Interviews!

Two women carrying produce back to their hut

Traditional Maasai Baskets

A view of the road leading into town

This morning I woke up, ate breakfast, and headed into the park with the biology crew.  The cooks were a little slow getting breakfast going this morning because they were short one worker, but they eventually got it made and the school crew got to school on time.  It’s strange here, we have been going to bed around 9:00 or 9:30 just because there is not a lot to do once it gets dark.  And then we wake up at 6:00 so we can eat breakfast at 7:00.  The most common breakfast is toast (with butter, jam, peanut butter, or sugar), crepes, and fruit.  The staff here is really good at varying the food so we often have eggs, omelets, or even beans.  It’s nice that the food changes from day to day.  The other day we got pineapple and it was such a treat! It’s beginning to be pineapple and mango season here and we are really excited! 

Colleen, Jen, Dave, and I went into the park this morning.  We dug through a LOT of impala and elephant poop looking for acacia seeds for Colleen’s project, but didn’t have much luck.  She is looking at how scarification (eating of seeds by animals) affects seed germination.  Dave and I got to measure about 7 mounds today, which was good.  That puts our grand total up to 41 mounds.  I think if we get a handful more on Friday, we could be done collecting data which would be great.  It’s so funny to go measure termite mounds in the park because we have to have a ranger with us at all times.  Today, we got out of the car right next to some giraffes, baboons, and elephants in order to measure the termite mounds.  We have to follow our ranger in a single file while he creeps around (it reminds me of James Bond) making sure the coast is clear.  He carries a super big gun with him at all times and it’s actually a little scary. 

We returned to camp around 1:00 pm for lunch.  Lunch was pasta salad with hard boiled eggs, Tanzanian Pizza (crust, ground beef or veggies, and cheese), salad, and bananas.  The one thing we definitely miss here is fruit.  We get some at meals but it never seems like it’s enough.  We can buy oranges at the market in town, but that’s the only readily available fruit here. 

This afternoon I tagged along with Karen and her translator to do some interviews with some Maasai people in town.  She is doing her project on the effects of global warming and the current drought on pastoralism in the Maasai community.  It was really interesting to hear what the villagers had to say.  Most of them said that this drought is worse than any of the previous ones, and that they have lost a significant number of cattle and sheep because of it.  Some of them are even considering other work because it is so hard to raise cattle during this drought.  At the end of the interview, we asked if they had any questions.  Most of them just wanted to know what we were going to do to help them and their cattle.  We told them that we couldn’t do a lot, but perhaps our research would provide a solution later on.  The strangest part about the interview process is that we are required to compensate the interviewees for their time by giving them gifts (soda, tea, coffee, alcohol).  In fact, many will not even talk to us unless they know that they will get something in return.  It’s all very strange.  After the interviews, we dropped by the archaeology site to pick up Shaye and Hani.  They are excavating a small region off the edge of the road where they have found stone tools.  And today, they uncovered a tomb there!  I think it’s fascinating that they’ve already found so much.  They have bags of stone tools sitting here at camp that they are waiting to analyze.  It’s all very exciting.

We got back to camp around 6:30 and I showered and ate dinner.  Dinner tonight was spaghetti noodles, beans, beef, and watermelon.  It was good.  And now I’m sitting here in one of the cars writing this blog because I need computer power and one of the cars conveniently has outlets in it.  Our solar charger is working well, but since it is already dark out, there isn’t much juice left.  And today it was fairly overcast (the first overcast day since we’ve been here) and at one point it even rained!  It was only a 30 second rain shower, but still, it’s better than nothing! 

I think right now I will go stargaze a little before hitting the hay.  I downloaded a star chart of the southern hemisphere and have been identifying a few constellations each night.  And maybe after that I’ll finish the friendship bracelet I started today.  Anyway, lots to do to keep from getting bored.  Tomorrow I’m going to town to buy soap for our bathroom (we have no soap to wash our hands) and I am also having a laundry party with Karen (I hate doing laundry here, but I have no choice).  Hope all is well back home.  Miss you guys!

Erin