A Month of Monkeys (Almost)

March 18, 2006
We felt our sunburns when waking up. It is always a high price for a
little bit of sun. Leslie had gone on safari with Nilesh over the past
couple of days, and she told us about it this morning. It sounded
amazing and we can wait to go on safari in a few months! We also told
her about our experience at the Swiss restaurant, and we resolved to
talk with Colin tonight, which we did. We will talk again on Monday to
see whether we can come to a better arrangement.

March 17, 2006
Today was another rest day, which we wanted to use to sleep in.
Unfortunately, a 6:30 Moses was outside yelling to Sara and Katie
(next door) about waking the visitors to see the sea turtle up the
beach. We ended up finishing a lot of things while being lazy in bed
before going to the beach to bake ourselves. Scott now has a crazy
pattern of red blotches from some fantastically uneven application of
sunscreen, and Monica burned her lips (we call it Mdomo choma …
barbecued lips). Happy St. Patrick's Day (unfortunately, we didn't
realize it until two days later)!

We walked around Watamu for some groceries (pineapple, milk, pb, etc.)
and stopped at Rafiki Chemist for a ridiculously expensive tube of SPF
lip protection. We stopped by to see a house for rent in Watamu owned
by an Italian and then went on to the internet café for an
extraordinarily slow look at email. We ended up only doing half of
what we wanted to do, and Scott will be going to Malindi in a couple
of days to make sure that those emails even sent successfully.

The day was saved by a trip to the Swiss restaurant at the turnoff for
Gede. We saw a cottage there that was quite nice, and it was being
offered at less than we currently pay. We liked the proprietors (Vreni
and Johny) a lot and ended up staying for a wonderful dinner of cheese
fondue at their restaurant. Scott had a good time trying out his
German. We came back to Mwamba and talked with Beatrice about maybe
leaving at the end of the month. She seemed quite sad about the news.

The water was out this evening (both the drinking and tap water), so
we were lucky to still have a couple of bottles of water in our room.

March 16, 2006
We have 15 high-school students from the Rift Valley Academy here for
a few days, so we will be quite tightly packed and will probably have
to watch the water and food supply (hungry teenage boys … not good
odds).

March 15, 2006
It was a rough morning after staying up late to type (and losing sleep
all week), and neither of us were in a good mood. We also could not
finish washing a couple of pairs of socks yesterday and both of us
were stuck wearing Scott's white socks instead of our usual hiking
socks. We kept ourselves awake by discussing what we should do with
the research data generated and started coming up with ideas.

Maurice saw another male today and took a defensive pose. We were able
to see him go through all of the motions: head-bobbing, yawning (to
show his long fangs), and even "pyowing" and "booming" but the other
male just copied him! He finally went over to show the other male who
the boss is, and he was gone. Maurice looked all over the museum but
finally had to give up. What really happened was that he had seen his
own reflection in the glass pane of one of the museum windows and was
just threatening himself (at least it was a handsome adversary).

Stanley and company were back from their conservation conference in
Nairobi, so we had an interesting discussion with him on "no-till"
farming, which I would like to find out more about when we return
stateside. We managed to escape dinner early to finish our laundry
(and had finished Patrick's paper before dinner) just in time for a
power outage. We plotted points by candlelight on our laptop … how
romantic!

Also, the winds changed over today! Kaskazi (Kiongazi) is now soon to
end, and Kusi (the cool, wet rainy season) should start to push its
way in over the next few weeks. The interesting thing is that the wind
direction literally changed overnight (along with the current close to
shore). Instead, of the steady stream of dry air from the north that
we had experienced our whole time here, the wind is now coming
steadily from the south bringing up big, fluffy, white clouds and
causing much more seaweed to pile up on the beach. The beach was
gorgeous tonight under the full moon.

March 14, 2006
We finally had a chance to try the Greenland café in Gede, which
Leslie introduced us to during our lunch break. It is tucked away
behind the gas station at the Gede junction (on the Mombasa-Malindi
highway). They have a seriously wonderful hamburger, which Monica and
I relished. The waiter was surprisingly unwilling to let us see the
menu and kept finding excuses before we finally cajoled him into
bringing us one (but he was REALLY eager for us to try the kingfish
with rice). We also had some passion fruit juice ("very fresh:"
according to the waiter, but I saw a suspicious 5 gallon jug of orange
liquid being used to pour other people's passion fruit juice … maybe
we were special … or not).

After a nice fattening burger, the afternoon was tough. Scott actually
fell asleep while squatting and quizzing Monica on Swahili. The
highlight of the afternoon was seeing a rather unique tourist: picture
large dark 70's style CHiPs sunglasses perched on a white, pointy
Michael Jackson nose and sporting a white bowling shirt with maroon
trim, shorts printed with white-flowers on a faded black background,
and finally black socks with a pair of beat up (but still bright red)
shoes. We were trying to articulate our surprise when another of his
companions came over: she had a red kanga wrapped like a bath towel on
her head with a dirty white kanga wrapped like a bath towel around her
body and yellow flip flops. Their child was similarly strange and kept
emitting strange beeping noises for no apparent reason. We are
starting to become believers in extra-terrestrial life!

Tonight we vowed to work on Patrick's paper and finally finish it
where so many others had failed. Instead, we ran into two guests from
Uganda, who ran a touring company (check out
www.accessugandatours.com), and we talked with them about a visit to
the mountain gorillas. They quoted us a very reasonable price, and we
think we may have found some good people to go with! We thought we
still had time to Patrick's paper, but we had been a bit misled:
instead of 8 pages (half of which were ostensibly done by Nadia), the
paper was really 16 pages of which only 2 had been typed. We finally
stopped at 11:30 and called it a night with only half of the paper
done.

March 13, 2006
Today was a good day with monkey-watching in the morning and then went
to see the much-anticipated book opening of the "Magic Pot" about the
Giriama people. There a little festival, and our question about
whether the monkeys would flee the loud sounds or come to the masses
of people was answered: Maurice and crew came up to the museum to see
if they could get a piece of the action. While there, we met Saleem,
who works as an educator at the Kipepeo Butterfly Project. We cannot
believe we had not met him before; he's quite interesting with a
wealth of knowledge on the butterflies of the region. It was
interesting to hear that butterflies typically close their wings while
resting while moths often keep them open.

Kipepeo is a kind of experiment in sustainable community development
and conservation of public resources. The Arubuko-Sokoke Forest in
Gede is cut off from the community, and the surrounding farmers would
like to use the resources of the forest. The conundrum of the
officials is how to give the farmers benefits from the public resource
to stave off illegal activities such as logging while preserving the
forest (which has a lot of economic benefit for tourism). Kipepeo
trains farmers to harvest butterfly pupae for export to international
buyers, and the project has been branching into production of honey
and beeswax, since bees also consume the pollen of the indigenous
plants and the farmers need a source of income when the market is down
for pupae. The farmers are taught how to use a special type of beehive
that prevents the destruction of the honeycomb during extraction,
allowing for higher production rates, since the bees do not have to
spend time and energy rebuilding. Currently, the project supports 750
farmers (and many more people since the farmers often each support an
extended family). We plan to visit Kipepeo, which is at the entrance
to the ruins, during the rainy season when there is not much else to
do and when there are also more butterflies.

After lunch, we almost ran into the Minister of Heritage while he and
a group of people were touring the ruins. Apparently, his position is
to help preserve the heritage of the different tribes while helping
them to modernize and adopt practices acceptable to the Kenyan
community as a whole. Some examples are: (1) encouraging the Maasai
warriors to keep wearing their traditional red garments but adopt the
professional dress of other Kenyans when they are at work or (2)
enforcing the prevention of compulsory female circumcision because of
its health effects. His importance at Gede, though, is that he
oversees the National Museums of Kenya, to which the Gede Ruins site
belongs.

At 2, we checked out the festival and saw a lot of people hanging out
in the shade listening to Swahili rap music and waiting for the
minister to speak. We hung out with the Safari, Katana, Emmanuel, and
Sendel; we were a bit shy to go out and mingle since we were the only
wazungu, and our Swahili is still pretty poor (but getting better).
Therre were school children everywhere who were dancing up a storm and
were very cute.

The minister finally processed into the atrium area and several school
groups performed as well as a group of Giriama dancers from Mzee
Randu, the Giriama village just beyond the gates of the ruins.
Everything was in Swahili, but we were picking up a surprising amount
even with the PA system cutting out often.

Finally, the Italian author got up to speak. She mumbled everything in
broken English, which was much more difficult to understand than the
Swahili. Unfortunately, she said she did not know Swahili, and what we
soon realized was that she was not the serious researcher we had
expected. The book looked to be about 30 pages long, and she said that
it had been her most difficult work ever. This was not a massive
ethnography on the Giriama people, but rather a children's book! We
were a bit disappointed and decided to leave soon afterward to go to
Malindi.

To all interested, the meeting of the International Primatological
Society is June 25-30 in Entebbe, Uganda. Since we're in the
neighborhood, we've been checking to see whether we can make it over.
Monica found a very fun skirt that we bargained hard for and
eventually brought him down to about 2/3 of his asking price. Usually
50% of asking seems to be a good rule of thumb in local transactions.

March 12, 2006
Unlike a usual quiet Sunday, the ruins were buzzing with activity, as
the maintenance people were decorating for the "Magic Pot" book
opening. The only "exciting" thing today was that Scott had a plastic
bag to sit on and put it in his back pocket, but Maurice heard the
plastic bag rustling and came up behind Scott and grabbed his rear. It
was terribly funny to see the look on his face!

March 11, 2006
This morning started at 6am like every morning, the difference being
that this was a day off. This time, we got ready for our first real
scuba diving trip (all of our other dives have been purely for
certification). We did a bit of review, walked up the drive with our
gear, and waited for our ride. Steve arrived about 10 minutes late in
a large pick-up truck. We squished in (there were 4 of us, as Sarah,
and Katie from Mwamba were also going) and went to Ocean Sports. On
the way, he told us about Mrs. Simpson (see the end of this entry),
who sounds like was a very interesting person.

The fun seemed to stop there as Katie was not allowed to dive because
she didn't have her dive card with her (only the number, which had
worked for her in the past). Next, Monica was told that I couldn't go
because, she had "filled out the medical forms incorrectly." Monica
had also answered yes to some of the health questions, and since she
did not have a recent letter from a doctor they would not let her go
either (apparently, that she had been fit enough to be certified for
diving in July was not enough). They said I would not be able to dive
unless I had a note from the doctor but gave us the name of a doctor
in Watamu. At least he's honest, and that is good in a dive
instructor.

We decided, though, that we wanted to be the ones to determine whether
we were fit for diving. Scott (who wanted to dive with me), Katie, and
I all left and decided to try Turtle Bay. Turtle Bay is quite a bit
more relaxed, and Joseph took us in without a problem and didn't seem
overly worried. There, the system seems to be, if you have money, you
can dive. This may sound like they do not care about your welfare,
however this was not the case at all. They allowed me to refresh my
skills in the pool (we went right in with our "diving" equipment right
next to a "No Diving" sign. We though this was kind of ironic) with
our divemaster, Saleem. This definitely renewed my confidence, which
is not so high in this particular sport, particularly since I was
already frazzled after hashing it out with the last guy.

Around 10am we boarded the boat with 6 other divers, 2 divemasters,
and 2 crew. It was a gorgeous sunny day. (We knew we had to get the
diving in before the end of the month because the rainy season is
coming soon and they close everything down until around when we leave
in July). We arrived at the site, Saleem briefed us, we put on all of
our equipment, I almost threw up over the side due to the Larium
motion sickness, and we did our very first boat dive with a backward
entrance off the side of the boat! We descended the rope line (this
give you much more control than a decent without a rope) and my ears
started hurting really badly. (It is difficult for some people to
equalize their ears) Saleem was very patient with me and helped me
throughout my dive. It was nice to do this with a local Kenyan who
was not rushed to complete everything, but instead was slow and
patient. Everything can be done "pole pole" or "slowly slowly". The
pain was well worth it as the visibility at the bottom was absolutely
incredible (approx 8 meters)!!

The coral and the fish were unbelievable! Our certification dives
were fairly miserable, so we knew this would be much better, but this
was wonderful! It was a visual overload! Saleem pointed out a
lionfish (beautiful and strange), a camouflaged ray beneath a shelf of
coral, and 3 sea turtles!! We say many other very beautiful fish, but
I don't know the names of any of them apart from the fact that several
of them had made an appearance on "Finding Nemo". This moving was
going through my head the whole time, particularly when I was looking
at the sea turtles!! J They looked so graceful, flapping lazily
across the sea. We saw a large sea anemone with little fish darting
in and out and the whole mass (including the fish) had a hypnotic
rhythm. There were matte cobalt blue starfish (approx 1 foot across)
along the floor and fish the looked like Gill from "Nemo". We also
saw a green fish with darker blue head and iridescent lines across its
face, a crescent shaped tail and yellow middle to the tail. Does
anyone know what this might be? After 47 minutes, we were almost out
of air so we resurfaced, waited 10 minutes for the others to surface.
Since we were newbies at this and more nervous, we consumed our air
more quickly.

We took the boat back, cleaned up, took some pictures, and went for
drinks at a local bar across from Turtle Bay. We were back in time
for lunch and to see Steve and Kevin off. They are headed to Tanzania
for a few days and we are all awaiting what is likely to be a good
story about their border crossing experience. The rest of the day was
spent on the beach napping and reading under the banda (so we didn't
burn to a crisp). It was a fabulous day, but left us quite exhausted.
Around 6pm, I had a conference call with my mom, Nancy, and Jim to
work out safari details. The plans are starting to materialize!!
Brian, are you going to be able to come?

After the phone call, everyone went out to "Kuku Choma" (Swahili for
Barbequed Chicken) and we ate what…barbecued chicken (with chapati,
salad, fries, and samosas). It was very good, and Scott and I ended up
paying 500ksh (approx $7 for our meals and ½ of our driver's meal)!
All of us rode back, but took a detour through downtown Watamu (I
didn't know there was one until last night). Then it was off to bed.

*Mrs. Simpson: Mwamba, the place we are staying used to be called
Mrs. Simpson's because it was Mrs. Simpson's place. She was a lady
who died (somewhat recently) but who was in a bike accident in her
teenage years which had left her crippled and with a palsy in the left
side of her face. However, she still managed to have many adventures,
including a trip by truck from Kenya to London by truck where 2 of her
companions died in the desert. Apparently there is a book and movie
about her. I have to find out the details, but I think it is called
"Trekkers" or something like that. I'm very intrigued.

March 10, 2006
Today was like many others. I'm not sure if I have mentioned, but by
now we have arranged certain boda boda guys to come pick us up at 7am
each morning. My boda boda guy is Max and he is very nice. It is
nice to not have to haggle each morning and evening and at the same
time get to know some of the local people. It also gives us a chance
to practice our Swahili and today Scott and I learned "wiki hii" or
"this week" in Swahili. When we got to the Ruins we found the monkeys
right away, but soon after we saw something else…could it be more
monkeys? More annoying tourists? No, a group of 12 goats decided to
visit the ruins this morning!! They were climbing the ruin walls and
walking around near our monkey group. It was quite surreal. We told
the guides and they herded them out somehow.

Later in the day, we saw a new Italian tourist trick and heard about
another (I didn't used to have anything against Italians, I swear, nor
will I in the future so long as they don't feed any monkeys). Today
one of them hid the banana on top of his bag, waited for the dominant
male to jump up and grab it from around his stomach, and then tried to
grab him after he managed to get the banana. Not a smart idea
considering Maurice has about 2-½ to 3 inch canines! The other
"trick" we heard about was the story about why all of the local
children say, "Ciao" and "Caramella" (sp?) every time we walk by.
Apparently the Italians have trained the locals (just like the
monkeys) to say "Ciao" and "Caramella" (or sweets/candy) every time
the children see them. They then give all of the children candy! Now
they are trained to say these every time wazungo walk by! Anyway, on
with the day.

Today we learned a few facts about the Gede Ruins from one of the tour
guides there, Eric. 1) The Sabaki River, which runs North of Malindi
now used to run closer to the town; when it moved, the water became
saline. 2) In 1884, Gede was rediscovered by a man from Zanzibar,
then rediscovered in 1927 by a British man, and finally public works
started opening the area for public view in 1939. 3) The foundation of
the city was built in the 13th century and its ultimate abandonment
occurred in the 18th century. 4) The fruit from the Neem tree, which
the monkeys find to be very tasty, is NOT edible for humans and the
pink flowers growing in the ruins are quite poisonous to humans (will
absorb into the skin and bloodstream) but are delicious to elephants!
Hopefully, the facts are correct.

Kevin and Steve, the two guys staying at Mwamba came to visit the
ruins today. We were able to introduce our monkey friends to them and
show they how we tell each of them apart. I don't think I have yet
mentioned that we have managed to identify and name Maurice (of
course), all 8 of the females in the group, and 3 of the juveniles
(although we can't tell which is which yet). Their names are as
follows:

Maurice – Dominant Male
Shujaa (Swhili for courage) – Alpha Female; is always the first to
fight, get bananas, etc.
Spot – You'll laugh at this one…she got her name due to the spots on
her right nipple. J
Athena – for the white scar on her tail; it looks like she has gone to battle.
Kamili (Swahili for perfect) – is the youngest adult female and has no
battle wounds, unique tail, lopsided or spotted nipples, etc; thus,
she seems perfect.
Zappa – has a young infant; has a tail that is broken at the end and
looks like a "z"
Fimbo (Swahili for a walking cane) – has a young infant; the end of
her tail is curved like a walking cane
Nancy – has a young infant; just seemed like a good name for her
Spaz – a medium juvenile; is always wrestling and playing with 2 other juveniles
Trev (we couldn't resist) - a medium juvenile; is always wrestling and
playing with 2 other juveniles
Wiley - a medium juvenile; is always wrestling and playing with the 2
other juveniles above

We met up with Kevin and Steve a bit later after their tour and took
them to our usual "café" outside Gede for some chapatti and beans. We
took some photos and then walked with them into Gede. They went back
to Mwamba and we went off to Malindi. Our matatu guy mentioned to us
after we paid that he was surprised we knew the price and that they
generally charge wazungo 50ksh each rather than the local fare of
30ksh. I said I knew this, but that we know the price. He laughed.
At least he was up front about their scams! Once we were in Malindi,
we managed to get our errands done quickly. The internet at the post
office worked very well and didn't take us very long! Yea! We also
managed to only spend 440ksh for the trip (160 for matatu, 130 for
water and juice, 20 for nuts, 75 for a card, and 55 for a stamp
(440ksh = approx $5.50)! We took the matatu back to Ocean Sports in
Watamu to investigate scuba diving prices. We arranged a scuba diving
venture with them, for tomorrow (they will pick us up at 7:05), but
also went to Turtle Bay Beach Club to see what theirs was like. We
decided Ocean Sports would be better (they were the same price)
because they seems very competent, the place we well maintained, and
they insisted on us having a pool refresher before going out, since it
had been so long since our last dive (I really needed one!). Steve,
the guy in charge was from Zimbabwe and seemed like a British
ex-military guy (and looks like Sean Connery in "Hunt for Red
October").

Finally, on our beach walk back to Mwamba, we saw a camel on the beach
(being led by a local person). We went up and petted it and learned
that we can get a camel ride along the beach for only 300ksh (approx
$4). That will be worth it just for the pictures. We'll see when he
is around next, as we didn't have our camera with us. ;-( We spent
the rest of our afternoon off relaxing on the beach, reading, and
watching the sunset.

March 9, 2006
The gods just were not with Scott today, though, he insists it was a
good day (despite that he does not remember most of it J). We found
the monkeys just fine, but as we were getting up from sitting to
follow the monkeys, Scott slipped and took a header into a tree root,
almost knocking himself out. Of course, Monica did the normal thing in
this situation – laugh hysterically. The monkeys let us know what they
thought of the whole situation when one pooped on Scott's arm and
binoculars (then ran, so we couldn't even collect it and record it …
arggh). Finally, a thorny branch got in a good shot at Scott's eye,
barely missing the juicy parts and leaving a nice puncture right at
the corner of his eye.

Despite the numerous insults and injuries, the day went quite well,
and we even caught up with Nilesh, who has been staying at Mwamba and
has been a great guy to talk with. They helped us rename the female
with spotted nipples to Shujaa, which is Swahili for "courageous".

Monica has become good at predicting the dinner schedule, and her
prognostication of mashed potatoes was spot on, but we also had yummy
fried fish. We had some more good discussions with Steve and Kevin;
then we hung around and had a good discussion in Swahili with
Lawrence.

March 8, 2006
Scott took a half day off today to run errands. He also created a new
version of our map with gridlines for GPS mapping as well as better
matching of known points. A few funny things happened today. Today
when we were in the forest we heard a bird that sounded just like
someone laughing. It was contagious. Everytime we heard it, we
couldn't stop laughing ourselves! J Also, earlier in the afternoon
we managed to collect our very first poop sample!! What an
accomplishment! ;-) I went to collect it in the bag, when Maurice
and Shujaa came running up to us. I then realized that they had heard
the bag crinkle and thought we had bananas. Maurice wouldn't leave us
alone to collect the poop until he knew that bananas were not in the
bag. Thus, we let him hold the bag and investigate until he lost
interest and threw it on the ground. We got a nice photo of his
antics!

Dinner is the same old same old, although we have some new guests at
Mwamba. They have been here for several days and will be here until
the 11th. Kevin and Steve are here together vacationing and are from
Maryland. They are really nice and we've had some great dinner
conversations with them each night. Anything from English accents,
books, and TV shows to US politics, healthcare, and education.

March 7, 2006
We were much less tired today. Yesterday after a day with the
monkeys, we stopped by the internet café for some emailing then
continued on to Mama Lucy's (the supermarket) for some cheese, milk
(which disappeared from the fridge 2 hrs after we brought it back –
record time!), passion fruit juice, a fresh pineapple, tomatoes, and
fresh bread. We after the night we were left without food for dinner,
we figured we had better have some reserves. We made a yummy meal for
lunch today – cheese (oh how I do miss cheese), and peanut sauce from
yesterday's dinner and had both of these with the fresh bread. We also
had cheese and bread for breakfast. Maurice got 5 bananas for lunch
from the tourists.

At 5 pm we went with Patrick to see Tsofa's house. He had a house for
rent. It was what we expected, since it was to rent out for the
locals. It was a small mud hut with two rooms, one for sleeping and
the other a living room? There didn't appear to be anywhere to cook
and the bathroom was a little hike from the house. It was as basic as
you can get. I am tempted to make myself live in these conditions,
without electricity, running water, etc to make myself appreciate
these luxuries more and to better understand how local people live.
However, the other part of me is quite happy where I am. Because of
the fact that we have to work 12-hr days and it is dark almost as soon
as we get home, a lifestyle without prepared food, water, or
electricity would be very hard. I think we will pass on his place,
although we could save a lot of money this way! We continued to
Gede via matatu, caught up with Leslie and went home. It sound like
Liz and Dave are leaving for 3 weeks and much of the staff is away in
Nairobi for a conference.

March 6, 2006
Tough day due to the Larium…we think we started following the wrong
group today, but we were so tired and hungry from the Larium I can't
be sure. We found Maurice at 10:30 at the Great Mosque and followed
him around the ruins most of the day as he begged for bananas. Not
much else to report on the monkeys, but a funny thing happened while
we sat at the South Fence waiting for the monkeys playing cards. A
couple of children came walking down the path on the other side of the
fence towards us. Since we were covered and not moving, I was afraid
I would scare the children if I didn't say something to them first. I
called out, "Jambo!" and I must have seemed like an evil spirit in the
forest because the children both jumped, screamed, and ran away
crying! I kept calling out "Pole" (Sorry), but they just stopped
about 30 yds away and kept crying. I felt really bad (yet it was
quite funny at the same time) and Scott now like to say that I make
African children cry.

After dinner tonight we got another Swahili lesson from Lawrence. We
have now learned the days of the week, and face parts (ie. Hair, head,
nose, mouth, etc). I really enjoy these lessons, although he doesn't
come until around 10pm each night.

March 5, 2006
Today was another day of rest (siku ya kupunzika), and we used it to
try and catch up on all of our other monkey work, such as, washing a
monkey skull we found, plotting points, and creating a key to detail
the differences between individuals in our group. We then ditched that
and went snorkeling at the reef. The reef is gorgeous, and we had a
great time, though, it is a bit nerve-wracking passing over sea
urchins at low tide. At least there were no jellyfish, and the water
was quite calm, which made the long swim to the reef quite enjoyable.
The coral was pretty, and we saw a large red starfish; a cool purple,
green, and blue fish; and several other tropical fish. Afterwards, we
went to the beach to read and soak some sun. As we relaxed on the
beach, we saw a small USAF cargo plane skirting about 200' over the
coast and only heard it coming as it passed overhead. We thought it
quite strange to see a US military plane flying that close to the
shore; anyone know of any military action in our part of the world
(maybe headed toward Somalia since it was flying that far north)?

Monica helped Lispa make chapati, while Scott went to Mida Creek with
the girls. Making chapati is an intense process, requiring one to
combine 2 part flour to 1 part water (as well as butter). The dough is
made into balls and then chilled for at least 1 hour. The dough is
then rolled out and sprinkled with oil, then cut, then rolled up. The
process is repeated and is what creates the layers in a chapati. The
final rolled out dough is put into a skillet and fried for 2-5 minutes
(until it bubbles and turns golden brown … similar to a tortilla).

Scott's experience was more harrowing, as the had a flat tire at
Dongokundu on the way back from Mida. Scott ended up jacking up the
car, and Stnaley arrived shortly to help finish the process. We
started back and watched as white smoke (burning oil) poured out of
the exhaust. The pour 4WD was not doing too well.

Tonight was our first Swahili lesson with Lawrence. Lawrence ni
mwalimu mzuri! He said he would only speak in Swahili and pledged to
quiz us tomorrow on what we learned J.

March 4, 2006
We decided to walk to the Hotel Palm Breeze after a good day of monkey
watching just to see what their rooms were like. The walk was not as
short as we thought, and the hotel is nearly a Timboni, an hour's walk
away. On the way, we encountered a bull, who was not terribly happy to
see us and was about to charge when Monica herded us quickly to the
other side of the road. All of the Kenyans for about ¼ mile each way
found the whole episode immensely funny. The hotel was completely
desserted, which was a bit eerie, but the rooms were quite nice (and
had AC).

March 3, 2006
Today we had a day off to sleep off the night before and recuperate
and went in to Malindi. We took a tuk-tuk to Oasis Gelateria to enjoy
a decadent meal of a ham cheese melt sandwich (which Monica had been
craving for weeks) and a plate of fries with gelato to top it off. The
tuk-tuk we flagged to take us back offered us 200 to get us all the
way back to Turtle Bay, so who could refuse? We got back home, and
went to the beach. After relaxing on the beach, we played in the big
waves, though, the price was sand in all sorts of crevices for days.
After a conference call to sort out safari options with Monica's
relatives, we came back to the dining room to find no dinner left (or
saved for us), and we were shocked, since everyone knew we would be
coming late. This taught us the valuable lesson of keeping our own
snacks and groceries on hand just in case.

March 2, 2006
The monkeys were not cooperative, and we discovered we may have been
following the wrong group every morning. Then we saw Maurice with the
other group in the afternoon. Does he have two families? There was a
cake for Nadia at dinner covered in coconut shavings and jelly spots
(Thomas can bake a great cake). We grabbed a bottle of sparkling wine
from the fridge and went to the beach to have a last toast to Nadia
under the Kenyan night sky. Then we headed to Ocean Sports for a last
night out. Ocean Sports was quite fun this night: they were having a
hen party (i.e., bachelorette party). We ordered drinks, and the
"hens" arrived, British ex-pats decked out in costumes (the
bride-to-be had little wings, a halo, and red flashing springy boppers
on her head). The music started pumping out 80's and classic rock
(i.e., Lynnard Skynnard, Madonna, ACDC, etc.), and the dancing was
great to watch. We felt like we were in a little bubble watching a
British wedding film unroll around. Nigel, a 70 something British
ex-pat, kept trying to catch a cheap feel on Leslie, who was in good
form with her black cowboy hat (she says its not, but it sure looks
like a cowboy hat). Anyway, as all such nights with wild Londoners, it
ended with many stories …

March 1, 2006
Nothing much to report. We saw more annoying Italian tourists again.
We had ginger beer for the first time (Stoney Honey Tangawiza), which
was interesting. We had the fish from Patrick's mother for dinner and
the chapatti for lunch. When we got home, we swam in the intense high
tide … great waves but left our swimming suits full of sand J.

February 28, 2006
Though Scott though he would have a half day, we decided to go to Gede
to stay to see the 5cm tide. We were out the door by 6:30, caught
boda bodas and then flagged down "the Legal Advisor" matatu which
apparently comes every day at 6:45. If we catch this, then we won't
have to do the "boda boda thing" in the mornings anymore. Having to
have change and haggle every morning gets a bit old.

We found our monkey group in the southwest corner again like
yesterday, but when I got to the fenceline I found a group of school
children who all stared at me like I was a wild animal in a cage. I
said, "Jambo. Habari gani?" (hello, how are you?) but they just
stared. I asked them if they were going to school and they said yes,
their school was around the corner and down a bit (they did this by
saying, "school" and pointing). I went on looking for the monkeys and
when I turned around, they we all squashed together looking at me
through the fence. I decided this was too much pressure and so I went
into the forest. When I turned around, there they were. They had
walked away from school just to come and watch me go into the forest!

We followed the monkeys all day and Maurice even walked over Monica's
notebook at one point…while she was writing in it. The habituation
seems to be going well (except for Zappa's infant, which starts
screaming if you look at it while away from Zappa, earning a qui8ck
hug and us a reproachful stare). We left at 5:15 after a good day of
tracking, so we could check email. We caught a matatu at Gede, which
was seriously overloaded, requiring Scott to sit on Monica's lap
(shouldn't it be the other way around?). Until Watamu, the matatu guy
made fun of us in Swahili. It was good to finally get off at the
cyber café. After checking email, on the way back to Mwamba, the boda
bodas said that they had change, but once they took us, we found out
they had been lying. D'oh! We were in a hurry to get back, since
Patrick told us we were invited to dinner at his place, and we wanted
to get cleaned up.

On the driveway, we ran into Leslie and Nadia who had been looking for
us to bring us back for a "monkey business meeting", consisting of
sangria, mango & regular salsa, 2 kinds of guacamole (even Monica
thought it was good), and chips … we also had fish n' chips from the
kitchen. To top it off, we had ice cream and cake. What a great end to
the day! Unfortunately, we received a call from Patrick at 8: though
Nadia had text messaged Patrick's mother earlier in the day to tell
her we weren't coming, she had not received the message, and the food
had been prepared already! We went to his place, apologized, and
visited for a while, but it was very awkward. They had put so much
into the meal, and they had prepared fish, which they could not
refrigerate. It was good, since his mother wanted to see Nadia off and
was leaving for Mombasa the next day. We returned to Mwamba then went
to the beach with Lawrence to see the 7cm tide, which was quite a
site! It would have been a bit better if we could see past the beams
of our headlamps, but the beach seemed to go on forever.