I haven’t updated this for a little while... it seems like our last few weeks here are just flying by, and it’s hard to sit down and write a blog when it seems like there is so much to do! That is, a personal blog. I’ve been doing a lot of blogging for A Rocha lately, so I’ll just redirect you to those to see what we’ve been doing!
(not to disappoint, but this beard actually bit the dust a few days ago)
Last weekend, Mwamba and A Rocha Kenya hosted ASSETS camps. This camp was really amazing for the students who came, and it was a real privilege to be involved. I wrote blog entries about the camp as we went along, so to save rewriting them and see the pictures, check out the ASSETS blog! assets.wildlifedirect.org
Earlier in the week, all of the A Rocha staff and volunteers went on a team outing, a great chance to hang out and get to know each other better. (I made a post about this too! It’s at arochakenya.wildlifedirect.org, a few posts ago). It was a lot of fun, and we got to see some cool stuff that we hadn’t been able to see yet here in coastal Kenya. It’s also nice hanging out with people more, and seeing them “out of work”.
(Just so you don't forget what I look like, this is at Mambrui)
Thursday, Dave and I went on a guided tour of Arabuko-Sokoke Forest with Jon and Rachel (2 other volunteers here) and Albert, the A Rocha Kenya staff member who took us on our safari in June. It was an early start, we left Mwamba at 6! We went on a 5 mile hike that took us through all the different vegetation types that exist in the forest (mixed forest, brachystegia forest, and cyanometra forest in case you’re interested!) and saw lots of pretty birds. The forest itself is just gorgeous, full of beautiful vegetation and humongous old trees. Unfortunately, there is a lot of poaching of animals and trees that goes on, so we got to see why A Rocha Kenya has to work so hard to conserve it. We also saw a lot of interesting tracks from the previous night’s activity, of elephants, golden-rumped elephant-shrews, hyenas and aardvarks. There were also many butterflies, so many different kinds, and so many more than we see at home! Later that day, we went to a swampy area that the forest elephants often come out to to drink at, to see if we could see them while they were drinking. We weren’t so lucky that night (though we saw a nice sunset), or the next! Not sure if we’re going to try again...
I’ve been doing a lot more GIS work lately, as my tree project at Gede has reached a bit of a standstill. It’s been interesting, though challenging, as the software I’m using is different than what I’ve used previously and there’s no one else around with much experience. Lucky for me, I’ve got a lot of help via email, but as my cousin is 8 hours behind and the last volunteer here is 8 hours ahead, there are no quick fixes. I’ve been working on a lot of maps of forested areas around here and including these different vegetation zones, so it was cool to see all of the different vegetation types for real when we visited the forest on Thursday!
Dave’s been busy here, with bird-feeding, tree-monitoring, a bit of farming, and doing an analysis of income-generating projects that have been tried in the area surrounding Arabuko-Sokoke Forest. Feeding the bird is an everyday task that seems to always suck up a bit of time, though it has gotten much easier since Oscar was released! It seems that the 5th time was the charm, and he has been (hopefully) flying free since last Friday. Now it is just Bella, who’s now got a very large cage to herelf!
The national director is coming to visit next week, so I’m giving a talk on blogging, facebook, and general computer usage... should be interesting! Communication to donors and other interested people is a big challenge here, as the internet is sketchy and the computer literacy amongst the staff is fairly low, so getting information out there is tough. I’ve been working a lot on keeping the blogs more up to date since I got here, as well as teaching the staff how the blogs work and how to post what they’ve been working on. I’ve also been putting some pictures on the facebook, here and there... but I’m leaving in less than 2 weeks, I all of a sudden realized I have to “hand over” these things soon if I don’t want to see them languish when I go! Often these tasks are seen as “volunteer tasks”, but it is a challenge when someone leaves, as it seems that things often get neglected for a month or two while someone new gets up to speed, so I’ve been working with the staff to get these tasks more into their domain. We’ll see what happens.
Today we went to Kilifi and visited the home of one of the staff members that we’ve gotten to know quite well during our time here. Dave and I felt really privileged to be let into such a wonderful community, everyone was so welcoming, and the kids were really sweet. Though it was a long day with some crowded matatu rides, it was really worth it. Meeting the children in the family was a real contrast from my usual experiences with kids here, where the kids usually yell “ciaooooo” at you from the side of the road because they think that you’re an Italian tourist who’ll give them candy.
So our next two weeks are going to be busy, and I am both excited to be coming home soon and sad to be leaving a place that I’ve really gotten to like. It’s hard to believe that classes start in 3 weeks! So I’ll try to make another post or two before we go and let ya’ll know what’s happening.
Take care!
We have had a good couple of weeks, with lots of guests and volunteers coming and going. Because of this we’ve been shuffled around rooms-wise a little bit, which makes me glad we have so little stuff here! It’s a lot easier to move two backpacks and a suitcase than it is to pack up an apartment!
I’ve been finding it weird how tired I can get of saying hello and goodbye! I’ve always kind of thought of myself as someone who likes getting to know new people, but lately I find I’ve been craving the company of old friends who know a bit more about my life. That’s not to say that we haven’t met a lot of great people! There is currently a group here from a Church in England who are eager to help out with A Rocha Kenya stuff. They arrived yesterday, and I’m sure we’ll all enjoy working together.
The rehabilitating birds have been keeping Dave busy, as he’s mainly in charge of feeding them. As they need food three times a day and sometimes exercise too, this can eat up a big chunk of the day! The bigger one has been released 4 times now, but just keeps coming back. Hopefully soon he will be gone for real! Here is an action shot of feeding time:
I’ve been at Gede a fair bit inventorying the trees, and am up to almost 500 now. It’s definitely a whole different ball game than when I was working for the city and all the trees were on nicely defined boulevards! The area around the ruins has some really amazing old trees. I am especially amazed by the huge baobabs; here is a picture of Dave looking tiny next to one of them!
Dave and I also went snorkeling last weekend, which was quite lovely. It’s going to be hard going home and not having the ocean a five minute walk away anymore! As far as places to volunteer go, we are quite spoiled here!
There’s a lot more I could say, but it’s getting close to tea time so I should probably get going!
This week, I finally got to start doing the tree restoration research that I’d been hoping about since I got here! The short story is, about 20 years ago a lady named Ann Robertson planted a whole bunch of tree seedlings in an area that had been completely cleared. She watered and recorded data on them until 1997, when she ran out of time and funding. She has since passed the project on to A Rocha, who’ve been waiting a while for a volunteer who was interested, like me! But I couldn’t start until after the rainy season, the thought being that the trees would grow enough then to make the original data inaccurate.
So on Tuesday I went in with another volunteer, and a man named Matthias, who was part of the original planting. We marked out all of the original plots... which was surprisingly easy considering that they hadn’t been marked out for a decade! We then did a sample plot where we inventoried the trees, which can be a bit of a daunting task! It’s starting to look like quite a nice forest in there, which is pretty cool when you think that it was mainly maize shambas (small farms) a few years ago.
Though there has been a bit of tree poaching and disturbance, the reforested area is really beautiful and I’m really enjoying spending some time there. It’s in the town of Gede, about 10 or 15 km from Mwamba, and I’ve been taking the matatu buses to get there from the center. Its 40 Kenyan shillings each way... or about 44 cents Canadian. Not too bad really!
Other than that, I also got to build a tippy tap this week! Water conservation and proper hygiene are both urgent issues in the surrounding communities, and of course it’s hard for them to coexist properly. There are a bunch of ASSETS students coming to stay at Mwamba for summer camps in a few weeks, and our outhouse was in need of a hand washing station! Tippy taps are an example of some appropriate technology that has been promoted in rural Kenya.
(Please ignore the cheesy grin!)
Another thing we’ve been doing is some presentations at Turtle Bay Beach Club (a fancy but wonderfully eco-conscious resort near here) about ASSETS and some of the species that A Rocha works to protect in Arabuko-Sokoke forest. It’s been an interesting experience, as we always take the other volunteers with us, and sometimes they make up about 80% of our audience! This last week was really good though, some people seemed quite interested and we hope they will choose to sponsor an ASSETS student through secondary school. Check out the blog: assets.wildlifedirect.org
Lately, Dave has been working on a bunch of different things around the center. One of them is making some trail numbers for the points of interest on our nature trail here around the center. He sure is a talented guy!
Tomorrow, I’m meeting again with Ann Robertson to sort through some of her original documents on the project, which will mean going into Malindi. Hopefully we’ll find some useful things! The real hope is that we’ll finish in time that I can go snorkeling with the others later!
We finished the bird cage, made mainly of re-purposed materials. Here is a photo of our handiwork:
Here are a few cultural differences I’ve been musing on this week... there are many more of course, and I always think about blogging them and forget by the time I get home!
Colour! The fabric used for ladies clothing here is so colourful and vibrantly patterned! The main outfit involves two kangas, rectangles of cloth with patterns and sayings on them, one worn sarong-style and the other as a head wrap or shawl (over top of a skirt and top or dress). Kikois, which are also colourful rectangular things, are worn by men sarong-style and as beach cover-ups by tourists!
Greetings... Greetings are very important here, and every interaction is prefaced with a hearty handshake and a “how are you?” or “habariako?” The ironic thing is, there is no real acceptable response except “ensuri” or “fine/very fine”... you can talk about being sick or a relative being unwell after you say you are fine, but you can’t deliver the bad news straight away!
(There are a few supermarkets, but most food is sold in open-air markets in the towns)
Some of the highlights in this last week or two were bird ringing on our own nature trail, and making a bigger bird cage for one of our rehabilitation project birds (funny story to come on this one). Bird ringing was really fun as we caught some very pretty kingfishers... two different kinds: two Pygmy Kingfishers and a Mangrove Kingfisher! I really like them; they are kind of comical in how big their head is relative to the body, and so pretty with metallic blue and purple feathers!
(Mangrove Kingfisher)
As far as bird rehabilitation goes, we had Bella (a Tern) and Oscar (a masked Booby) living in a fairly small cage, while we fed and exercised them. We decided that they needed more wing room, and as we had many volunteers and helpful guests this week we embarked on a bird cage building project.
(Oscar)
(Dave and Albert taking Oscar for a swim)
Wouldn’t you just know it, the same day we half-built the thing, Oscar flies better than he has since we took him in and completely disappeared yesterday! Dave and Gabe went looking for him on the beach Saturday morning with no success. But we saw him swooping around the beach over the weekend, and yesterday were told by some kite surfers about a big bird they had been feeding (!). So we went out, and sure enough it was Oscar. With some expert pillowcase wrangling by Dave, Helene and I we collected him up and brought him back for a bit more food before we release him again. He feeds out on the coral gardens, which are a few hundred meters from the beach. We are thinking that though he has regained a lot of strength, he didn’t have enough to fish enough. Hopefully it’s not that he is now dependant on us! The cage is now completed, and we hope that he’s enjoying the new home!
Dave and I also helped paint the entrance “banda” (structure) at Mida Creek with a lot of the other volunteers, where there is a boardwalk that was built by A Rocha to raise funds for ASSETS. It’s a cool structure, but always needs a lot of maintenance... so we may spend more time there soon.
For the rest of this week, I am not sure what all I will be doing, but I think that there will be more GIS learning... I’ve been learning to use the ArcGIS software package since our last GIS-savvy volunteer left, though I’ve yet to have an actual project for it! It came with a helpful 20-chapter guide, and I’m about half way through it. I’ll also be taking some time to help in the kitchen, and hopefully go to the Farming Gods Way plot at Gede with Dave.
I’ve also been thinking of home a little more, as I registered for my courses and applied for some scholarships this week. Looks like it will be another busy year, but I am looking forward to the courses J It’s hard to believe that we are halfway through our time here already! I’m glad we still have so much time left though; it feels like there is so much more we’d like to do!
Take care everyone, and feel free to email me whenever, I like getting news of home!
Things have been interesting at Mwamba in the last couple of weeks. Dave and I are just transitioning out of our guest-house manager roles, as Henry and Belinda returned two days ago. It has been a great learning experience, but very tiring in other ways, so I am quite happy to hand it all back! We have had a lot of guests, and met a lot of cool people from all over the UK and Europe, New Zealand, the US... it made me realize how isolated Canada is, in some ways. We are just so far from everywhere in Europe/Asia/Africa!
When we were doing hospitality things, our days were fairly varied: I’d check bookings emails in the morning and afternoon and keep the guest bookings folder organized, we’d stay in the main office to answer phones and field guest inquiries, as well as booking any snorkelling or public transit they would like. We were also responsible for communicating to the kitchen and housekeeping staff how many people were going to be there, which rooms needed to be cleaned, and what kind of food specifications the guests might have. Also, when there were a lot of people coming and going, we were often taking turns to help change the rooms as well! During this time, we were still trying to keep other projects on the go, like the conservation agriculture/nature trail stuff for Dave, and the computer functionality/blogging stuff for me. For not having known we would be doing the guest house managing until we got here, I think it went quite well, and I have learned a lot. But it will be nice to have more time to focus on other things now.
We helped in a massive beach cleanup last Friday. It spanned 10km, and there was 3025 kg of trash collected! I wrote a blog post about it for A Rocha here: arochakenya.wildlifedirect.org
(A Rocha Kenya and Dongokondu school's trash pile)
Nat and Laura, the previous long-term volunteers, have both left in the last week, which marks kind of the end of an era for Dave and I, as they have been here since we got here. Now we are the “experienced” ones! We have five new volunteers arriving for the month of July, so we will be meeting more new people shortly! Its hard to believe that we are half done our time here already.
(Nat exercising one of our rescue birds)
We have adjusted a lot to the temperature here, though it is still quite hilarious (to us) that when it is night-time and there is a bit of a breeze, the Kenyans here will be piling on sweaters just when we are finally comfortable! Coming from a range of -40 to +30 at home, the difference between +25 and +30 just isn’t that big! Oh, and realizing that I say “plus” any temperature, when here its not even in the vocabulary to have any “minus” temperatures, is also kind of funny.
We are having our morning chai now (tea steeped in milk, quite yummy), and then it will be on to planning for all the new volunteers arriving afterwards. We have had ideas for a few work projects, like setting up a trash bin by the beach so people can collect junk if they want to, but were not really able to go anywhere with them until Henry returned and we had a bit more manpower.
Enjoy the fireworks for us everyone!
(A huge baobab at a school ground. They are such cool trees!)
(Albert and Lydia, two of the people I went crow counting with. We are on top of an abandoned hotel)
(unloading from Duma, our trusty old station wagon)Dave and I had a very full week this week, and I’ll try to fill you in a little bit...
Last weekend we went on a safari to Tsavo East with Nat and Laura, the other two international volunteers here, which was a lot of fun! We left at 7 am Saturday morning, and drove a few hours in a large van over bumpy gravel roads until we reached the gate. (Fun fact: in Africa what we usually would call “washboard gravel” is referred to as “corrugation.” Took me forever to figure out what people were talking about! Whatever you call it, we saw and felt a lot of it). Our guide, Albert, works here at the center in the research and monitoring area and guides on the side. Our driver, J.B., also used to work at A Rocha until recently, when he chose to focus on his safari business. They were a very fun team to go out with. When we go to do field work along the coast here, Albert has been teasing us about certain “local” varieties of the safari animals that live along the highway, such as the Sabaki Impala or Gede Zebra (both are pictured below!). But he assured us that on safari, we could take him very seriously.
The drive within the park was very beautiful, and we saw many amazing animals. Tsavo has an elephant population of approx. 3000, so we were fortunate to see many of these humongous creatures. We also saw giraffes and zebras, the two I was most hoping to see! The giraffes were very beautiful and gentle-looking, and the zebras were very cute and plump. Dave was commenting that it was no wonder lions liked them compared to all the skinny gazelles and antelopes around! There were many cute grazers, varying in size from knee-high (the awkwardly named Dik Dik) to the Waterbuck (like a bigger, stockier white-tailed deer). There was a variety called the Giraffe-necked gazelle which were particularly cute and gangly. The scenery was quite amazing, very vast and open with mountains in the distance. We also saw a very hilarious family of baboons, scratching and looking and scampering around. They had some very cute babies that were just learning what they could do too!
We pulled in for the night about 6pm, once it starts to get dark, and stayed at the Leopard lodge for the night. It was a very nice comfortable stay, and we really enjoyed the food. They had a pool, and as it had rained and was a cool evening, the water felt just like the Guenther pool at home in the summer! We enjoyed it, but it was not as appealing for those who favoured hotter climates! It was quite refreshing to take a swim, as we had gotten quite warm and dusty during the daytime.
The next morning we were off early, and experienced a beautiful sunrise as we were driving out. We saw a giraffe that was taken down by a lion the night before (which was a sad sight), and waited a while to see if the lion would reappear. Though we saw a few silver-backed jackals, we concluded the lion was probably enjoying a siesta after its big meal and carried on. As our pass was only valid for 24 hours, we drove a little quicker on the way out so we could make it to the gate for 11, and after a quick bathroom break we were on our way home again.
On Monday, it was work as usual, though we started getting some training from Henry and Belinda, the center managers, to take over some of their responsibilities while they go on their yearly holidays. I am taking care of guest bookings and some of the hospitality aspects, and Dave is sharing that with me. He is also the “on call” guy for some of the maintenance concerns that may crop up. We’re hoping that there won’t be many. It has been very different since Henry and Belinda left on Wednesday, as our workdays are not quite so defined as they used to be, and we’ve been finding it a bit stretching at times! Coordinating people’s schedules can be difficult even if you have the same mother tongue and culture, so when you start mixing second (or third!) languages and different cultures in, it can be challenging. But everyone here is patient and helpful, and we are learning. I will certainly be glad when Henry and Belinda are back though!
We are taking a brief hiatus though, as it is our anniversary this weekend! It is hard to believe that this time a year ago we were having a wedding, and now we are here in Kenya. We are hoping to do some snorkelling and some of the “touristy” things around here that we don’t often get a chance to do because of our volunteer hours.
Well, that is about all from here, there are more pictures of the safari on my facebook if you would like to see them!
Talk to you soon,
Hannah
Here it is, June 1! It’s hard to believe we’ve been here for almost a month. We have been keeping busy, both with our own projects and other things. Today is a national holiday, so things are pretty quiet at the center as all of the staff have the day off.
Some highlights from the last week:
Bird ringing at Gede Ruins: We set up the nets on last Wednesday night, and then woke up at 4:30 for the next two mornings to see if we could record any Spotted Ground Thrushes, which are highly endangered in this area. We finished up around 11am both days. Unfortunately, we didn’t get any Spotted Ground Thrushes, but we got some other cool birds (everything is so much more colourful here!) as well as a Little Sparrow Hawk, which is quite unusual. No one wanted to get near those claws!
Blogging! Not just this one, I have started working with Bimbo, a fellow who works full-time with ASSETS, to start updating their blog, which was sorely neglected! ASSETS is a really cool program, recognizing that since most of the forest damage had been occurring when people would make charcoal to pay for their children’s school fees, it made sense to start an eco-tourism scheme that would allow children to go to school as a result of conserving cool habitats. Feel free to check out the blog: http://assets.wildlifedirect.org/ which also has links to the main ASSETS website.
Nature Trail: This has been Dave’s main project, and I’ve been helping: monitoring 15 species of indigenous trees along an interpretive trail here. He’s also been working to get some more information put together for people who come to visit, as well as upgrading the benches and amenities—in this climate, wood begins to rot almost instantly.
It’s definitely interesting working as a volunteer, as there is always so much that needs doing, yet we have a lot of flexibility if we want it.
Things I’m looking forward to:
Safari! We are going on an overnight safari with Nat and Laura, two of the other volunteers here, this weekend. It should be pretty amazing, we are going to Tsavo East Park and I am hoping we will see lots of animals that I have only ever seen in pictures! Our guide will be Albert, an A Rocha employee who has a guiding business on the side. He knows so much about the natural world around here, so I am really glad we can go with someone we know!
Our first anniversary is on June 12th, which is coming up soon! Hopefully we can get out for a nice meal or something J
Well, its 10am and already quite warm today, so I think I’m going to head out for a swim!
Hannah
Hello everyone! Dave and I have just finished almost 3 weeks in Kenya, and I thought it was about time for an update!
We have settled into the community life here, which has been very nice. We live in a guest room, and there are currently 4 other volunteers here (Laura from Australia, Nat from Europe, and Lydia and Naomi from Kenya). All of us take our meals together, and often hang out in the evenings. It has been interesting sharing our Canadian culture and getting insight into the other cultures represented, we have had many “Really!? You do ________!?” moments!
Dave and I have each been assigned a large project, though we also end up working on many other things, as A Rocha Kenya has a LOT going on! Dave’s project has to do with promoting a farming method called Farming God’s Way, which is a lot friendlier to the land than traditional Kenyan agriculture. Mine is a tree inventory of an area that was forested many years ago, and replanted about 15 years ago. The data I’ll be collecting is very much a pioneer project, as the growth rates of most indigenous Kenyan trees have not been recorded. Hopefully, this will be quite helpful for starting future reforestation efforts. A lot of the coastal forest has been destroyed through destructive agricultural practices and for hardwood carvings, and ARK is very interested in preserving what’s left!
Other things that we have ended up doing work-wise are: fixing computers (Hannah), working with the tree nursery/planting trees (Dave), going bird watching/ringing/counting (both of us, did I mention that the staff at ARK LOVE birds?), and some general data entry-type jobs that come with the volume of data being recorded around here. There is also a nature trail here that is meant to be an interpretive trail for school groups that come here, but it is missing some signage and other amenities, and getting that more interesting is a project that Dave and I will be sharing. It has been really interesting learning more about the plants and animals here, there are so many more than in Manitoba! As well, things grow so quickly when it is +30 and rains every day!
We’ve also had some lovely recreation times, especially enjoying the beach here! It is a beautiful white-sand beach, and the Indian Ocean is nice and warm (though really refreshing after a long day!). The only thing that mars it is the tiny blue Portuguese man-o’war jellyfish that inhabit it! They are by no means fatal, but have caused some serious stinging and itching for some of the other volunteers here (neither of us has been stung... yet!). We’ve taken goggles out and seen all kinds of cool fish. Hopefully we will soon get to go snorkelling on the coral reef that is just off the coast here!
The local economy is based largely on subsistence agriculture and labour-type jobs, and the roadside scenery abounds with goats and cows, tied to various fences and bushes as they graze on the roadside. I went on my first “tourist” trip to Malindi (the closest city) the other day with Laura. We took a matatu (cheapest form of transport here, a 14-passenger van that costs 80 shillings, or about 1 canadian dollar, to get from Watamu to Malindi), and realized partway through we were sharing it with a goat! The wails that I had initially thought were a baby got a bit too warbly to be mistaken for anything else!
I hope that this gives you a bit of a picture of what is going on here. It is currently about 6:30 pm and raining, though there have been many lovely warm and breezy moments today. We’ll have supper in about half an hour, and then a bit of downtime J
Hannah
