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!

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

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

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!