Woke up repeatedly throughout night because of insanely loud wildlife ruckuses. First the hyenas were yapping away, but the loudest perpetrators were the zebras. They have this loud braying vocalization which has been likened to a donkey being dragged down a stairwell by its testicles. They were so loud I thought at one point they were sticking their heads in my window and yelping directly into my banda. And then the sounds of hooves moving quickly along the ground. Later I heard the raspy, breathy, sawing noises characteristic of a leopard. I half expected to find something dead outside my banda in the morning…

Spend day working through ant identification keys. I feel fortunate that I was able to get a working key in progress to help with species identifications, but its incomplete state adds frustration to a tedious, frustrating process.

At point a little Kenya kid, probably 4 or 5, ridiculously cute, comes into the lab and asks me a bunch of questions in Swahili, and regardless of my English response he replies “yes, yes.” Turns on microscope next to me, comes over, tries to get in my lap to look at mine, points at computer and starts hitting the keys, asks me a question two or three times, I think, about the music coming from it. Unfortunately I can’t answer of the questions and I’m in the middle of pinning an ant (= taking a small pin, putting a very small triangular piece of paper on it, putting glue the end of the paper, and carefully positioning the ant in the right orientation onto the point of the paper). My amusement is sliding into frustration, and I’m trying to think how to non-verbally communicate to him that I can’t play right now.

At dinner, it’s a researcher’s visiting mom’s b-day, and she put in a special request for chocolate cake. Happy birthday to us all…

Drive over to a couple’s house about 20 minutes from the station, and right before we arrive we see something cross the road in front of us: lions! My first wild cat sitting!! There’s a big male and a female – they lie down lazily and don’t seem to care about the huge vehicle 10m away with its lights on. The two cozy up together, exchange yawns, and the male makes a half-hearted attempt to mate with her, and she tells him off.

Enjoy my first cold drink in awhile (refrigerators only run at the station when the generators are on – about 5 hours a day) and listen folks catch up on Mpala gossip. Return to the station for a nightcap, can’t find my flashlight, and return to my banda via candlelight.