"You can rest when it's Christmas"

Hey-lo!
Just posting a quick blog in one of my free moments, this way here you all know that I'm alive and doing well!
Let's see, last time I posted was a while ago and there have been a lot going on since then. I ended up getting to be in EP for DR, yay! I'm really happy for this, which is good because DR is our life now. We have spent the last week and a half preparing for and conducting field work. For EP, field work consists of going around our district and asking local agro-pastoralists a 77 question survey. Which is interesting but tiring work. We leave early each morning, pack lunch (I've decided I'll never be sick of PB&J, I've been eating that kind of sandwich for the last two weeks and I still love it!), meet up with our local guides/translators in Kimana and then head out into the field. We are broken up into partners and the average pair gets 8 surveys done per day. We are officially finished our field work now, yesterday was our last day, and we ended up with 275 questionnaires completed, which is a lot, but nowhere near our goal of 350. One thing we've learned is that anything that will go wrong with field work... will. For example one day, one of our cars got stuck in axle-deep mud not once, but twice and the groups in that car were only able to get 4 interviews done. And I personally have stayed back the last two days of field work so I could get all of the data entry done. Our previous method of leaving one person behind to tackle the previous days results was severely inefficient and when we only had 1 1/2 days entered by the 5th day of field work, Caitlin and I volunteered to stay back and get to work on it so it would be done by the day before data analysis (today). After 21,175 pieces of information entered (275 questionnaires x 77 questions = 7 days of interviews) and three days of sitting on my butt and looking at a computer screen I have to admit that I feel like I have significantly less brain cells and a much larger behind. 
Speaking of large behinds, we too celebrated Thanksgiving on Thursday. It was actually really good, considering our limited resources and volunteer based cooking crew to get the dishes prepared. In the end, we sat down to a good meal of turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes with marshmallows, green bean casserole, falafel (for the veggie-eaters), cranberry sauce, and pumpkin pie! Funny story about the turkey... many of you have went to the store to buy turkey for T-Day. Not a big deal right? Well here in Kenya, we too can go to the store to buy a turkey, but the only difference is that instead of frozen, skinned, and already dead, these turkeys were feathered, alive, and bound. I actually accompanied Molly to go pick them up from the market Thanksgiving Day morning. One man traveled 1 hour to get the turkeys (an animal that's not readily available here) and had them on his ROOF just chillin'. We actually had to wait while he ran around chasing them with a rope, on his ROOF, before he caught them and shoved them in the back of the land cruiser... ALIVE. Yup, TIA! And of course what Thanksgiving is complete without playing some futbol? Yes, that's right... the staff (who don't really get why we celebrate Thanksgiving and most of whom refused to even try the turkey - "Maasai warriors don't eat birrrrrd!") convinced a group of us and our very stuffed stomachs to play our daily game of soccer, a recipe that of course ended with awful food cramps. Oh well, it was a great day overall, though I'm excited to come home to T-Day Round II! 
Which reminds me... I'm coming home so soon!!! 16 days!! CRAAZZZY! We still have so much work to do for our DR, I'm worried it's going to be hectic (even more than it is now, which is hard to imagine) to get it all done! We start data analysis tomorrow and then have to tackle our 50 page paper. Then on December 9th we present our research to the community. And then we are on a plane back to America. and I will be landing in Burlington on the 13th! ( I know some of you have been confused of the actually date, and I apologize for spreading that confusion because until recently I thought that I was landing on the 14th.)
Okay. I hope that's a good enough update for you all, because I'm going to bed! It's late and I'm beyond tired. 
xoxo Zee

"Life's hard when you're microscopic"

 Jambo Everybody!

Sorry for being MIA the past week…  exams were today, class and assignments due before that and as I let some of you know, we spent 5 days in Tsavo (West) National Park on expedition starting on the 7th. It was BEAUTIFUL! Compared to Tanzania we didn’t nearly see as much wildlife, this could be because it’s now the rainy season and the animals can find food and resources outside of the internal water sources that many National Parks are sectioned around. But I think in general there are less large mammal species here then there was in Tanzania, especially carnivores. Until the second to last day there, we hadn’t seen any large carnivores in Kenya, except for a solitary cheetah in Amboseli National Park which we went to on the 4th. But incredibly the other day on a morning game drive to one of our lectures we actually drove into a pack of wild dogs. THIS IS A BIG DEAL! Wild dogs are endangered now and at the beginning of this semester I was sad to learn that we probably weren’t going to be seeing any of these guys in this part of Africa. This was really upsetting because wild dogs were one of the 5 species that I really wanted to see and had even book-marked them in my field guide book. So this fact along with the low probability of seeing them really made this an amazing and special occasion. Most of our professors have only seen wild dogs 4-5 times in their lives, the last time being in 2006. And none of them had never seen a pack of this size. There were at least 40 dogs in this pack; the average size tends to be around 12. HOLY MOLEY! Absolutely amazing. So after seeing the dogs, I definitely can’t complain about Tsavo anymore, because on top of that experience, the landscape… OH, it was just magnificent. Because it had been raining recently there were new leaves and some trees were flowering, it smelled INCREDIBLE. Maybe even better than basement smell… and those of you that know me, know that’s saying a lot! Overall it was maybe the best set of five days in my life, even though we had to be on constant look out for scorpions in our shoes, chairs, tents, bags, sleeping bags, firewood, etc. I also got burned by a Nairobi Fly on the back of my neck the last night we were there. Molly says judging by the blisters I have it didn’t just land on me, it got squashed; probably between my skin and my headlamp strap. It’s really not that bad, just feels like a bad sunburn but apparently it looks pretty gnarly. It’s gotten worse over the last day, and typically the blisters get bigger over a span of a week before it starts to get better – FUN!

As I said earlier we went to Amboseli on the 4th, just for a morning lecture and an afternoon game drive. The day started off super gloomy and depressing because it was rainy and cold. (PS. because we are now in the middle of the short rainy season here it’s common for afternoon rainstorms and thunderstorms. But it’s weird because you never know what the weather is going to be so you could do laundry in the sunny morning but have it on the line for the next 3 days because it’s pouring the whole time – yeah, that happened to me, Murphy’s Law, right?) But back to the depressing morning on the way to Amboseli… there I am sitting in the back of our landcruiser kind of feeling down and not excited to go on a game drive, because I’m wet and cold and what animals are going to be out in the rain? So as I’m sitting there driving down the road, which is bumpy and muddy and full of puddles, we drive past this car going the other way, no big deal right? WRONG, little to my knowledge my window was open a crack and we just happened to be near a GINORMOUS mud puddle so as the car drove by us it splashed the muddy cold water onto our car but more specifically through my cracked window and smack dab right into my face. I sat there for a second, in disbelief, but then started laughing with my friends Katie and Caitlin who were also in the back seat with me and got splashed, but definitely not as bad as my face. It was so funny and a great way to turn the gloomy morning around, even though I was even wetter than I had been. But then the sun came out and we saw an elephant fight, had a vervet monkey climb into one of the land cruisers to steal a bag of chips, and Kilimanjaro (which was RIGHT THERE!) poked out of the clouds for the sunset. It was a wonderful day.

After we got back from Tsavo we had our last non-program day until the 21st (which is Brad’s birthday and I will never forget again!! Haha) It was a fun day, we went hiking down a gorge at the base of Kilimanjaro to eat lunch by a waterfall. It was beautiful and pretty cool because when you crossed the stream you were in Tanzania again! We then hiked back up and drove into Oloitokitok (the town equlivalent to Kimana back in TZ) and had the opportunity to visit an HIV/AIDS support clinic. It was eye opening and touching to hear these women’s stories and have a better understanding of the disease and the statistics surrounding it. Also right next to the clinic there was a cohort of 40 or so Peace Corp trainees! It was funny to see such a large congregation of ‘mzungus’ together and it was fun to swap stories and reasons for being in Kenya and hear about their schedule for the next two years. I’m actually really jealous of them, they were stationed in Kenya to be Science teachers in secondary schools! That is something that I am SOOO interested in but I’m worried that if I try to do it through the Peace Corp I won’t end up having any say where I want to go and that I want to be a teacher. I’ll have to look into it when internet is more reliable and less frustrating, but it’s something that has caught my interest and I was glad to have met this group to open my eyes to this possibility.

Hmm, let’s see… I actually wrote a short piece for News from the Field on the SFS website. I just submitted it so it will probably take a few days for it to get posted but in case you are interested in checking that out the link to it is http://www.fieldstudies.org/pages/829_news_from_the_field.cfm and remember my group is the Tanzania-Kenya group, but it’s interesting to read all of the NftFs… check ‘em out!

Well once again I apologize for not posting in such a long time. But I have been busy and that on top of not having internet when I am free results in sporadic blogging. Though we just finished our second round of exams today (I think I did okay, but the professors here are hard graders so we will see…) we are jumping right into DR this afternoon. We submitted our choices of the three DR options and I really really want to do EP. It was my number one, followed by WM and then WE. I would be fine to do anyone of them, but I would be really really excited to do EP. We will find out tomorrow what one we are assigned to, as our professors need to divide the groups up evenly. And then shortly after that we start conducting research. I’m pretty excited to be finally starting this, but this also signifies that we only have ONE MONTH left over here! Crazy! I’m looking forward to coming home and seeing everyone but I can’t believe that I’ve been here for two months already, it’s flown by!

Okay… I hope everyone is good back home! I miss you all and make sure you think of me while you are preparing for your Thanksgiving festivities!

Xoxo Zee

PS. As I'm writing this (outside sitting on a chair with my feet propped up on another one) I have a curious friend also sitting with me. A little brown and white bird (similar to a Chickadee) is also perched on the chair my feet are. He keeps looking at me, turning his back, then turning around again to look at me again. RIGHT BY MY FOOT. Now he's checking out my water bottle. Too cute.

12... UH OH!

Jambo!

So I should be doing work right now, but we have a non-program day tomorrow so I'm justifying putting off work until then so I can update y'all. Thanks for being understanding and being happy with just sending me emails for the rest of my time here - keep them coming too! It's not that I don't want to hear from you, it's just I only want to be connected in a limited way. Savvy?
Let's see... life in Kenya... IS AWESOME. We haven't even been here for a week and it already feels like home. The camp setup is great. We have 10 bandas here; all with the capacity to have 4 people in each, but only one of the bandas has 4 people in it, the rest have 3. I'm in Ngati (Wildebeest, I think...?) and my two other roommates are Corina and Hannah (my old roommate). The ten bandas are split into two rows of 5, facing each other across the soccer field and volleyball court. Our banda is the furthest away from the chumba and bathrooms and right on the edge of the Acacia treeline surrounding our camp. Meaning in the morning the Vervet Monkeys and Ibis are super loud and wake me up. There are two bathrooms - each with 3 toilets and 3 showers - at the top of each banda row. In between the bathrooms at the top of the soccer field is the chumba. The chumba is the central station here. In TZ it was only where we ate meals, but here it's our dining hall, classroom, and has the library and kitchen attached to it. Needless to say, everyone is always in the chumba which is nice to hangout, but bad to study in and have a quiet atmosphere. I hope that we will be able to figure out a quiet hours system because when it's time to buckle down for DR, I'm going to be really upset if I'm trying to read a boring article about land tenure in the Maasai Mara and keep being distracted by people in the dining room/classroom yelling "Split!" while playing Bananagrams.
There is another building where the staff offices are. And I think that's a great lead in to introduce you to our Kenyan staff here. Our SAM, Molly, is the best. I didn't think it was possible for anyone to be nicer than Erica, but I have to say Molly is the nicest person I have met. She has such an amazingly interesting life history too; involving going to college in Hawaii, training dolphins, being a volunteer firefighter, and working here in Kenya the past 2 years. There are less general staff members here in Kenya; I think it's because the TZ camp is still under construction and requires a lot of staff to finish that process up. There are mainly Ascaris (guards) here but there are a few staff members that we are already good friends with. Daniel was the SSC professor for the other student group. Because we don't have any SSC classes here, he is just around to help us with WM (which he majored in at Moi Univesrity - the main college in Kenya, all of our professors attended here). There is also Ernest and Jackson. They are camp helpers and come with us every time we have a field exercise or field trip. Kioko is our site manager, Harrison is our head mechanic, Martin and Abdi are our duka managers, and then there is the kitchen staff; Judy (Head Chef), Susannah, and Mama J.Our professors, as I have said previously, are incredibly adequate and intelligent. Our EP professor is Tome ("Toe-may"), our WE professor is Kiringe ("Ka-ring-gay"), and our WM is Shem (exactly as it's spelled). We've only had EP and WE classes, already having our first and last field exercises in both. Most of our grades in each class are from the Tanzanian portion of this semester, so we only have a few classes and assignments for the classes and all three are completed with a final exam. We finished SSC in Tanzania so our grade we got there was our final. So far all of my grades are good; comparing to the other student's stories it sounds like the professors here are tougher graders so I'll have to keep working hard to keep them that way. After finals we have our DR and like I said earlier, I'm most interested in EP. I may end up doing WE or WM if the EP group is full as I am not required to do my DR in a specific course as a lot of other students here are. But I have some time to decide what I want to do, and will use that time wisely. If you are interested in what we are doing for DR and have more questions about it, send me an email and I can send you our DR syllabus which outlines the specific questions we are exploring and researching. I'll also explain more about DR when that's all I have to focus on, but for the time being I have other assignments due and safari expeditions to be excited for!
Well, Halloween in Kenya was just as great as Halloween has been in the US. We ALL dressed up for it, which is saying something as no one brought a specific costume for Halloween. Some students bought 80s clothes at the big market day in TZ, so they wore that, but most of us pooled together some fabric, makeup, twigs, and clothing to scrap together some pretty amazing costumes. I wasn't planning on dressing up at all, but when I saw that everyone else was I wore my Sox hat and t-shirt and borrowed my friend Katie's mitt and ball and was a - surprise - Red Sox fan! Kinda lame, but it served it's purpose. Remember how I said Molly was the nicest person ever? Well, here's proof: she bought us pumpkins, black and orange streamers, candles, apples, candy, cookies, and crafted a homemade pinata. How awesome is she?! We had a costume photo shoot and parade, and a group of us dressed up as zombies and performed 'Thriller' and 'Single Ladies'. To cap off the festivities we had a dance party to dance away the mounds of sugar we consumed. I think it is safe to say that this morning was rough on everyone's stomach, because none of us were used to so much sugar! Overall it was a great Halloween, but I'm excited to see pictures of everyone's costume back home!
As I said earlier, we have a day off tomorrow. As of right now the plan is to go on a morning "hike" until lunch and then head into town to Kimana market day as well as to check out the local hangout spot "Club Kimana". I'm saying "hike" because we aren't hiking up a mountain or anything, but instead, are just walking out across the savanna (aka our backyard) towards Kilimanjaro. While walking around it is common to see plenty of sign of wildlife as well as the wildlife themselves. For example, today for our WE field exercise we were walking transects in the same area that we will be hiking in tomorrow and my group saw a herd of zebra and two giraffe! Yup, that's my life these days... in the middle of class we just happen to run into a couple of zebra, which of course we have to see how close we can walk up to them before they run away - 30 meters, in case you were wondering. So that will be exciting to do and then head in to town for the first time. I wonder if we will be hounded the same way by the street vendors here as we were back in TZ, I'm assuming yes, but it's nice to imagine being able to go into town and not being pestered just because I'm a "mzungu". We will see...

Well one thing I can say about Kenya is that it is HOT and it sure wears you out. I've been so tired the past few days! Though I've been sure to get 8 hours of sleep every night, I've been needing to take naps. Point of this story is that it is late here, and almost past my bedtime, so I'm going to say goodnight.
Hope everyone is doing well!
xoxo Zee

PS. Happy Birthday to Bruce!!