More baiting today, ants not very active so have some down time to compare some notes with the [field assistant]. Topics include how far away our families are from where we work [400km], How long [13 hrs], cost [~1,000 shillings, ~$15US, one way] and by what means [Matatu = minibus] we travel through the country to see them. He asks what kind of meat we eat in the US, and we spend some time figuring out how much a kilo of cow costs (converting $/lb to shillings/kilo). I ask a bunch of questions of life in his village, find out his family farms, raising food for substance, maize, beans, etc. Hunting wildlife isn’t allowed, and perpetrators are jailed by the Kenyan Wildlife Service. Folks kill impala and eland with arrows (some use outlawed guns). He notes that it is easy to kill Dikdik (a small, spaniel sized antelope; they’re ubiquitous and hang around the station a lot), practically through a stone and it’s dead. Eland is the best meat (some report it’s better than cow) but it takes a long time to kill, can take all day when using arrows. His village is outside of Eldoret where a lot of post-election violence has occurred. His brother has moved from the city back to the village.

At lunch the station mechanic runs past and speeds off in his truck. He gets joked a bit by other station workers, I bemuse – watch, there’s a fire and we’re making fun of him. Of course he’s running because there’s purportedly a fire on the border of Mpala where a lot of folks are running field experiments.

At night walk into dining area to get food, and see about a dozen guys in fatigues and rifles. Their guns are stashed under table like kick-off shoes. Find out they’re the anti-poaching unit of the Kenyan Wildlife Service (KWS) and they’ve been tracking an elephant poacher to the area, so they’ll be here for the night.

Middle of night hear a loud ‘WHO-WHO!” noise, sounds a bit like a bird, but definitely different. And very loud.