20 November 2007

This entry is a summary of my 4 week stay just outside of Tarangire National Park, where I did my research project on elephant damage to baobab trees, as well as the week of paleoanthropological studies at Olduvai Gorge, Laetoli, and the Lake Eyasi region.

TARANGIRE

I got sick with a bacterial infection the second day at camp and ended up throwing up out the side of the safari vehicle right by a daladala stop in Arusha. The following day, two students came down with malaria, and 7 more would follow within the next two weeks.

During the first week of research, I saw a baby baboon slap an impala in the face which was hilarious! Our park ranger for the day was pretty ridiculous; he started feeding baboons when we got outside of the vehicle for another student’s observational study. The number one rule posted outside of the park is not to feed the animals. I also thought it was funny how Maasai children would walk over to the wall (about 4 feet tall) surrounding our campsite and repeatedly say, "Hello. Hello. Give me pen for school. Hello." After a couple of days, however, it began to get really annoying.

My research ended up being quite dangerous, since we obviously had to get out of the vehicle in order to observe and measure the trees. Some days we would walk up to 750 meters away from the vehicle out into the bush. The first couple of days measuring trees we were startled by jackals and guinea fowl jumping out from the tall grass, but there wasn’t anything dangerous. Eventually my project became more exciting. Our ranger spotted three buffalo laying down in the grass about 20 meters away, not to mention the fact that there were elephants approaching in the opposite direction. I love elephants and probably wasn’t as scared of them as I should have been, but buffalo scared me beyond belief. Everyone at camp became aware of my hatred for buffalo rather quickly and teased me about it constantly. There were also ticks everywhere which we had to pick off of ourselves after finishing my project, in addition to the occasional beehive, bats, snake hole, or leopard den inside of a baobab. Unfortunately the leopard dens were always empty.

My favorite story from doing my research, however, involves a close encounter with a lion! A few other students and I were approaching a tree, when I realized from my GPS that we had already measured that one previously so we began to head back. As we were walking away, I saw what I thought was a wildebeest sleeping under the tree so we approached to see what it was. Upon getting closer, we realized that it was a wildebeest, but it was dead NOT sleeping. Without even thinking, we kept approaching the tree to check it out when suddenly (we were about 10m from the wildebeest) a lion jumped out from behind the tree! Luckily we had an armed ranger with us and the lion ran in the opposite direction from us. I couldn’t believe it! Everyone stood in shock for a few minutes and finally we all headed back to the vehicle. I usually ended up measuring about 10 trees each day in the park, and I ended up with a sample size just below 150.

Another great part of doing the field work was the opportunities I got with assisting other students in their data collection. I got to visit the local community, Minjingu, to assist with interviews, observe baboon behavior, count zebra and wildebeest herds, and hang out under the bridge at the Tarangire River. Tsetse flies were a huge annoyance, especially in the Northern part of the park. They’re an African species of fly which carry deadly African sleeping sickness and their bites feel like bee stings. A couple of times our safari vehicles would get swarmed with them; the weird part is that they are able to follow vehicles.

Days not spent in the park were spent at the campsite analyzing my data. Camp was pretty nice, but tended to be very boring. I ended up reading a lot of books and played a ton of Euchre in my offtime. Our cooks were amazing and the food was great. We were served pretty much nothing but carbs, and I’m willing to bet that I’ve gained a couple of kilos due to this! The weather was HOT, usually in the 90’s and direct sunlight. I think that it only rained three times the entire time we were there, and it was very dusty also.

ENDULEN/EYASI

Endulen was a nice change in weather. It lies just outside of the Ngorongoro Crater and usually got down to about 50 degrees at night. It was great to be reunited with the rest of the students after being surrounded by the same seven people for a month. We had nightly campfires which were good for warming up and socializing. I spent Halloween in Endulen which was very fun. Everyone came up with some pretty decent makeshift costumes, and we even had a few kids come trick-or-treating at our campsite (not that they knew what Halloween was—they were just told that the white people had candy for them).

Olduvai Gorge was great. The ground was practically covered in bones and stone tools. We got to spend about 20 minutes looking around seeing what type of stone tools we could find. The cooks made us peanut butter, jelly, and tomato sandwiches to bring with for lunch, which we all thought was pretty hilarious. After the gorge, we stopped by the Shifting Sands, and it was amazing! It is basically a single sand dune that the wind blows around NCA, and it moves about 15 meters per year. We all ran down the side of it and then raced back up the side. It was pretty challenging trying not to sink! Our final stop after Olduvai Gorge was a cultural Maasai boma. We got a tour of the boma and their nursery school and afterwards a few of us played with the children for about 15 minutes before we had to head back to camp.

We also visited 3 localities at Laetoli. The first one was one of the sites where Mary Leakey discovered hominid remains. We also visited the site where the Leakeys discovered hominid footprints, but unfortunately they are buried under a grave of stones which can not be uncovered for another 40 years or so. The rest of that evening was spent at the local marketplace. I bought a bunch of jewelry off of many of the women (literally; they were wearing it) and a giant Maasai bush knife which I carried around the market. I also had a copper bracelet bound around my wrist, which is a bit of a pain since it is super heavy and turns my wrist green every day. The following day was a free day, and I hiked up a nearby mountain called Makarote, from which you could see Sadimon.

At Lake Eyasi, we got to have a human evolution lecture from atop a kopje, which was an awesome experience. On the hike down, we stopped to look at cave paintings. At the actual lake, we had the opportunity to search for 27,000 year old ostrich eggshell and land snail shell beads which were used as a primitive form of self decoration. That night, we had a lecture from a local nurse on the Hadzabe tribe to prepare us for meeting them the next day.

We departed at 6am to hunt and gather with members of the Hadza tribe. I went with the hunting group, and it was absolutely crazy. At first we were just following a bunch of men and hunting dogs through the bush, but then all of a sudden they would take off running after an animal, jumping through thorns shirtless and barefoot! We somehow managed to keep up and got to see them shoot down two monkeys with a bow and arrow. They started a fire with two sticks and some dried up animal dung, threw the monkeys right on the fire, and ate. We were offered some of the meat and brains but weren’t allowed to eat it for obvious reasons. After the hunt, we all got to practice shooting the bows and arrows and then were invited to join a traditional song and dance. We also visited natural springs near our campsite in the evening, but it seemed pretty boring after the day’s earlier activities.

The next morning we departed for Arusha (a 6 hour drive), where we stayed for a night before heading back to Dar es Salaam (a 9 hour bus ride). Dar was, and is, extremely hot and humid, but everyone was excited to be "home". Since returning we’ve only had running water one day in about 2 weeks. It’s not as bad as you would think though. Everyone’s been pretty busy writing a bunch of papers and taking final exams, but we have had time to go out a few times. I got to go to my first Irish Pub in Africa. How many people can say that!?
 

November 11, 2007

Greetings. I’m glad to say that I have survived 7 weeks in the bush! Vacation was great, as was the field. About 10 of the students have had malaria, and those who haven’t were down with bacteria, UTI’s, giardia, etc. This is a long post; I’m going to try to only include the interesting parts and attempt to keep it somewhat organized, working off of what I wrote in my journal. I will try to post about my field research in Tarangire within the next couple of days.

Vacation:

We arrived in Zanzibar to find out that our hotel was overbooked—welcome to Africa, and we were stuck in a sub-par hotel for the night. The next morning it rained so a few of us wandered Stone Town and visited a bunch of shops. We moved to a nicer hotel in the afternoon and booked a trip to Prison Island through our hotel. We saw the endangered giant tortoises that are stranded on the island and got to take a sunset boat ride back, rainbow included! We splurged on paninis and milkshakes before finishing up at the night market. The next morning we went snorkeling in the Indian Ocean; the water was still pretty rocky from the recent hurricane. I accidentally dropped my sunglasses into the ocean, but a diver retrieved them for me (they later on blew off of my head in Serengeti anyway). We went to a fancy place called the Africa House for hookah on our final night in Zanzibar. Caught the 1:00 ferry back home the next afternoon and began re-packing for hiking in the Usambaras and time in the field.

The bus ride to the Usambara Mountains was long and uncomfortable, plus we were hassled by a bunch of rasta guys as soon as we arrived, so we decided to retreat to our hotel for the evening. Our first hike was to the Msamba rainforest and Irente viewpoint. It was a really challenging hike that lasted about 7 hours. On the hike up, we stopped at a small farm for a lunch of cheeses, bread, veggies, and juice. The viewpoint was amazing, and I took tons of pictures. Back at the hotel that night, we roasted marshmallows in the fireplace, which amused the Tanzanians. Our next day hike was to a Swiss run vineyard in the neighboring village of Soni. It was another long and challenging hike, but very quiet and relaxed. A couple of girls from Wales and a guy from Israel that we had met earlier at the hotel also joined us on the hike. We hung out at a local bar for the night, where everyone crowded around us the entire time. I had a cold at the time and the bar was full of smoke, so it wasn’t too much fun for me. After 2 days of pointlessly hiring tour guides, we decided to venture into the Usambaras on our own. We bought some cheese at another local farm run by nuns and picnicked at a waterfall which we found by asking locals in Swahili, "Where is the waterfall?" We finally found a good restaurant in Lushoto for dinner and went back to the hotel and packed to head off to Arusha the next morning.

We all reunited in Arusha and headed off to Lake Manyara to begin our week long ecology field course. We spent two days at Lake Manyara National park, where we saw elephants, zebras, hippos, giraffes, etc. The second day at Manyara, we went on safari again, and also got to visit the park’s hot springs. The next day was the most anticipated day of the trip for me—Ngorongoro Crater! Of course one of the vehicles got a flat tire and students thought they had malaria, so we ended up leaving a couple of hours behind schedule. Ascending the crater was unbelievably cold (probably about 40 degrees Farenheit) and super foggy. The crater is very interesting because it is a conservation area, which means that Maasai live in the park along with the wildlife. We drove by a ton of bomas and cattle herds before it finally turned into a scene from the Lion King. Once we were in the crater, there were huge herds of zebras and wildebeest everywhere. The weather was also much, much warmer. I was very sad that we were unable to see any rhinos inside of the Crater even though I knew that the chances of seeing one were very slim. We went straight from NCA to our campsite within Serengeti National park, with our luggage piled on top of the safari vehicles.
 

September 8, 2007

Sorry this took so long to post! It has been crazy busy lately, no time for the internet! I’m moving in with my host family in a couple of hours. I’m pretty excited…

September 2, 2007

ZANZIBAR WAS SPLENDID! This weekend was so packed with things to do, and I am extremely exhausted right now, but it was well worth it!

FRIDAY- The ferry ride from Dar es Salaam to Zanzibar was about 2 hours on the fast ferry. We departed from the University at 5:45am on Friday! The ocean was so calm on our way over. I sat up on the deck for about the first ten minutes. After that, I stood and stared at the Indian Ocean for the remainder of the ride. When we arrived in Zanzibar we had to go through immigration/customs, which wasn’t too much of a hassle. After that, we checked in at the Safari Lodge and immediately began our day.

We received a lecture at the UDSM Marine institute by Dr. Nariman Jidawi; post-lecture we checked out the institute’s small aquarium. There were about 6 or 7 small tanks with various aquatic life and one giant tank with huge turtle! We had lunch and then went on a walking tour of Stone Town. I took so many pictures! We walked through the huge spice/fruit market in the city, and I bought some interested coffee, tea, and spices. After passing through the market, we headed over to the slavery museum and the Anglican church. The church was gorgeous, but it was full of tacky decorations like Christmas garland. We also learned that the architect who built the church installed the pillars upside-down by mistake. Besides that, Stone Town is basically a maze of narrow alleys filled with children, but you have to be careful not to get run over by a bicycle since the paths are far too narrow for cars.

We also visited the sultan’s palace which was full of amazing imported over the top European furniture. The walking tour ended with gelato at Amore Mia along with an hour long discussion in Kiswahili (two of our professors accompanied us on the trip). We checked out our snorkeling gear for Sunday and finally were on our own for the night! Matt, Andres, Marie, Jacqui, and I found a tiny local restaurant that served up amazing local dishes for dinner for very cheap! My dinner, which could have fed 3, as well as a glass of warm milk and chapatti for desert cost only 2500Tsh. We headed back to the hotel pretty soon after dinner because we were extremely exhausted from the day’s activities.

SATURDAY- Breakfast was served at the hotel, and then we headed out for snorkeling! It was so so so amazing!!! The company that we rented our gear from gave us wetsuits, so we all felt very official. I had gone one other time since arriving in Tanzania and didn’t see anything. This time, however, I saw coral reef and fish the second I dove in! We even saw a ray, an eel, some huge starfish, tons of sea urchins, and a couple of other creepy looking things. The water was an indescribable shade of blue, and the sun was shining brightly; we could see everything perfectly!

We were served lunch on the boat while moving between snorkeling locations. They had beef and veggie samosas, chapatti, andazi, potato filled pastries, watermelon, bananas. Delicious. Our second snorkeling location was off of a sand bank in the middle of the Indian Ocean, which was also beautiful. Snorkeling here was one of the greatest things I have ever experienced, despite being stung a million times by jellyfish!

After snorkeling, we took a bus over to Jozani Forest, where we got to see the endangered Red Colobus Monkey. Only about 2500 exist, and the species is isolated on the island of Zanzibar. They were absolutely adorable and completely unfazed by all the wazungu walking through the forest. We had awesome tour guides who walked us through the forest while explaining the traditional medicinal uses for just about every species of plant in the entire forest! We also visited a mangrove forest and got to climb around on the mangrove roots in the swamp water! A single root was strong enough to support six of us at once!

There was a cool boardwalk going through the mangrove forest, and we saw tons of tiny frogs, purple crabs, and camouflaged lizards. A few of us decided to be dropped off at some random market on the way back, which was about 4km from Stone Town. The market was lame, but the walk back to the hotel was great! We ran into a group of little girls who proceeded to ask us each, "Do you love me?" It was absolutely adorable! We also picked up some fresh sugar cane and came across an organized soccer game on our 4km walk back to Stone Town. I had some pasta and coffee for dinner and then made my way to the night market.

The night market was my favorite part of Zanzibar besides the snorkeling. The atmosphere there was amazing! Every kind of seafood imaginable was being cooked up oceanfront, from shark to lobster to stingray! I was able to buy some great gifts from a local artist at the night also. [I would like to randomly note here that I was wearing a Monmouth College fighting Scots t-shirt and all the Tanzanians loved it. They kept telling me that my shirt had a very nice message. The shirt said, "Real men wear kilts." I was confused yet highly amused by this. I’m thinking that they were misinterpreting something?] Just before I left, I met a Masaai warrior selling traditional jewelry named Baraka and decided to try explaining who Barack Obama was to him; that turned out to be a bust, and I was way exhausted after about 2 hours at the night market and headed back to our hotel via the maze of narrow alleyways known as Stone Town.

SUNDAY-

After another delicious breakfast, we headed out for a spice tour! A group of five or six little boys followed us around the entire tour and made us jewelry and stuff out of random leaves on the tour. We also got to pick spices and fruits off of the trees. There were cloves, cinnamon, coffee beans, vanilla, jackfruit, passion fruit, starfruit, and tons of other things to try. After the tour we had some fresh tea and more fruit. We had two hours of free time after the tour, which was not enough! (That is basically all we got the entire trip.)

I went shopping with 2 other girls and we were able to pick up some pretty cool gifts. Luckily, I will be returning in a week and a half for break and will have some time to relax on the beaches and visit tortoises on Prison Island! The ferry ride home from Zanzibar was pretty awful! The waves were crazy and the ferry was bouncing all over the place. It was super hot inside, and there were some really obnoxious children screaming for the entire two hours.

Kathleen Quigley

August 27, 2007

A few things that are different about Africa:

1) The water

• It’s full of bad things; this means that you can’t even brush your teeth without bottled water.
• Also, laundry has to be done by hand in little buckets. Yay!
• Soda is served in glass bottles rather than plastic ones or cans. This was quite the novelty for the first week here. Canned soda costs almost 2x as much as that in a glass bottle.
• It’s freezing cold. Showers are fun!
• Bottled water is relatively expensive compared to soda.
• I didn’t think it rained here for the first couple of weeks, but we have had a couple decent rainstorms since. Everyone runs inside and completely stops what they are doing until the rain stops.

2) The people

• They trust you with their children and will hand you their babies to hold on the daladala.
• Elders are highly respected, and they demand such respect.
• Everyone seems extremely friendly at first, but often they do so in order to scam you or steal from you later on.
• There is basically no diversity. There are a few Indians and Asians here and there, but the white people are an absolute spectacle!
• It can dangerous to talk to the opposite sex. If you are too friendly or make eye contact, they will have expectations. Within the third or fourth conversation, you may be proposed to.
• Following the previous statement, men have male friends only, and women have female friends only. I don’t like this.
• People dress really well. Even if they are not well off, they make sure that their appearance does not convey that.
• Men hold hands with each other, and it does NOT have any stigma attached to it.

3) General:

• Smoking is way less common. It is nice to be on a college campus that is not polluted with disgusting cigarette buts everywhere.
• The animals are way louder! I have never heard a cat meow so loud in my life. The monkeys, frogs, and insects are also really loud!
• There is not much variety in food, and it is much healthier in general; obesity is far less common.
• I have only seen 2 or 3 stoplights, 1 stop sign, and no traffic authorities, yet I have not seen a traffic accident yet.
• Tons of interesting vegetation everywhere!
• All schedules and times are tentative. Everyone walks extremely slowly; nobody is ever in a hurry. They also stop you to have long conversations when you may be busy. Classes rarely start on time, and the cafeteria never opens at the same time for a given meal.

Kathleen Quigley

August 25, 2007

This past week our entire group went into Posta to celebrate a student’s birthday. We went to an ice cream shop called Sno Cream, which was sad because I couldn’t eat dairy at the time (I picked up a nasty bacterial infection in my tummy and have been on antibiotics the past week). We also went to a burger joint called Steers, which was pretty good stuff. I was also able to make a quick trip to Mwenge during the week in order to drop off some fabric at the tailor’s to have a skirt made. I was also able to pick up a couple of gifts and met a couple of artists who I will be returning to discuss painting prices with next week.

Classes are going well. My favorite class is already ecology, and I am especially excited to learn about the ecosystems of the various national parks in Tanzania. The professor for that class, Dr. Kabigumila, wrote a dissertation involving elephants, so I am hoping that he will have some great advice and resources for my own research.

Today was also very good. I woke up this morning at about 8:30, but was too tired to trek down the hill to the cafeteria, so I ate a couple of shortbread cookies I had in my room and went back to sleep until about 11. (I was up until 4am due to a birthday celebration and the overall loudness of Tanzania on a Friday night.) This was the first time I have been able to sleep in the entire trip!

After lunch, I did some research and was able to find some great articles on baobab utilization by elephants. At 4:00, I met with three other students from my Swahili study group, and we traveled to our tutor’s house to cook some traditional Tanzanian food. We cooked pilau (rice with every spice imaginable, potatoes, onions, beef, and other veggies), ugali (thick stuff made from flour and water; kind of like mashed potatoes) with sauce, ndizi (bananas), and mchichi (similar to spinach); we also ate oranges, bananas, and cucumbers. I ate everything, and it was all delicious, especially the pilau and the ndizi.

It was interesting traveling to Doris’s house. We took a taxi there, but the roads were super narrow and full of people and potholes filled with water. Her house was connected to a bunch of others, similar to an apartment complex, and consisted of two rooms: a bedroom and a sitting room/kitchen. There was a row of outhouses outside for the bathroom, and there were small stands/markets located just outside where you could by fresh fruit, sodas, and a few basic items.

There were adorable little children playing outside with empty cooking oil canisters, and they giggled at us as they watched the Wazungu try to cook. We returned to the dorm around 9:00, and I worked on my research proposal (which is due this Wednesday) for a while and decided to write a journal entry and try to hit the sack by 11:00, before it starts to get loud outside… Ciao for now.

August 16, 2007

Warning: This is a very boring entry!

I haven’t had time to write in quite a while due to classes starting up, etc. Kiswahili has been pretty intense; we have class from 8:30am to 12:30 every weekday. We have weekly tests on Fridays which only last about an hour. This week we learned demonstratives, negatives, imperatives, object pronouns, negative imperatives, and a lot of new vocab (of course). I would say that the most difficult part of Swahili is learning the different noun classes. For example, there is an "m/wa" class in which most of the words start with "m-" in the singular and change to "wa-" in the plural. However, there are irregular nouns in each class which don’t even start with the sounds implied by the class name. Noun classes are also difficult because each class has its own set of demonstratives, reflexives, and object pronouns etc. to memorize. Tomorrow, after our test, we are taking a field trip to the fish market and Kariakoo in order to practice using our Kiswahili bartering and conversational skills. It sounds like a lot of fun, and I am hoping to get some great pictures there! Despite it being very difficult, Swahili does sound very beautiful!

We have also been taking a 2 hour research methods course biweekly, in which we learn about, well… research methods. Last class period, we went over statistical analyses, and today two UDSM professors (Mabulla and Sanane) will be joining the class to talk to us about the field sites! I am very excited for their lectures because we do not yet know where the ecological field site will be based; it is between Grumeti and Tarangire right now. I am hoping that Tarangire is chosen since I plan to conduct my research on elephants and baobabs, and Tarangire has the second largest elephant population in East Africa! I need to get to work on my motivation statement for my research though, which is due on Monday. I have tons of research to do this weekend. Boo. I can’t wait to be out on the field observing elephant behavior and measuring baobabs though!

Nothing too exciting has happened outside of class recently. We took a day trip to Bagamoyo last weekend. Bagamoyo is a small village full of archeology and ruins. To be honest, I was a bit bored during the on-site lectures since archeology is not my cup of tea. The Kaole ruins and the Catholic Mission were beautiful though, and we did get to learn some interesting facts about historical slave trade in East Africa. We were also close to the Indian Ocean the whole time, which is never a bad thing. We got to eat a great hotel/restaurant! I had the best cheeseburger that I have ever eaten in my life! There was also a huge play fort next to the restaurant that we explored, and there was an amazing variety of plant species within the hotel grounds.

A weekend trip to Zanzibar is approaching, which I am also very excited about! Zanzibar is a considerably large island off the coast of mainland Tanzania We leave the 28th, and will be having various lectures at historical sites, and our director has rented a boat for us to go snorkeling in the Indian Ocean on Saturday! We will also have time to do some shopping (Zanzibar has an awesome textile industry and some awesome art and architecture!) as well as to explore, and maybe get some Tanzanian henna!

Our week long break before the field is also coming up in about a month, and I am hoping to explore the Usambara Mountains, as well as lounging out for a few days at beaches in Zanzibar. I think there is a group of about 5 of us who plan on traveling together. Usambara sounds so amazing! It has hiking through local villages, long stretches of rainforest, great primate, reptile, insect, and plant populations, some of which can be seen nowhere else in the world.

ps, I had planned to send pictures, but after waiting for about half an hour for them to attach, there was a power outage and I lost internet connection!

Kathleen Quigley
TriBeta
Alpha Lambda Delta
Students for Enviornmental Awareness
 

August 8, 2007
Yesterday, we all went into the city center to celebrate two of the students’ birthdays at an Indian restaurant called Alcove. It was a surprise party, so many of us headed to Mwenge to go shopping first and then planned to meet at the restaurant a little early. After shopping at Mwenge was done, we got on another daladala to take us into the city center. Little did we know that our daladala was going to breakdown! Just after we had left the station, there was a loud boom on the bus, but the driver kept going. A minute later there was another loud boom, and smoke and sparks were flying near the front of the daladala. It whipped over to the side of the road, and everyone was pushing and shoving in a panic to get off. Our small group was in the very back, and we had no idea what was going on until we finally reached the door to get off and saw that there was a small fire! It was very scary not knowing what was happening; I thought maybe someone had fallen out while the daladala was still moving! Anyway, we caught another one and made our way into Posta.