I’ve been non-stop working on my directed research project for the last month. The first half was spent collecting data and interviewing almost 400 households on their perceptions of wildlife conflicts and values of wildlife. The second half (the past week and a half) has been spent analyzing data, researching and writing my paper on human-elephant conflicts. Because I have spent so much time in front of my computer the past month I have decided to try something new. Bear with me.

Directed Research Is…

Directed research is ten days of interviews, five days of data analysis, and a week of write up. It’s hiking 5km in the northern Tanzania sun searching for Bomas. It’s sitting on small wooden stools inside a cool hut made of mud. It’s broken Kiswahili, foreign sounds and languages I’ve never heard before. It’s holding the cold, grainy hand of a child with Ugali stuck to his face asking for money. Directed research is laughing with mama because she doesn’t understand you. It’s being offered cups of chai, and painting your nails. It’s beautiful red sofa sets and crowded school children watching you write. Directed research is hours of Excel and learning to run R. It’s learning to write code, and creating logistic regression models. It’s learning what logistic regression means. It’s waiting an hour for articles to load and power outages. It’s going for walks around Rhotia and up Moyo hill because you can’t stare at your computer anymore. Directed research is a real cup of coffee and a game of x-box connect with your adviser. It’s writing a fifteen page paper and feeling like that was a lot, then finding out some of your colleagues wrote twenty-five. It’s being proud of your final work and knowing so much about human-elephant conflict. It’s laying in bed writing about directed research and realizing it wasn’t all that bad and that in fact you might miss it…and then again maybe not.

-Thanksgiving-

The night before thanksgiving one of my Bandamates and I made pumpkin pie. I was unsure of how it was going to turn out because we lacked a few ingredients, but this is East Africa so I told myself not to worry, it was going to be god no matter what. We stayed up 'til 12am waiting for those pies to bake. Thank goodness for bananagrams. Thanksgiving morning I worked a little on my research paper and played some cards. The afternoon was spent watching one of our SAMs (student affairs manager) along with ten other students chase down our meal. Talk about some fast food. This was my second time watching them slaughter a sheep on campus (the first time was actually a goat). Our SAM also got to slaughter the sheep herself, it was her first time and she did a wonderful job. I didn’t stay to watch them skin and cut up the sheep because I had seen it before and once was enough for me I think. Some of us hiked up Moyo Hill to gather flowers for centerpieces. At the top we could see Lake Manyara (which is actually starting to look like a lake again thanks to the rain) and made it back down just in time for some American flag football. It was my first time playing flag football and while my team didn’t win I still had a great time. That night we feasted on our lovely sheep, mashed potatoes, quiche, stuffing, and rolls, corn and of course turkey. We finished with pumpkin pie (made by yours truly), apple crumble, fruit salad, chocolate ship cookie truffles, and real ice cream. It was my first thanksgiving away from home and I feel extremely blessed to have had the chance to spend it with all of my friends here at Moyo Hill who have become like family to me.

Dinning Hall full of beautiful people

 

 

Serengeti

Nothing gets you ready for finals like camping for five days in the Serengeti. I'm still trying to process all the amazing experiences I had and sights I saw in those five days. I think that if I tried to do a play-by-play of what we did, this would end up being a novel of a post, I also don't even know if I can put into words the experiences I had, so I'll stick to a picture oriented post, hope you don't mind.

"The Cradle of Life"

On our way to Serengeti we stopped at Oldupai gorge (also called olduvai). While I am not super into archeology or anything it was pretty interesting to hear about. For those you that don't know what Oldupai gorge is, it is the place where the earliest human remains were found. As I understand it is also the first place where traces of stone tools where found.

We had a guest lecture here and after we had a chance to explore the museum where I saw a cast of the earliest human footprints along with fossils and skulls of various animals.

Me and one of my lovely banda mates at the first gate into the Serengeti

We were driving for less then ten minutes after clearing the main gate when we saw two lionesses. I knew it at that moment that the Serengeti was gonna deliver. We had a game drive for the rest of the day through the park as we made our way to our campsite. Camping in the Serengeti was probably one of the coolest experiences I have had so far. Our campsite was unlike that of our other expedition, and was actually in the park and had no fences. Yes, that means that any animal could wander into our camp during the day and especially during the night. We had visits from elephants, giraffe, migrating wildebeest, hyenas, cape buffalo and baboons. There was one night when we could hear lions not too far from camp. Because of this we brought a couple of askaris (guards) from campus with us. As soon as the sun went down we weren't allowed to go anywhere with an askari. I didn't have a problem with this rule, because there was no way I was going to chance running into a cape buffalo by myself.

Wildlife valuation exercise, can you guess what they're all huddled around? Carnivores, it was male lions with a kill.

We had three main exercises that we had out in the field. One was a birding exercise where we had to identify 50 different species. I thought it was going to be pretty hard but I actually identified over 50 in one day! We also had a wildlife valuation exercise where we followed tourists around the park and recorded which wildlife they stopped for, for how long and what their behavior was (i.e. taking pictures). This was quite a fun exercise because if you didn't guess it already tourists are almost always looking for the carnivores. This was especially helpful because we also had an exercise on carnivore-prey interaction. Every time we encountered a carnivore we recorded if it had a kill or was within 100m of prey, what type of habitat they were in, and if there were any associated carnivores. Basically everyday we drove around the park conducting all of these exercises at the same time.

I was sitting directly above him. He was resting in the shade of our Land Cruiser.

We were very fortunate to have two guest lectures while we were in the park. We had one lecture form the park's head warden on the issues of running such a large park. We also got to hear from the Frankfurt Zoological Society, a non-profit organization involved in protecting and preserving endangered animals and their environments. They have played a large role in supporting all aspects of park management in the Serengeti.

Cheetahs with their wildebeest kill

It was three days in and I had still had yet to complete my "big 5" sighting. I'd seen plenty of lions, elephants, cape buffalo and I had seen a rhino in the Ngorongoro crater. But I had yet to spot the leopard. It was the second to last day in the park when we finally came across two leopards hanging out in a tree. We were able to identify them as a male and a female. Eventually we waited long enough to see them come down from the tree. I was even able to witness leopard sex.

Me and my colleagues

Migrating wildebeest

At first I had no idea what this was, my first thoughts were; baby cheetah? Stray house cat? and then since it was clearly none of the above I realized it was a serval!

My first leopard sighting

So I guess this ended up being a pretty darn long post anyways, hope most of you are still with me. It's hard to describe the Serengeti without being totally cliche. It was a life changing experience that I will continue to learn from long after I leave here. I feel confident in my choice to study wildlife management and I know that this path will only lead me to more amazing places, people and, of course, wildlife.

As soon as we got back from Serengeti we had two days of review and studying and then the past three days have been filled with exams and more studying. This morning I finished my last exam. So now what since classes are over? Well as I mentioned it in my last post the next month will be spent doing independent research. Everyone here is doing something different. The projects range from traditional healing using animals to roles of beekeeping and use of bee products to human-wildlife conflicts. I get to spend my month collecting data and researching human-elephant conflicts, which I am very excited for.

Expedition and finals have wiped me out along with the fact that we haven't had an off day in two weeks. Tomorrow I'll be adventuring into Karatu for some good food, possibly a hair cut and some celebratory drinks.
Cheers!

Proposals

So while Tanzania has been full of crazy adventures and cultural experiences I thought I might write just a bit about what school has been like over here, after all it is the reason I am here. There are three core classes that we take: wildlife management, wildlife ecology, and environmental policy. We are also taking a Kiswahili language and culture class, which has been a lot of fun. While everyday is different from the one before there is a schedule that, for the most part, we stick to. A typical week here at the field station is six days of academics and field exercises and then one off day. This past week for example we started off with a field exercise in Lake Manyara National Park (LMNP) (only about twenty minutes away). For the exercise we drove 2km transects and had to identified all species larger than a mongoose, and record their behavior, their distance to the land cruiser, their response to the land cruiser, flight distance, GPS coordinates and the habitat. We’ve now done this same exercise in three study areas (and SFS has done this for four years now) so we have been able to compare data and look at trends of certain species. The next day we had an environmental policy lecture on campus with a guest lecture and then spent the rest of the day doing community service, I went back down to the local primary school to continue working on the bathroom we have been building. The next day was spent working on assignments and I used that time to work on our assessment of village councils here in Rhotia (we had a focal group discussion with the council the week before).  The next day we had another field exercise in Mtu wa Mbu where we assessed the habitat of the wildlife corridor and we are now working on habitat management plans which will hopefully be taken to the local government. For the past three days now we have begun our directed research. Yesterday we found out which professor we would be joining and working with for the next month and a half. I got my first choice which was human-elephant conflicts with our wildlife management professor. I was really hoping to do some sort of predator-prey relation project or something to do with lions with our center director but it turns out that wasn’t even an option for a project. I am very happy either way to have gotten the project I did. Most of yesterday and today was spent reading articles and drafting my research proposal. We now have exactly two weeks left of classes. Well, really just three days because on Friday we leave for Serengeti and once we come back we have finals and then the next month is spent doing our directed research. Tomorrow is our only day off for the next two weeks so I plan on sleeping in.

xx

Last of the First

They grow no food, they raise no livestock, and basically live without rules or taxes. They live a life that hasn't really changed much in the past 10,000 years. I wonder, what they know that we have forgotten?

Hadzabe men hunting

Tuber

Last nights hunt

The Hadzabe people are Africa's last hunter-gatherers and on Monday I shook their hands and was welcomed into their culture and shown a place I never dreamed still existed. Less than 1,000 Hadzabe remain in Africa and 300-400 of them currently live around Lake Eyasi near the Ngorongoro conservation area. Before that day the only exposure I had to the Hadzabe people was through a piece in National Geographic on the evolution of diet in which they were featured. I wasn't sure what to expect, especially after our professor told us that this group of Hadzabe in fact has a lot of visitors who come to see how they live. Part of me was reserved and felt like I might be gypped out of a true cultural experience. The other part of me was just excited to see a group of people who, for tourist sake or not, relied on their hunting and gathering skills to survive. When we first arrived our translator tried to teach us how to say hello in the Hadza language, which was pretty hard considering they have a click language, but it was fun to try anyways. We then started the day by going out on a hunt with the young men of the group. They hunt with bows and arrows and are the only people in Tanzania allowed to hunt without a permit. I believe they’re also the only people in Tanzania who are legally allowed to smoke marijuana, which they did before we went out on the hunt. We ate baobab fruit and dug up tubers, which were these giant potato looking things that when cracked open had watery/slimy fibers inside. On our way back one of the men shot a bat with his bow and arrow, which was pretty impressive (but I also couldn't help thinking, isn't that how you get ebola? too soon to joke?). When we got back to their main camp we practiced shooting a couple arrows ourselves and then they showed us one of their traditional dances.

Hadzabe boy and his bat

Cave paintings

Passing the pipe before the hunt

I'm not sure where the future of the Hadzabe people is heading. Traditionally they don't stay in one spot, but now since the land around them has changed into agriculture, national parks and conservation areas, they seem to be trapped. At the end of the day I was very glad that I had the opportunity to see and experience the Hadzabe people; the last of the first.

Ngorongoro

Once again I had another amazing day out in the field here in Tanzania. This time we went to Ngorongoro crater which, lucky for us is only one hour away. After a guest lecture from the development and tourism manager, we headed into the crater for a game drive. I saw hyenas, lions, wildebeest, cape buffalo, elephants and zebra all before lunch time. For lunch we stopped at the hippo pools where we had to eat our packed lunch inside because of the black kites that will steal your food. Just ten minutes after getting back out in the field we finally saw a black rhino. It was far away and the heat wave made it hard to take a good picture, but it made my day. We also got to see so many lions up close. It was weird not having to take any field notes that day and just taking lots of pictures and watching the animals. It has now been eight days straight of classes and field exercises so tomorrow we get a day off and I plan on heading into Karatu to check out a coffee farm and to do some relaxing.

Inside the crater

Tarangire Expedition

Male elephant in musth

Do you see it? It's hiding under the tree. (It's a cheetah)

Lions napping

Lilac-breasted roller

Brothers

After five days on expedition its nice to be back in my little banda at Moyo Hill. Our first day on expedition we went into Tarangire National Park and collected data on all things elephant. This has been one of my favorite field exercises so far. We learned how to identify males and females based on physical features and even behavior, and also recorded age, tusk condition and health. The second half of the day was a game drive, giving us a chance to see all sorts of wildlife, including my first wild lion and cheetah sighting! That night we set up camp just outside the park, with little light pollution it was perfect for star gazing (not that I know any southern hemisphere constellations). The second day we went back to Tarangire and spent the morning doing transects and counting all animals larger than a mongoose. We recorded all the males, females, juveniles, behavior, and response to the land rover along with habitat. It was a long morning but I think its safe to say I have become increasingly better at identifying species in the field. For lunch we stopped at the Tarangire Safari Lodge to take a break from the heat and some of us jumped in the pool. After relaxing for a bit we headed back out into the park for another game drive. I saw more lions, wildebeest, zebra, lots of elephants, ostriches, giraffes and the list goes on. The next morning we got up and headed to Manyara Ranch to do the same field exercise. To compare what kinds of animals are in the park versus how many are in the ranch. In the afternoon we went back to Tarangire for a guest lecture from the head warden about conservation and poaching issues. Tuesday was spent interviewing locals in the villages surrounding the park about which types of firewood and fuel sources they gathered from the forests. The afternoon was spent on a bush walk in the wildlife corridor between Tarangire and Manyara Ranch. It was hot, dusty, and for a bush walk there was very little bush, but I still enjoyed it. On our last day we went to the Lake Burnge Wildlife Management Office for another guest lecture on wildlife management areas. We had an expedition debrief before heading back to campus. We stopped at Lake Burunge and climbed up on a rock where we could see Lake Manyara on one side and Lake Burunge on the other. We went to a women's basket weaving shop (cleared them out of their baskets I think), stopped briefly in Mto Wa Mbu for some snacks before heading back up the escarpment to our little hill in the clouds. Crawling into bed last night after finally feeling clean I realized how much this place finally feels like home. Today we have the day off to rest, do some laundry, and then I'm going to venture back down to Mto Wa Mbu to check out the Maasai market.

Mama Ema

Me and Mama Ema making chai

Yesterday was our first home stay with the Iraqw tribe (the tribe that most people in this area belong to). Myself and one other girl from the program went to mama Ema's house which is not too far from campus. I learned so many things from mama and her family. We learned to make chai, ugali (traditional Tanzanian maize porridge dish), and lots of other yummy food.

Erin and Emanuel cutting some n'gombe

Clean the rice

Safflower fields forever

My silly little Tanzanian brothers

 To be honest I was a little nervous about the whole language barrier, but I was impressed with myself, and everyone else at how much we could communicate with so little words. Hand gestures and a smile are definitely a must in these situations.







After we ate Emanuel took us on a walk through their fields where they grow most of their food. They have pigeon peas, maize, tomatoes, safflower and a bunch of other crops that I am now forgetting the names of (oops). We got to see all the surrounding houses which belong to other sons and daughters of mama Ema.






We did a little bit of cleaning and most of the kids seemed to take a little nap while we sat under the banana tree and drank some more chai. (I probably drank a liter of chai, mama and Emanuel kept filling our cups) Before it was time to go Emanuel was playing with my phone and found shakira's waka waka song. We proceeded to listen to it on repeat for at least 20 minutes and then again on the walk back to campus. I still have that song stuck in my head.


It was such a wonderful experience and I am so grateful that mama Ema and her family welcomed us into their lives, I know I will be back to see them all again.

Mama Ema, Eriki, and Teresa

Erin and I and our Tanzanian family

If you had the chance to talk to a poacher what would you ask? Last week we got the unique opportunity to talk to and interview real life poachers. We got to talk to them about what and why they do what they do. What it really comes down to for them is the money. Most of them don't have any other means of income and there aren't many jobs available to them. They aren't necessarily proud of what they do, but again they are desperate for the money. I found myself thinking that they aren't too different from some people back home in America that cheat, steal or lie to make a couple extra bucks. What was interesting to hear from these poachers was that when asked if they would take a job as a ranger, protecting the wildlife in the parks from other poachers, both of them said they would if it paid them a decent living wage (about 300,000TSH a month, which is less than 200USD). 

This past week we also did a 2km transect walk and identified the different types of grasses along Lake Manyara National Park. Only my like-minded nature-loving nerds would enjoy this field exercise too. With a lake full of flamingos as our backdrop in a field surrounded by cattle, shoats (sheep goats), and Thomson's gazelles, it was a great day.

Over the weekend we had a guest lecture from our center director, which was my favorite lectures so far. Lions are his specialty, so naturally we talked all things lions. We got to talk about all the different ways to monitor lion populations and he even brought out some radio and GPS collars to show us the difference between the two.

We had our first official community service day as well. Some people when to Project Rhotia which involves teaching kids English as well as how to use computers and the internet for school work, some people went to an orphanage to read to the kids, and then there was another group that helped to build a bathroom for the local primary school. I was in the building group this time and we ended up fixing the road that leads to the school instead because the water was out at the school and we could not mix cement that day.


We have our first home-stay tomorrow and then we are leaving for an expedition. I am so excited for this upcoming week.

Hope all is well with those of you reading!
xx

Spent an entire day watching Olive Baboons

The crew that hiked out to the elephant caves

Vervet monkey resting

Tomorrow will be the two week marker here in Tanzania. So far I have had classes in the Lake Manyara National Park (LMNP) studying baboon behavior, practiced tracking and identifying animal scat across the savanna, and talked to local people about what resources were critical to them. I've been to a monthly market in Karatu where I got to bargain for a Maasai shuka, hiked to elephant caves and a waterfall, biked around Mto wa mbu, hiked through banana plantations and even tried to slack-line. But the highlights of this past week? I got to see wild elephants, zebras, impala, gazelles, monkeys, giraffes, hippos and so many more. We were also given a traditional Tanzanian welcoming with a goat roast. Both goats were slaughtered here at the station. Yes I watched and yes I ate, and yes I enjoyed it. It was such a cool experience and I really do think every meat eater should experience something similar. I think we'll be doing another goat roast for thanksgiving. I love that every week is different from the one before. Each day except Sundays and the days we go out into the field we have about three to four classes which have all been very interesting (except that one day we had five and half hours of environmental policy, it wasn't as bad as it sounds though). Each night we do something called RAP (Reflection Announcements and Presentation), where the mwanfunzi (student) of the day gets to reflect on what we did that day, people give announcements of upcoming events and projects that are going on with the local community and around campus, and then a presentation which has been lots of fun games so far. The assignments are already rolling in. I have a paper on the behavior of Olive Baboons in LMNP and one paper of my choice about any interactions I observed in Lake Manyara, I think I will write about human-elephant interactions in the park since they were my favorite part (I'm currently procrastinating and decided to update my blog). We have a home-stay coming up for our swahili class, which has been really fun by the way. That's all from the field for now.

Hippo Pool

First wild African elephant sighting!

Giraffes are the tallest animals in the world!

First Days at Moyo Hill

Ever thought what it would smell like if there were no trash service in your country? I didn’t until I got a whiff of the burnt-rubber smell and saw little piles of trash burning as we were driving through various little towns and villages here in northern Tanzania. The moment I got off the plane at Kilimanjaro international airport I knew Tanzania was going to be like nothing I have experienced before. For starters I have never traveled with a group program before. It was nice knowing there were twenty other students at the airport headed for the same destination as me (and twenty more to come the next day). I have also never experienced lost baggage, until now that is, but wearing the same clothes for four days wasn’t as bad as it thought it was going to be. We were picked up by three green Land Cruisers (the classic safari car) and driven to the town of Arusha to spend the night in a hotel before continuing on to the Moyo Hill field station. We spent the first couple days orienting ourselves to the campus and the surrounding area. We went into town to practice Swahili and meet some of the locals. Hand gestures and patience are essential in trying to learn a new language. There are forty-two students and thirty-three staff and faculty members, I have a feeling we’ll be learning names for a while. Coming from a town that is all about local organic food I was a little worried about what I would be eating here after being so spoiled. But the cooks here create some pretty darn yummy meals for seventy people three times a day (I am impressed). I hear we will be doing a goat roast a couple times so I am considering breaking my vegetarian diet. Worth it? I think so too. I am living in a banda that has four beds, desks and a shared bathroom with three other girls. So far we get a long really well. I don’t think I have ever been surrounded with so many people that share my same passion for wildlife conservation and animals, yet everyone comes from such different backgrounds, it’s amazing! Today was our first full day of classes and our teachers got a chance to tell us a little bit about themselves and the classes they will be teaching. I am excited to be learning from such incredible people, not to mention a long side some impressive colleagues. I can tell this will be a fun semester here in Tanzania.

View from top of Moyo Hill

Hujambo

So as some of you may or may not know I have been given the amazing opportunity to study wildlife management and environmental policy with the School for Field Studies, and what better place to study these subjects than Tanzania. I am excited and extremely grateful to have national parks like the Serengeti, Ngorongoro, Arusha and Mt. Kilimanjaro to name a few, as my classroom for the next three months.

I’ve decided to blog about my experiences, hoping to help anyone else interested in wildlife management, Tanzania, study abroad or life in East Africa. I also want to give a special thanks to everyone who made this possible and encouraged me to go. Let me know what you guys think. What would you most like to hear about or see? Simba? Timon? Dancing Maasai warriors? I’ll do my very best to make it happen. I hope we can have a great time this semester!

Cheers!