Bali sana

One day as I was walking in circles searching for trees, my GPS batteries died. I was about six kilometers from my house and I realized that I had plenty of spare AAA batteries, but managed to carry no AA. Rather than wasting the dry weather, I decided to climb the fourth hill of my stint on the ranch. It was a challenge. I use this hill as a landmark in my notations of elephant locations and I can see it no matter where I am. From my house, from the treehouse, from the office, from the village, from the next village over- it is a landmark indeed particularly because of its unique pointy-ness. All the hills on the ranch are actually inactive volcanic vents and when I climbed the pointy hill it was not hard to tell it served more of a purpose than a landmark at one time. There was actually a crater on top and I could imagine it spouting with lava back in the day. Here is a picture from the top. It was starting to drizzle and really you can't tell anything except it is a long way up. I get tired just looking at this picture.
As I breathlessly reached the top, I turned around to look down and noticed these 3 zebra on the first ridge. I can only conclude that they know an easier route up, as I really could not understand the purpose of them exerting themselves. Maybe they wanted to see the view as well.

Hasara ya miti

I was in quite a rush to finish my last stint as surveyor of tree damage on the ranch. There are 40 transects of about 30 trees apiece that are tagged so that the students can monitor the tree damage occurring over the years. I am sure the end result will be very interesting, as the elephants are definitely having an impact on the vegetation in this safe haven of theirs. However, when it comes down to the actual task of locating these hundreds of trees using a GPS, it is a bit tedious and involves a lot of walking in circles. My plan was to save this task as my last on the ranch before leaving for Kenya, but plans changed as I waited for the crops to grow. Now I am feeling very proud of myself for completing this nit gritty work as not only was it very difficult to trudge through black cotton mud the one day I had the unlucky encounter with a downpour, but as the grass grows, the tick population will exponentially increase.

Poachers of bugs

Nyeusi and Baba Ndogo are growing quickly. They now have all their shots and love the outdoors. During the first couple rains, they termite eyelets emerged to start their new colonies and the cats went wild. My neighbors called them 'wajangili wa wadudu,' or 'poachers of bugs.' Of course, getting good action shots of cats is a difficult task, as any cat owner can tell you, so forgive the not so great pictures. Oops, didn't mean to get such a nice picture of the flower!

Here are the eyelets flying off to colonize (oh, and of course the gorgeous sunset).

RAIN!

It rained on Obama Day. Is that a sign? After 6 months and 6 days here, I finally experienced the thirst quenching rain we have been waiting for. I had some neighbors over to watch a movie in honor of Obama Day and it began during the movie- and didn't stop until noon the next day! The initial drenching was fantastic, but I like the days that have followed more. It seems they have been more typical of the 'short rains'- this season we are in. I am still able to get a significant amount of work done outside although sometimes I find myself hunched over my backpack in my yellow slicker with an umbrella protecting my equipment from the rain. Inevitably throughout the day I will find myself in this situation. The dilemma persists in my head- is it going to stop? Do I give up?... and then it stops and the sun comes out and I swear I hear sizzling as I dry off. The mud is probably the biggest problem, well, second only to the fact that there is no longer dry firewood and so I have reverted back to bucket showers... not nearly as pleasant as 'hot rain,' as one of my friends called my shower. Oh, and the bugs are pretty bad. But I don't really mind. It is so nice to watch the grass grow in what was beginning to look like a desolate wasteland. I have also come to appreciate the purpose of all the poop that has been accumulating. As the rain washes the stench away and spreads it out, it is surely acting as a 'booster' (that's what Rose calls fertilizer) for the seedlings.

It's like spring... except not.

Punda milia mpya

Here is a brand new baby zebra I saw at the waterhole. A couple weeks back it looked like the majority of the females were going to pop out babies and I saw one having contractions. I should have know rain was really just around the corner.

Jikoni badaay sokoni

I have heard from a few people wanting me to post pictures of my house here. Well, I still haven't taken pictures of everywhere, but last time Rose went to market, I just had to get a picture of my food shelf. Its full! And there are so many different things. I gave Rose a wad of cash and asked her to get anything different because I was tired of the same food all the time. She came back with pineapple, papaya, ndizi roasti (bananas that are not sweet- she roasts them and makes a sort of salsa to dip them in), and passion fruit! Yay for something different.

Oh, and that is Kassoni, my askari, formerly known as 'rafiki ya Max' (I finally learned his name). He is indeed gluing his shoe back together... a common practice in my house since I apparently have the only glue on the ranch.

Happy Obama day

I got to hear the election results from my husband yesterday morning. I was at the treehouse to listen to the BBC, but they were covering the party in Kenya. Today is Obama Day in Kenya- a national holiday. I just heard in Nigeria there are 5 days of Obama holiday. I find it rather funny that the country is shutting down because a president was elected in another country. Two days ago I was at the treehouse and some French tourists were talking about Obama with their guide. I don't speak French, so I just know what the guide was telling the askari in Swahili. He was basically saying that if Obama becomes president, perhaps Kenya will be the 51st state. He also mentioned the possibility of GM setting up a production plant in Kenya and that all Kenyan citizens would have free visas to America. As for me, I hope Obama starts to focus on America a little more than GW has. And yes... I am very happy about it. :) Just by coincidence, Rose happened to bake a chocolate cake yesterday which will probably be my first and only here at the ranch. It was nice to have a way to celebrate. Yay for change.