Saturday and Sunday May 10-11, 2014 Over the weekend we were able to catch up on some much needed sleep and relaxation after a week filled with hours of field work. On Saturday we had a late breakfast at 8 am and spent the morning reading, catching up on home work, and playing cards. Shortly … Keep reading »
Archives for May 2014
Peru and Kenya: Parallel Worlds, Worlds Apart
I have now been out of the United States for about 15 out of the last 18 weeks. And I’ve been a full-time college student the entire time. Amazingly, I haven’t felt like I have been missing out on any learning at the school. In fact, I cannot think of a better use of these … Keep reading »
Ants and smoke – the final survey
Friday May 9th, 2014 – I wake up with my two tent mates at 6:30, first thing we do is open the tent flaps and let the dawn light pour in. Next is to make our beds- very tightly (we don’t want to find bugs in them tomorrow). After a quick breakfast, we go to … Keep reading »
Assessing grazer use of glades
Thursday May 8th, 2014 We spent the day out in a glade, Where much good eating grass is made. We sampled dung so we could see, Where different grazers like to be. Elephant, zebra, giraffe, and hare, All left their droppings so we could stare, And feel their scat with our bare hands, Surprisingly, no … Keep reading »
Effects of grazing/fire on grass composition
Wednesday May 7th, 2014 I just have to begin with this – I am so happy that I am doing a blog on this website. So then lets continue and see what happened today (7th May of 2014). By 9:00 a.m we were at the KLEE plots (Kenya Longterm Exclosure Plots) and like almost everyone in … Keep reading »
Growing Up Maasai
It’s been a few days since our last update. This was not from a lack of attention on our part but merely the lack of internet. For the last few days we traveled north of Nairobi to a town called Ngong on the edge of Maasai land. We made Ngong our base of operation and … Keep reading »
Fire! Fire! Ant evacuation…
Tuesday, May 6th, 2014 Today marks almost a week since we have arrived in Kenya. The morning began with breakfast prepared by Agnes and the wonderful Rivercamp staff. We then headed out in the land rovers to complete another day of research. Today’s research focus was to determine if the four ant species that reside … Keep reading »
Fieldwork and wildlife sitings
Monday May 5th, 2014 I still can’t get over the amazing sites of yesterday. We went to the hippo pool and we saw a bunch of hippos!! We got to see so many baby vervet monkeys! They are the cutest thing ever! It is just pretty awesome to see them playing. I don’t know how … Keep reading »
Sunday relaxation
Sunday May 4, 2014 Today was a day of much needed rest and relaxation after our long day of burning yesterday. We woke up to a lovely late breakfast (7:30, woohoo!) and spent the morning doing homework, reading, and enjoying the savanna singing it’s beautiful songs to us. To contrast our experience at the rustic … Keep reading »
Seeing the World Through a Viewfinder
Today was our 2nd production day on location of the communities we are visiting. After a full weekend of more “tourist” type activities everyone in the class was anxious to get back to the work at hand. We had a lot of fun over the weekend seeing the elephant orphanage, the giraffe center, some traditional … Keep reading »