Another Writing Assignment

I was contacted by an employee of Earthwatch who is putting together an article for one of their publications. He wanted some input from an Earthwatch Volunteer, and asked for a short account of one or two of my experiences from the Earthwatch Grevy’s Zebra project. He even gave me a few possible subjects to choose from.

Me being the anal and wordy person that I am, I of course wrote about each one of them. I did manage to keep my responses to about 100 words each, though.

Here's what I wrote:

The census of Grevy’s Zebra
The transects portion of our expedition was the highlight of the trip. My guide was a local boy named Elija. He was probably around 17 years of age with a pronounced stutter. You could tell he was really trying to do a good job, and was so embarrassed because his mother kept calling him. “I’m at WORK, Mother! I’ll call you back later.” He kept us on track and pointed out several interesting plants along the way. He very kindly complemented me on my speed, although I’m sure he was just being nice. He kept offering to stop for a rest and politely declined my offers of water.

Digital Photography and Identification of zebra individuals
We saw many zebra on the way to the park, but only one inside where it counted. He was a nice male specimen; healthy and large. However, he simply would NOT turn the right way so we could get our photos. We kept driving around him, at a distance so as to not startle him – and he kept turning around the wrong way again. It was almost as if he knew what we wanted and was being stubborn about it, just for the sake of being male. We didn’t mind, though, as it gave us a great view of the surrounding landscape.

Using GPS units to monitor zebra, other wild animals and livestock distribution
Using the GPS device is not a good idea for me. I have this strange electrical thing about me that tends to mess with any and all electronic devices: I cannot wear a watch at all, and go thru computers almost yearly. I have short-circuited enough of them to know that the best thing for me is to simply let somebody else handle them and try to find some other way to be of use on these expeditions. For this trip, I took on the roll of Secretary and got to take all the notes for the team.

Clipping vegetation
While Mutiga himself was very nice, I found that his work was very disorganized and confusing. I could not see the point to what he was doing, and did not fully understand all of his goals and/or methods. That might have been due to my lack of scientific knowledge or to his lack of ability to convey his meaning to us. Regardless, I found that the day with him was mostly spent with me on the sidelines watching him and his students do the actual work. I did not really enjoy this as the whole purpose for me being there was to help out.

Visits to Samburu Park
We had a good day at the park, and managed to see just about everything there is to see: great herds of elephants, half a dozen giraffe, gerenuks, oryx, antelope, dik dik, guinea fowl, warthogs, eagles, crocodiles, monitor lizards, baboons – about the only thing we didn’t see were any of the carnivores, unless you count the eagle. We even got to pop the top of our jeep so we could stand up to see everything. It felt like one of those “African Expeditions” you see on tv… And being in a car all day made the heat so much more manageable, what with the natural air conditioning (re: wind).

Aspects of Samburu culture
Several days in a row we got to stop in at a local village in Barsalinga: the first day we stopped by the entire village was preparing for a wedding! People were coming in from miles around to attend, all dressed in their finest with bright colors and lots of beadwork & feathers. The Chief’s son was the bridegroom, and this was his second wife. He made a point of coming over to our jeep to meet us all in person, shaking everybody’s hand and asking us all where we come from. He was very nice, intelligent, and quite talkative.

Other local wildlife
Ask anybody who knows me and they’ll all agree: I love bugs. And let me assure you, Africa has some really cool bugs! One night in particular stands out: we found two rather large hairy spiders that were a little too close to the men’s bedroom. On closer inspection we realized they weren’t spiders after all but were instead a relative to the scorpion, called a Solifuge. You tell by counting its legs: the solifuge looks like it has 5 pair instead of the usual 4 pair. The solifuge is not necessarily poisonous, but it certainly scary looking!

Landscape
I am Alaskan: used to majestic mountains, tall trees, and extreme cold weather conditions – so found the wide open savannahs of Africa to be quite foreign and exotic. The plant life is completely different with pretty much every one sporting some sort of thorn, from tiny little ones that stick to every piece of clothing you have on, to the larger 3” spikes that seem to reach out and grab you as you walk past. There’s even a mid-range one, about an inch long, which can pierce thru the soles of you boots and cause sores on the bottoms of your feet.

Effects of the draught
The effects of the 2-year drought were painfully obvious everywhere you looked, from the animals who were just skin and bones and could barely stand up to the people who were lined up along the halls of the hospital, so skinny and shaking from hunger. We had to have an armed guard with us at all times, not just to protect us from the wild animals but also from the neighboring tribes who were fighting for the few remaining pools of water. It did rain while we were there, and you could hear the entire village come out and sing & dance in the rain.