a beginning can only start with an end

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So I realize that this may be a little late in the works as compared to a traditional blog but I will do my best to fill in the major issues covered over the last month as best I can. I plan to give a current description of what we are going through on the research project accompanied with a synopsis of different portions of the class that took place for the last four weeks. The group of about 22 students was on the move constantly with very little time to digest the information we were encountering. I plan to begin that digestion now by describing what we went through and reflecting on its significance.

Now:
To give you some perspective I am currently staying in the Mpumalanga province of South Africa just outside of Kruger National Park's Orpen Gate. This park is considered to be one of the best nature reserves in the world for wildlife. In a future post I plan to go into more detail concerning the park focusing on its history and its social/environmental impacts.

Today we began to study the local trees and shrubs to become aclamated to the local species before we begin the heart of our research. The equipment has also not yet arrived so we have some downtime before we have to hit the field to dig in to some research. Therefore there has not been a lot of action yet but we will be revving up shortly.

A few days ago the students I was with for the class stayed at Blydeport a resort on the Blyde River Canyon, the third deepest canyon in the world. It was incredible with a view of the canyon from the house the guys were staying in. The goal of this experience was to relax and detox before most of the students headed home for the summer. I think we did a little more relaxing than Bob or the rest of the profs were expecting. But true to form we had a toga party friday night followed by a long beutiful hike down into the canyon the next day.

The best part of this weekend was the end of trip braai the students hosted for all of the professors and esteemed guests. A braai for you naive Americans is the Afrikaans word for barbecue. The pressure to cook for the braai fell entirely on the shoulders of the students and I feel like we came through admirably. Just a synopsis of the meal contains 4 different types of meat (successfully braaied (past tense is stretched in this case) by O.G.S.O. and myself, twice baked potatoes, homemade mac and cheese, pounds of guacamole, a beautiful salad which Saam slaved over lovingly among many other awesome dishes. Dessert was covered by some brownies and ice cream. The dinner was a success and the subsequent party was full of the utmost debauchery almost matching that of the night before.

By the way if you ever want to take a picture and you have been fortunate enough to drink some spirits beforehand you must try a head shaking picture. It is best done when you brace yourself on the counter and shake your head back and forth as fast as you can until pain is induced in the brain and take that picture. The best recipe for such fun is multiple people with or without tongue protruding outward during the aggressive shaking. The remaining picture is unmatchable by another technique.

Although it seems by this post that partying was a major portion of our trip, although one would have a hard time arguing against this, there was an enormous amount of other engagements and circumstances that truely challenged our minds and brought our understanding of ourselves to a new state of confusion. As one of the most important things that I have learned on this trip is that if you think you have found an answer then you must be truely lost. Because the deeper we searched for them on this trip the more questions we began uncovered.

Next time I plan to post some pictures and reach further back into our class when we stayed at this same Wildlife College and describe the awesome encouters occuring during it. Until then stay sharp.

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