Introduction to Mpala

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A beautiful sunrise, with Mt. Kenya to the right.


A photographic introduction to Mpala Research Center . . .

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Photos

Room #13
This is the men's dorm, primarily used by student groups or for overflow guests. Not a bad place to be, but I'm hoping it's temporary and that I'll have my own banda soon.

Inside the Men
The room has two floors: the top floor (from where this picture was taken) has two twin beds and a nightstand, while the bottom floor has 5 twins, a couple dressers, and a couple desks. The men's bathroom is immediately adjacent to this room.
Together, the men's dorm and bathroom make one mirrored half of the whole dorm building, with the other half designated for women (Room #12).

Dining Hall
This is the dining hall as viewed from near the parking lot. You can see the outer dining area to the left, and inside the building is an inner dining area for when the weather doesn't oblige for a pleasant outdoor dining experience, as well as a prep kitchen where the waiters stage food and wash and store dishes.

Outdoor Dining
A closer looking at the outdoor dining area. This picture was taken just before lunch, which awaits in those stainless steel tubs on the back table. The stainless steel cylinders contain our drinking water, which comes from a rain-catchment system and is then purified in the upper half of the cylinder. To the left of the water is the tea/coffee table, providing caffeine 24/7 and the occasional biscuit or cookie.

Indoor Dining
The indoor dining area, rarely used this time of year. As soon as the rains start, or if there are heavy winds, or when the temperature starts to make a more dramatic drop when the sun goes down (not until June/July), we'll dine in here.
There's a small, pleasure-reading library in the back corner, and out of view (to the right of the blackboard) is a dartboard. Also out of view (in the corner directly behind where this picture was taken) is a stinky, roach-infested fridge that doesn't seem to get below 45F, yet serves as a storage place for quite a bit of food.

Food Prep
This is the food prep kitchen, adjacent to the indoor dining area, where food is staged before being brought into the mess hall. This is also where the waiters wash and store our dishes after every meal.

Kitchen
The kitchen where our food is actually made. This is a separate, but nearby, building from the food prep kitchen/mess hall. The other half of the building is the laundry room.

Laundry Room
The laundry room, where the grime is beaten out of my clothes against those concrete wash basins on a relatively frequent basis. This is also where I come to watch my undies, as is Kenyan custom. I wouldn't want to wash someone else's skivvies, either.
On the other side of the wall to the right is the kitchen.

Administration Side View
This is the administration building, as viewed from in between the parking lot and dining area.

Administration
A broader view of the administration building, from the parched lawn in front. The administration building includes the offices for all basic center operation.

The Lab
This is the main laboratory building.

Inside the Lab
This is the center's main lab, inside the lab building. It's here one can find all the basic equipment for DNA analysis, microscopic examinations, analytical chemistry, computer facilities, storage space, freezer space, etc.
Dustin's area is the far right corner - this where I spend most of my time (which isn't a whole lot) in the lab. The rest of my lab time is spent fighting with the frost-encrusted, tiny freezer (out of picture, near left corner of the lab) to accommodate my starling tissue samples.

The Starling Corner
The corner of the lab filled with equipment to study starlings; "my" corner of the lab for the next 5 months.

The Screenroom
Attached to the main lab building is a screenroom for potted plant experiments and outdoor storage. This is where we keep the pawpaw for bird bait, much to the pleasure of millions of tiny ants and the occasional tree squirrel that finds its way in.
The row of small boxes on the table to the left contain live specimens of the Kenya Dwarf Gecko.

The Offices
These are the offices of all the major researchers. Rosie and Kayna, the wild dog researchers, occupy the first room (the nearest window). My (Dustin's dad's [Dan Rubenstein's]) office is the second one over from theirs, in the corner of the building. Then there is a smaller examination lab, plus a few more offices around the corner to the right, behind that tree.

Working hard or hardly working?
Inside the office, where I do very little starling work and mostly just come to write e-mails and use the internet.

Inside the Library
A view inside the Library Building (which is across from the offices, next to the labs), which contains a lecture hall, GIS facility, and collection of reference books and journals. When the office is too stuffy or too infested with mosquitoes, I come here to access the internet.