Still Alive!

11.12.10

This last week we spent in Tsavo West National Park on a 5-day expedition. The afternoon before we left, many of us were thoroughly scared. Tsavo is known for being home to man-eaters. Although this is a thing of the past, we were warned of the aggressive behavior of the wildlife (due to the abundance of poaching in this park), the risk of scorpions, and the fact that SFS has been close to losing students to lions twice in the past 10 years.

Uhm ... what?

It’s kind of hilarious that we didn’t even see lions our entire time there. But we saw more scorpions than we cared to - in our sleeping bags, shoes, and firewood (unfortunately, one of our guards was stung this way). African scorpion stings, though they aren’t fatal, cause hours of debilitating pain. So none of us were taking anything lightly.

We were well-protected overnight by four guards - two of our own and two from the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) armed with AK47s, James and Hussein. KWS has it’s own law enforcement and security department of over 200 rangers. Ask for my stories on these guys later. They are intense.

It’s the rainy season here in Kenya, so the wildlife in Tsavo was sparse (70% of the time, especially during the rainy season, wildlife is found outside of national parks). This wasn’t disappointing, though, because the Tsavo landscape is absolutely phenomenal. Rolling hills and lots of green. On Tuesday, we hiked up the Chyulu Hills (another national park nearby) to the most beautiful view I’ve ever seen. You could see the west side of Chyulu (the area where our home camp is) for miles and miles. You could see Kilimanjaro and Shatani lava flows. Blaaaaaah. If anybody wanted to see beautiful land anywhere in the world, I’d take them to Tsavo.

We also got the treat of seeing wild dogs. Wild dogs. Did you hear me? We saw a pack of 30 wild dogs. No one in our entire group, including faculty who’ve been to national parks countless times, has ever seen anything like that. They were right in the middle of the road, on a silver platter. Playing and running and letting us fully experience them for about 15 minutes before running off into the bush. Wow.

We had a lot of guest lectures throughout the week, many from KWS employees. Unlike Tanzania, Kenya has one institution that’s in charge of all wildlife matters throughout the country. They handle national parks, research, the human-wildlife conflict in surrounding communities, wildlife sanctuaries, etc. Kudos. What a job.

I only have about a month left in Kenya, and from here on out, it’s exams and our directed research project, which is basically the pinnacle of the program. Woohoo!