Europe and Africa

July 1

Happy Canada Day! For the first time in my life, I don't get it as a holiday. Instead, I worked out at the site today, for the first time. I worked on clearing off the lower footprint horizon. It gets very hot out there, so I'm glad we break at noon until 3:30. It's hotter here than at Koobi Fora and we are farther from the lake. I miss the convenience of having the lake right near the camp. Now, we have to load into the vehicles each evening and drive down, which takes about half an hour. Yesterday was the first day we were here, and we did the lake drive. I was in the unimog for the first time. I actually thought I'd fall off, it was rocking so much. Scary! But a swim in the lake was good at the end of a dusty day. Toady it will be much better, since I was actually out working. I had a Cottonelle bath for my face and hands but am still dirty. There is so much dust here. Even the river bed, or laga, is totally dry and dusty. Apparently it only has water in it when there are flash floods. I find it weird that there's so little surface water. I still can't believe that people can survive in this dry of an environment. There's even a town, Ileret.

The Dassanach like to hand around and watch us during the day, as if they're waiting for us to do something interesting. So many little kids have no clothing, which I think is sad. I guess its in short supply here and goes to the adults first.

The site is pretty amazing. It was hard work to get it cleared off and we're still working on it. There is a layer of rock on top of a layer of sand on top of a tarp on top of more sand on top of the footprints. Someone has come along and stolen the original tarp and replaced it with a different one, but the footprints weren't disturbed. It was realy cool to see them for the first time.

We are out of here on the 19th, so 17 more days after today, then back to base camp! 29 more days here in Africa.

July 3

Yesterday morning, we finished uncovering the lower footprint layer. I worked with Paul and Emma and Habiba, which was fun. Afterwards, I helped a bit with surface screening the upper levels, until I went down for water and didn't have the energy to go back up. It was extremely hot yesterday; even during the break I didn't have much energy. In the afternoon, I helped with screening again. It was really boring, so thankfullly we don't work as long in the afternoon. The lake was very welcome in the evening, although I had a lot of laundry, so my swim was only about 5 minutes. I put up a laundry line yesterday between my tent, the tree, and April's tent. I was getting tired of having bugs on my clothes from hanging them on the bush beside the tree. I was glad for the lines, since I had a lot of washing. I'm looking foward to doing laundry and not having sand in my clothes when they dry.

Today was much better. The weather is great! This morning it was cool and cloudy until about mid-morning. Paul and I started excavation in a section and found some more footprints, about half a meter above the lower horizon. Then I moved onto surface scraping with Habiba and April. That wasn't as interesting, but a least it was more than carrying buckets for screening. I found some bone and the screeners found some Holocene stone tools in my back dirt. Tomorrow the students start excavating.

Right now, the weather is beautiful. It's cloudy with a breeze. At home, I'd be predicting a thunderstorm, but not here. I could hear an airplane a moment ago and mistook it for thunder. If it rains, I suspect it won't be for very long, maybe a few minutes. But it's a nice respite from the normal midday heat.

Some of the students have taught the Dassanach kids to play frisbee. There's a huge group of kids here right now, about half of them seem enthralled by the frisbee playing.

July 4

Today we had a half day because it's July 4. Excavation sucked today; I was "supervising" the students. It was pretty boring, and I hope I get more of a chance to excavate later on.

The Dassanach from town came today to trade. I traded 4 items of baby clothing for a 500 shilling (probably marked way up) bracelet and a small keychain. I hope the people from the local villages start coming soon. I've heard they trade more rather than wanting cash.

We went to the lake around 3:30 today, which was nice. I got burnt today, though, which sucks for me, but I'm going to have to stay covered. Next year, I am really going to use another anti-malarial, because I really wanted to get a tan.

Tonight we have a 4th of July celebration. There are some dancers coming in, apparently, and I think we're having goat and fish at dinner.

June 27

The wind here is unbelievable. It kept me up for the 2nd night in a row. Hopefully tonight I will sleep. I wish the students would respect the camping area as a quiet place more - their talking through the tents in the morning and at night makes it hard to sleep. But then, so does the wind.

Today we had lectures starting at 9. We have more lecture at 2:30 then activities. There's a museum visit at 5; I'm not sure I'm going to go. I may go to the lake and swim a bit. The lectures are a bit dull since I know all of the material already.

June 28

Second day of lectures, at least in the morning. I think there's a visit to Area 103 in the afternoon, so I want to go to that. I didn't do much yesterday. Went swimming around 4pm and I'm starting to get a bit of a tan. Supper was a change from veggie/potato/corned beef stew. Instead, we had rice, lentils, and chipati.

I talked a bit with Orion and Michael, who are Frank Brown's incoming grad student (Frank Brown is a geologist at UCBerkley, I believe). They spend their days hiking in the Koobi Fora Formation doing their studies. One of the interns went with them yesterday and they walked over 20km! I considered going, but they said they use about 4L of water and I can only carry 3L.

I didn't sleep well again, mostly due to inactivity, I think. I had to hush some students around 10pm because they woke me up - through my earplugs - by talking.

A plane is coming in today so we should get some fresh fruit and mail. It's also bringing in beer, to celebrate someone's birthday, apparently.

June 29

My new flashlight died last night, probably because its for indoor use only. Thankfully, someone else had one to lend me for the rest of the trip. I'm angry that someone stole my maglite.

Today is the last day of lectures, thankfully. I've been here for 2 weeks and have yet to do something productive. While the excavation will be hard and it will be hot, at least I'll be doing something. I'm already mostly packed and this afternoon, I'll help mark assignments. Good times.

On the 24th, we left Mugie and drove to Loyangalani (I know I'm spelling that wrong) which is farther than we expected to get. It was a good driving day - only one flat tire! I was exhausted after 10 hours in the back of the landrover, though. We stayed at a camp inside the town and I think everyone showed up to crowd around the camp gates. There were some vendors set up inside the camp and I bought some things: a piece of fabric, a necklace, and a small crocodile made of bats. It really frustrated me having to haggle. I'm amazed anyone can make a living out here. It's so arid, it's unbelievable. Emmanual says its not classified as a desert, which amazes me. It's so dry.

I slept poorly that night because of the wind. The same thing happened the night of the 25th at the Koobi Fora base camp. We arrived yesterday, after another 10 hour day. We had 3 flats, one on a landrover at the start of the day, and two on the unimog later in the day. Before we left the town, we stopped at the small museum, which has information and displays about the different cultural groups living in the Turkana basin. It was really nice, especially for such an isolated museum. The biggest delay was one of the landrovers flipping onto its side in a particularly sandy stretch of road. Everyone and everything was fine, and the vehicle still worked.

We got to Koobi Fora about 5:30 but we can't drive the lorry (the big transport truck with all our gear and supplies) down on the sand road, so we had to load it into the landrovers and drive them down. I helped with that and got here sweaty and dirty! But there's running water here, pumped up from the lack, so I got a nice, cool shower.

I forgot to mention that we can see the southern cross here. I thought it was only visible in the southern hemisphere, and we are a bit north of the equator. We can also see the big dipper, but not the north start.

On the 26th, we had a staff meeting, then I had a nice, cool swim in the lack. Today is a rest day for the students. Up until now, it's been very little work, at least for me. Hopefully that will change soon.

Yesterday afternoon I went to the rhino data lab where Thomas, who manages the ranch, explained to use the basics of their rhino conservation program. They have 20 adult black rhinos and some babies and 2 adult white rhinos. The white rhinos are not indigenous and not endangered. The staff notch the ears of each adult black rhino so that they can ID individuals and keep track of them. The goal of Kenya Wildlife Services is to have 6% population growth per year. Here, they track the rhinos and if they don't see them for 4 days, they go looking for them. So far, they have reached their target population growth, but it's only been a few years since they started.

Afterwards, I thought we'd see the lions, but no such luck. Thomas did take us to see their tracking dogs, though, and gave us a demonstration, which was great. They have bloodhounds and 75% blood/ 25% fox hounds for tracking. If they find a poacher on the ranch, they shoot to kill.

The director general from the National Museums of Kenya was here yesterday, having come up with Emmanuel, Habiba, and Purity. We had lamb for dinner, which was so good, and chocolate for dessert, which is exactly what I wanted.

After supper, Lucy and I saw bushbabies in the tree behind my tent. The sky was so clear last night and the moon rose late, so the stars were amazing. I put on my glasses to look at them, which makes for a much better view. I think I could see patches of the Milky Way, too.

Today is our last day here. Students have the morning to finish assignments and we mark them in the afternoon. I will try to do some cleaning and packing tonight since we have to get up at 5 am tomorrow to leave by 7 Sounds like the driving days to Koobi Fora will be long. It's supposed to be very hot there day and night. I'm not looking forward to that; I've been enjoying the cold nights here. It makes it so much easier to sleep.

Yesterday afternoon I went on the rhino game drive. The taphonomy assignment team saw some of them in the morning, so we went back to the same area. The two rangers with us got out of the vehicle and showed us how they tracked the rhinos, using footprints, trampled and eaten vegetation, and feces. Although they were only a few minutes ahead of us, according to the rangers, we didn't see them. We saw another trio fo rangers monitoring the area for the rhinos. One of them was at the top of an 25 meter tree! They joined us for a few minutes and we returned to the vehicle. I'm kind of glad we didn't see any rhinos while we were out on foot. The rangers said we'd been fine, but I was still really wary of encountering them without a vehicle nearby. Though we saw no rhinos, we saw buffalo, including one that had to move off of the road for us, Grant's gazelle, impala, secretary birds, and zebra, including a wounded zebra which the rangers said would be picked off by the lions soon.

In camp at night, we saw bushbabies in the trees. As it was cloudy, we also saw lights from the other camp or village.

Today's the last day of assignments here, thankfully. The footprint assignment is dull, especially having done it twice already. Jack says the staff who haven't seen the rhino lab yet get to do so today. We'll see! It would be nice.