Week 6 is done and we're close to halfway done with the semester ALREADY! Time flies when you're having fun...
Before starting to talk about this week I wanted to add something from the end of last week: we watched the movie "Catch Me if You Can" one night. This is one of my favorite movies and you should definitely check it out!
On Monday we had a traveling lecture to Gibb's Farm which is a super fancy farm and lodge that grows 90% of its own food! We toured their coffee plantation and learned about different ways Gibb's Farm naturally tries to deter wildlife including chile pepper fires to repel elephants. We also saw lots of farm animals including goats which had their own goat tower!!! Following this tour, we traveled to some nearby local farms that Dr. Kiffner was coordinating with to test two wildlife repellent techniques: bee fences and chile pepper fences. These techniques are pretty self explanatory: the bee fences are bee hives attached to wire fences. Elephants are actually scared of the sound of bees (and their sting too) and any contact/vibration of the fence will send the bees out to attack their "intruder". A downfall of this technique is that there are not enough flowers to support a large enough bee population to fill all of the hives on the fence: only 1/4 of the tested hives were occupied. The chile pepper fences involve attaching squares of fabric drenched in old motor oil and chile peppers to the wire fences. These are much cheaper and slightly more effective at deterring elephants however, a downfall is that the fabric has to be re-soaked every couple of weeks. After this lecture we had a homestay debrief which turned into a heated town hall meeting with Amelia and Dr. Kissui as lots of students were upset about the intense workload we have had lately with a lack of free time. We later learned that SFS included the same amount of work into this semester as last semester even though we'll be in Tanzania for two less weeks (due to the Kenya trip)!
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| Goat Tower!!! |
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| View from the bathroom at Gibb's Farm |
On Tuesday we had a lab class for our Wildlife Management poster project where we learned how to use pivot tables in Excel. OH MY GOD why have I never learned how to use these?!? - they make data analysis so much easier and literally saves hours of time. Needless to say, this class changed my life and made doing research as a career seem a little more feasible. Additionally, on this day I finally got my Olive Baboon report back and did pretty well!
On Wednesday we had another (4 hour) lab class for the poster where we learned some more pivot table techniques and a program called "distance" which was super complicated and something I wasn't planning on using for my poster anyway (it calculates population densities and I was studying the seasonal habitat preference of wildebeest). That afternoon we had a community service session. I went with a few students to the Rhotia tree nursery where we swept the nursery of leaf litter and made little pots by packing flimsy cylindrical plastic sheets with dirt. This work was a lot of fun (and painful) and we left a little early as the afternoon rains started to come. As we get even closer to the long rainy season, we typically get a small shower almost every afternoon and occasionally overnight. That evening we also found out our directed research groups and topics: I got my first choice for both! I am working with Dr. Kiffner and will be with two other students analyzing the prevalence of plastic pollution in Manyara Ranch. An exciting part of being in this directed research (DR) group is that my group of three, as well as his two other research groups, will be spending four days camping in a wilderness area that for the most part has zero data and is an eight hour drive away!!!
On Thursday we started a camp-wide game of assassin, in which I died within five minutes of the game starting...talking about academics though, we had two guest lectures on Maasai culture from a Maasai tribe member. We learned about the different ceremonies, the process of men becoming "warriors", and discussed sensitive topics like how all boys are circumcised around the age of 16 and how the tribe used to practice female genital mutilation until the government banned it.
On Friday we spent almost all day at a Maasai cultural boma (enclosure for houses and livestock), where we performed traditional daily activities like collecting water, firewood and spikey acacia wood for their livestock enclosure. We also made some bracelets, toured one of their homes, and learned how they "paint"/protect the outside of their homes using a mixture of cow dung, termite mound dirt, and water. It was very messy and surprisingly fun to mix fresh cow poop with our bare hands, and then use these same hands to take the poop concoction and "paint" another layer on the outside of their walls. Let's just say that it took a longggg time to get the poop smell off of my hands.
Towards the end of this stay we had a discussion with a few of the Maasai men, where we talked about the impact of cultural tourism on their lives and practices/traditions. They said that they love the tourism, as they earn more money that can go towards maintaining their livestock and allowing them to get an education. In general, a Maasai man's wealth is determined by how many cattle they have, so for them to be able to sell less cattle is very beneficial for them. This was yet another eye-opening experience that helped me further appreciate how important tribal cultural is. On Friday my plastic DR group also met with Kiffner to discuss our draft proposal, where we sorted out many of the details of our research.
Saturday was mostly spent looking up papers related to plastic pollution and typing up our proposal. Mindy (the other student from Penn State who is actually in my DR group) made chocolate chip cookies which helped relieve some of the stress. Overall, this week was super stressful with four assignments due in four days! That evening we went to a lodge as a group - this was the same lodge we visited several weeks ago. I drank my first full beer just to say I did it - in reality it was pretty nasty and I practically gagged after every swallow lol....I guess this solidifies just how innocent of a person I am! Anyway, I swam most of the night and had a lot of fun talking with other students and watching some of them get way too drunk.
Sunday was our free day! I went on a waterfall hike near Mto wa Mbu with a few students. The guides were the same ones as when I did the bike tour (last weekend?), and the hike was relatively easy leading to a beautiful waterfall. The source of the waterfall is in Ngorongoro conservation area and the water eventually ends up in Lake Manyara. Along the way we saw blue monkeys in the fig trees and learned more about the surrounding banana plantations and how water is irrigated from the waterfall to support these plants.We relaxed at the base of the waterfall for almost an hour and I enjoyed just letting my mind wander. That afternoon I cancelled my plans to play basketball in Karatu and instead decided to take a long nap and chill out. That evening I typed this blog and got ready to watch Nascar as usual...
In a few days we leave for Serengeti National Park! I can't wait!!!
Have a nice week everybody,
Matt
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