Week 3 - Birthday Week!

Hello everyone,

Being three weeks into the SFS program, it feels like I'm at home here in Tanzania! This week was very busy but also very enjoyable.

On Monday we had a traveling lecture where we spoke to some poachers. This is a really rare thing that I never would have expected to do here - basically the poachers are guaranteed their confidentiality (and some money) and in return us students were able to ask them any questions we had via a translator. Some of the details included: they hunt in small groups or solo depending on the animal and mainly hunt at night using traps. They also occasionally hunt during the day by chasing animals down via motorcycles. Their main animals of choice include giraffe, wildebeest, gazelle and zebra but they hunt many others depending on the demand for bushmeat. Speaking of which, they only poach for the bushmeat (they leave all skins/carcasses on the scene) which they either sell or use to feed their families. Neither of the poachers actually enjoy their line of work, but it's the easiest way to provide for their families despite the risks involved: they proclaimed that they would never want their kids to poach and instead are using the money from their sales to provide them with an education. While there's risks such as being injured by animals or being caught, some poachers actually receive benefits via corruption. One poacher spoke about how a park ranger is friends with him, and that he gives them (the poachers) details on locations to avoid and times to hunt so that they don't get caught - in exchange for free bushmeat from the poachers. Another topic that surprised me was the price of bushmeat: it's less expensive than livestock, but the poachers make more of a profit compared to being a pastoralist since they don't have to give up resources to raise/feed their "meat". One thing that bothered a lot of us was that they poached giraffes. While animals like elephants and lions are "too risky" to hunt, giraffes are relatively easy for them, as they just sneak up behind the animal and immobilize it by cutting through the tendons (achilles I think) in their legs. One of the poachers claimed to kill 6 giraffes last year, with each giraffe providing them with around 600,000 shillings ($250-300). They go hunting about 3 times a week and have a successful kill once of week. With apparently over 40 poachers just in the Mto wa Mbu area, you can imagine that a lot of animals are killed each year around the Lake Manyara ecosystem (and imagine all of Tanzania!). Despite the rough material covered in this lecture, it was still an incredible learning experience.

Before dinner on Monday, I played soccer with some of the locals (they are crazy good!) and watched the movie Sky High for the first time in the evening. On Tuesday we did a vegetation assessment in the afternoon for a future paper/report we will be writing in Wildlife Ecology class. We used quadrats and a pin frame to measure the frequencies of certain grass/vegetation species in a field within the corridor sounding Lake Manyara National Park. Being the middle of the afternoon, it was about 90 degrees with zero shade so we were all exhausted after the four hour study! Dr. Theisinger saw this and had us stop to buy ICE CREAM from a local shop on the drive back to camp! I finished the day by watching the movie Tangled for the first time.

Wednesday was February 13th, aka my 20th birthday! Of course with my luck, I had cook crew today so had to get up at 6am....BUT I woke up to a pleasant surprise: the Penn State Facebook page posted my Kilimanjaro summit pic!!! I got my little moment of fame and it was so ironic that it was on my birthday. Today we had a guest lecture from a former SFS student who is currently studying hyenas for his PhD. His presentation was super interesting and I gained an appreciation for this animal which is often hated by the public for no apparent reason (thanks Disney...).  Before dinner I  played volleyball with some students and then had my birthday celebration in the dining hall. Everyone sang and danced around me and the staff gave me a huge cake with a very tall sparkler! Overall, I really enjoyed my birthday (especially since it was 80 degrees instead of 30) and finished the evening by watering the garden after cook crew dish duty. We started a student garden and planted tomatoes, peas, dill and some other herbs which are already starting to come up.

Thursday was Valentines day, and we had a lizard identification hike in the afternoon to the top of Moyo hill which was super disappointing as we didn't see any lizards! Dr. Theisinger said this was the first time this ever happened for him. We organized "Palentines" gift exchanges and I ended up getting a cucumber (a cucumber!) from my roommate Luke. On Friday we had a guest lecture from a man and a woman who do giraffe research and advocacy/education. They are funded by several zoos across the nation and travel throughout Tanzania. That evening I played soccer again as the sun set on the beautiful mountains in the distance...

So...being a clarinet player, I decided to bring my clarinet to Tanzania. Here's one problem though...I didn't bother to check if my "crappy" clarinet case had reeds. It didn't. So I tried unsuccessfully and in desperation to make my own reeds - after all I really wanted to play clarinet for the local children's homes. But I finally gave in and asked my mom to mail some reeds to me. They'll be here in about two weeks but mail apparently gets lost frequently in route to Tanzania so we'll see what happens. Another highlight of the week was that it finally rained! In the three weeks that I've been at camp it has yet to rain, but in addition to one large overnight rainfall we now receive a small 5 minute drizzle around once a day as we transition from the dry season to the rainy season.

On Saturday we had community service all morning. I went to the Rhotia Valley Children's Home (most of the kids are orphans or come from an unstable family) where I did some playing and coloring with the kids. I was able to find some recorders and percussion instruments and created some chaos when I told the kids to make some music! But it was a fun chaos - music is good for the soul after all!!! We stopped at a neighboring lodge for some free coffee and tea afterwards and that evening we did a staff vs student volleyball game and lost but had a great time.

On "free day" Sunday I woke up early to go on a run with some other students. We did two laps on the road that sounds campus (about two miles) and I felt really good afterwards despite not running in a long time (I haven't run regularly since my marathon last May)! In the morning I went with some other students to do knife painting. In knife painting you use the knife, which is more like a small metal icing knife/spreader, to do all of the painting. We were given two demos by our teacher and could paint either an elephant or Maasai people. Everyone but me chose the elephant - I loved the structure of the traditional Maasai paintings plus I ended up purchasing a professional BEAUTIFUL elephant painting with Kilimanjaro in the background. It is a very large painting (around 3ft by 2ft) but I couldn't resist and I got a really good "student price" for it! In the afternoon I went with a large group to Karatu where we just relaxed - first at a restaurant/bar and then at a lodge. Many people drank a lot (partially in celebration of one girl's birthday next week), but once again I'm not a big fan of alcohol. However, I did end up trying/treating myself to some Savanna dry cider....it was my birthday week after all!

My Maasai painting

Thanks for reading! My blog post might be a little late next week as we'll be camping in Tarangire National Park Thursday through Sunday!!!
-Matt