I'm Coming Home!

Hello everyone,

This will be my final blog post, as I am currently sitting in the Schipol airport in Amsterdam waiting for my connecting flight to JFK. The past few days have been packed full of emotions, and I can't believe that I'm actually going home. Here's a recap of my last few days at Moyo Hill Camp!

On Monday we had our community presentations. We turned the dining hall into a presentation hall by clearing all of the tables, setting up a projector, and filling the room with chairs. It was rainy all morning, which made setup quite fun (we also put three large tents up with a bunch of tables and chairs for lunch). We didn't start presentations until 11am (instead of 10) because very few people showed up right away; this was probably due to the rainy/muddy conditions affecting the roads. Presentations, once they began, took twice as long as they normally would since our translator had to translate every few sentences to the mass of locals in the audience....this meant about 30 minutes per presentation including questions. My group was the first group to present after the tea break around 1pm. I think we did really well, however, we were the only group that didn't get asked any questions (I don't know if this was good or bad). Overall, these presentations were a really positive experience, as the community was genuinely interested in all of our findings! Local officials and many familiar faces were in attendance: including Stanley and Bruno (our translators in Makame), Mark from Carbon Tanzania, men from the Maasai market, and the man who led our Iraqw cultural lecture! These officials commented that they wish to use our research to improve wildlife management throughout the Tarangire-Manyara ecosystem. All presentations were done by 4pm, followed by a large outdoor lunch, cleanup, and pictures with my fellow Kiffner DR students. We then played volleyball and I spent the evening watching Nascar (which was postponed from Sunday).

On Tuesday we completed online program evaluations after breakfast, then participated in farewell activities and reflections until lunch. Most of the afternoon was spent packing, but I also got pictures of myself from the academic computer, signed the mural, ate brownies and fried bananas, and put my hair in a man bun (more like a tuft than a bun). I also gave my "lions on location" stuffed Nittany Lion to Hugo, Dr. Theisinger's 2-year-old son and Lenny's brother. Our grades were released at 4pm...I did pretty well but was a little frustrated with some of my classes. Like, I got a 3.7 GPA for the semester which is still really good but I'm competitive and wish I did better. I told myself though, I came to Tanzania for the experiences, the lessons, and the memories, not necessarily the grades. We then had a student vs staff volleyball game AND a student vs staff soccer game before dinner! And guess what??? I scored a goal! This made up for the fact that I reopened my previously-scraped up knee and had blood dripping down my leg for half of the game! After dinner I checked-in to my flight and printed my boarding pass. I also read all of the notecards that the other students wrote for me (they were very sweet!) and worried about how I would pack my bow (which was too long to fit in my checked luggage).

Last soccer game!

On Wednesday I woke up at 6:30am to get my bags ready to put in the lori. I discovered that I left my shoes outside overnight and they got drenched...so I ended up putting them in a Ziploc bag and wearing my hiking boots to the airport instead. We had our final breakfast and packed our lunches for the final time. We then said goodbye to the staff before driving to Arusha where we picked up our semester t-shirts, got some snacks in the shopper's plaza, and said goodbye to Reilly, Eden, Ali, and Erin K (who are traveling some more)before driving to the airport. We couldn't check in until 6pm (we arrived at 1pm), so the wait was arduous! I ended up watching some of "Jurassic World" with Alma and readjusted my bags. Each checked bag had to be 23kg or less and my bags were 22kg and 27kg, so I ended up giving some of my things to Emily, who graciously took them and will give back to me in the US! Good news: my bow made it through security just fine and I didn't have to pay an additional fee! Once on the plane, I sat next to Liv, Dori and Siobhan, watched three movies ("Bohemian Rhapsody", "A Star is Born", and "Bambi") and slept for four hours. This first flight was an hour to Dar es Salaam, followed by an hour wait in the plane to refuel, followed by a 10-11 hour flight to Amsterdam. We got into Schipol airport at around 7:30am, and after going through security said goodbye to a few other students who had different flights. During the four hour layover in Schipol, I typed this blog and bought a nip of alcohol (LEGALLY!!!) and Stroopwafels (which are delicious and you should look them up!). It is now Thursday around noon and I am about to board my plane. I can't believe that I will see my parents again in less than 10 hours! It doesn't seem real and I'm definitely starting to experience some reverse-culture shock.

The wavulana!!!

Overall, these past 3.5 months and Tanzania and Kenya have been unforgettable. I learned so many things about wildlife, wildlife management, local cultures and environmental policy, but most importantly, I learned a lot about myself. I think I grew a lot as a person this semester and tried my best to go out of my comfort zone. I will forever remember all of the great times I had, whether it be expeditions, soccer games, nights at the campfire, lectures of all shapes and sizes, hiking Kili, hand washing my clothes, or having great conversations with friends. I will miss everyone that I have met during this journey, and I hope that we all stay in touch. But for now, I am ready to get on this flight to JFK and sleep in my own bed tonight!

Thanks as always for reading my blogs. I hope that you "experienced" some of my adventures through my writing, and thanks for joining me on this "African Adventure" of a lifetime!!!

Best,
Matt

Week 14: DR, DR and more DR

Hi everyone!

Similar to last week, this week was spent working on Directed Research (DR). This time around, we wrote our final papers and created our presentations for the community that we will be giving tomorrow (Monday). That being said, this week was not very exciting but I thought I'd inform you on what I did anyway.

On Monday, I went back to bed after breakfast (I stayed up late the night before watching Nascar and Chase Elliott WON at Talladega!!!). The rest of the day was spent writing the final paper with my DR group and relaxing. I also played soccer before dinner.

Tuesday was a "rinse and repeat" of Monday - working on the paper. My group also met with Kiffner to put our finalized fecal samples (the particles remaining in the fine mesh) in detergent to dissolve all of the organic material. Whatever remains in the mesh after this will be sent back to Germany with Kiffner to be analyzed for evidence of microplastics.

On Wednesday, I skipped breakfast for the first time this semester and slept in until 9:30am. Being the first day of May, I was finally able to shave my mustache (after growing out my facial hair for the last 104 days)! People could barely recognize me with my bare face! After working on the paper some more, I went with a lot of people to Karatu in the afternoon to take a break. I ended up going with a group to the "juice shack" followed by Happy Days (where I ate off of Mindy's plate of delicious mac and cheese). Before dinner I played badminton with a few other students and then watched "Fantastic Mr. Fox" before going to bed.

Before

After!

The cat at Happy Days

On Thursday morning we had our individual oral presentations, where I met with Kiffner and he asked me a few questions to make sure I knew the main parts of my research project. This went pretty well in my opinion, and I hope I got a good grade on it. The rest of the day was spent finishing our final paper - we had to make more edits so it went longer into the afternoon than I expected. Let's just say, after the past month of working on DR, I was SO GLAD to be done! Before dinner I played soccer with the wavulana (Harrison, Evan and Luke). We were all put on the same team for once (we play with a group of local boys) and this was by far the best game of the semester! We all had some great plays, including one where Evan and I ran up the field passing it back and forth before I took a wide arching shot that hit the crossbar! That evening, we played some pranks on the girls: we saved our facial hair that we shaved and stuck it to the door knobs of their bandas. To be fair, they pranked us first earlier in the semester by covering our toilets in saran wrap! Anyway, after this drama some of us watched an episode of the "Ted Bundy Tapes".

On Friday, we had a class after breakfast on what to include in our DR presentation/PowerPoint. We then had time to work on these presentations and practice presenting. In the afternoon I checked out the mural which was mostly finished (see pic below), played some clarinet, played soccer before dinner, and watched the movie "Hitch" after dinner.

Saturday morning was spent giving our mock community presentations. This was our final graded assignment of DR and resultantly of the whole semester! I personally felt really good about our presentation: it only had to be 6.5 minutes and I enjoy public speaking. However, our group got the most criticism from the staff which was pretty surprising to me. Oh well. Later in the day I hand-washed my laundry for the last time, took some time to meet with my group and edit our PowerPoint, and played volleyball. After dinner we had our last "night out" of the semester by going to Farm of Dreams lodge (this is the first lodge we went to wayyyy back in early February). I wasn't in the best mood and decided to just spend the night doing whatever I wanted. I really wanted to swim and nobody else did so I swam alone (and actually enjoyed having the whole pool to myself). I then relaxed in the lobby in my sweats the rest of the evening drinking a Kilimanjaro beer while everyone else had fun and got super drunk. Yeah, maybe I missed out, but I really needed some "me time". While at the lodge we also did semester superlatives, where I got awarded "best facial hair" and "most likely to survive in the bush alone"!

Relaxing at Farm of Dreams lodge

Sunday was our LAST free day of the semester :(
It was also my last time having cook crew, and the staff already made most of the food before we showed up so I only had to make toast. In the morning I went into Mto wa Mbu to trade my old shoes and my semi-broken water bottle (I ended up getting a good deal for these when I would have thrown them out otherwise!). Then, I took a fat nap in the afternoon and typed this blog. After dinner I washed dishes for the LAST TIME and called my parents before getting ready to watch Nascar. I am beyond excited to see my parents in four days (and be able to watch Nascar on tv instead of listening to the radio broadcast on my laptop)!!!

This semester has been incredible, but with two more full days left at Moyo Hill Camp, I am very ready to go home. However, give me one week back home and I bet I'll want to come back to this beautiful country! Tomorrow, we give our presentations to the community (there will apparently be A LOT of people there) for most of the day, and Tuesday will be spent getting ready to leave. Still expect one more blog post in the middle of next week!

Thanks as always for reading!
-Matt

Week 13: DR + Final Safari

Hi guys!

So this week, if you can believe it, was the second-to-last full week that I'll be here in Tanzania! Time has FLOWN by and I am trying to cherish each and every moment that I have left. That being said, I am definitely ready to head home soon...This week was spent mostly analyzing data for Directed Research (DR) and writing the draft of our research paper. As I hinted at last week, me and the other boys DID shave some of our beards, and I now have a goatee (which I am not a big fan of but I'm doing it for fun).

On Monday I analyzed more of the zebra and giraffe fecal samples by re-hydrating them and looking for evidence of macro-plastics. I was able to find small inorganic matter in two of the eight samples, which I later found out was just small particles of rocks. Having no plastic in the feces was both good and bad: good for the wildlife's sake but bad since we were expecting to see plastics in our hypothesis. After lunch, I went with Maddie and Susanna to drop off pictures from our homestay (back in early March) to Mama Tino. She wasn't home, but we were still able to give her family the pictures and play a bit with the kids. Also in the afternoon, my DR group met with Dr. Kiffner to work on analyzing the data from our road transects. We were using a program called R, which is great for computing graphs, but is also very confusing since you have to manually enter the codes for the program to work. Anyway, we were able to construct a few figures that will later go in our paper. After dinner, I attempted to take a shower. Why "attempt"? Well, because every time I turn the water on, the power goes out in our banda! Why the water is connected to the electricity, I don't know, but I was able to take a shower in Evan and Harrison's shower (which is in the same banda) and everything was fine. The problem went away as the week went on, which makes it pretty creepy, but if the issue comes up again, we at least know how to turn the power back on (there's a switch in our hallway). Before going to bed I watched a few Planet Earth episodes with some students.

On Tuesday, my group analyzed more data: working with R to generate graphs and soldering the inorganic pieces found in the fecal samples to see if they were plastic (they weren't). Today my group was in Kiffner's office for a combined 4 hours just analyzing data! In other news, I believe the rainy season is finally here - typically the long rains start in early April and the delay is really hurting the crops throughout the area.

On Wednesday I went to the tailor to get some ties made from leftover fabric that people had. I also cleaned up my "lab" in the morning where I had spent the past week analyzing the fecal samples. The rest of the morning and afternoon was spent writing my DR paper with my group...to get a change of atmosphere we went to Coffee Corner later in the afternoon to eat some yummy food while typing with a view! I got a delicious chicken and guacamole sandwich. Before dinner I also played a lot of volleyball with some locals!

My meal at Coffee Corner!

On Thursday I went back to bed after breakfast for a few hours, which was quite delightful. Then I had to get going with my DR paper again...I did a decent amount of the "discussion" part of the paper today. Besides this, I mostly relaxed. I decided not to go the Karatu market in the afternoon since I had nothing else that I needed to purchase or trade, and instead I started watching The Office. I've wanted to watch this series for a while since many of my friends are obsessed with it, and for the most part I watched an episode every day this week. In the evening I finished watching Birdbox with Elana (we watched about 40 minutes of it every night for three nights), and I also watched Just Go With It with some other students. The night concluded with me getting rid of the goatee and keeping just the mustache!!! I must say, while I would never have just a mustache back home, I think it looks really cool and really funny just because of how HUGE it is.

Friday was spent finishing the paper with my DR group. It was a solid 18 pages and I was SO happy to be done with it (well, be done with the draft of it...). I also picked up my ties at the tailor. He did an amazing job and I got them for super cheap: 4,000 shillings each or about $2 each! In the evening we all played a soccer game against the staff on the muddy soccer field. We had to end it early due to a vicious looking storm that was approaching, however, a few of us stayed out on the field to enjoy the storm which was mostly just wind and low-hanging clouds. We ended up having a "mudball" fight and I felt like a little kid as we ran around on the field and within the surrounding cornfields!

Post-mudball fight! (peep my insane mustache)

Saturday was our FREE DAY. I went with a majority of the students to Lake Manyara National Park, where we had our last safari of the semester! The morning started off really well, as I went to bed early the night before and got 9 hours of sleep (I rarely get more than 7 hours of sleep a night since we get up early each morning and I naturally stay up late at night...). Upon entering the park we saw lots of yellow billed storks hanging out in trees and flying around with materials for their nests. We also saw a very skinny looking lion sunning itself (we were wondering if it was kicked out of its pride), as well as lots of wildlife including elephants, giraffes, wildebeest, zebras, warthogs, hippos, impala, waterbuck, and many species of birds! At lunch there were these beautiful birds trying to steal our food called red-and-yellow barbets. As the afternoon turned into evening, my vehicle saw an elephant that was missing part of its trunk - it looked like it was "cut off" and maybe it was from a lion attack. As we started to leave, we saw a lion up in a tree! This was a nice sight to see as Lake Manyara National Park is "known" for its "tree-climbing lions"....it was almost like the park was saying goodbye to us! As we drove back to camp there was a beautiful sunset and the sky was so clear that we could see Mt. Meru in the distance as we drove up the escarpment.

On Sunday we had community service during the morning. I stayed back at campus to paint a mural in the classroom. We started to paint a mural of the rolling agricultural hills of Rhotia with an SFS vehicle in the foreground, and will finish it up next week. Today I also did laundry, got my grade back for the draft DR paper that we handed in the other day (my group did ok although I expected a slightly better grade), and played some volleyball. After dinner, I called my mom and then made some s'mores around the campfire! Next week, I will mostly be working on typing the final DR paper and getting ready for our community presentation at the beginning of the following week. I know I've said this before, but I can't believe how quickly this program has gone by!!!

I hope everyone has a nice week!
-Matt

Week 12: Manyara Ranch DR Fieldwork

Hi everyone!

This week was the second and final week of collecting data for our Directed Research (DR) projects. Within Dr. Kiffner's group, we spent four days analyzing the landscape of Manyara Ranch Conservancy for plastic pollution - this is the basis of my team's research project/paper. Every day we drove from Moyo Hill to the ranch which is about an hour away.

Manyara Ranch Fieldwork:

On Monday our focus was going to certain spaced-out GPS points within Manyara Ranch and walking out four 10m x 5m plots, scanning for any presence of trash. There were 20 GPS points split between two vehicles of students, with the four plots per GPS point. As most of the day was spent off-roading in the middle of the ranch, we saw lots of wildlife including giraffes, elephants, wildebeest, zebra, gazelles and impala! It was also fun to literally drive through bushes and trees with our powerful safari vehicle. At one point, we saw a domestic dog chasing after some mongoose, and our ranger (who had to accompany our vehicle for safety reasons) was seconds away from shooting the dog. The dog was owned by one of the pastoralists that graze their cattle in the ranch, and dogs are not allowed in the ranch since they are considered "poachers" (they kill wildlife therefore the statement isn't wrong) - because of this, rangers shoot all dogs on the spot. Me and the other students in my vehicle basically refused to let him shoot the dog and we drove off to the next GPS point quicker than usual in order to "save" the dog from the ranger! My vehicle's 10 GPS points ended up turning into 12 as we were faster than the other vehicle and took some of their points. Since these plots were done in the middle of the ranch, we expected to see very little trash and were right: there was only one piece of trash found (a plastic bottle) throughout the 80 plots surveyed! After this, we had a bit of a game drive while opportunistically looking for feces samples that we will later analyze for evidence of plastic consumption. Before driving back in the late afternoon we stopped by the ranch's ranger station which is also its dog facility (the dogs are used for law enforcement) to play with the dogs!!!

On Tuesday we started the hard part of our fieldwork: going up and down the tarmac roads that border Manyara Ranch and performing 26 100m transects per road. Within each transect, we picked up every piece of trash throughout ten 10m x 5m plots....this totals to A LOT of tedious work picking up trash and weighing/categorizing each piece in the sweltering Tanzanian heat. Before all this work started though, we got to see Mt. Meru during our drive to the ranch since it was super clear this morning! We also gave a ride to some SIT students who were also doing research in Manyara Ranch. SIT is SFS's "rival" study abroad program, and a big difference is that SIT is much less structured. Their students have to arrange all of their travel and mostly walk everywhere, they don't have a campus but live in hostels, and they don't really have classes to take nor professors but get credit through their fieldwork. While I like the independence of SIT, I am so incredibly happy that I chose SFS to study abroad in Tanzania with! Anyway, back to our trash transects....my vehicle was able to get 10 of our 26 transects done by 3:30pm. The other vehicle only got 6 done. The work was very hot and exhausting but we were definitely getting good data: you could visibly notice the drop-off in the density of trash the further we got from the road. We also had some fun while we did our work, for example at one point I was "fencing" with Dr. Kiffner with the 5m poles we use to measure our plot widths with! At the end of the day we had another game drive to drop our ranger back off at the ranger station. During this game drive we saw an elephant with just one HUGE tusk that almost touched the ground! We then got a flat tire while driving back but made up for this by stopping for ice cream and mango juice in Mto wa Mbu.

Doing trash plots

Day three started the way day two ended...with another flat tire as we drove to Manyara Ranch. Today our transects went much quicker as we were able to get 14 transects done by 4:30pm leaving only two to do tomorrow. The other vehicle miraculously did the remaining 20 of their transects leaving none to complete tomorrow! We did have a slow down though...Kiffner got a thorn stuck INTO his ankle to the point where you couldn't see the thorn anymore! He claimed that the thorn was facing upward parallel to his Achilles tendon. Because of this, he couldn't walk or drive so we needed to wait for Amelia to show up and take over our car as one of the SFS drivers took Kiffner to FAME which is a local medical facility/small-scale hospital. One thing we noticed throughout data collection in Manyara Ranch was the atypical heat and dryness. By this time the rainy-season would already be in full force where it would rain for days at a time, however, the rainy season is getting later and later each year. Because of this, so many crops are dying and people are struggling to grow food and purchase enough for their families. I know I'm definitely praying for rain!...it's also incredible how some people still refuse to believe that climate change is real....
Our day ended by petting the dogs again and getting another flat tire (go figure).

Thursday was our final day of DR fieldwork in Manyara Ranch. Today we only had one car with six students as the other four went to Lake Manyara National Park to collect more data on ungulates (since they didn't get enough data in Makame). My vehicle finished the two remaining tarmac transects and then proceeded to do eight transects along the western border of the ranch where there are many bomas where people live. We wanted to see whether trash densities were higher near the roads or near the community areas. As expected, the amount of trash was much lower along this border. Instead of walking the plots like I had done the previous three days, today my job was weighing and classifying the trash. We were super quick and finished all of this work by lunch! Then, we collected the last few feces samples that we needed (we are analyzing 5 samples of zebra and 5 samples of giraffe feces to compare grazing animals vs browsing animals). It was during this time that we saw (and resultantly "chased") a group of 40 giraffes!!!! Fun fact: a group of giraffes is called a "tower". They are so majestic and I'm still in awe every time I see one, much less 40! It was also an incredible experience to walk within half a football field of these animals (since Manyara Ranch isn't a national park, we are permitted to get out of the vehicles). Today we were back at Moyo Hill by 3pm which was well deserved after the past three days of intense work where we didn't get back until 6pm.

So many giraffes off in the distance!

Rest of the week:

During one of the evenings, for the mwanafunzi presentation we proceeded to fit all 26 of us into one safari vehicle successfully! Also, MY CLARINET REEDS FINALLY CAME after 8 weeks!!!! On Thursday I was mwanafunzi of the day and showed everyone a video I created about my Kili hike which everyone seemed to enjoy. We also watched the movie Spirit this night.

Friday, let's just say, sucked.
It was the first day of data entry/data analysis and I literally spent 7 straight hours glued to my computer screen as I entered endless amounts of data - and I only entered a third of the data since there are three in my group! Combined we probably spent about 24 hours entering data into Excel...
I took a break from data entry to play soccer before dinner, and at dinner we had a Passover ceremony (four of the students in the program our Jewish), where I ate some yummy matzah with haroseth! We also had a campfire this night where we witnessed our last full moon together in Tanzania and I finally played the clarinet for everybody.
So...maybe Friday didn't suck too much.

On Saturday my group finalized our data entry and I started literally digging through our poop samples. I have a mini lab setup in the one gazebo and today I collected the dry weight of each sample, rehydrated them, and started to separate the solid from liquid components in search of small pieces of plastic. In the afternoon I did a little photoshoot on top of Moyo Hill! I wanted some quality pictures taken with my facial hair before I shave off the beard (which is happening sooner rather than later), so Alma was kind enough to take some awesome pictures of me! In the evening, we all went to Happy Days which is a pub in Karatu: here I held a WILD hedgehog which was so incredibly cute. When we got back I called my mom since today was her birthday!

The background of my photoshoot - dust storm plus thunderstorm plus rainbow!

Sunday was our free day AND Easter!. I went to Mto wa Mbu in the morning to go to the Maasai market and trade some of my things for souvenirs. I also went to Mosquito Creek café where I ate some cinnamon buns and pet some dogs! In the afternoon I took a longggg nap and played some volleyball before dinner, which included goat as our special Easter entre! After dinner I typed this blog and MIGHT have shaved off part of my beard with the rest of the boys...you'll find out next week!

Lucy at Mosquito Creek Café      ///     What is my beard becoming?!? 

Thanks for reading!
Matt

Week 11: Makame Expedition

Hi guys!

This week I was camping with 8 other students in Makame Wildlife Management Area doing the first half of directed research (DR) fieldwork. I was helping with Dr. Kiffner's other two student groups: doing interviews with local Maasai regarding wildlife perceptions and doing transects looking for carnivore tracks and ungulate sightings. My group's project starts next week where we'll be analyzing plastic pollution in Manyara Ranch. So basically, this was a "free" camping trip for me!

Makame Expedition:

We left early Monday morning to commence the 8-ish hour drive to Makame. During this drive we drove through the edge of Tarangire National Park where we saw some giraffes and a dead wild cat on the road :(  We also met up at some point along the road with Mark and Dave from Carbon Tanzania: the organization that asked for us to analyze the wildlife health of the Makame region. Most of us took a nap at some point during this ride and we all woke up COVERED in a layer of dust/dirt...it adds character! Upon arriving at camp Evan and I struggled to setup our canvas tent and then before dinner we all had a discussion with Carbon Tanzania about their mission and their connection to SFS. Basically, they "sell" carbon to investors in order to protect land. To clarify, they pay locals with the money from investors to not cut down trees or take over the land for agriculture/grazing. In return, the investors play a role in conserving the land and the trees/carbon of the landscape. The locals benefit by receiving money to not use their land (more money than they would make if they were to cut down trees, plant crops, etc.) and the investors benefit by "making a difference" and certifying their businesses/organizations as sustainable since their profits go towards this conservation initiative. Carbon Tanzania decided to work with us in order to get data regarding the health of the ecosystem which they are trying to protect. A really cool aspect of our camp was that there were tons of bats flying around! - they lived in the roof of the ranger office which was right next to our campsite and was where we ate. Another cool aspect was that I had zero service in Makame...which meant that I didn't have to worry about the outside world and could just enjoy my last camping trip in beautiful Tanzania spending time with friends. Therefore, I spent most evenings reading my book. This particular night I also watched some Deadpool (which was downloaded on Alma's phone) and witnessed a GIANT scorpion by the latrines!

A scorpion under black light!

The next day we had breakfast super early (6:30am) but I was helping out with the interview group today which didn't leave until 8am, therefore, I went back to bed for a little bit. For interviews, I walked around with Elana (one of the two students in the interview DR group), our Swahili translator, Stanley, and a Maa translator (Maa is the language of the Maasai tribe) from Maasai boma (house) to boma asking individuals to identify wildlife species and state how they feel about each animal. My role during these interviews is basically just to be a body....we follow the buddy system so Elana needs another student with her...aka me. It was about an hour walk to the first boma. This family was very large and offered us chai which we gladly sipped while asking a male elder questions. Along with the dozens of kids sitting around us there were also tons of "kids"...baby goats...that tried to eat our backpacks and kept cutely nudging the bottom of our chairs! After this first interview I got tired of just sitting around (each interview was between an hour and an hour and a half) so I started writing notecards to my fellow students. Basically these cards are an "assignment" due by the last week where we write about our favorite memories and/or characteristics of each student. Today was a long day as we didn't have lunch until 2pm and we only completed five interviews by the time we needed to stop at 5pm (we were supposed to do between six and ten interviews per day). To add to this already exhausting day, we spent half an hour bushwhacking to get back to camp since our Maa translator said he knew the way but apparently didn't... by the time we got back at 6pm everyone else had already left to do a game drive which we obviously missed out on. Between this, the exhaustion, dehydration and sunburn, I was a little cranky and spent the rest of the evening just relaxing.

One of the bomas we interviewed at

On the second day of actual research I went with the carnivore tracks/ ungulate sightings group in the vehicles. I was able to see so many carnivore tracks that were fresh from this morning including lions, leopards, jackals and hyenas! My role during the day was mostly to record data on the data sheets or look out of the vehicle for ungulates. The local guides plus Dr. Kissui were the ones who identified the tracks along the roadway. The work was tedious but pretty fun. We had lunch in an area with tons of annoying flies and later in the afternoon spotted a HUGE elephant. Overall, we saw only one ungulate throughout the day...these low numbers of sightings was typical throughout the week. Once back at camp we went on a game drive again (since Elana and I missed out yesterday)! We went with Mark and Dave from Carbon Tanzania and they told us about the amur falcons that we saw: they migrate with dragonflies all the way from Mongolia, eating them along the way! We also saw a jackal and on the drive back witnessed Mark sitting on top of the roof of his vehicle...driving WITH HIS FEET over the terrain!

The third day of research I went back to doing interviews, this time with Reilly and her translator, Bruno. The interviews with them were much faster than the ones I did with Elana, getting four interviews done by lunchtime. During these interviews I was able to hold a baby sheep and a baby goat, and while walking between bomas we saw some cool tracks including hyena and lion! We ran out of bomas to interview by lunchtime, so we just chilled out until we got picked up. We sat under a tree eating lunch when a group of baby cows walked over!....naturally I pet some of them and they laid with us while we relaxed in the shade. It took much longer for our ride to come than we expected, so we ran out of water and ended up playing card games and reading to pass the hours away. Honestly, we felt pretty stranded by the time we got picked up at 4:30pm. Once we arrived back at camp I found out that Evan's vehicle (the one I was in yesterday) saw 14 AFRICAN WILD DOGS - the last animal on my list that I wanted to see while in Tanzania! While I was a little jealous of them, I was happy for them and happy that I could indirectly see the wild dogs through the pictures that they took. Before dinner I took a "bucket shower" in the latrines, and while it sounds disgusting, it was SO WORTH IT. I felt rejuvenated after getting the layers of dirt and sweat off of my skin, and to make things better, we had an awesome dinner with deserts including fried bananas and chocolate peanut butter balls!!!

On the fourth and final day of research I helped out with interviews again, this time returning to work with Elana and Stanley. We left at 5:50am (YUCK!). One of our interviews today was with a man who helped found the WMA (wildlife management area) and is currently getting a degree in accounting in Moshi! He spoke English very well, therefore, I was able to help out with the interview instead of sitting around. He was very interested in our lives and talked to us about coming to America to study after getting his first degree. He gave us FRESH milk after the interview which was "sterilized" using smoked tree bark, and we even got his contact information! On one of our final interviews of the day, I was finally able to play with some kids. There were at least 30 of them surrounding us during the interview, and while they were scared of me at first (as all kids are scared of us and our unfamiliar skin color), after some warming up we did some funny handshakes and played around with sticks while Elana proceeded with the interview! I had a ton of fun and the kids seemed to as well....once they got over the astonishment stage where they touched my hands and my legs to see what a "mzungu"/white person felt like. It's amazing how used I have gotten to dozens and dozens of kids and even adults staring at me constantly. Elana and I were able to complete seven interviews before lunch and played jump rope with some kids after the last of these interviews was finished! We met up with Reilly and Bruno and had a lunch/nap break under a tree and chilled out until our ride arrived. After dinner this night we had a goodbye meeting where we thanked all of the guides and translators who helped us throughout the week. Without them, there's no way we could have gotten sufficient data and I appreciated how welcoming and fun they all were - especially Stanley and Bruno. The evening included doing more scorpion "hunting" with Kiffner's black light and listening to his crazy stories and encounters he has had with wildlife while traveling around Africa.

Me and Noah (one of the Maa translators)

On Saturday we left Makame to travel back to Moyo Hill Camp. While leaving we saw a Gerenuk, which is basically an impala with a really long neck! About 1-2hrs into the drive Amelia's car's radiator broke. I was in Kiffner's vehicle, and while the other students in my car got out to stretch and talk to the other students, I drove with him to try to find service to call one of our drivers back at Moyo Hill. While driving we got a flat which I helped Kiffner change, however, we used our last spare tire so we had to turn around and head back....if we got another flat then ALL of us would be doomed. As a whole, Kiffner and I drove 30km down this dirt road and could not find any service unfortunately. When we arrived back to Amelia's damaged vehicle, we found out that Michael (one of our drivers who drove the lori for us), miraculously was able to temporarily fix the radiator! However, because of the risks associated with this vehicle, the staff decided to cram all 9 of us students into the "healthy" car with Amelia driving and put the rest of the staff in the damaged car. After this long, excuse my pun, "bump in the road", we took off again. We barely made it a half hour when we got another flat tire! We changed the tire with a spare from the damaged vehicle which we exchanged prior, and then ten minutes later....we got our THIRD flat tire!!! We changed this tire with our last spare between all of the SFS vehicles and hoped for the best. Luck was on our side, as we did not get any more flat tires on the additional four hour drive back. Along the way we stopped at a gas station where I bought and devoured some well-deserved ice cream and a chocolate bar, and once back on the road I read a lot more of my book. Finally by 6pm we arrived back at camp (when we should have arrived around 3pm) and I spent the rest of the evening unpacking and relaxing...

Sunday was our free day! I slept through two of my alarms that I set at 2am to watch my Nascar race back home...but was woken up around 5am and managed to watch the last half hour of the race. In the morning I completed some laundry and in the afternoon I went to Karatu where I drank some fresh lemonade made from sugarcane juice and lemon juice, walked around some shops, and chilled in Lilac Café where I finished my book! The book is called "It's What I Do" and I started it before my freshman year of college, gave up halfway through, and never managed to reread and finish it until now. Anyway, I got back to camp in the mid afternoon and took a nice nap. Random note: I'm starting to get tired of my beard...I've been growing it out with the other male students for almost three months now and I can't wait to shave it all off in a few weeks! After dinner today I found out that I won the March Madness Bracket competition between all of the students, and then watched The Lion King before going to bed. It took long enough, but we were finally able to watch this movie while living in the ecosystem where it takes place!

Next week I will be continuing with DR fieldwork...this time spending four days working on my group's research regarding plastic pollution and plastic consumption by wildlife. Each day we will drive to Manyara Ranch which is about an hour away to do transects and collect feces samples! As the end of the program draws nearer and nearer, I am making sure to appreciate every day in Tanzania and have as much fun as possible...because before I know it I will be on a plane back to America!

Thanks for reading,

Matt

Week 10: Final Exams

Hello everybody,

So this week was finals week after coming back from two weeks in Kenya. Overall, this week was pretty stressful and not super exciting but still an adventure nonetheless.

On Tuesday (I was a day late in posting last week's blog) we had a final review session which lasted only 30 minutes and was basically the professors listing the topics for each class. Considering that each exam was 50% of our final grade, I was expecting a little more support on the materials I was going to be tested on. Finals included: WE (Wildlife Ecology) Wednesday morning, WM (Wildlife Management) Thursday morning and EP (Environmental Policy) Friday morning. Today I spent all afternoon either napping, filling out a small assignment for WM and playing volleyball to delay studying. Finally I studied after dinner but I find that I'm a good last-minute studier anyway.

The WE final went from 8-10am on Wednesday. I thought it was a little rough but I think I still did well enough to get a good grade in the class. The setup was unlike any final I've ever taken: half was a short answer section and the other half included two essay questions. After the final I "rinsed and repeated"....studying and doing things to procrastinate studying. Overall, I'm not a big fan of the grading scheme either. Since SFS goes through the University of Minnesota, we use their grading scheme, which means that a 95% is an A instead of a 93% like at Penn State.

The WM final went from 8-10am on Thursday. I felt a little better about this one than the WE one yesterday. In the afternoon I submitted forms to get my study abroad credits to transfer to Penn State...it'll take about 2-4 months to get these classes onto my transcript. I also took a three hour nap, bought some snacks at the duka and tried to learn some guitar to further avoid studying.

On Friday morning before my EP final I scheduled my classes for next semester. I got into all of my classes no problem!!! I will be taking 7 classes (the most I've ever taken) for a total of 17 credits. The EP exam including a lot of writing but it was not too bad. For every exam I was always one of the last people in the room - I'm a slow test taker and took the whole two hours for every exam when many people were done within an hour. After this exam my directed research (DR) group met with Dr. Kiffner (who is our research professor) where we analyzed some feces samples in preparation for when we actually collect samples later this month. I typed my EP paper a majority of the afternoon because I couldn't motivate myself to finish it (who assigns a paper after finals anyway?!?). Then in the evening we went to Happy Days: a bar/restaurant in Karatu. We all got dressed up and I wore a button-down shirt that the local tailor made me, jeans (which I've yet to wear), my crazy penguin socks and some bracelets that I've accumulated over the semester. I also styled my mustache up into a handlebar mustache! I didn't drink like most everyone else but spent time at the campfire in front of the facility, pet their cat, and witness a hedgehog scurry through the bushes.

Saturday morning I had cook crew early in the morning but was not woken up by my alarm. At 6:50, I woke up to tapping on my shoulder and a little voice saying "Matt wake up!".....IT WAS LENNY. In case you don't remember, Lenny is Dr. Theisinger's 6-year-old son who lives here on campus. He walked into my banda and then into my room as he tried to wake up all of the guys. I was the only one who actually got up, and I spent about half an hour before cook crew sitting in the hammock and playing with Lenny, who was leaving to go to Germany today with his mom and brother to visit family for the next few weeks. I felt really happy that he wanted to spend time with me before leaving, and I will definitely miss him while he is gone. I just still couldn't believe that he actually walked into my banda!!! Saturday was our free day, so I spent the morning at African Galleria: a fancy touristy facility that has a huge art gallery and sells everything you could imagine including Tanzanite (mom I MIGHT have bought you some...we'll see...). Then in the afternoon, I went for a hike up a hill in Karatu that had beautiful view of Lake Manyara and the surrounding land. After this, I walked around the shops in Karatu before getting some fresh juice from a local stand. I tried to get lemon juice and sugarcane juice to make lemonade (which I had been craving forever) but they combined my order with Luke's, so we both ended up drinking a juice concoction consisting of watermelon, pineapple, orange, lemon and sugarcane juice which still tasted amazing surprisingly! Then, we went to Lilac Café in Karatu where I ate.....wait for it.....grilled cheese (another thing I have been craving forever)!!!

The view from the hike in Karatu

GRILLED CHEESE!

Sunday was spent doing DR prep since we leave for our research expedition to Makame Wildlife Management Area tomorrow. I'll be camping with the rest of Kiffner's research group (there's 10 of us) for 6 total days, however, 2 of these days will be spent driving since Makame is an 8 hour drive away! As far as prep goes, my group made and printed data sheets, analyzed our trial feces samples once again to develop our techniques, and went shopping with Kiffner at the Karatu market for metal bowls and plates to be used during our analysis. We also got our research proposal grades back.

Tomorrow we leave bright and early for Makame, and I am very excited to camp one last time while in Tanzania, especially with a smaller group setting. I still can't believe that I only have one month left in Tanzania...time flies when you're having fun!

Thanks for reading!
Matt

Week 9: More Kenya + Arusha Weekend!

Hi all,

I just got back from an incredible two weeks in Kenya followed by a free weekend in Arusha, Tanzania's third largest city. I already shared all of the things I did during my first week in Kenya, so I'll start with week number two...

Expedition: Tsavo and Chyulu Hills National Parks:

On Monday we left for Tsavo National Park for a four day expedition which also included neighboring Chyulu Hills National Park. Once inside the park we stopped by the Shetani Lava Flow. This is a lava field that originated from the surrounding volcanic hills only around 500 years ago. We were allowed to walk on the vast field of sharp, crumbling volcanic rock and I had a good time climbing and taking in the views (particularly of Kili which was still visible from these national parks). I found a small cave within the volcanic rock where some bats were hanging out, and there was also tons of scat which Dr. Kioko said was from a leopard! After this we drove slightly outside the park to a gas station/shop where we bought some ice cream and relaxed for about an hour and a half before our afternoon lecture. While most people sat out at a seating area, I decided to go in the car where I took an awesome one hour nap. The only sucky part about this was that it was very hot out (I'd say in the 90s for sure) so I woke up covered in sweat. One thing about Tsavo and Chyulu Hills is that they are much hotter than Amboseli (the National Park I was at last week) - with highs in or near the 90s every day. Anyway, the afternoon lecture consisted of a female Tsavo warden talking about the history of Tsavo and the park's current conflicts and solutions/actions. She was also accompanied by a researcher for Tsavo who spoke directly after her. While I was a big fan of the warden's lecture, this researcher basically repeated himself the whole time. He also said he would be "brief" but we ended up listening to him talk for 45 minutes over the scheduled time (not to mention in the 90 degree heat!). If I didn't take that nap in the car earlier, I definitely would have been nodding off like so many of my fellow students were. After this, we drove to our campsite in Tsavo, where along the way we saw lots of dik diks. The night was very hot (as expected) and so my sleep was a little too sweaty and sticky for my preference!

Shetani lava flow

On Tuesday we started off with a breakfast that included cereal with COLD milk (I've only experienced hot milk since being abroad)! While on the road we observed many more dik diks, kudu, and a BLACK MAMBA in the middle of the road. It was a long bumpy ride to Chyulu Hills National Park, and along the way we saw an old racetrack among the picturesque hills: it hosted the East African Safari Rally until the 1990s. We had a lecture among these hills and then had a strenuous hike full of loose rocks to the top of one of them. The views were incredible (we could see Kili again) and at the top there was a lush forest. After driving down some ways we stopped at some deep caves that continued for 15km, however, we weren't able to explore them since it wasn't included in SFS's safety plan for the expedition. The drive back continued with another stop to the gas station/market where I bought more ice cream and some TIC TACS (for those who don't know, I'm kinda addicted to them), and then we did a game drive back to camp for the night. Tonight I stared at the stars for a very long time once almost everyone went to bed. I really needed some "me time" and looking at the endless sea of stars helped me to calm down and be more appreciative of everyone and everything in my life. While watching stars and pondering about life I could hear hyenas near the camp and see bats overhead which made this moment even more surreal.

Chyulu Hills

The next day we had a lecture/debate with Kendi (Dr. Borona) about wildlife conflicts and the topic of compensation for wildlife killing livestock or causing crop damage. Then, we went to mzima springs, which as its name suggests, is one of the few remaining natural springs in the ecosystem (the rest are drying up due to climate change and human factors). Here we saw an owl, hippos, catfish, monkeys, a giant kingfisher and some crocodiles: one was waiting for fish with its mouth open under a small waterfall and another one was at least 10ft long! We then drove back to camp for lunch and a long siesta break where I got some reading done. Afterwards, we went to hike up one of the volcanic hills in Tsavo. This hike was pretty difficult (steep with loose rock) but was a ton of fun with amazing views at the top! Evan and I ended up racing back down after chilling at the top for a while. We then had another game drive to camp where we saw lots of giraffes. For ReKAP tonight the mwanafunzi of the day did an amazing presentation where we sat in a circle with our eyes closed and two people at a time would get up and tap the people who fit certain prompts (ex: "tap someone you admire", "tap someone who is easy to talk to", "tap someone who has a contagious smile", etc.). It really made me and everyone else feel warm inside!

Mzima Springs

At the top of the volcanic hill we hiked

For our fourth and final day in the park we drove to a rhino sanctuary early in the morning!!! It was a chilly drive (since it was 6am) which was a nice change from the insane heat we had been dealing with. We drove around the sanctuary (which contains about 80 black rhinos) and actually saw one!!! It was pretty far down the road from my vehicle but we could see its cute little ears before it ran away into the brush (they are very shy animals). There was then a rhino conservation lecture by one of the scientists that works at the sanctuary. After this exciting morning, we went to a lodge where I treated myself to a buffet and swimming. We played some fun pool games, some of the girls convinced me to put my hair into a man-bun (it's getting that long!), and I was even able to tan a little bit. The lodge was elevated and had an incredible view of the vast landscape. One thing I loved about looking out over the land was seeing NO signs of humans for miles and miles other than the scarce dirt roads that the safari vehicles used. Later in the afternoon some elephants came over to a water hole next to lodge: I watched them forever and particularly fell in love with the baby elephants playing around! Following this relaxing afternoon, we had one final game drive through Tsavo National Park to get back to our camp. Here we saw lots of secretary birds and oryx. This night I did more "me time" and star gazing after partaking in a massage train with some of the other students.

We woke up early the next morning to pack up camp and head back to our Kenya campus. On the drive out of Tsavo we drove past the lava field again where I finally saw a klipspringer!!! This animal is like a slightly bigger dik dik and it was one of the two animals on my list that I wanted to see and hadn't yet (the other is African wild dogs). Back at camp we unloaded the lori (truck) and I took a two hour nap after lunch but before our afternoon briefing about the Kenya/Tanzania "switch". We also discussed the upcoming Arusha "spring break" weekend. Before dinner we had a farewell soccer game. A lot of students and some of the staff played and we had a great time! Not many people can say that they played soccer with the views we had: a rainbow, Mt. Kilimanjaro and a killer sunset! The evening concluded with me playing "Just Dance" with some people. I was definitely sad to leave such a beautiful country but happy for the adventures that awaited back in Tanzania such as the Arusha "spring break" weekend!

Arusha Weekend:

No surprise, we woke up super early to begin the long drive to Arusha in Tanzania. I said goodbye to Kili - who had an unbelievable amount of snow on it this morning! Going through the Kenya/Tanzania border was much quicker this time since we didn't have to go through the process of getting a visa. After driving through the town of Moshi and getting some nostalgia of when I stayed there before/after my Kili hike, we got to Arusha in the mid afternoon. I mostly just explored the numerous roadside shops with some other students before going to the complex we all had to be at for dinner (the weekend is a "free weekend" but still structured since we are representing SFS). I got some Chinese food - sweet and sour chicken! - before going to a bar with everyone where I drank a little, danced, and played some pool.

The next morning, Sunday morning, I went on an optional tour of a glass blowing facility where they hire Tanzanians with disabilities. They use recycled glass, aluminum, paper, and other materials to make all of their products and I loved that this place existed to give handicapped individuals some freedom and independence! I ate some Mexican food for lunch and went on another optional activity: visiting a cultural gallery/museum, only to have it be closed when we showed up...so instead I went back to the hotel and took a deep nap before dinner. For dinner I gave-in to my American temptations: I got Pizza Hut!!! This was the only American food chain that I noticed in the city so why not say I ate Pizza Hut in Tanzania! After this I went with everyone to a bar again where I drank a little, played more pool and witnessed some people getting a little too frisky lol (aka some girls were hooking up with local guys). I went to bed happy with how this weekend went, despite not being a city person.

Glass blowing

We left Arusha after breakfast in the hotel and stopped at a snake park on the way back to Moyo Hill Camp. The exhibits were really cool and included very venomous snakes (and constrictors), crocodiles, monitor lizards and some birds of prey. I was able to hold a grass snake and then walked around the cultural museum and shops within the snake park facility before riding a camel that they had for some reason. At first I didn't want to ride it for ethical reasons but in the end decided "why not?!?" since the camels seemed to be treated well.

After arriving back at camp I unpacked and re-setup my room, did a crap-ton of laundry and played some volleyball before dinner. After dinner (and cook crew dishes) I watched Finding Nemo and wrote this blog before calling my parents. Tomorrow is our study day before our finals which are Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. Wish me luck!!!

Have a great week and thanks again for reading!
Matt