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Published: July 31st 2010
Well, this was my last week of forest survey work in Shimoni. I've loved it so much, and had some amazing experiences. All of the things I've learned during the last month I hope I will remember my whole life, and will be able to use in the future.
The week as a whole had very different activities every day. On Monday we went out to do more transect cutting in Shimoni West. It was hot work, but we got 150 m cut, and that was a big accomplishment because most of the stuff we were going through was think bush and shrubs. At the house we saw something very cool. An immature Southern Banded Snake Eagle. They are rare, and I think endemic to this area, so it was amazing that we saw it. A volunteer was lying in a hammock out back and happened to look up into a tree next to her and saw it in the branches. We spend 40 minutes watching it. I also talked to Liam before he left for his trip up north.
Tuesday we made butterfly nets, because the survey leader for the day had hurt her knee the day before. It was nice and relaxing work, and we set them up in the yard for the night and actually had some butterflies in them in the morning.
Wednesday was a fun, and hard, and interesting day. We went out with a guide from the local conservation group to go on the tourist trail they are working on. It was fun, but needs a little work. As of right now it's too difficult to take most tourists on, unless they are quite fit and agile. We also played a friendly game of soccer against the local secondary school team, and we actually won. I even played, but I wasn't very good. It was a lot of fun none the less.
Thursday we went out to transect 5 to do canopy cover. We only got 11 sections done because we kept losing out way, and none of the marker tags had writing on them. On our way back we did get quite lost, and somehow ended up in the negative sections of transect 6, which is 200 m north and about 200 m west. We're not quite sure how we managed that. XD We did get back to the house though, and we were all laughing about it.
Friday was a good and a bad day. We had a late start, and I helped the guy on breakfast make pancakes. They were quite good if I do say so myself. My group went out to the mangroves and did some bird surveys, and a nice sit down lunch. I've now decided once and for all that I am rubbish at butterfly sweep netting. But it's fun at least. We had a afternoon swim, but one girl stepped on a sea urchin, and I almost did, so that turned us off the water for a while. The bad part of the day came in the evening. Most people left for the bar after dinner, and there were only 3 of us in the house. We had music playing when suddenly someone next-door shouted about fire. We looked outside, and saw flames somewhere in the village. I went to look, and a building next to the pier had caught fire. All of the volunteers went back to the house then, and we found out that no one was hurt, but 4 businesses were destroyed. No one we knew were directly affected by the fire, which is very good.
From here I move to a week of community work here in Shimoni. After that I move over to Wasini for 3 weeks of marine. I'm looking forward to all the new experiences. The forest has been amazing, but I'm ready for the next adventure.
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Doreen
non-member comment
Hello
Came across your blog accidentally (well, searching for Abduls in Shimoni actually), and after reading a couple of entries realized you must have been on the forest program with my son, Tim Pellissier. He described Abdul's food much as you did, and told us about the fire and making butterfly nets. It was cool reading your blog entries and gave me a bigger picture of what Tim has been doing as well! Good luck to you in your future travels!