Kel kel

Wow. A lot has happened in a short amount of time. I guess three weeks isn´t that short....we have been everywhere and back in Bolivia. Bus rides....train rides....they have all been pretty comfortable excluding Barf Fest 2008 on our 4 hour bus ride concluding a 17 hour journey. I hadn´t been feeling very well on the first 9 hour ride, and luckily I managed to grab a window seat just in time to experience the full effects of exhaust fumes and twisty roads. Oruro---was mass chaos. We were there for Carnival, where there are thousands of traditional dances performed in the street like a parade. We ventured outside like soldiers into battle, all doned from head to toe in rain gear. Things were especially brutal for us as gringos. There was a lot of fun to ... read more

There are still stories that are left over from Kenya...but that is for another day. I am now at the Vervet Monkey Foundation in South Africa. Getting here was somewhat interesting. Leaving Kenya went without a hitch until I was waiting uncertaintly in the airport when my flight was supposed to have left, unsure of what was going on. Eventually the plane came, and people boarded, so I guess that makes sense. I was never really clued in. All the airport stuff was just regular, except it felt completely alien to be in an airplane with air conditioning. That was the beginning of many fragmented moments of culture shock. Riana, a work contact of my moms, met me at the airport and took me to her house. She was great and I got my own room ... read more

With lots of driving comes lots of thinking. Sometimes I'm thinking in circles. Other times good ideas come to me! I think part of the problem with being educated is that you can think very thouroughly about something. The problem is I can think of all these ideas that I want to follow through with, only I can't follow through when I don't have access to resources such as the internet. Sat camp is over and done with. We are on a quick stop at Nakumatt--the place that has everything! Normal grocery store food, yay! And other "bits and bobs" such as washers and bikes and any random thing you might think of. It's hot and I'm dirty and getting anxious to move on. This week I got to see Lake Chala, it is absolutely gorgeous, ... read more

We went out to a new forest to do survey..........it was especially interesting (read gruelling) being the first group out there. The journey there was itself quite the adventure. Once one thing goes wrong, you know more things are going to go wrong. In fact, it almost makes me think you shouldn't go on. I guess some people are of different schools of thought. In any case, all the trouble really did lead up to some torture. Part of it was just my frustration because things don't always run very smoothly or according to schedual here. You really come to expect it, but it can be frustrating when you are in a time crunch for a deadline you feel obligated to make, even though it is irrelevant. But anyway, let's begin by getting in our vehicle. ... read more

I forgot to mention dirty feet. If you live on Wasini, your feet are never cleani. There is so much dust around that just gets kicked up, and if you are wearing sandals, sweating, have gone in the ocean, or put bug spray on your legs, the dust will attach to you. And if you try to clean your feet with water they will just be wet and the whole process will repeat itself. I have given up. There is also quite a bit of sand at the foot of my bed. In addition to the dirt, you are always salty. I have not yet had a bucket shower, I don't really see the point. Swimming/bathing in the ocean is just fine by me. It's quite comical when the tide is out and you are bathing ... read more

It's a little difficult to know where to start! So much has taken place in the past two weeks and it certainly feels like longer than that. I suppose that when you take out (most) modern technology and wake up at sunrise and keep busy, you can fit a lot into one day and it feels like weeks. There are certainly some highlights............like when I got stuck in a bathroom stall right before a lecture at the cottage. Someone later pointed out to me that that door didn't even have a handle. That freaked me out but after knocking on the door (I wasn't going to yell like an idiot) for awhile, they eventually realized I was gone and someone came to my rescue. Unfortunately I was starving because we had been in the forest all ... read more

Maybe I´m not supposed to admit that I flushed a coin worth 4 dollars down the toilet by accident. But I have to laugh at myself for it. Sometimes things happen so fast. Other than general touristy activities, Margaret and I will hang out at the kollegium in Albertslund (which apparently the Danes consider one of their "ghettos") where a lot of international students live. She has kitchen duty this week, so we have met a lot of characters hanging out in the kitchen. There are two boys from Spain that cooked this huge meal the other night. They made it in steps and it was very odd to watch. First they placed a piece of bread next to both of their plates, along with a piece of fruit. Next they made rice and put them ... read more