Week 8

Well it's technically the middle of Week 9 and I am trying to wrap my mind around the idea that I've been here for two months already. And there's still a month and a bit to go! As I mentioned in the last post, the program schedule has taken me and the rest of the crew to the mainland for the remainder of October.
The timing actually couldn't have been better since some serious unrest kicked up in Stonetown a couple of days before our departure. For reasons unknown, the police decided to detain the leader of UAMSHO, a local Islamic NGO which has taken a strong stance on the matter of Zanzibar's potential separation from the Union with mainland Tanzania. Since the group operates outside of the two existing political parties (CUF and CCM), they're a matter of some concern to the current leading powers. Last week, UAMSHO's foremost sheikh, Farid, disappeared without a trace from a car outside his home just after returning from vacation in Oman. Naturally, his followers did not appreciate this turn of events and began to instigate unrest in several parts of town. As is customary with public unrest, many other young people took the opportunity to make chaos in the streets (tire-burning, looting, etc.). The police responded with riot enforcers and tear gas. While we were never directly in sight of the riots, the boom of gas bombs and the accompanying flashes at night were easily observed from our usual haunts. We weren't in actual danger at any point, although we obviously didn't stray far from Mauwani and the classroom. In the end, we made it out of Stonetown without incidence and Sheikh Farid was returned within a day of our departure, thereby pacifying street demonstrators before things got worse. Hopefully that will be the last of the trouble for at least the remainder of our trip.
On the mainland, our first few days were spent on safari in Mikumi National Park. Of course getting there turned into a regular epic; we took a very early ferry ride to the mainland and then loaded into safari vehicles for the overland trek. Of course, the expected four hour road trip actually lasted from about 9:30am until 4pm. My particular car was outfitted with astro-turf flooring and a driver who liked Tupac enough to play the same album about three or four times through on the way. As you might imagine, we were all pretty stir-crazy by the end of the ride. However, the excitement level was at fever-pitch when we reached the park boundary. The main road which we followed actually cuts directly through the middle of the park, so even before actually going on safari it's possible to see a number of the local inhabitants. Giraffes, impala, baboons, and even elephants were spotted before we even reached park headquarters. The lodge where we stayed was actually located even further into the park, making it common for animals to wander right through the living space (we were accompanied to and from the bungalows at night by a Masai ascari for this exact reason). The general idea was to have as much immersion in the surroundings as possible during our three-day visit.
So, despite being hot, tired, and mildly grouchy, everyone piled right back into the cars on the first afternoon for a late trip to the hippo pool and surrounding grassland. Just as the sun set over the distant mountains, we encountered a pair of lions resting by the road. Since it's the mating season, it's not uncommon to come across a pair who have separated from the main pride for a few days of privacy (which is immediately lost when the tourists show up). It was an unexpected treat, followed the next morning by the discovery of a second pair very near to the first two. I have now sat in a car approximately ten feet from copulating lions. Not one of the experiences you expect to have on safari. Beyond the happy feline couples, there were also plenty of elephants, giraffes, buffalo, warthogs, and other fauna to be seen. My favorites were definitely the two huge Elan Antelope seen near a watering hole the first morning.
Much to my chagrin and extreme personal discomfort, I actually contracted a nasty stomach bug the second day (likely due to having a dung fly land on my breakfast fruit). I have never been so miserably ill in my life. Once the dehydration set in, even moving from one place to another was impossibly exhausting. Fortunately, the worst of it only lasted a few hours and I managed to tough it out without medication or serious assistance. Just plenty of tonic (now firmly my favorite carbonated drink) and water. As a result, I had to skip the last evening and morning safaris.
We returned to Dar es Salaam under similar circumstances as our trip to Mikumi, arriving are the University of Dar es Salaam in the late afternoon. The girls have been housed together in a highrise dorm, while each of the guys have been divided amongst rooms on one floor of the male international student dorm. We each ended up in a double with another student who was already attending the University; I'm living with a very reasonable German student by the name of Yves. The dorms aren't half bad, although running water and electricity are unpredictable at times. The campus is huge here (14,000 undergrads), so there's no lack of new faces or places to visit.
Outside of morning and afternoon lectures, we've been testing out the food at various cafeterias and getting to know the international guys. While security is a bit of a concern (especially at night), we haven't had any scary experiences thus far (besides being briefly pursued by a pack of dogs while returning from dinner the first night). I've also made it into downtown Dar three times now; once for pizza dinner, once to visit the botannical gardens and shopping mall, and then for Maryam's (Mary) 21st birthday dinner last night.
Getting around Dar can be done in a variety of ways at varying levels of cost and personal safety, but my favorite is definitely the little bajaj "cars" which have literally no respect for traffic (or safety). They're basically like an enclosed, high-powered golf cart with a driver in front and three-person seat right behind him. For about 8,000Tsh they'll speed you almost anywhere in town, slipping between other cars in traffic, practically running pedestrians off the sidewalks, and racing each other to the final destination. Near-side swipes and stalls in the middle of the road are not uncommon. While they're obviously not the safest deal, they're super efficient and a total thrill to ride in.
However, for the full group outing last night in celebration of Maryam's big birthday, we rented a whole dala dala bus for ourselves and rolled downtown for Thai dinner in a highrise hotel. To our shock (and mild embarrassment), the restaurant was much classier than we'd expected. Not a t-shirt and shorts kind of place. Regardless, the food was great and the night view of the bay was spectacular. The clubs we planned to visit afterwards were all closed (it was Tuesday night after all), so we were forced to return to campus without further entertainment. Luckily, our dorm roof provided the perfect space for hanging out late into the night.
That about covers it for this week's installment, although I obviously owe you all pictures from the safari. I'll edit them in tomorrow once I've had a chance to get the latest set off my camera, so check back in again soon! In the next week I'll be out for a couple more Matt Richmond reef surveys, further exploring the night life of Dar, and hopefully attending a big national soccer match. We're all really excited for the last one. Keep on reading! Cheers!

Week 7

Hey y'all, it's been another week and I have another chapter for you. I'd like to start this post with a shout out to Bwana Dale Swanson, who's celebrating his birthday today. Dale, your wilderness survival coaching has certainly come in handy here in Zanzibar during the last week, although I haven't gotten around to testing the local spoor yet..... I've heard there's going to be a men's hunting trip this weekend and I wish you all the best luck with landing the big bucks! I'll be on safari myself, but I don't think they'll let me land an elephant.
All in all, I can't say that I have a ton of variety in the report for this week. Since we're about halfway through the program we've been working through what essentially amounts to a midterm project. For those of you who are not familiar with the structure of my program, the first ten weeks are group-oriented lectures, field studies, and trips. However, the final five weeks are comprised of an Independent Study Project during which students are expected to conduct research, procure lodgings, and essenentially operate entirely on their own. We pick the subjects and figure out most of the logistics for travel and housing. The midterm which we've all just finished was a sort of dry run in preparation for the bigger study. The "Portfolio" essentially amounts to three days of research and then two days for writing an 8-page scientific-style report.
As I mentioned in my last post, my area of study has finally settled in herpetology. For my portfolio period, I ended up in the Jozani-Chwaka Bay National Park surveying reptiles in a section of groundwater forest. Groundwater forest is characterized by a high water table and lush floral assemblage; the year-round availability of water keeps the local ecosystem pretty vibrant and species abundance higher than in some other areas. An ISP conducted by a student during Spring 2011 also sampled reptiles in Jozani, although his project examined them across a wide array of habitats. I took his abundance results from the groundwater region to heart and decided to set up there for the short-run.
For the study itself, I set up two 150-meter transects along a section of established nature trails. Transects are lines (straight or not) of a set distance which are walked for visual examination surveys. I walked each transect for an hour and a half, three times a day. Morning, afternoon, and night. Daytime surveys were pretty easy; all the equipment I needed was a camera, notebook, and binoculars. I'd roll out of bed, pull on my gear, and hike out into the jungle by myself for the better part of the day. Mornings were always steamy as the morning dew evaporated and the afternoons were hot. I was drenched in sweat from dawn to dusk, the surveys were long, and admittedly they were fairly boring after a few repetitions. But the effort was totally worth the solo exploration time and the results! I'd try and write you a full description of the place, but as they say a picture says a thousand words:

 Transect 2

Night surveys were a totally different deal. I'd go out after sunset outfitted with a bright handheld torch, a headlamp, and park guide. The guide was only necessary for security and assistance if I ran into trouble (venomous snakes etc.). As it would happen, I really appreciated his help the second night when I had to run through a 15-meter patch full of soldier ants. Those ants were something right out of one of those "Nature's Horrors" documentaries. While I encountered them basically every time I was out surveying, I managed to avoid them most of the time. However, when they're in the middle of your transect, there's no escaping an encounter. That particular night, on my guide's suggestion, I ran as quickly as I could through the seething mass of ants spread across the trail (sometime they were confined to small, orderly lines; other times the forest floor was essentially blanketed). While I did manage to get past them, I also liberally coated my pants and shoes with some very angry critters. Ten minutes of swatting, scratching, and hopping up and down barely seemed to stem the tide of maddening bites all over my body. Fortunately I managed to eventually get them all cleared off (with my guide's help) and continue my survey. Since then, I've devised better strategies for dealing with them. Lesson learned.
Outside of the ants, the three days went almost entirely without notable incident. I managed to observe about half a dozen different varieties of reptile (five lizard varieties and one snake), as well as a bunch of other interesting groundwater forest denizens including leaf-litter preying mantids and sunbirds. Skinks and geckos were predictably the most common across survey periods.

 A juvenile Speckle-Lipped Skink (Mabuya maculilabris)

When I wasn't out surveying for nine hours of the day, I was eating or sleeping. There were several other SIT students in Jozani for the Portfolio study period, but we were all kept pretty busy with different research so mealtimes were the only serious common time for interaction.
Upon our return to Stone Town for the writing days, I stayed in a pleasant little guesthouse just a stone's throw from the SIT classroom with Rashid and Munira. Two days of serious writing, source hunting (tough stuff with limited internet and resources), and recuperation culminated in both a 19-page report (including annotated sources and appendices; Helen would not have been happy if the text was that long) and a powerpoint presentation which was given yesterday morning. All in all, I'm happy with the portfolio and increasingly ready for the upcoming ISP. I'm writing my final proposal tonight as it happens.
The only other adventures of note have happened in the last couple of days as Hawa and I endeavored to get haircuts in Stone Town. The first day, we only succeeded in finding a curio shop filled with the kind of knick-knacks which entertain me for hours on end. I history-nerded out and ended up buying several more coins, the oldest being a British East India Company Anna from 1835. Yes, 1835. Also an Anna from 1862 with Queen Vistoria's image stamped on one side. I can tell you with certainty that I will be headed back to that shop for more. But back to the haircuts. Yesterday, Hawa and I succeeded in finding a local establishment which offered a cut for 5,000Tsh (less than $5 US). I don't think I've actually ever had such a thorough haircut. I initially pointed to another customer to indicate that I wanted a buzz, and ended up with the exact haircut he was getting (which is quite good). The best part of the whole experience was that the barber gave Hawa the exact same haircut as me. Down to the straight-razored back and edges. She had wanted a buzz of sorts, but not the one she got. We now are unintentionally rocking the twin look (there will be a picture at some point) and I am thoroughly entertained by the whole doubles thing. We are of the opinion that they pretty much give everyone the same cut at that place, unless your mastery of Kiswahili is good enough to seriously ask for something else.
That's about it for now. I'll be submitting my ISP proposal tomorrow and then heading for the mainland very early Friday morning. We'll be on safari in Mikumi National Park through Sunday, and then staying at the University of Dar es Salaam until Halloween. Dar promises to be an ......interesting...... experience. Fortunately, Rashid has two months of experience there under his belt and will be acting as the unofficial group leader for any outings. The expectation is that we'll all make it out in one piece with plenty of stories. The next post may not be until after that trip (so the 31st), but I'll do my best to update you while I'm there.
I hope all is well and that the rest of October finds you all comfortable and happy. Cheers!

Week 5 & 6

I’m back! Better late than never (even if it’s over a week). I’d like to start this post with a belated Happy Birthday shout-out to Guy (congrats on making it to adulthood) and to Helen in Spain! I’m sure both of you are throwing down appropriately; as for me, I celebrated with a decadent hamburger (!!) at a local wazungu tavern the other night. A guilty American pleasure, but I have to enjoy the rare treats every once and a while. Rashid, Hawa, and I not only enjoyed that dinner immensely, but also managed to get the waitress jumping with joy over our conversations in Kiswahili. Language win.

But that’s more recent news. The fifth week was Pemba. I can say with confidence that there isn’t a single SIT student in the group who wouldn’t go back to Pemba. Due to its separation from Unguja and the relatively expensive (and small) flights from Stonetown, it remains much like Zanzibar was before the tourist boom. The feel is rural and the people are very friendly by default; even the term “wazungu” didn’t seem to carry the same connotation that it often does on Unguja. Getting to Pemba was an adventure in itself, since the airplanes had 13-passenger galleys. In order to fit all of us into the two planes, one student had the opportunity to sit co-pilot in each plane. Rashid and Sophia (Breeanna) lucked out on the way over, but I somehow managed to end up in the cockpit on the way back! It’s definitely something else to be sitting shotgun in a propeller airplane. Once in Pemba, we spent the first couple of days as a group in the northern town of Wete. Lectures included the methodology of house-building in Pemba, the ecology of Ngezi Forest Preserve, and how to interact with interviewees and translators during the ISP period.

Free time activities consisted of the card game “Presidents” (now the default time-filler for the group) and a trip to the Wete Cinema. That was an experience. After stopping at a tiny local supermarket for candy and snacks, we watched a special English screening of “Cold Light of Day” with Bruce Willis. The folding seats were rickety, the all-male local crowd was chatty, my Mountain Dew was toxic even by Mountain Dew standards, and the movie was definitely not one of Willis’ bests. But we had a ton of fun. The following day was occupied by a trip to the Ngezi Forest Preserve in the northern tip of Pemba. As the last bastion of “undisturbed” native flora and fauna, Ngezi is home to several globally-unique species. A forest hike yielded some cool finds, ranging from frogs the size of my thumbnail to saprophytic orchids and staghorn ferns. To top it all off, our Assistant Director, Said, spotted a snake on the side of the road as we returned Wete. Our bus driver promptly pulled over and let me jump out to take a look. As it would happen, I managed to get within five feet of a spitting cobra. It was olive-colored, about five feet long, and when I tried to halt its retreat towards the ditch’s bank, it proceeded to flare a small neck hood. Fortunately, it was much more interested in escaping quickly than putting up a fight. In retrospect, I’m glad I didn’t mess with it; I had no idea that it was a spitter until I described it to Helen back on the bus. Much to my chagrin, the sole picture I managed to get is an un-focused flop (but still totally worth it).

The next day we were set up with our Pemba homestay families. I was placed with Mama Tutuu, her four sons, and two other live-in boys. The house was very nice and the family dynamic was great. I had a lot of fun interacting with the kids; the littlest one, Nadith, was affectionately referred to as “chizi” (crazy) by everyone in the house. I played backyard soccer, watched Disney & Tinga Tinga tales, and even learned how to cook several local dishes. Mkate ya mayai (the local angelfood cake), samaki changu (fried rabbitfish), and mkate ya maji (a sort of vegetable-crepe) are now all items I’m excited to try my hand at again back in the states.

When I wasn’t chilling with my family, I was on more outings with the SIT crew (an essential oil distillery trip, the Pemba Public Health Lab, etc.). One day trip took our group out to Misali Island off the west coast of Pemba. The garden reef was gorgeous (although looking closely at anything required free-diving 20-25 feet). There were Acropora tables as wide across as I am tall and pairs of huge black & yellow pufferfish. I also managed to spot the last couple of tangs on my list. There was a battered old Naso Tang, a flighty Sailfin Tang, and several groups of yellow-bellied Blue Hippo Tangs (variant Dories for all you Disney adherents). On the final night of our homestays, all of our families met up for an outdoor sharehe (party) with traditional tarab music. All of my fellow students were decked out in splendid local clothes, some even beyond the point of immediate recognition. The zenith of the night came when a young musician (who had been demonstrating traditional male dance moves) and I somehow ended up having a dance-off. I ended up jumping, twirling, and bobbing about at dizzying speed as the rest of the group looked on. Not only did I hold my own, but I was called out at the end of the night for my performance! I don’t think I’ve ever had that much fun at a dance.

Upon returning to Stone Town, my motivation to take care of any sort of electronic business disappeared (hence the belated post). Free time was for relaxing and getting assignments organized, while academic time was spent conducting reef surveys with Dr. Matt Richmond. He is yet another example of ex-patriot success and personal fulfillment. While he has tons of academic background in marine biology, his day-to-day work involves the management of his own environmental impact assessment company based in Dar Es Salaam. He basically wrote the field guide for this corner of the Indian Ocean and has several species bearing his name. Besides having plenty of fun bouncing reef-geek questions off of him, I loved the surveys. The first day, we established quadrats for surveying invertebrates on an intertidal strip of the Pange sandbank and snorkeled just off its northern edge. The following day, we set up circular quadrats on the same reef in order to conduct fish counts and substrate mapping. Mapping out coral colonies in a 10-meter square plot, much less marking the boundaries of the plot itself while snorkeling was challenging business. But it was immensely rewarding. Discoveries those two days include a juvenile Dragon Wrasse, several Lyretail Anthias, Tubastrea sun corals, and several watchman goby-pistol shrimp burrows. Needless to say, everyone on the trip is very excited for the next two-day seminar with Dr. Richmond in a couple of weeks.

Immediately following the conclusion of our reef surveys, we packed up and traveled south to the Jozani-Chwaka Bay National Park for five days of terrestrial ecology methodology practice. Accommodations were very communal; almost all of us were in one building, and many of the girls were sleeping on floor beds in the main room. Rashid and I managed to score a room at the back. The close quarters ultimately led to an excess of group bonding time, although there were certainly some great moments. Meals were always a feeding frenzy and somehow we managed to watch Notting Hill and Mean Girls back-to-back the first night. In terms of practical work in Jozani, we observed Zanzibar Red Colobus monkey behavior (they’re an IUCN red-listed species), surveyed mangrove tree dynamics in transect quadrats, and walked transects to survey mammal species. The colobus monkeys were cool to see in light of their endangered status, but the troops we observed were heavily habituated from years of tourist encroachment. The mangrove surveys were something else. We spent plenty of time slogging our way through thick mud and roots to count saplings, measuring mature trees, and assessing localized anthropogenic effects. But we mainly got dirty and argued. Of the three designated research groups, mine was both the most driven and the most combative (“..too many Type A personalities in one place..”). While we managed to intimidate the other groups with our regular bickering and smack-talking, we did also manage to get decently satisfactory results out of tough conditions. And of course, there were winning moments like when Rashid was attacked by mangrove crabs or when Sophia stepped into a random knee-deep hole.

The transect walk wasn’t terribly productive, although it made for a very cool two-kilometer hike through scrub forest and wet forest zones. I took point as the group observer and managed to find several varieties of orchid, a few monkeys, and the first Sunni Antelope droppings for Munira (Pearl). She’s studying the little Sunnis for her ISP, so those poops were a big deal. Other discoveries of note throughout the five days included several blue-phase green tree snakes, another thumbnail sized frog species, and a spectacular tailless whip scorpion.

Hawa actually wins the prize for that discovery; it was the best find on our adventurous little night hike.

On the last day before we prepared our study results for presentation, we visited Zala Park just down the road from Jozani. A local man has collected a menagerie of local species, established breeding programs for some of the less common reptiles, and even opened his own school with specially designed environmental study classes. A great enterprise all around. Rashid got to see his first Tree Hyraxes (his ISP subject), Kauthar (Kathryn) found a flap-neck chameleon, and several of us had the opportunity to get a close look at a vine snake.

In spite of it all, I must admit the last week or so has been a very stressful time. Just as we prepared to leave for Jozani, I found that my intended insect study for the ISP period was likely to be unfeasible (at least within the time parameters of the program). Without a clear plan for survey methodology and a permit from the government (an unexpected bureaucratic development), it just wasn’t going to happen. So, with the portfolio project rapidly approaching after Jozani and no clean plans for my project, I was in a bit of a bind. Add to that general conflict a lack of internet and reliable cell phone service in Jozani. Fortunately, with the support of Helen and strong advice from Dr. Tim Davenport of the Wildlife Conservation Society, I’m back on track. Again (and for the last time) my focus has shifted. As of this afternoon I will be starting a series of surveys in Jozani intended to identify local species of reptiles. There will be skinks, there will be chameleons, and there will be snakes. If I can find one of the short-tailed chameleons rumored to exist in Jozani, there are serious scientific implications. Fingers crossed. The portfolio is basically a mini-ISP intended to test the functionality of planned methodologies. I’ll be spending the next three days (and partially nights) out in the forest doing my best to spot every reptile making its way through my transect. I can guarantee you that I’ll have plenty of observations to share this upcoming weekend in the next post.

In the meantime, I congratulate you for having the patience to read this far. This is why I need to avoid being lazy and skipping whole weeks at a time. There will be another post soon though, especially if I make an unexpected discovery. I hope all is well with everyone back in the States and that the Fall chill doesn’t have you hiding indoors quite yet. Inversely, the heat and rain is only likely to intensify here. Better hot than cold! Until the next time!