out of the urban/suburban area. While there was a lot of agriculture in Nairobi and the surrounding area- plots of corn and banana trees were tucked into most of the available space, and there were large fields of coffee along the roadside- this land was more used for grazing. At one point it seemed that the terrain was pretty much indistinguishable from some parts of California: lots of rolling hills and some flat fields covered in brown grass, sometimes crossed by fences or railroads.
While there were definitely aspects of scenery in these areas that were distinctly African, like the signs in Swahili or the ubiquitous ads for Safaricom, the number one Kenyan phone service, these parts of the drive did not seem that foreign to me, or if it was foreign, a sort of usual type of foreign. Once we entered Nanyuki, however, and left the highway for dirt roads, things did start to change.
For one thing, we started seeing weird animals. Well, first the landscape was different. You could see more shrubs in the far-away grasslands, and more of the sort of plants you would associate with the Lion King rather than a nearby abandoned field. Then we saw zebras. It was like noticing cows on a nearby hill from your car, but they were striped. And they were zebras.
As we kept driving, the shrub cover moved in closer to the road, and you could imagine travel photos looking like the view from the comvee up the dirt road. For the most part, the only animals we could see were cattle and goats, but it seemed much more conceivable that there might be a giraffe. And then Josephine saw a giraffe. I squealed like a 15-year-old being introduced to [insert male pop-star here. Or the twilight guy]. I didn't get any pictures, since we were in a moving vehicle, but there was definitely a giraffe.
Pretty soon we entered into wholesale savannah. There were acacias and big rock formations, and an electric fence to keep the rhinos in (or out, depending on whether you're an optimist or pessimist). We saw a herd of impala, a few antelope, two cape buffalo, and one dik dik, which is a ridiculously cute, amusingly small deer (deer-chibi, if you will) that I will probably mention frequently. The drive from Nanyuki to Mpala was long, since we were on very bumpy dirt roads, but it was in no way boring. We all had our faces up against the windows, taking in the scenery and searching the landscape for other animals. Well, I did, but as a consequence I can't really speak for Sam or Jo. Our driver was very friendly and accomodating, stopping for us to gawk at the pretty commonplace impala and antelope, and telling us about the landmarks we passed.
Mpala research center was everything I hoped for, and more. As soon as we got there they fed us. The area is open, and the buildings blend in well with the surrounding vegetation. While Nairobi was permeated with the unpleasant hydrocarbon smell of exhaust and burning charcoal, Mpala just smells like the outdoors. Our housing accommodations are lovely. Josephine and I share a 7-person suite, and Sam has one all to himself. There are indoor toilets and mosquito nets and the keys are the old-fashioned rod-and-flaps-of-metal type that they use in cartoon prisons. I finally feel legitimately excited to start my semester here, not just an excited mix of anxiety, uncertainty, confusion, doubt and disbelief.
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