Catch up on lab work, organize samples. Rainy day, but get in the longest run yet! Not enjoying the damp, cold night.

At breakfast, told to stay away from the north part of Mpala, as there is an injured and dangerous elephant. KWS’s attempts to put it down (i.e. firing a few rounds) only resulted of one really pissed off ele. In the morning set some more bags with Barnard, by afternoon he hears on radio that the ele is dead. Meet up with friend for ride back to station, she takes picture of some rockin Acacia wound sap. At lunch hear stories of the ele being ‘processed’ (tusks to gov’t, meat to villagers) with an axe. Later that afternoon try to see it shortly after it starts to rain. The rain’s wet just the surface of the road – it’s slick enough to cause us to spin in a 180, but after we stop we’re covered in a plume of dust. We decide it’s probably best to head back.

Set more nectar bags, Barnard does an amazing job finding and collecting ants returning with food bits. Snap a shot of him with his big ole grasshopper find. At lunch see wild dog researcher has returned from holiday, as well as Talak, the now humungous Rhodesian ridgeback. After lunch we stretch out on cool floor in dining area together. Awwww. Dogs.

First day back on the job she discovers one of the African wild dog’s collars is transmitting the ‘dead’ signal. She goes out and finds it, and follows it up with a necropsy. I get to play photographer and witness all the gory details (Warning: the following is not for the squeamish)

After prepping, investigate the dog (old alpha male) for the cause of death.

The puncture wounds in the neck and chest probably did him in, especially considering his worn teeth wouldn’t have helped much in the fray.

After taking a short break after cutting the first incision, the chest is opened up, and we start to get a peek inside the bloated belly.

















Meanwhile the field assistant is skinning the skull, which produces a very freaky looking result.
















The rain clears, and I take a breather. Including holding up the rainbow.












Return to see the stomach contents. And a lovely view of the small intestines. Tapeworms included.

Days pretty similar (sampling nectar, doing lab work, collaborative meetings) until an African wild dog was found dead on the 29^th…

Highlights of the past week include seeing ants collect all the dead termites after an aardvark digs up a big mound, playing more tennis, sundowners and a farewell party, a birthday phone call with dad, and seeing a zebra carcass, killed by a lion.

Oh, and receiving a necklace from Barnard. Very sweet – he walked quickly to the car, got in and pulled the necklace out of his pocket, and handed it over, not a word spoken. I said “Very nice!” unsure if it was a gift or not, and he kept on holding it out to me. So I asked “For me?” and he said yes! I’ll have to post a picture of it…

Out in field for more bagging, go with grad student to show the technique, might strike up a bit of a collaboration here. Back at station make some more bags and then enjoy some scotch and cribbage with a friend. I dig out my ipod and external speakers and we sing (er, screech) along to Boston, Bon Jovi, Def Leppard. Shortly after wondering if we might be disturbing our banda neighbors, we hear some footsteps and are joined by a friend. Who promptly helps us belt out “Don’t Stop Believin’.” Awesome.

Check email after dinner and get an offer to teach the second half of an intro bio course at UVM. Sweet – could be great to get some teaching experience while getting to live in VT and make some money, essentially funding more research.

Listen to a few tracks of “Wild animals of Africa” (the wild dogs and leopard) that I copied from a friend. Funny, cuz I woke up the middle of the night thinking “I’ve heard this sound before?!” Almost certain that a leopard was hanging around the station!

Back to the field, bag more trees. At lunch hear reports of leopard resting in the top of tree not far from the main escarpment road. A bunch of us drive up there and get a great peek at it before it leaps out. Spend some more time nosing through the Rough Guide to Kenya and come across some more great travel info.

Up early, can’t fall back asleep. Spend low key morning reading in bed and outside banda. After lunch (and a small rainstorm) we head back to the court and we’re all dying from the unusually humidity in the air. There’s an inter-ranch football game and Stefen represents us whities out there on the field. Back at the station get some great ideas about where to stay on the coast during our travels, have a small chat with the folks until the phone dies, and start to figure out the Kenyan travel schedule with Arthur. Take a much needed shower and put my exhausted self to bed.

Out in field w Barnard and few graduate students. Great getting to know them and have some laughs. Spend some time sorting insects and a few us decide in the late afternoon that it’s time for sundowners. We head out to Lookout rock and brave rock hyrax joins the festivities. The revelry continues and I feature the Simpson’s movie on my laptop and end up staying up late drinking and chatting.

Just Barnard and I in field this morn, basically zero conversation, but able to communicate sufficiently with very basic vocab and lots of gestures. He’s a great worker and we exchange pleasant non-verbal communications. Quiet in field (vs Swahili banter among usual crew of field assistants) and the silence feels peaceful and not strained.

Talk of tennis over lunch (one trustee donate money specifically to fix up a clay court) and it happens in the late afternoon! It’s so surreal to be playing tennis the African bush. At one point some impala snort at use, and we stop to watch a giraffe splay its legs and bend its body to drink from the watering hole. While emailing in the office after dinner see some flashlights through the window, and come out to discover a Puff Adder is hanging around the lab! Wonder what the askari will do with it, and then see the large axe in hand…

Drive stick again (for first time). Another researcher’s car is down, so get a car full of field assistants with which to practice. The wildlife are out in force this morning: spot a few Waterbuck and Baboons crossing the road, see about a dozen Giraffe heads poking up above the Acacia, feels like we’re passing through a giraffe forest. Once we hit the open plain we see an Ostrich running. It takes the right fork as we take the left, and for a bit I can pace it in the truck.

Okay day in the field, but as I head back to station, can feel the anxiety of having to stop at the gate and start from an uphill stop with a vehicle packed w field assistants. Luckily I don’t kill it and only slightly peel out…

Some folks were kind enough to pick up my packages from Nanyuki (thanks for the candy and field supplies, Mom and Dad!). And my luggage has arrived from South African Airways. It’s like Christmas! Throw a disc with some folks and one manages to get it stuck on the top of an Acacia tree. We start by throwing the biggest, most readily available objects (i.e. dried elephant pooh) but it’s really stuck in there. So then we try some rocks, but to no avail. So we finally resort to a tree pole (i.e. long extendable plastic pole used to measure tree heights). It takes a bit but we finally find success. To celebrate we enjoy some gin and Lemon bitter soda at the (still absent) Director’s house. They feed their Dikdiks over there, and we try to lure them in with some fried peanuts.

Head out to field with a friend of visiting researcher and have fun describing what I do and appreciate the help my first day back in awhile! Also first day out with new askari/field assistant. Learn quickly that he doesn’t really speak English, but have fun describing things using non-verbal cues (i.e. lots of gesticulating and smiling). At lunch learn that I have 6 mail slips in the mail slot, some of then dated 27 June. Guess those care packages did in fact arrive in Nanyuki! Spend the afternoon doing some data entry and organizing samples. Feels so good to do some stretching after being laid up for awhile. After dinner officially submit the OSU post-doc.

Feeling a big stronger, but have a weird, bitter taste in my mouth from the pills. Catch up on backlogged email, organize field gear. Come across a cool looking post-doc based at Oregon State University. Timing’s all wrong, but might throw my hat in the ring for giggles. Spot a D’arnaud’s Barbet munching outside of office. Chat with Research Director about hiring my own askari so I can set my own schedule and have some help in the field. Head to the Jenga House (beautiful full house on the station) for some dinner. Have crazy (drug-induced?) dream of fighting death after being hit by lightening, and an apocalyptical storm destroying the world as I know it, carrying my mom as we try to figure out if we can cross a swampy courtyard to seemingly safe structure, seeing nothing but dead giraffes and big ants and termites across the red-tinted destruction.

Whew!

Today’s a low key recovery day. Sleep in, catch up on lit, plan out fieldwork. Have a nice chat with my mom. Friend picks up some (ridiculously cheap, no prescription needed) drugs in Nanyuki. His wife (an MD) thinks the chronic, cyclic GI troubles may be due to Giardia, so I take the special anti-protozoan meds and hope for the best.

I cannot believe this. It felt so good to be back at Mpala, and not 8 hrs later I feel so bad. Woke up at 5am with a slightly nauseous feeling. As soon as I get up I feel the sudden, explosive urgency. I make it to the bathroom just in time and experience my first truly simultaneous GI explosions. Feel better after it all comes out, but now I’m exhausted and weak and need to clean out the wastebasket. Awesome.

Sleep in and lay around all morning. Muster up some strength to get water and some dry tea biscuits for a little energy. Sit outside and read for a bit, a friend comes by and we shoot the shit for awhile. Head over the Director’s house for some sundowners (I drink my oral rehydration solution) and manage to get a little food in my belly for dinner.

Taxi to Wilson airport, nice flight to Nanyuki. Hang out at great café while waiting for pick-up. Passion fruit juice and melty gouda sandwich, mmmm. Head into Nanyuki and stop at the "Spinners and Weavers," a great local women run place. We get a little tour and see how they spin, dye, and weave their sheep's wool. They have about a dozen colors that all come from natural sources, i.e. scale insects on cactus, plant roots, etc. I'm extremely happy to support them in my purchases...
Next we head to Ol’ Pejeda, a neighboring ranch and conservancy. Almost instantaneously we spot a rhino heading to the watering hole. Awesome! Rhinos! And other wildlife. Feels a bit zoo-ish, but then again, it caters to tourists.


You can practically touch the zebras they're so close, and we watched a li’l zebra and mom eat
together.











We spent some time with 'Moroni' the tame rhino and even got to touch him. He felt like solid, ancient wood.








Also got to stand next to a giraffe spine and watch chimps play
and just hang out.












After all the traveling feels great to return to Mpala!

Up at 4.30 to catch my 5.00 taxi to the airport. Flights on time, in jo-berg, take path through parking garage, merchants and all, to change from domestic to int’l terminal. Burn off remaining Rands w chocolate and whiskey. Luggage doesn’t arrive in Nairobi. Wait forever in lost luggage line. Exit and look through mass of people for my name on a placard from the driver from the hotel. Don’t see it – damnit, maybe the drive left because of the luggage delay. Go through again and see it. Hurray! Nice to be back at the Country Lodge hotel, starting to feel like home. Exhausted but can’t sleep. Take an amazing shower and head to dinner at the outdoor café. Grab some more sushi while I can. Nice to be back in regular email contact w the world.

Up early, can’t charge my computer (no compatible outlet) so been writing out notes on talk. Head to conference, finally crack open the computer, and make changes to the ppt, and upload the talk. Catch a few talks, practice talk one more time, and finally, four days in and at 17:00 I give it. The podium is completely lateral to the screen, and I’m a big wigged out as I approach and move away from the mic to highlight things on the screen. Overall happy with how it goes and get some good feedback. Head out with ant crowd at night and we enjoy some “table taps” (=tall tube o beer with tap which sits on table) and a communal dinner of assorted appetizers, the most tender chunk of pork on the bone I’ve ever had, and some take-out chicken from “Mondos” – technically fast food, but it’s the juiciest, tastiest, perfectly spicy chicken I’ve had in a long time. While walking from Mondo’s back to the hotel we consider hitting up the oddly named “Action Bar,” but even with a whole crew assembled, we decide it’s probably not in our best interest.

No alarm, and I rush to catch shuttle for two talks and both are cancelled! But during that time I run into a termite researcher who has done a ton of work around Mpala and we have a good chat. Have a free afternoon (no talks scheduled) and some of wonder how best to get out and see Durban. But then we learn of the transit workers' strike in which they’re quoted in the paper as saying anyone seen using public transportation “should be prepared to suffer the consequences.” The conference cancels its tours because of reports of buses being ignited and taxis being turned over. So I spend the afternoon in the hotel, work a bit on the talk, and wander across the street to peruse the street merchants wares. I grab a handful of money and it works perfected for bartering. Have dinner in a neighboring hotel with some Brits and (enjoy?) some British academic humor. Snap a nighttime view from the hotel room.

Meet Andre at 645a and catch the sunrise over Indian Ocean. After I take my obligatory feet-in-a-new-body-of-water shot, we stash our stuff, grab some boogie boards, and promptly jump off the pier into the ocean. It’s been a long time since I’ve been in an ocean and I’m surprised and delighted to taste the watery salt. I forget how thrilling and relaxing it is to see a rolling wave approach and feel yourself rise and fall and it flows past, almost through you. Andre helps me catch a wave and I get to ride it all the way into to shore. Beeee-utiful. We catch some breakfast at a little beachside restaurant and chat about travel and life and all that’s good. After a quick tour of downtown Durban we part ways with the possibility of meeting up again when travels will bring me through Nairobi later this summer. Thanks again, Andre!

Hit a whole slew of talks and realize there’s a ‘Beach Party’ put on by the conference just a few hundred feet from my hotel. We’re greeted by dancers and we enter a huge tent with a huge buffet and two bars on the sand. Run into a few folks I know and spend a good chunk of time by the water eating and drinking with them. Check out the band under the tent that play American pop songs with an African beat and watch the academics turn it loose on the dance floor. By the end of the night us ant geeks have found each other and end up joining the lifeguards in a game of chuck-the-frisbee-like-plastic-chair-tops down the beach. After that gets old, I walk across the street and turn in for the night.

Restless night sleep, wake up to drunken “Good morning Durban!” being relayed in the hallway at 6a. Eventually get up, take a picture out my 10th floor window, and enjoy a big b-fast spread at the hotel. Just missed the shuttle to the conference center, so walk the half mile with a medical entomology from TX who focuses his work on killed disease vectors for folks in the military. I’m reminded that half the folks at an entomology meeting want to understand the ecology of insects, while the other half are want to understand how to best kill them. Safely arrive, register, and receive the tome of scheduled talks, feel a bit overwhelmed. In line for lunch I realize I don’t have any South African currency and hope they take plastic. Hit a few talks, run into a few folks I know. Email with Andre and arrange for a meeting on the beach front tomorrow morn. Order up some room service, plan out talks to see, and go to bed early.

Work on talk a bit in the morning. Work out in hotel exercise room, lame but really need to move. Head to airport and fly from Nairobi to Johannesburg to Durban. Worried about retrieving luggage, changing terminals, and re-checking in J-berg, but goes smoothly. Start chatting with fine gent before taking off in J-berg, conversation is sufficiently stimulating to warrant his taking a middle seat to continue. First time I’ve truly enjoyed airline conversation with a formally unknown row-mate. Get an offer for a local tour of Durban and wonder if I might be able to get out in this town…

Check into the Tropicana and can see its former beauty through the worn carpet and old paint. Feel safe but a little on edge.

Start travels down to Durban, South Africa for International Congress of Entomology. Drive to Nanyuki to meet up with drive to take us into Nairobi. Relish my first cup of real coffee in awhile. Drive through lush tropical coffee and banana farms during the 4 hr drive down. Check into the hotel, Alison goes to visits folks at the Museum, I put myself into a sushi bar. Catch a wireless signal in the hotel lobby and catch up on blog a bit.

Spy some Brown parrots in the tree during breakfast. Have a meeting with the termite project crew to figure out what needs to be done for the remaining time. Spot an Eastern pale chanting goshawk right outside the office. Finalize and send off the progress report. Enjoy a 4^th of July baseball and beer session on the ‘lawn’ of the station!

Spend morning digging up tree and grass roots to stain them for a symbiotic fungus. Catch a spotted bush snake moving through the Acacia trees. As we’re driving down the road to the station, see a load of vultures in the tree. Stop, smell decay, and find a dead eland not far from the road. Spend a good chunk of the afternoon finding a source of heat to boil solutions, eventually find a friend with portable gas stove. When cleaned office a couple weeks ago, found kids’ soft baseball and bat set. A couple of us take it out for a spin. After dinner plan to go on a game drive, but the spot light doesn’t work in the LandRover, so we end up drinking on the veranda instead. Learn the following day that some folks saw two lionesses lazily leaving the eland carcass…

Wake up feeling stable. At breakfast hear about eles tearing down water tank – apparently they really go for the clean water. Work on the Smithsonian progress report. Enjoy a successful skype to cell phone call from the folks. Plan to go out in the field but boots still caked in mud. So strap them on and take them into the shower with me. Worked pretty well.

Tummy explodes, up before daylight still in bathroom when hear alarm go off in banda. Don’t eat much and read all day. Finish one book, start and finish another. Make it to meeting of researchers working in the ‘black cotton’ ecosystem around Mpala. Try some dinner. Chat with a friend who suggests I try an “oral rehydration solution” (=1 tsp salt, 8 tsp sugar in 1 liter water). Thicker and saltier than I expected. But seems to be helping.