Weeks 8,9,10, and Placement!

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Well, this will be a more info packed than the average blog, because I haven’t had a lot of time at the computer the last 3 weeks. Tonnes of things have happened in that time, and honestly I don’t know where the time went.
Week 8 was a fun time on marine. We saw lots of dolphins, had great weather, and I went out on the tourist dhow one of the days. A tourist dhow is a boat that takes around 20 tourists out to the Kisite Marine Park to do some snorkelling, and in the hopes of seeing dolphins. We snorkelled around Kisite island, and I saw a turtle swim by. The coral and amount of fish in the Marine Park is amazing. The colours are beautiful, and you can see the plants waving in the currents. There were literally millions of grouper fish, as well as some angel fish, a trumpet fish, and loads of unicorn fish. They are some of the weirdest fish I have ever seen. There were also some lobsters, and a Powder Blue Surgeon fish, which is the kind of fish that Dori from ‘Finding Nemo’ is. It was pretty cool. After our snorkel we went back to Wasini Island, to the village of Wasini. The boat dropped us off at a restaurant called Coral Spirit for lunch. They have really good food: fish, seaweed in some kind of sauce, and chapatti. After we had eaten we got picked up by our boat and brought over to the beach near Shimoni for beach Olympics. This time it was Shimoni vs. Mkwiro. These didn’t last as long as the last ones, mainly because it was almost high tide, and we had about 8 feet of beach to work with. But we still managed to have the following events: sack race, long jump, limbo, tug-of-war, balloon passing relay, and pole spinning relay. It was so much fun.
For week 9 I was in the village of Kidong, in the Taveta region near Tsavo West National Park. That is where the satellite camp for GVI is located. We were working with the local community who are in the process of setting up an eco-tourism centre for tour companies to take their clients to. The idea is when people arrive that they will either go on a tour up the nearby Kidong hill, or watch a cultural presentation by the Wazee (old people). After they will get a snack, then get back on their buses. Kidong is a really cool area. It’s very hot, but completely dry, with no moisture in the air at all. The annual rains have failed the last 4 years in that area, so it is very dusty. Because there were only 5 of us, we got our own rooms, or rather mud huts. I’d forgotten how nice it was to have my own room. Within 5 minutes of us being there we got to see elephants. Because we are on the border of the national park they apparently come through a lot if it is dry and they leave the park to find water. I was working with the Wazee for the week, helping them practice their presentation. I got to learn about how they used to be poachers, but in the last few years that has changed, and now they want to set up alternative livelihoods. The presentation included demonstrations of how they grind maize into flour, the snares and traps they used to use, different rope making techniques, various games they play, and some traditional drumming. It was cool to watch how much they improved even over the week that I was there. On Wednesday we had a fun day. We went to the Taveta market, and I bought some fabric to make clothes. We also got to walk up to a crater lake called Lake Chella, which is fed by the glacial runoff from Kilimanjaro. Oh yeah, Taveta is around 70km from Kilimanjaro. You can see it from the top of Kidong hill. It looks big! We went to a natural springs called Njuro, where we washed. We were all very dirty, because Kidong has no washing facilities, so we were just getting dustier and dustier as the week went on. Last that day we went to the Voyager Lodge, which is a beautiful hotel on the edge of the park. We saw a crocodile jumping out of their lake trying to catch birds, and we got to see giraffes, zebras, gazelles, dik-diks, and wildebeests on our drive back. On Saturday we took the bus back to Mombasa, and that was an experience all to itself. The road is unpaved and very dusty, and we were next to the windows. We were all completely coated with orange dust by the time we arrived. We also got to try to eat chapattis with tomatoes, which I would never recommend on a bumpy bus. I’m pretty sure we got more on ourselves then in ourselves. XD
My last week on marine was also amazing. On Wednesday we saw a total of 10 turtles during the survey day. 3 were surfacing to breath and we saw them while we were out in Funzi Bay. 5 we saw while we were snorkelling on transect 9, including Tripod, the huge resident Green turtle. The last 2 we saw on transect 6. It was a great day. The next day was just as good. We saw a pod of over 20 dolphins, with at least 2 calves and 2 juveniles. We followed them for almost an hour before heading down to Kisite and snorkelling transect 7. After that was completed we anchored the boat, went onto Kisite Island, and had lunch on the beach. It was beautiful. On Friday we deep cleaned the base, because during the expo break the base is shut, and everyone lives in Shimoni. We cleaned the toilets, house, and kitchen, and packed everything into storage, and crossed in time to shower and head out to the end of expo party. There were a few presentations about the work that forest and marine have been doing, and a slide show of photos taken during the last 10 weeks. It’s strange to think that the expo is already over. It seemed so quick.
Today all the interns got our placements for where we will be for the next expo. I found out that I will be sent to one of the partner projects, KESCOM. (Kenyan Sea Turtle Conservation Committee) It’s a lot of independent work, and it requires lots of initiative and the ability to work independently. I’m a little scared about it, but at the same time I’m pleased that the staff thinks that I can do a project like that. I don’t know where it will be yet, but I will post an update once I get more info. It should be an interesting 10 weeks.

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