The Llion King... I mean the Maasai Mara

Helllo friends I haven't updated you in a while and my mum started complaining so I thought I would try to find a plug out in the middle of knowhere in Nguruman to try n charge my phone to send a blog to jalesh. Hahaha. So ya I had to wait two days to charge my phone but I'm good to go. Since I last blogged about Mbita and bird island I have travelled to THREE other places. We are moving fast and I have beeen on some absolutely beautiful drives accross the country.

I've been to the maasai mara which is likw the new york city of the animal world. In terms of highlites of the mara (bcuz I saw soooo much):
- I saw two lionesses playing with her four cubs. Simba and nala were present and they were playong hide and seek.
- I saw a mama cheetah feeding her babies
- six elephants walked past our campsite meters away from us
- a super rare leopard laying lazily in a tree. It was soooo closeeee n I got crazy pics! Ppl never see leopards cuz they are sneaky!
- lots of buffalo n gazelles and zebras. All that typical african stuff
- a lion eating a dead buffalo

we were really close to the animals (hi steven and brandon)

Elephant bums

Elephant noses

nom nom nnom

class at our campsite in the mara

BUFFALO

the kitchen... and a monkey trying to raid the kitchen

helllo leopard

mufasa

But the highlight of the mara was when my group was driving back from visiting a maasai village and we saw a lion getting ready to hunt a "topi" at the top of a hill, and there was an incredible orangy sun set in the background. The sunset was absolutely beautiful. We stopped the truck to watch the lion for a few mins and I thought in my head :  THIS IS AFRICA. The most depressing thing was that I didn't hv a camera with me sooooo I had to take the whole thing is as a mental picture....

that is... until 2.5 weeks later.....


Luckily, Bluth had her CAMERA and is an amazing photographer and i did steal this shot of the sunset we saw from her:

Now doesnt this look like the very first picture i posted on my blog but like during sunset??? Hoooooollyyy crap.

Our days in the mara were packed becuase we started our second session courses and went on game drives at six thrity in the morning and then again at five pm till the sun set. I know its a little lame to read about safaris becuase you can really only understand the excitement of seeing your first wild animals when you are living it!

Our campsite was IN the mara sooo we heard lions at night and monkeys freak out about what ever animal was around.The mara was such a beautiful place but it is totally riddled with issues of land conflict between the parks n the maasai and the conflict between animals n the pastoralist way of life of the maasai. See how much I'm learning??

Elephant viewing right from the comfort of our very own campsite.

Also. This was the campiest place so far. I am proud to say that I am an exceller user of a drop toilet and not afriad to pee in bushes anymore. My bug fear has substantially lessoned and food always tastes better after a long day of hard work.

Photo by Melanie MacDonald

More updates soon about naivasha and nguruman.

I Started a Trend in Mbita, Kenya.

The theme of our trip to Mbita has been determinants of health. Mbita is located right on Lake Victoria in one of the poorest districts (Suba) in the poorest of the Kenyan provinces (Nyanza province). Our doctor who travels with us (Dr. John) was leading this module for us since he has started a few projects with his own Canadian NGO in Mbita at the hospital and various other places here.

A little about Mbita:
Mbita has the highest HIV aids rates in the whole of Kenya due to its location. Mbita is kinda on an island, so anytime the residents need the hospital they have to travel off the island and for quite a distance and on really crappy roads by motorcycle or bike. Basically, if a woman was having a baby she would probably opt to have it at home instead of make that difficult journey.

Because Mbita is on the lake there are lots of fishermen who are coming and going from the island and are having sex with the women in the village. These women consent because it is the only way for the women to feed themselves and their children. As a result, the number of people with HIV aids is really high due to the nature of the town’s location in conjunction with the high poverty.

What we did:
The CFSIAers were really lucky because Dr. John introduced us to his contacts who were East Africans working towards developing their community in mbita. Most of these were grassroots initiatives that were funded from abroad. My group had a discussion with a woman named "Benta" who had started a school for orphaned or partially orphaned children, many of whom are also HIV positive. We also learned that she started a feeding program at this school so that the children could get at least one nutritious meal a day with vegetables from a farm that she also opened up because the veggies in the market are too expensive, especially during the dry season.

We went to visit "little stars academy" the next day and the school was amazing! The children were sooooo excited to see us and we spent some time playing with them and looking around their classrooms and asking questions. They were really curious about Canada and wanted to know the name of our prime minister and the name of our premier which kinda caught me off guard! And then they sang for us and they sang WAKA WAKA by shakira!! I want to know how that song got to these kids in what seems like the middle of nowhere!

What really struck me was the energy that these kids had and you know, it’s probably because of this feeding program that Benta started. I never realized the obvious connection between 'nutrition and health' and 'nutrition and education' and how these kids are bound to study better when they are healthy and full. Benta sure is doing something right cuz her school just placed first out of 149 on their standardized tests.

Outside of school time:
We would take trips into town every day to where they had lots of tailors n really beautiful African fabrics (that I neeeedddd to buy n make pillows from). Anyways a lot of ppl got skirts and shirands n shorts made for like five or less Canadian dollars. I totz started a trend by getting a headband made (which was a total challenge because I didn't realize how much my Swahili sucked). The tailors were laughing at me and I ended up having to go onto the street and just scream "does anyone speak English?" At which point a random girl named Rosemary came to help me out. They made me a headband in ten mins and then back at our place everyone liked my headband so much that about ten ppl went back the next day and got them made for themselves and the tailor in the store made one for herself too!!! I'm going to start a trend in africa, I know it. (haha). Anyways I have some great pics and stories from my time in Mbita but now we are off to the Maasai Mara to go see some animals and we are camping!!!! Soooooooo I think ill get some great shots n hopefully some great stories to share. Happy reading week everyone :)

Some shots from Mbita: 

Little Stars Head Office

The farm that little stars grows their food on

Shelby at the grocery store at Mbita

Me and Georgia at little stars!

note the headband i got made

Thumbs up to you too

Dr. Bird, Bird Watching and Birds

Soooo something prettty cool about East Africa is that they have some huge birds! None of the little crappy birds we get back home. I'm talking massive my height storks that sit on garbage dumps and could definitely take me out if we got into a fight. 

Crowed Crains in Tanzania (that I took while on Safari)

Some of the birds here are beautiful like Ugandas national bird that is called the Crowned Crain. It looks like a stork with a crown on its head and it has lovely blue wings. In kibale I saw adorable african pied wagtiails that looked like they were wagging their feather tails at you. Everywhere we go we see some crazy african birds but todays bird watch did not compare to anything bird related I had ever seen before. We went to 'bird island'. This island was shocking. We took this boat out to lake victoria and I was expecting to get off at a little island and do some hiking around.

We finally come up to the island and it is absolutely covered in black birds and white birds. Large black and white birds resting on white trees tht have lost their leaves and resting on the rocks n the rocks are covered with white bird poo and there were just thousands and thousands of birds! It all looked incredibly dramatic.

And then we saw a nile monitor aka a giant lizard crawl out from behind a shrub and slowly move towars a nest. They eat birds eggs. The scene looked like something out of a horror movie be cuase the sky was a little gloomy n the clouds were overhead and there were overgrown shrubs. And then out of knowwhere all thr birds just started flying off the island! So above us thousandfs of black birds were flapping around over ahead (I was afraid of being pooed on) and they just swooped around in a coordinated manner very creepily.

So. The rerason why there are so many birds on this tiny island?? Because they are safe. No four legged predator can swim out to bird island (except the nile monitor) so the birds are the only creatures to have colonized it! Pretty crazy. A picture is definately necessary to explain this one.

The best part about all this bird watching is that we are led by our ornithology prof named prof. Bird. I'm nor joking. Today he pointed out these cute kenyan owls that look like they have horns on their head tht were sitting on the tree just behind our rooms and then water otters outside the lunch room. He has quite the eye!!

Black birds on a white tree

And their off! Mass exodus of birds from bird island.

Anyways. Today was interesting to say the least. Thank you to Bianca for her pics (Click on them to see them full size).

"Bye Mzungu!" (From Uganda back to Kenya!)

Hello friends. I feel like I have not updated you in a while. We had a very busy week during which I wrote my final exam, I crossed a border by foot and visited some very historic sites and initiatives. (Jalesh.... if you read this, you were too slow to post this blog and I aparently got to a computer first... don't know how that happened :S)

The Final
For all of you writing a trillion mid terms right now - I just wrote my final exam. It consisted of testable material from a lecture given ONE day before and we had a module for another course worth 30 percent of our mark the morning of the final. Basically, I had like two minutes to study for the final. So no complaining allowed from you in Montreal! The program is definitely intense but I also think that everything really sinks in more since I am tested on my field work! Another perk is that, we wrote these exams in Jinja where our hotel is located right on the Nile. We watch sunsets over the Nile everyday and IT IS BEAUTIFUL.

In Uganda we have a massive green bus that says "Fruit of Faith" on the back of it and we are very very noticible. At one point we were stuck in traffic and about ten young children chased our bus down the street yelling "bye muzugu bye muzugu" for a good twenty mins which means: "bye white people", adamant to see us off in the style of true Ugandan hospitality.

 "Fruit of Faith"

The Border
After Jinja we drove back into Kenya and crossed the border by foot. IT WAS WILD. We were not allowed to take pictures or we would be arrested. Let me try and describe it to you. In the middle of a crowded parking lot type area, we had to unload our packs and surround them like elephants protecting our young so that no one would steal them. Then we had to put them on and hike through a "no mans land" into Kenya and onto our safari trucks. There were lots of begging children asking us for money, pushy men trying to sell us random drinks and all sorts of transactions taking place between the Ugandans and Kenyans. It was quite the experience.

Kisumu
The very same day that we crossed the border we went to visit the Millennium Development Village which was selected as a village to try and meet the millennium development goals (affectionately known as the MDGs). This village was kind of like a pilot project created by an economist to see if we can actually meet the MDGs using a specific strategy. This village had shocking stats. Previous to funding and help from the MDG funds somethibg like 35 percent of pregnant women had HIV and 49 percent of the population had malaria. They had ONLY two schools and one health center which was ill-equip. With the help of the project and Jeffery Sachs, they now have over thirty schools and nine health centers  and are actually becoming more and more sustainable in their agriculture and in supporting themselves financially as a group of villages -- all in just eight years.

Development is a hot topic of debate among our group. We are all trying to figure out what the role is of the global north in the global south and if we really "know" how to help move towards a sustainable future since in North America we continue the problem because of our unsustainable mindset. I am def learning a lot from my fellow CFSIAers. Today we are moving onto Mbita.

A PERSONAL SHEENA UPDATE: My clothes n getting pretty dirty n I haven't showered in a few days but we are all eating well (we have awesome cooks) and we are all constantly in good spirits. There was a bug going around our group but I am still healthy!! Such a difference from the beginning of my trip. Maybe its my indian stomach. Talk soon!


p.s. I KNOW you are all out there reading by blog but i really have very little motivation to post when I don't know if you actually are or not... So leave me comments. THANKS.
Love,
sheena

Lake Nabugabo "Holiday Spot"

So we are spending two days and three nights at Lake Nabugabo or as the canoes out here say; Lake Nabugabo holiday spot. This place is pretty cool but I would not put it at 'vacationing' level. About twelve of us are tenting in army style tents while the other twenty (myself included) stay in the "lake house" which is an old house on the beach of the lake crammed full of bunk beds. Its kind of a slumber party slash camp experience and I'm really enjoying it.

just hanging out at the "beach house"

So stylish!

The whole place reminds me of cottage country in Ontario except that you can't go swimming in this lake cuz of the shistosomyasis which is a water borne disease. Its ok though, Mom, they do not allow us in the water. There are also BUNCH of different birds like king fishers and other cool huge ones that are so large that you can hear them flap over head! The food here is yummmmaayyy and we get fresh fish every day :) Today my bio class went to another kind of swamp where we had to put on these freaking cool chest waders and collect data from really high mud pits (hence the sexy chest waders)...


The best part about today is that we found a chameleon! They are soooooo cute. We tried to force it (unsucessfully) to change colour. Even though he didn't cooperate hes just about the sweetest little creature ever. There are also so many huge bugs. I'm going crazy but somewhat facing and maybe one day actually getting over my fear. Lake Nabugabo is a cool body of water because it got separated from Lake Victoria (which is the size of Switzerland) and within the last five thousand years there has been rapid evolution in this pond alone cuz it carries species that Lake Victoria does not!

Yaaaa ok I'm a nerdy biologist and this trip has just enhanced tht part of me. Also kinda exciting is that this place is run my the "Church of Uganda" so we eat (by the water side) on table clothes that list the three hundred names of Jesus. Woo. One thing that I've also noticed is that there are LOTS of stars out here... and its absolutely beautiful. Looking at the night sky always reassures me that this is a great and amazing place to choose to come to because I sure would not be seeing any of this in Montreal. Till next time!

The 'Holiday Center's' Yacht

Sunrise after we were woken up by a thunder storm

Kibale 2.0

In total, we spent about ten days at Kibale National Park at the Makerere Field Station. When someone told me that that's how long we spent, I really couldn't believe it because it went by SO QUICKLY! The time at the park was great because we had really structured classes during the day, and then long, warm afternoons to write in our academic journals, eat a healthy dinner, and then maybe pay $1.50 for beers (its almost like Bar Des Arts!) 'Tusker' is the name of Kenyan beer, and "The Nile" is Uganda's beer. We drink these at the 'canteen' and hang out/play cards for the rest of the night.