February 17, 2006
Today did not get off to a good start. We were preparing breakfast, assuming we would get our usual ride to the ruins with Nadia, but she and Leslie left without us. We were a bit annoyed and were afraid we would not get to ride in with Steffen as he has been touring the Earthwatch Coordinators around for several days. Fortunately, he agreed to take us in. We stopped in Timboni, another small nearby town, to try to make copies, but nothing was opened. We did manage to buy some white-out and some colored pencils which will help us track each group of monkeys with a different color each day. We got to the ruins and went straight to where we now expect the south group to be. We found them easily, but scared them as they crossed the fence coming back from the farm. They wanted nothing to do with us and lost us within minutes. We were very frustrated, wondering if we were doing everything all wrong, and decided to give up for awhile and walk into Gede to try to make photocopies again. This proved to be successful, although it took nearly an hour to run this little errand. Scott was really friendly, saying “Jambo” to everyone we passed, but I was just not in the mood. I would like to use my Swahili more, but feel like we get laughed at every time we do this.
We went back to Mwamba for lunch and plotted our data. The afternoon was much better and we both got some good data. Dinner was good. We had Kenyan pizza and rice and beans. In case you hadn’t noticed everything comes with rice and beans. ;-) That finished off our day and we went to bed.
February 16, 2006
Today we were hoping to make copies of our newly created map, but unfortunately copy machines are hard to come by and difficult to get to, so this will have to wait. We had a productive monkey- watching day as Scott and I located two separate groups right away and each of us followed one of them. At some point I lost my group and joined Scott at the south fence. The south group seems to spend a lot of their time across the fence in someone’s farm. They always spook really easily when they come back, as if they realize that they have done something they shouldn’t have. While we wait for them to come back from the other side, we have gotten in the habit of bringing something to do. Generally we write postcards or learn some new Swahili words. In the future, we might even play cards. Today, a Kenyan from the other side of the fence saw us sitting on the ground looking at the farm and writing postcards. He came up to us, we exchanged, “Jambos”, and then he gave us a puzzled look and said, “What are you doing?”. We explained that we were waiting for the monkeys. I don’t think he had a clue what we were talking about. All of the Kenyans are amused by us and don’t understand why we would spend all day just watching monkeys. They just think we are strange wazungo. Nothing else terribly eventful happened today.
February 15, 2006
Today was a usual day, up at 6;30 and out to the monkeys by 7am. However, we have started to lose our patience about the water situation here. When we first came, there was always cold water to fill our water bottles in the morning, but the past few days, this has not been the case and we have had to deal with lukewarm water that gets hot enough for hot tea in the afternoon. L We think this is happening because there are a lot of guests staying here right now. It is also hotter than usual and I think they just changed the water filter.
Today, we got to use the GPS device to start tracking the monkeys. The monkeys were just as good at losing us while we had this device as when we didn’t. J We both were starving by 10am, but had to wait to noon to eat. We also had our daily treat of a cold beverage, this time Black Currant Fanta, and a 30-minute nap on our usual benches.
Like usual, we had a much better time in the afternoon. The monkeys seem to tolerate us in the afternoon, but not in the mornings. We even witnessed an intergroup encounter with lots of loud chirps, peyows, and guffaws. Scott reported on Maurice’s shanigans. Maurice is quite the “man’s man” and Scott likes to call him “Shaft”. We also made a few fun discoveries today. We found a monkey skull and some very pretty red and black bird feathers. I plan to keep them. (Susan, we need your advice on how best to clean them.)
On our ride home, Steffen got pulled over by the police for talking on his cell phone while driving. We all just held our breath to see what would happen. It was noted that we were not wearing seat belts (I’m not sure that they even work) and Steffen had left his license at Mwamba. Luckily, the guy was nice and let him off with only a warning.
Dinner was good tonight with Matoke (Siobhan, this is the banana recipe that Ndegwa was telling us about), rice with peanut sauce and fresh pineapple. We helped clean up, worked on creating our map of Gede, and then went to bed.
February 14, 2006
The sunrise on the beach this morning was amazing! The sky grew light with fanes of pink and orange at around 6am and the plump glowing orange sun peeked above the water at about 6:30am. We packed up our gear from the lean-to, took showers, did some laundry, and got ready to head into Malindi. Colin, one of the A Rocha guys, gave us a ride to Gede. You must take advantage of any ride you can get here, otherwise you are stranded at the field center, must resort to multiple forms of transportation, or have a very long walk ahead of you. From Gede, we caught a matatu to Malindi. Once there we took a Tuk Tuk (yet another form of transport; it is a very small three wheeled car/cart) into town. There we were able to change some money over, check email, get postcards and stamps, and do some shopping. I bought a very cool pair of leather flip-flops, which they seem to specialize in here. I was particularly excited that I found a pair that fit me. Apparently, I am a size 36 here, which much be equivalent to an American size 5. We had lunch at “I Love Pizza” and you’ll never guess what we had…a pizza. J It was really good and was followed by a crepe with chocolate and ice cream! Yummy! While it was tasty, it took forever to get our food and often times, you must remind yourself that things move much slower here and going to town may take up your entire day off (although Malindi is rather hectic in its slower pace and everyone pounces on you to try to get you to buy things. It gets kind of annoying.). Today, we had many other things we wanted to do, so we were not about to have our entire day sucked up by this lunch. After lunch, we tried to get money out of the ATM, but it was down. L On the way back to Mwamba, we caught a really cool matatu that was jammin’ to some great American Pop tunes, such as Mariah Carey (he pronounced it Maria Caaree). It was bumpin’! We got a few video clip of this. Once at Turtle Bay, we had to catch a Boda Boda. I always feel weird on these because you are simply on the back of a bike while a Kenyan is hard at work pedaling as hard as he can to get you home. Also, since I was wearing a skirt, I had to ride side saddle and hope we didn’t crash and burn.
Once back at Mwamba, we headed out snorkeling. Scott had bought us Marine Park tickets for about $5-6 each, which allow you to swim out to the coral reef. We headed out to the buoys, quite a long swim (approximately 300 meters). I was quite proud of myself, as I’ve never been a particularly good swimmer, and there were some pretty big waves. At some point, we started feeling little pin pricks all over our bodies and we realized that we were being stung by tons of tiny baby jellyfish! The stings started getting more frequent and we decided to go back. I wasn’t at all certain that I wouldn’t be allergic to these stings as well as the previous ant bite! Scott also noticed that we were about to swim right into a large group of jellyfish. I couldn’t see a thing! This statement, freaked me out a bit, and I had to regain composure before I continued to get stung and inhaled all of the ocean water! We swam back to shore and just lied in the sun for about 2 hours. So far, the application and reapplication of SPF 30 sunblock has kept us from getting burned.
For Valentine’s Day dinner we went out to dinner at a nearby resort. We walked there via the beach, approximately a 30-minute walk. It was beautiful. The sun had gone down, the stars were coming out, and the tide was coming in. There was a very strong cool breeze, which is always very welcome after the heat of the day. We had to pay careful attention that we didn’t step on any crabs which are all over the beach, and you never know which way they will walk next. Aside from a bizarre waitor and waitress (this is another story in itself), the meal was quite good. The Valentine’s Day meal consisted of bread and butter and cream of tomato soup followed by a seafood platter with potatoes, rice, and vegetables. Crème caramel was for dessert. One of the best parts of the meal was simply the ice cold water that we bought. It is so hard to find COLD water here and with the heat, you find yourself wanting some all of the time! The other interesting part of the meal was the extremely cheesy love music that played in the background. We were amused! J
We walked back to Mwamba via the beach again. This walk was just as beautiful, yet by now the full moon had risen and it seemed almost light outside. The tide had also receded a lot so the walk looked completely different. So completely different in fact, that we almost couldn’t find the entrance to the field station. Once we got back, we tried a calling card we had bought in Malindi and were able to talk to Scott’s parents for the first time since we arrived. It was a great 10-minute conversation. We’ll have to get more of these cards in the future. We told the night guard, Lawrence, “Lala Salama” (good night) and went to bed.
February 13, 2006
It’s amazing how much difference 24 hours makes in letting us recover from our anti-malarial medication. Unfortunately, Monica had been bitten by a rather large ant yesterday, and she had a slight allergic reaction, which caused a welt the size of a CD to appear on her leg. To try to help, she took 2 Benadryl last night, and she is still dragging.
A crew at the ruins has been working to clear about a 1 meter wide path along the south and east fences, which is a huge help for us in accessing the areas to watch monkeys. Unfortunately, their presence seemed to have scared off the little creatures, so we followed the south group instead. As a little side note, habituating monkeys is not easy. Since we do not even know how many groups of monkeys are at Gede, Monica and I have been working to see all of the groups and identify their dominant male. Rarely do groups of Sykes monkeys have multiple males, and then usually only during mating season. We have especially been concentrating on two groups: a south group and an east group. The east group is quite shy, so we often end up following the south group, where the male is pretty self-confident. We thought Maurice was an appropriate name for him. He is always with the ladies and seems to hang around the other groups to get a quick moment with their females. He’s also fairly aggressive and self-confident. He also seems to like to pose for our camera so you’ll have to see pictures of this guy. We have both grown pretty fond of the guy.
We have been watching the monkeys all day, but they have been sleeping nearly all day. I think they suffer from the heat as well as us humans and do their best to rest in the shade. We did the same, but boy was it hot. Our keychain thermometer quit at around 1:00pm after registering at 121 degrees F (approx 43 degrees C)! By 1:43 it had finally dropped to 105 degrees.
At Mwamba, one of the volunteers is with Turtle Watch, which seeks to release sea turtles that become entangled in fishermen’s nets by compensating the fishermen and removing the turtle whenever they accidentally snare a turtle. This particular night at 9pm, they brought three rescued turtles by, so we could take them down to the beach and send them back to the ocean. It was so cool to watch the turtles swim out to the open sea, and they are surprisingly fast! The whole time we were carrying one of the turtles to the beach, we couldn’t help but do a rendition of the sea turtles in “Finding Nemo” (one of the greatest kids movies of all time)! ;-)
Finally, we ended up taking our mattress down to a lean-to on the beach and sleeping under the stars, which was pretty fun (especially since we also set up a mosquito net). Then we woke up to a beautiful sunrise on Valentine’s Day morning.
February 12, 2006
Mefloquine is a mean drug. We took our weekly dose this morning, which was a bad idea. For us, it has the side effect of removing any trace of energy while making us both nauseous and abnormally hungry at the same time. Today, we ate our lunch at 9:30 and ended up in slow motion all day … not to mention particularly hungry when lunch came around. We couldn’t help but laugh at each other while the other tried to sleep while walking or could not figure out how to move through the brush. We finally went for our lunch break and purchased some Picana juices – passion fruit and fruit cocktail – which were cold and heavenly. We also ran into a couple of wazungo from New York, Barry and Rob. Interestingly, they told us they were on a U.S. State Department cultural trip, though their itinerary sounded decidedly upper-class wazungo (played at the Carnivore and an American university in Nairobi then on to Watamu to play at Turtle Bay … none of which have many native Kenyas). Check out their web site at www.RobThomasViolin.com. After running into them, we dragged ourselves across the central court of the museum to snooze on the benches. Our afternoon nap almost turned into an all-day event. Even without Mefloquine, taking a mid-afternoon nap during the hottest part of the day can be a life-saver. We were at least coherent enough to catch the male of the East Group coming back from beyond the fence with a stolen ear of corn, which he had no intention of sharing with his admirers.
Mass transit in Kenya is both insane and provides the occasional Adrenaline rush periodically. Matatus are the main mode of transportation. These overpacked passenger vans scream down the road towards their passengers’ destinations for pretty ridiculously low prices (you can go 20km for 50 KSh or about $0.66), though, you might need to haggle pretty hard if you’re mzungo (and especially if you’re male … Monica never seems to have a problem J). Luckily, Lispa, one of the A Rocha staff, told us what the going rates for the different transportation options are.
The matatus are absolutely awesome. They all are pimped out, and it is especially entertaining to see them in the early evening with the black lights on and the LED’s going on the outside. Each one is quite unique with a name (e.g., “Street Life”, “Salaamtak II”, and “Fat Mama”), a rocking sound system with a particular style of music, and a totally pimped out paint job. Hopefully, we’ll be able to send some photos.
Tonight, when we got to the Gede parking lot at 5:30pm, we noted that Steffen’s SUV was gone and we realized we would have to take the above public transit back. It isn’t bad, but after walking around in the sun all day, it isn’t something your look forward to. It didn’t help that my leg was itching like crazy with that CD-sized ant bite and my pants rubbed against it every step I made. Thus, we did the 20-minute walk to Gede, the matatu ride to Turtle Bay, and then realized we hadn’t brought enough money to make it the rest of the way home. Thus, we walked the last 1-2 miles home. Once home, we asked Steffen what had happened. It was just a communication error. Apparently, Leslie was supposed to tell us that the three of us would have to take public transport together today. This message never reached us. In addition to this, it never occurred to us that Leslie wasn’t with Steffen, so we had inadvertently left Leslie at the ruins. She came strolling in to Mwamba around 8:00pm and was not happy. She had waited for us until 6:15, at which point she had left us a note (but we had already left, of course). She then realized she didn’t have enough money to get home either and she walked about 5-6 miles in the dark before catching a Boda Boda the rest of the way home. Once we all told our versions of the story, there were no hard feelings and we now have an interesting story to tell. J
February 11, 2006
We have seen quite a few strange animals in Gede (outside of the “normal” Sykes monkeys). After consulting the African animals book, we think we saw a few duikers, a few golden-rumped elephant shrews (skittish, giant rat-looking creatures), and a young bushbuck. We still have not seen the adders or mambas. Computer access in Kenya is surprisingly good – not broadband but at least somewhat modern computers. Unfortunately, because we work every day from 7-6, all of the internet cafes (and everything else for that matter) are already closed. Luckily, Mwamba provides a lot of support for us in providing us with dinner (and lunch if we can get back) as well as access to some pretty nice computers for downloading and manipulating our photos. One of the staff, Michael, will also do our laundry, iron, and fold it for 100 KSh per load, which is a huge help since we barely have any time to ourselves.
Scott’s day off today let him take a boda boda (a bicycle fitted with a padded seat on the back for passengers) up to DreamWorld, the closest internet café and not too bad of a price at 3 KSh ($0.04) per minute, though, Malindi has relatively better internet access at 2 KSh per minute. The supermarket across the street from the internet café is also not only convenient but stocked with some great goodies like ice cream, Cadbury bars, mango salsa, Smirnoff Ice (not a malt beverage and only 65 KSh), and all sorts of other treats!
He decided to only take a half-day off and he joined me around 2:45, just in time to see me get bitten by a big ant. It bit me about 3 times sending me dancing around like crazy trying to get it out. This gives new meaning to having “ants in your pants”!
The beach near Mwamba is unbelievable. Luckily, we are quite a few miles down the beach from the resort hotels in a protected marine area, which leaves us fairly protected from the tourist and the derelict beach boys. Tonight after getting back, we ran to the beach for a quick swim before showering and going to dinner. We watched the sun go down in the west just as the almost full moon rose in the east under a cloudless, midnight blue sky. It was breathtaking to roll in the waves of the Indian Ocean as the sky unfolded overhead.
