Shack Valley

This is a very random post but if you get a chance check out Dave Cumming's blog: Shack Valley. He's got lots of great Adirondack photos of what the ADKs do best: wood, water, and maple syrup. Check out his photos, stories and his online shop to view some of his woodwork. Enjoy!

http://www.shackvalley.com/blog/

Back in Nairobi

Greetings from Nairobi! I returned back to the SLU compound in Nairobi on Saturday and will be here for the rest of my time in Kenya. We will spend our time writing final papers, working on presentations, and packing, being sure to make time for extracurricular activities like ping pong, volleyball, etc.

Wishing all of the wonderful mothers out there a happy Mother's Day! Thanks for making the world go round.

Here is a shot of a Sykes monkey mother and her infant. 

Thanks to Leslie Kadane for the amazing photo! 

Mwamba Field Study Center

As my time here on the coast is almost over I thought I'd share some photos of where I've been staying. The place is called the Mwamba Field Study Center, run by A Rocha Kenya, a Christian environmental conservation organization. Below are some shots of the common areas, where we spend most of our free time chatting with new friends. There are always people coming and going, either for vacation or as volunteers at various organizations. We all eat dinner together each night and it feels as though we are one large family sharing a meal and talking about our days. I will definitely be missing the proximity to the beach. Each morning I walk down to catch the sunrise and often take walks or runs on the beach in the afternoon. It's been a bit rainy and the temperature has been cooler this week so I haven't swam in a few days. I'll be sure to get in a couple dips before leaving the coast. On Saturday morning we will be flying from Malindi back to Nairobi, which is less than an hour long flight. We will then be staying back on the SLU compound in Nairobi for the rest of our time here wrapping up the semester with final papers and other activities.

view from the flatroof

McKenzie (my roommate for the month) and me enjoying sundowners by the beach

Snakes

The theme of the past few days has been rain. I have heard that the rainy season in Kenya is supposed to start sometime in April, and I was starting to believe that the rains would never come. However, the rains finally came and all the good things that come along with it. It’s been much colder (it’s all relative in the coastal Kenyan heat) and sleeping has been much more pleasant in the cool weather. Apparently when it rains on the coast, the electricity is also known to go out. This is a typical “TIA” moment (“This is Africa”-a new phrase I learned from a German friend). The combination of rain and no power leads to a standstill everywhere. It seems like not much work is done when it rains. In the monkey business, we can’t work, since we need to record data onto paper in the forest, which obviously isn’t rain-friendly, and any office work requires electricity to power the computer. So today I have the morning off. If it clears up, I’ll go in for a few hours in the afternoon.

In addition to the power outages that result from the rain, the snakes also like to come out. Like I said before, I don’t like snakes. So after the snake incident in the office on Friday I now do a thorough check of the office before I enter, and always keep my eyes peeled for anything that doesn’t belong in the office. Lia and I were chatting in the office Monday morning about snakes, and she told me not to worry about any venomous snakes in the forest because the monkeys will begin chirping at the snake, which serves as a warning to us to get out of the area. So Monday afternoon I’m moseying through the woods, enjoying my first day conducting follows on my own, feeling pretty confident about recognizing the monkeys and identifying the plants. I’ve almost made it for the whole day without getting too lost and was doing a good job keeping track of the monkey I was following. But sometimes, the monkeys are just too darn cute and you can’t resist taking out your phone to snap a photo. So I’m looking at these little juveniles playing in the trees near me and trying to get a photo, when I realize that there are many monkeys coming towards me, all chirping. At first I think this is strange, but not out of the ordinary since the juveniles are always curious and usually making little noises. But then I realize that the adult monkeys are coming too, and they are beginning to cause quite a commotion. Then I remember what Lia had just told me a few hours before, how all this chirping means there is danger nearby. I turn and look and about 2 yards away there is a big snake coiled up in the leaf litter on the ground. My heart started beating fast and I didn’t spend more than a second looking at the snake before quickly moving away from it back to where I came from. I quickly found Kalama, and told him about what I saw and he asked to see it. I didn’t really want to go back to where the snake was, but I directed Kalama there and waited until he finally saw it. He casually tells me that it’s a Puff Adder, the most dangerous snake in the forest, and that if it bites you, antivenom must be administered within a few minutes, and that amputation may also be necessary. I also learned that the Puff Adder is the snake responsible for the most fatalities in Africa, because of its venom and the fact that it can be found in highly populated areas. Luckily that snake incident happened at the end of the day, so we were pretty much done in the woods. So I was pretty happy to have the day off today so that I don’t have to think about snakes for the moment.  

Other than my most recent terrifying encounter with snakes, things have been absolutely amazing here! On Saturday I brought the McKenzies to Gede Ruins to show them around…little did they know I had no idea where we were going since we’re usually bushwhacking in the forest and not using the real trails. We ended up doing a nice loop through all the ruins and climbed the treehouse to get a good view of the ruins from above. On Sunday we went snorkeling, hiring our own private boat that brought us out to the coral reef for the morning. It was extremely windy out and we were worried that the huge waves would limit visibility and make snorkeling difficult. But somehow we hardly noticed the waves and had an amazing time snorkeling. After SCUBA diving I was worried that snorkeling would be a bit boring but I realized that snorkeling is pretty awesome as well! I went through the coral reef fish guide and here are just a few of the species I saw: moorish idol, African grouper (huge!), bicolor puller, moon wrasse, goldbar wrasse (one of my favorites), bird wrasse, bicolor parrotfish, powder-blue surgeonfish, blackspotted pufferfish, common porcupine fish, common lionfish, Picasso triggerfish (this guy hag a great name!) and the six-barred wrasse. 

Week 3

Now that my third week with the monkeys has been completed, I feel well prepared to be released into the forest on my own for a full week following monkeys. This next week I will be conducting follows individually, rather than being accompanied by my supervisor/monkey-watching-instructor, Kalama. The past week in monkey-land has been exciting. I could ramble on for several minutes explaining the silly monkey drama and telling you about all the cute things I saw, but the most memorable experience of the week took place inside the office. One of my secret fears is that of snakes. I'm fine with bugs and all that jazz, but snakes really aren't my thing. This past Friday we were sitting in the office during a rain storm, and waiting for the electricity to come back on so that we could enter data into an Excel file on the computer. (Apparently when it rains the power isn't as reliable...) We are just sitting around chatting/reading when Lia says, with not much emotion, "There's a snake in the office."Just a few feet away from us there was a venomous burrowing viper snake slithering across the floor. I made my escape as quickly as possible into the rainy outdoors, and waited as the "snake dudes" (who work in the snake park near us) to arrive and remove the snake. That was the extent of the excitement, but I remained on guard for the rest of the day in the office, jumping at anything that moved on the floor, including a plastic wrapper that blew across the floor.

Mida Creek

On sunday the two McKenzies and I visited Mida Creek Marine Reserve, managed by the Kenyan Wildlife Service. A Rocha (the conservation organization that runs the place we are staying at) has established a boardwalk through the mangrove forest with educational information on the different plants and animals of the creek and their role in the ecosystem. We were able to walk on the boardwalk raised above the water, which was a little rickety, only making the walk more enjoyable as we fumbled over each step.  We also took a canoe ride on the creek in wooden canoes with our guides that pushed us along using long wooden poles. We saw several different bird species including some spoonbill, egret, ibis, and storks (Dad-don't worry, there were lots more, I just can't remember all of them!). It was interesting to learn about the mangrove plant species and their adaptations that allow them to inhabit an environment with unusual conditions.    

Sea Turtles

On Friday afternoon after returning from work McKenzie and I were relaxing on the porch when another guest notified us that there were some sea turtles hatching on the beach. We quickly ran out to the water and found the turtles a short distance north of us. There were two small turtles, maybe only 2-3 inches long, making their way out to the ocean from their nest in the dunes. Apparently there were about 100 eggs in the nest, and these turtles were the last to leave the nest. The other turtles had hatched and had been leaving the nest over the past 3 days. We watched in awe as the small turtles slowly maneuvered their way down the beach and into the ocean, moving only a few inches a minute. I was excited and nervous for the little guys, who must have been intimidated by their first sight of the waves and the infinite ocean in front of them. 

Day to Day

Well I'm already at the halfway point of my month-long IDS and I think it's safe to say that I'm just beginning to get the feel for things in the monkey business. They say it takes about a month to finally learn all the monkey identities and plant species, which is unfortunate because once I reach that point I'll be heading back to Nairobi. Anyways, I'm trying to soak in as much as possible in my short time here. Out of about 100 monkeys, there are 30 or so that I have been learning to recognize. On top of that there are countless plant species. The monkeys are such generalists that they eat a very wide variety of plant species. I've only got a few species under my belt but I'm striving to learn many more. Anyways, I've gotten into a nice pattern here. The days are long but there is never a dull moment. Here's my daily schedule:

6:00am. Wake up. Apparently my internal clock is an early riser and I usually am lying in bed waiting for my alarm clock to sound. I get dressed quickly, often wearing the same outfit as the day before (which is very acceptable here) and head out to the beach. It only takes a few minutes to walk there and I enjoy seeing a glimpse of the sunrise every morning. By 6:15 I'm in the dining room making myself tea and a PBJ with some fruit for breakfast. I'm usually the only one up at this hour so I eat alone, listening to the birds chirp and sitting beside the dog, Bonga. This Bonga creature is a very strange dog. It is some variety of Jack Russel and is probably bipolar. He will follow you around, sit on your feet, and give you these eyes begging to be pet. But the minute you agree to give him a scratch he freaks out and tries to bite you. I've given up on making physical contact, but have gotten used to his company at breakfast. At around 6:35 my motorcycle taxi guy comes to pick me up. His name is Ali, a friend of a friend, and is a great driver. It takes about 20 minutes to get to Gede Ruins. I'm usually the first one at the monkey office, my coworkers coming in a few minutes behind me. We quickly get our things together and by 7:30 we are off into the woods. It takes about 20 minutes or so to track down the troop and then we follow the monkeys until noon. Spending 30 minutes on each individual. At noon we walk to a nearby lunch spot, called a cafe but not the cafe you'd imagine. It's a small hut made from sticks and mud. We sit at small wooden tables inside and eat chapati (similar to a tortilla) and beans cooked with coconut milk, the same delicious meal every day. The whopping total of our lunch bill is about $0.50 per person. After lunch we walk back to the office, where we relax until 2pm. Lia, my co-worker from Poughkeepsie, and I usually take naps or read in the office. Then at 2 we head back into the woods until 5pm when it's time to go home. Once I'm home I relax or exercise on the beach until dinnertime at 7. After dinner we all help do dishes in the kitchen. Once this is all finished I'm usually pretty exhausted, but I attempt to stay up until 10, and then hit the hay. 

While observing monkeys is hands-down the highlight of my day, my commute home comes in a short second. After a long hot and sweaty day chasing monkeys around in the woods, it's refreshing to sit on the back of a motorbike enjoying the breeze for 20 minutes or so. The beginning of the ride is quite bumpy, and I often feel as if I'm hitting waves on the lake in a Boston Whaler. The rest of the ride is quite smooth, and it's a nice time to unwind after the long day. The final and my personal favorite part of the commute home is the driveway. It's partially paved and also quite sandy, so it's a little wobbly heading up the hill. But as you round the top there appears the ocean, in all of its blues and greens, welcoming you home and inviting you in for an afternoon dip. Each day this part of the drive reminds me of the one spot on County Route 11 where the long anticipated view of Lake George finally appears and at that moment you know you're home. It's moments like these where I think, wow, look at what an amazingly beautiful place I'm in. But at the same time constantly reminding me of the unbeatable beauty of Lake George. I'll be back home to you soon, LG! 

Kitengela Glass

Unfortunately my mini-vacation is over and it's back to work. By work I mean observing monkeys all day so I'm pretty excited to be going back to work anyways. This weekend was great! We had a chance to explore the town more and do a lot of relaxing on the beach. We visited Kitengela Glass in Watamu, the second branch of the glassblowing shop we visited in Nairobi. The architecture of the shop was amazing, it was 4 stories, open-aired, and decorated with glass everywhere! Apparently they rent out the place to visitors. The rest of our weekend was spent reading on the beach and exploring the town. The village is about a 45 minute walk on the beach from our place, but it's a beautiful walk and you hardly pass anyone on the way there. Even though there were many people visiting from Nairobi for the long weekend, the town was still pretty calm. We splurged and went out to a nice dinner on Friday and got to try some of the local seafood. It was amazing! I'm looking forward to having lots of seafood during my stay here. This week I will be working with the monkeys at the Ruins Tuesday-Saturday. Hopefully only a half-day Saturday to leave some time for an adventure but we shall see! 

Day at the Beach

Although I've been enjoying my internship so far, I'm pretty excited about the four-day weekend that I'm currently enjoying. My Easter weekend is off to an amazing start. Today I began the day by heading off to a local dive shop for a morning of SCUBA diving. There are two other girls staying at the same place as me who have both been using the same dive shop, one who is getting her open water certification (which I just finished last October) and one who is training to be a dive master. The dive master in-training, Sami, accompanied me during my dive. We had amazing weather, it was a relatively cool morning and not as windy as it's been the past few days. It is currently the beginning of the rainy season so it's supposed to be getting more and more windy and rainy this time of year. The water was about 28 degrees Celsius and the visibility was great. We saw so many amazing fish, and I still need to find a field guide in attempts to figure out which species I saw. Every time I SCUBA dive I say to myself, that was the best dive yet! I hope they continue to improve, but I really don't think they can get much better.

We were back from the dive by lunchtime, and I opted to take the 40 minute walk on the beach back to Mwamba. It was lovely weather and it was nice to explore more of the beach on my walk. I ate lunch at Mwamba before heading across the street to where McKenzie Schessl works at the Watamu Turtle Watch. The organization works to conserve the local sea turtle population by rescuing turtles that have been caught accidentally by local fishermen. Community members will call the organization to report the turtles and then the organization will pick up the turtle, evaluate the health condition, and either bring it back for rehabilitation or release the turtle back into the marine park, where fishing is prohibited. We got the grand tour of the rehabilitation facilities and even got to help tube-feed a turtle that has been unable to eat. Later we got to go out on a call to rescue not one but 4 turtles. We drove with the staff to different sites where fishermen came in with the turtles, usually caught in their fishing nets. They took the turtle's measurements, noted any of its characteristics or injuries, and tagged the turtle as well. Then we loaded the turtle into the car and brought it to one of several release spots on the coast where fishing is prohibited, with the hopes that the turtles wouldn't be accidentally caught by fishing again.

the walk out to the dive boat

rehabilitated turtle

tube-feeding

the release

taking measurements

back to the ocean!

Monkey Drama

It's only my fourth day on the job and I'm already intrigued by all of the "monkey drama." One of the research assistants told me that observing monkeys is like watching a soap opera, and now I know why. Today I got to watch two pretty big monkey fights. There are several different troops of monkeys in the park, and it's common that they will quarrel over territory. I have learned that the prime real estate is near the main road, where tourists enter the park, often with bananas in hand to feed the monkeys. We call this direct provisioning, when humans feed the monkeys. This is entertaining to both the tourists and myself, since I'm able to watch the tourists giggle and squeal when the monkeys jump on them, and sometimes their reactions are pretty hilarious. So this is the territory that everyone wants, and which they frequently fight over. This is how the fights go: the members of the two troops stay on their own side, either on the ground or in trees, and one by one single monkeys run up to the middle in attempt to intimidate the other troop, then a monkey from the other side will lunge out at the monkey, who will then retreat back to his own side. This goes on for a while, with all the other monkeys chirping (yes, it sounds like a chirp) or growling, egging on the fight. It is mainly the adult females and the juvenile males that are involved in the fight, while the resident male (the single dominant male of each troop) sits back and relaxes, often while being groomed by one of his female monkey friends. It's tough to keep track of who is the parent of which infant and to remember which male is in charge of the troop.

There is plenty of other drama amongst the monkeys, which I'll get into later. There is so much going on in the lives of the monkeys that I feel like I could write forever, but I'm not sure if my stories will be as interesting as I think they are. For instance, today I learned that soil can be cleaned. Yes, soil...the stuff found on the ground. I found Bella, one of the adult female monkeys, grabbing a hard ball of soil and wiping it off using her hands. I was told that she was trying to clean it off before eating it, and then a few minutes later she was chomping away at the soil. Now that I type this out it's not very interesting at all, but when you're following monkeys around in the woods all day, everything is exciting. Also, when I say the woods, I really mean a pretty dense Kenyan forest. I spent a majority of the past few days bushwhacking through the forest, following monkeys wherever they may take me. There are lots of thorns, which Kalama (the research assistant/my supervisor) calls "hooks," which I think sounds much friendlier than thorns, but these things are sharp! I already have some bushwhacking battle wounds on my legs, but I think it's just these monkeys trying to haze me since I'm new. Anyways, here are some pictures of my new friends.

First Day of Work

Today was my first day at my internship with the Kenya Sykes Monkey Research Project. It turns out that there is a woman staying at the same place as me who has done research on Sykes monkeys before! After finding this out, she decided to join me and show me how to get to the place. We flagged down motorbikes and took the 20 minute ride to Gede Ruins, where the Monkey Office is located. I was welcomed into the office by my new coworkers, Kalama (research assistant/my supervisor), Lia (also a research assistant...from Poughkeepsie!), and Leley (who is only there for another week, conducting her own research on seed dispersal). I got a grand tour of the ruins, the butterfly garden, and honey/wax production projects before heading to a small Kenyan restaurant for lunch.

In the afternoon, I was introduced to the research project that I will be helping with. The study focuses on the Activity Time Budget of individual Sykes monkeys. The researchers spend their days in the ruins going on "follows" (which is exactly what it sounds like, following an individual monkey for 30 minutes, recording its behavior every minute). The different activities include: grooming, eating, suckling, moving, aggression, and resting. In addition to recording their behavior, they also record what plant species the monkey is eating. This seems to be the most difficult part of the research, since there are so many plant species in the area and additionally, Sykes monkeys are generalists and will eat almost anything. The list of plant species they gave me is about 5 pages long. I will try my best but I don't think I will be able to know all the plants any time in the near future. Oh! One of my favorite parts of the project so far is identifying the monkeys. There are 3 troops: East, West and South. East has about 30 individuals, West has 47, and South in the 20s. Today I learned to identify some of the individuals in West, using different features like the distinctiveness of their tails, nipples, faces, or any other notable quality. Here are some of the names I remember: Simba (Swahili for lion), Paka (cat), Poa (cool), Sema (speak), Eva, Swapo (derived from swapping, since this is a dominant male who is apparently interested in a lot of females) and last but not least my personal favorite...Harry!

Karibuni Malindi

I have happily arrived at my new home for the next month! After parting ways with the group, I joined McKenzie squared (yes, there are two of them coming with me) as we flew from Nairobi to Malindi. The flight was short, only about an hour, and the clear skies and puffy clouds made for a scenic flight to the coast. We arrived at the smallest airport I've ever been in. The check-in, departures, arrivals, and baggage claim were all in one small building. When we asked where we could pick up our checked bags, the man pointed back to the runway where the cart was. The cart simply drove over to the building and we grabbed our bags and left.

It was about a 30 minute taxi ride from the airport to the small town of Watamu. We didn't have the chance to explore the town today, but it seems nice and quite small, with a handful of shops and a few resorts. We arrived at Mwamba, and got a tour of the property with the Danish owner, Esther. She is very friendly and excited to hear about our projects. McKenzie and I are sharing a small room with two twin beds and a fan. Luckily it's windy today so it's been relatively cool (so far). After our tour McKenzie and I took an afternoon stroll on the beach, where we were met with beautifully soft white sands and huge waves. The water is much cooler than the hot tub temperatures of Mombasa. After our walk we enjoyed a nice homemade dinner with the rest of the guests, all of various ages and here for different reasons such as vacation or research. We made two friends from Canandaigua, (yes, New York!) and enjoyed a nice campfire with them near the beach before heading to bed.

Back to the Coast

Sunday morning I will be heading off to the coast for my one-month independent study (IDS) in Watamu, Kenya. Watamu is a small town about 100 km north of Mombasa. I will be staying at Mwamba Study Center, and interning with a organization that is researching Sykes monkeys. Here is a link to my new home to learn more about it: http://www.arocha.org/ke-en/work/centre.html

Mwamba is also a conservation organization and it sounds like there are usually many volunteers staying there from various organizations. I just recently found out that another SLU student, McKenzie Meservey, will be sharing a room with me at Mwamba and another SLU student, McKenzie Schessl, will be living in the same town. All 3 of us will be working with different organizations for the next month. I'm looking forward to exploring a new place and learning about the research project that I will be volunteering for.

my soon to be best friend

McMillan Memorial Library

I've been meaning to post this for a while. A few weeks ago, sometime in March, I visited the McMillan Memorial Library, located in the heart of Nairobi. The library was established in 1931, named after the American philanthropist, Sir William Northrup McMillan. Why am I telling you all this anyways? Well, it turns out there is a little Bixby family connection to McMillan.

My great-great-grandfather, William Keeney Bixby (1857-1931) was an employee of Sir William Northrup McMillan's father, also named William. The father and WKB had a close relationship, and after the death of McMillian's father in 1901, WKB was in charge of the McMillian family will and also managed the family's finances. With the huge sum of money that McMillian inherited, he went to Africa for the next 4 years following his father's death. WKB even visited McMillian in Kenya for two months during the 1920s, taking a boat to Mombasa and then a train to Nairobi. (Both places that I've visited!)

The library still stands today, used by about 1,000 people each day. When we visited the library was filled with students studying, I assume from the University of Nairobi. Here is an article that has some more information about the library: http://www.the-star.co.ke/news/article-114346/mcmillan-memorial-library-80-years-later

It was amazing to finally see the library that I had heard so much about from the Bolton Historian (aka Uncle Stretch). I must admit that I teared up a bit while standing on the steps and was overjoyed to be able to explore the library, sneaking upstairs, out onto a balcony and into a smaller book collection room. If you want to learn more about McMillan you should read Judy Aldrick's book, Northrup, which I found a copy of in the St. Lawrence library in Kenya and am currently reading.

downtown Nairobi

Jomo Kenyatta's grave (Kenya's first president at independence)

Kenyatta Avenue

William Northrup McMillan