helloooo

Dear everyone,
I know I haven't updated in a while--I havent had internet at all. I have it today but then not again for the next 10 or so days. We're leaving for our homestays tomorrow. The people we are staying with get 80% of the protein in their diets from insects. I will not be getting any protein. They eat this grain called pap (pronounced pup) which is a really small white grain, which I love. So i'll be eating that. I really dont think I can eat a mopane worm, which is what they mostly eat along with locusts and ants. I'm not joking. But it should be really interesting. One of the villages doesnt have any water source...so hopefully I dont end up there. Although I am armed with purell for cleaning/disinfecting purposes. Needless to say I will be bringing my own toilet paper. For the last week I've been at this camp called Punda Maria and we've been working on projects regarding birds and mopane worms. So I've learned a few bird calls which is exciting! And I've seen a lot of caterpillars. Which is almost as exciting. I dont have a lot of new pictures, but I'll post one here anyway. Love you all!

Rhinos! Etc.

Today we went out to do plant research. On the way there we passed a group of elephants including 3 babies (one was really tiny) and they were so adorable. They were splashing around in the mud trying to cool themselves off. We also saw some really cute monkeys and then on the way back two rhinos!! They were so HUGE, it was kind of scary. We watched them for a while and then continued driving. I was kind of tired so I fell asleep and then woke up when the car stopped abruptly. There was another group of elephants walking across the road! We drove further and we saw hippos in the water, just hanging out. It was a great drive.

Lions!

More Pictures!

Crazy

Feb 19

Last night I went on the most amazing drive of my life. We went out to do research for our bat project which studies the relationship between bats and elephants. We left at 4:30 and drove around, asking vehicles we passed if they had seen elephants. As we were driving, we passed a buffalo and then we saw a giraffe just walking down the road toward us. It walked up to the car and then turned into the bush right in front of us. (In the picture you can see part of the car to see how close it was). We then drove until we reached a group of 4 elephants hanging out under a tree. They were eating the fruit from the tree and it was really cool to watch. Also, we were so close to them, which was amazing. But it was still light out so it was too early for bats. A car drove by and told us there was a leopard 7k up ahead so we decided to go see if we could find it. So we drove and drove for a while and we kept seeing a lot of birds of prey—including rare ones that you like never see. I’m not usually that interested in birds but some of these were pretty cool. We drove further and we saw a lion in the distance but we couldn’t really see it that well. And then after a while we decided the leopard must have left so we turned around. We’re driving and then all of the sudden Kevin shouts STOP! And there it was. Up in the tree, on a branch, just relaxing. It was absolutely beautiful. We stared at it and took pictures of it for a long time and then decided we should go back and try to find the elephants again because it was starting to get darker. As we were driving, we saw a huge grey thing in the road—a rhino! I was really excited because I hadn’t seen a rhino yet. It was literally 10ft from the car and it just slowly turned and walked off to the side, but it was so amazing to watch. We kept driving back to where the elephants originally were, but they were gone. We then passed a cool hyena right next to the car. People don’t care about hyenas that much because we see them so often but I still haven’t gotten a good picture because it’s always so dark out when we see them. (A few nights ago we had a party and because there are noise limits at the camp, we had to have the party out in the park where we’re not protected. The idea is that there will be so many of us that animals wont attack, but it’s still kind of scary. And there were hyenas walking around the party area, which was a little terrifying.) But anyway, as we drove we passed over a bridge and we saw a hippo out of the water walking in the reeds. At this point I thought I had seen everything and I was so happy, but then the craziest thing of all happened. We saw figures walking down the road. And as we got closer, there were more and more of them until soon we were surrounded by a pride of lions. There were 11 lions around us, just feet away from the car. There were 5 or 6 cubs, 3 males, and a few lionesses. They were all so beautiful. And the cubs were so adorable. But it was sad because one of the cubs was limping and you could tell it was the runt and that it was going to die. I suggested that we save it, but that was turned down pretty fast. We were right next to the river, so a mom, dad, and baby started drinking the water right next to the car (see picture). And one of the pictures I’m posting looks really dark, but you can see lions walking toward the car and you can see a bunch of light spots, which are all eyes. We hung around with the lions for a half hour because we just couldn’t bring ourselves to leave, it was the most amazing sight. People never see that many together, that close to them. Our bat project was somewhat neglected because we had seen so much, but we did manage to record a few bat calls with a machine the bat guy had. Oh and we also saw a bunch of impala and I took a picture to show you why they're called the McDonalds of the bush. See the M?

Dung Beetles!

Feb 12

Sorting began today. It was possibly one of the most repulsive things I’ve been involved in. Not only was there the stench of rotting dung beetle, but there were also fumes wafting up from the alcohol they were being stored in. I stuffed tissues up my nostrils so I wouldn’t smell it but it still got through. We got through sorting about half of the sites and there were around 12 morpho-species that we distinguished per site. But we have no idea if we’re correct because we have to find out what the different species look like and there are lots more species inside the groups we separated out. And there’s thousands and thousands of them. Seriously. All in all, it’s the hardest project out of all of them. I really should have studied butterflies instead. But now I’m stuck with this. At least I really like my group, they’re all really fun and easy to work with. (my view later changed a LOT) After lunch we decided to take a half hour break from sorting and I went swimming. But soon everyone was swimming and it was such a beautiful day out that we just couldn’t bring ourselves back to our beetles. So we swam and splashed around and pushed our clothed TA in the pool, etc. until it was time to go out into the field again. We didn’t see anything too exciting—just the usually impala and baboons. And we also saw a bush buck (I think it’s called that) which South Africans believe Bambi was. But obviously Bambi was a deer. We tried to explain it by pointing out the American skunk Bambi was friends with, but they weren’t buying it. Oh and we also saw a Ground Hornbill which are very rare now, so that was cool to see. They're slowly going extinct, and my South African friend says she hasn't seen one in years. We got our field work done by 6—the fastest yet—and went out for a swim in the big Olympic sized swimming pool in the staff village. On the way we passed lots of mongoose which were so cute. And then dinner and a lecture and then BUNS OF STEEL. I haven’t mentioned this yet but one of the staff memorized this exercise tape called Buns of Steel which is this really intense workout. So we did that and it was really hard but also fun. And then to counter it we ate some Cadbury chocolate. Mmmm…

Leopard!

Feb 11

The dung beetle group got to sleep in today which was really nice. At around 9 we went to go check out the main store and I got a coke zero (mmm) and this litchi (this is just how Kirsty told me to spell it) flavored ice thing. There were monkeys all over the place outside the store and you could walk right up to them, it was so cute. Then we came back and started putting together parcels of elephant poo. There were huge sticks and whole fruits in the poo, so the elephant clearly wasn’t tasting all of his food. Also, I had to empty out some of the rhino poo packets from the previous day. So Alan told me to dump them by this camp site. So it basically looks like a rhino just pooped right inside the camp, so people are going to think there’s a hole in the gate where a rhino got through. I hope it doesn’t cause too many problems! Later I went swimming in the pool for the first time which was so nice, and then we went out to the field. We started collecting our dung beetles and setting out the fresh dung and there were so many beetles and many were very small so it was difficult to scoop them out. It took me a while to be able to reach my hand into a bucket of dead beetles but by the end of it I was quite a pro. Sort of. But the coolest thing of the day happened in between beetle collecting sites. We saw a leopard. It was absolutely beautiful and we could see its head perfectly as it stuck out of the tall grasses. At one point it started moving and we were able to see its whole body which of course I loved because I obviously love leopard print. It was so amazing. And then we saw this herd of impala nearby and we thought we might see a kill, but we had to move on to keep collecting and resetting. We also saw tons of baboons, etc. and a couple of kudu.