Europe and Africa

Yesterday morning I was sick, so I stayed in camp. I outlined in my human osteology field manual where the biometric measurements for my project need to be taken on my participants, then I spent most of the day reading.

Last night, we saw lights on the horizon, which freaked some poeple out. I suspect it was another camp or the village where the rangers and their families live. I think we just haven't see it before because it hasn't been cloudy at night up until now and the moon has been out and very bright.

Yesterday afternoon, April took some pictures of buffalo for me on the game drive. It's really hard to call them buffalo and not bison, after so many years living and working in Alberta. I will probably go out on the game drive this afternoon, since I'm feeling better.

My flashlight is missing, either lost or stolen. Sarita had some brandy stolen from her tent the night before, so I suspect my maglight was taken. My headlamp, which Andrew Du gave me, has a faulty connection and Robe is going to try and fix it for me. Emmanuel, one of Jack's grad students, is bringing me another one from Nairobi when he comes up. In the meantime, Sarita lent me her spare.

I slept very well last night for the first time since we arrived. It was great! It was colder this morning than it has been yet. Most of the people here think it's too cold, but this is what I used to for camping. I'm worried about what the heat at Ileret will do for me. At the same time, it will be nice to get up there and be doing something. I feel like I have nothing to do here and the time is going by slowly.

Second full day at the Mugie camp. Yesterday in the morning we had lectures and I gave a very short presentation on bipedalism. After lunch, the students went on a nature walk with some of the park rangers and I slept. Later on, the staff went out of various sites that were used for student activities during the following few days. The Landrover I was in died immediately after leaving the camp (which is protected by an electric fence, so we were about 100m outside the fence). Rob, our logistics guy, was able to fix it and we caught up with Jack and his Landrover crew an hour later. I wasn't originally going to go, but there was an extra spot. Boring, though. Much driving around just to look at animal tracks. I had a really interesting conversation, though, with one of the wardens about how they use dogs, bloodhoods and mixed foxhound/bloodhounds, to track poachers in the ranch. Since Mugie is a black rhino sanctuary, it's important that they be able to keep poachers off their land. The entire ranch is surrounded by electric fences that can be monitored from the main offices.

We stayed out until after dark to find a baboon troops sleeping place. We got back around 8pm - too long a day for me while doing not much of anything. April gave me some Taco Bell hot sauce to help with my sinuses and I started taking the rest of the amoxycyclin I got in the Netherlands. I had this nasty sinus infection that just wasn't going away on its own. Normally I wouldn't take antibiotics for what I thought was a cold, but since it wasn't getting any better then disappeared within two days of me taking the antibiotics, I think it was a genuine infection, not just a nasty cold. The glands in my neck felt like freaking grapefruits, and I'm glad I had the meds or I'd have been sicker for longer. Yuck.

The change in altitude is affecting my stomach - it makes me queasy after I eat and I don't eat too much. The food is fine, but somehow not appetizing. I keep thinking about tacos, which is April's fault because she brought the hot sauce from Taco Bell.

Today in the morning we did our first assignment with the undergrads. They were divided into four groups and each group did one assignment per day. Our assignment involved identifying animal tracks at three different watering holes. Really, this assignment should have taken about an hour, but we had about 4 hours to kill in the morning, so we spent a lot time just walking around looking at tracks. It was not very well thought out, and the 2 minute lecture for the actual assignment part, so the students were often very lost. It was poorly done and not that instructional, and I think a lot of the students were just bored. By the end of the four days, I was very bored with it. There's only so much walking around looking at buffalo tracks that a person can take.

In the afternoon, we had two downpours. The second one interrupted a lecture on lion conversation efforts in Kenya and public education. That was interesting, though, and the rain will probably be the last I see for awhile.

In the evening, I had my head shaved by one of the South African grad students. I'd always wanted to do it, just to see what it looked like, and it seemed like a good place since I didn't have to worry about my appearance much out there. Plus it meant much less worry about hair washing. The unfortunate part, of course, was the lack of mirrors, so I didn't get to see it very much, but it still felt really neat.

Today we drove from Nairobi to Mugie Ranch- only about 500km (or less) but which took about 8 hours. The roads here are terrible, but at least there are roads! Kenya is so chaotic - the drivers drive everywhere, and there are people and livestock everywhere. It's difficult to process; I'm used to North American boundaries between road and sidewalk, but here, they don't really exist.

Nairobi is a strange city. Everything is dusty, I mean, even dustier than Alberta, which is saying something. No one is bothered to do things quickly (like service in the hotel restaurant) and we experienced roving blackouts. The hotel had broken window latches, broken lights, a complete lack of hot water (despite hot water taps) and uncomfortable beds. And it was cold. And, of course, they jacked up the room prices for us. I'm not sure why we stayed there, since on my last night in Nairobi at the end of the field school, I stayed in a place that was $10 more and had everything this place didn't.

And Nairobi was cold! I expected it to be hot, but it was cool and overcast the whole time. It was winter there, of course, but I wasn't expecting an equatorial winter to be so chilly. About 10 C at night.

The drive was tiring - it's very bumpy in the back of the Landrover and you constantly have to brace yourself. No seatbelts in these vehicles except for the two front seats. But seeing the Rift Valley was amazing. It reminded me very much of the Rocky Mountain Trench that separates the Rockies and the Columbias. We saw a lot of wildlife, like zebras, baboons (on the side of the road), giraffes, antelops, ostriches, dik-diks and buffalo.

It's dark at 6:30, which is crazy. We crossed the equator earlier today, so the days and night are about 12 hours each. It's hard to deal with for a Canadian. I still expect it to stay light until 10 pm. It's too early for night - we haven't even had supper!

We have showers here and I'd love to take advantage of them, but it's too dark. All I could get at the hotel this morning was freezing cold water. This annoys me - it's a hotel and we pay to stay there (and pay too much according to the prices that were listed in Susanna's Lonely Planet Kenya guide). The night before I head to Europe, I think I'll stay at an airport hotel. (I ended up staying at a better hotel, but not an airport one, because apparently the hotels near the airport aren't safe. But the Boulevard hotel did have hot water, which was great at the end of a 7 week field season!)

Yesterday morning, Eowyn, Maddie and I packed up the car and headed to Lille, France, which is about 3 hours driving from the Hague. Most of the trip is spent driving through northern Belgium, which had excited me until I realized that the very north of Belgium is the Flemish area, not the French area, so it was like being in the Netherlands. Flemish is a dialect of Dutch, so I still didn't really understand any of the road signs. Lille is about 25km inside the French border.

But I have to say, it was a real treat to be in a country where I understood the national language (and that language wasn't English), especially after spending so much time in the Netherlands and Kenya this summer. My Dutch is minimal, but at least I am starting to recognize some things. My Swahili is non-existant beyond "thank you very much". Dutch has the advantage of being linguistically related (and very closely) to English and French, where Swahili is not at all.

So we stayed at the Suite Hotel in Lille which was, well, sweet! We got a good deal booking the room over the internet and it was beautiful, clean, with great TV and internet access. But that wasn't why we went, of course! After checking in, we walked into the center of the town, which takes about 5 minutes. This is where the Eurostar train arrives from England, so it's a huge tourist destination for Brits looking to shop for cheap. They have 2 huge train stations within two blocks of each other. 1 in 4 tourists to Lille is British, and about 20 million (yep, you read that properly) pass through Lille on the trains each year.

The old, central part of the city, like so many other European cities, is pedestrian access only. We walked around until we found a suitable-seeming restaurant for lunch, although lunch was pretty unimpressive, I must say. We had fried camembert salads and a Welsh dish (probably on the menu to cater to the Brits). It was all right, not great, but not bad. Then we walked around some more, checking out the old buildings and the new shops. Maddie had a ride on a carosel, then she and Eowyn got splashed by a nearby fountain. The wind was pretty strong, so the fountain was spraying pretty far. The fountain was cool; those of you who live in Edmonton should be able to picture it. It had a small glass pyramid in the center, it looked like Edmonton city hall (but much smaller) and water came up from four sprayers to splash down the sides of the pyramid. Pretty cool.

We then visited an old castle, although it was tiny (an old duke's residence) and only the ground floor, now converted into a tourist's office, and the old chapel on an upper floor are open to the public. I don't know what the rest of it was, but it was pretty nonetheless.

We finished up with some shopping; because Maddie goes to a French school in the Netherlands, its easier to find her school supplies in France. All the French schools require the same supplies, so one list gets distributed to everyone. I got a few things for myself, since my Canadian credit card was overpaid and I now have a balance on it in my favour. It's like free money! Okay not really, but it's still a treat, since the money was already paid onto it.

We went back to the hotel then and rested. Maddie and I watched Shrek 3, which I liked more than I thought, and more than Shrek 1, which I didn't like. We went for dinner in the city center, but at a different place. We were caught in a freak rainstorm and got pretty wet, but at least we were close when it started raining! Here, I had a great meal. It was a quarter of a roasted chicken with gravy and a side (half the plate!) of green beans. So, so, so good! Eowyn and I enjoyed some French wine, too. Yum! For dessert I had a crepe with chocolate sauce, whipped cream and ice creams. Sounds good, but too sweet!

Today was extremely windy, so instead of walking around more, we packed up and drove to a nearby outlet mall which was disappointing in its lack of selection. Mostly baby/children's clothing stores. We went to pick up the rest of Maddie's school supplies and something like a year's worth of baby food for the twins, then drove back. On both the way there and the way back, we got stuck in traffic in Belgium; apparently there's always a traffic jam in Belgium. Today, thankfully, there was an alternate route and we were able to get back to the Hague before 6pm!

France is definitely on my list to go back to. It's great to be able to understand the people around me when they aren't speaking English and the men aren't bad looking either! And people aren't as oblivious to the presence of others as they are in the Netherlands, so you actually get help in the stores and people move out of your way on the streets. Good times!

I've been admonished by Varina that it's time to update my travel blog, and far be it for me to ignore the threat from my younger sister who probably has loads of blackmail material she can use to get me to do her bidding. For those of you who live under a rock (ie: who don't have facebook), I'm back in the Netherlands after 7 weeks in Kenya. I got back on July 29, so yes, I've been lazy updating my blog and Varina was probably right to chastise me. It's easy to be lazy about blogging after 7 weeks with no internet access and my days filled up with a five-year-old and two one-year-olds. That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it.

All in all, Kenya was a pretty good experience. I'm glad I went, and the camping conditions weren't nearly as bad as I'd been led to believe by other grad students in my program, which is a plus for me, because it meant a pleasant surprise. While I was away, I kept a journal every other day or so. I'll be putting these entries up on this blog, and I will try to get started on that in the next day or so, so that the aforementioned sister doesn't have to order me about again. Although perhaps she enjoys being able to do so, since she was the youngest and was probably bossed around all the time...

Now I meant to start putting up pictures but have run into a snag: I can't find the USB cord for my camera. I found my iPod USB connector and the AC adapter for my cell phone, but the camera cord is not where I thought I left it, in my suitcase that stayed here, so I'll have to look again (for a third time; I already looked twice). So all my ambition for photographs today is for naught, unless I find the damn thing. My camera is weird and has a very small port for the connector, so it's not like I can even use my sister and brother-in-law's adapter. If worse comes to worst, I will put my memory card in my sister's camera and do it that way, although I'd prefer not to do that.

I'm glad to be back in Europe, which is sort of a like a second home and nicer than NJ, where I'd be otherwise. It's not as hot here, the people aren't as rude, and the air not quite so dirty. I should write travel pamphets for NJ, eh? I have so many positive things to say about it! Although I must admit, as soon as I moved there, I began to understand why Americans make fun of the state... However, back to Europe. Next week, Eowyn, Maddie and I are taking a 2-day trip to France, to Lille, to be specific. This follows on the heels of Marc and Kareen's trip to France, and, although we aren't going to Paris or Nice, after seeing their photographs, I'm looking forward to it. Plus, Eowyn says that prices are cheaper there for clothing (the Netherlands is extremely expensive) so I might get some fancy French clothing. We'll see how it goes.

Eowyn and I also bought a lotto ticket for the 8.2 million EURO (not dollars, take note, you North Americans!) draw that's tonight. If we win, you may never see me again... or see me when I come visit from my fancy European home! Haha! As if we're going to win, but it's fun to think about staying here. The small snag: I do have this PhD to finish, and I'm only going into my second year. Hmm. I guess if I had 4.1 million Euros I could have a European home anyway- after all, what would be stopping me? Hahahaha! Oops, sorry.

All right, I'm going to attempt to find my camera cord again. For those of you who are facebook friends, there will be more pictures up there than here, I'm sure, because of the space limitations here. Wish me luck in finding the USB connector.