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Published: June 20th 2009
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Mpala Centre
Dining hall off to the left, office building off to the right. The labs are further to the right. (If any of you remember my pictures from two years aog, you'll be as shocked as I was to see it so, so dry.) Cushy research life
Do not be deceived by the fact that Mpala Research Centre is in the middle of the Laikipea Plateau, hemmed by group-owned ranches and enormous white-Kenyan-owned ranches, with kilometers of red, gorged dirt roads separating it from the nearest town (Nanyuki). Sounds wild, huh?
Now imagine a series of green-corrugated metal roofs above sturdy stone walls, a dining hall, an office building, the computer lab (we get internet as long as the electricity is on), and two lab facilities. Hemming these are bandas, one dorm banda and the rest are small round bandas for individual researchers to stay in. Yes, you have communal showers but they all have hot water! Supplied by solar panels during the day and fires lit by staff in the evening. And there’s the dining hall with its buffet lunch and dinner and bread/fruit/eggs-made-to-order for breakfast. Every day. I’m currently in one of the houses that’s below the green lawn behind the office and dining hall. These houses are multiple bed-room houses with spacious verandas meant for long-term researchers or labs like mine that have enough people coming in and out that they just rent the whole darn thing for extended periods.
KLEE house
This is the front porch of the KLEE house where I'm staying for the first couple of weeks. During the day, ladies come to clean the offices and bandas. At night, askaris (guards) patrol with high-powered flashlights and pangas and provide escorts for wee researchers like me on nights when elephants come onto the grounds.
Wild enough for you?
Wined and dined
The Board of Trustees for the Research Centre has been at Mpala for the past two weeks along with another group that oversees the ranch. So the high-up staff and researchers have been running around like mad, feting the crew of Princeton academics, Kenyan Wildlife Service staff, National Museum of Kenya researchers, and various other VIPs. I heard they even lured in a lion with some laid-out fresh meat (not live, just fresh) so the visitors could ooh and ah. Of course, many of these people are not glamorous nor used to the high life but when they are here, they are truly feted.
Last night, I and all the other researchers and middle and high-staff were invited to an end-of-the-visit dinner at the Ranch house. A luxurious house with indoor gardens and tennis courts that is empty and mainly used for show now. I’m sure it used to belong to
dik-dik
Mpala's smallest antelope. They remind me of rabbits with their diminuitive size, delicate nibbling, and timidity. They are just like rabbits also in that they are everywhere. But I still find it cool to look out the window and see a couple of mini antelopes wander by. the wealthy white Kenyan who owned this ranch before it turned into a collective. The dinner consisted mainly of schmoozing and in true Kenyan (or perhaps it is just Mpala Kenyan) form, the buffet-style dinner started two hours late. Thank goodness there were appetizers. I schmoozed only with fellow grad students, foreign and Kenyan, but did get to meet a few of the Mpala office staff that have started to work since I’ve been away and the ranch manager. I talked for a long while with my labmate Wilfred and the accountant Patricia about the Obama furor, how people stayed up all night to watch the debates, the election, the inauguration. Huge TV screens were set up in multiple towns (especially Kisimu, Luo country where Obama’s father is from) and the whole night of the inauguration was a party. Wilfred said that if I go through Kisimu on my safari trip a few weeks from now that he will introduce me to Obama’s grandmother. Don’t really want to bother an old lady but that would be interesting!
Another cultural tidbit I learned from Wilfred. We were talking about how my friend Corinna’s in-laws are coming to visit her and
Janet's menagerie
Ivanasky in hand and Squirrel on shoulder her husband for seven weeks, staying at their house. Her in-laws are Indian and such a long visit is not unusual but to Wilfred’s eyes, such a thing is unheard of. In his culture, Luo, a mother-in-law (and father-in-law) cannot stay in the son-in-law’s house, not even for one night. His wife is Kikuyu and for her, the mother can come stay with the daughter only when absolutely needed, such as for the birth of a child. Even now, when houses are more than one room and an in-law might not be that much in the way, Wilfred said his mother would still be horrified (“would be sick”) if his wife’s mother came to stay for a night. And the US is somewhere in between I suppose.
The best thing about being feted, other than meeting a few new faces, was the passion-fruit mousse. That was perfection. I actually ate enough to make myself slightly ill. (Who’s surprised that Marit got sick off of sweet things?) The rest of the dinner was largely uninspiring, mainly consisting of meat: lamb, beef, and chicken. With some garlic bread and few veggies on the side. On normal days, Mpala cooks have more
Squirrel
its species name is ochre ground squirrel veggie stuff that meat but occasion called for meat in abundance!
Menagerie
A Scottish grad student, Janet, who attends University of British Colombia and studies physiology of acacias, has adopted not just a baby bat but also a baby ground squirrel. The bat (not IDed to species) is named Ivan Batsky and the ochre ground squirrel is Squirrel. She feeds them from the same syringe filled with milk every afternoon and night. The bat merely pips constantly and crawls awkwardly over everything, never pausing. The squirrel climbs all over Janet and darts away at the sound of laughter or a camera shutter or a door opening or someone standing up or anything. She has them both in a wooden box and every time she opens it, the squirrel and bat are snug up against each other. She ascribes this mostly to Ivanasky who likes to be warm. Both wee ones were found near the dining hall and dorm banda, on the ground, wailing in their respective ways.
Don’t know what she is going to do with them once she has to leave or as they continue to grow but for right now, they’re quite the family.
Ivan Batsky
The bat is not skittish at all (compared to Squirrel's constant state of mildly freaked out). And it is so "ugly" and fascinating to watch. Animal updates
Elephants surrounded my house last night. I could hear the occasional crunch outside and during the night, I awoke several times to short howl-like noises, always the same pitch and duration. In the morning there was a huge pile of elephant dung which looks like squares of brown compacted grass. This afternoon I was in the hammock reading and I heard the almost gentle sound of limbs breaking from far off. I knew it had to be elephants and sure enough, two were moving through the trees, slowly foraging, golden grey in the late afternoon light. Occasionally one would snuffle, a sound that carried clearly to my swinging hammock. I suppose it’s obvious to say but there’s nothing quite like reading a novel in a hammock while elephants forage on a nearby hillslope. (I also do research while I’m here, I promise.)
Animal sightings
Blue-naped mousebird (it has a mohawk!)
Red-cheeked cordon bleu (blue and red make for a vivid bird)
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