Every morning I wake up extra early so I can walk around the
edge of camp during the sunrise. It’s so beautiful in the morning, especially
Mount Kilimanjaro! Our teacher told us that when we look at Kilimanjaro, we’re
actually looking at Tanzania, which is amazing. Every morning I’m struck with
how easily I can be looking at another country from our back yard! We’ve had a
lot of thunderstorms this week, which is completely unexpected considering it’s
the Kenyan dry season. All the teachers say it must be global warming or
something weird going on with nature. All that rain makes for a LOT of mud.
During my morning walk I slip and slide all over, especially the part of the
trail near a river. The cool thing though is all that rain brings out the
critters and creatures of the Kilimanjaro Bush Camp. Friday night I saw a dog
run through campus! I’m told there’s a honey badger that likes to meander
through camp during the night and I’ve made it my mission to figure out how to
see him and get a picture. Friday morning, my banda-mate and I went for a walk
and saw two dik-diks walking around! They look like miniature deer, but
stockier and with shorter legs. My teacher wasn’t as excited about them as I was
because they keep eating his vegetable plants during the night! I wish I could
have gotten a picture of them before they ran away! We also saw a huge turtle
and a few GIANT snails. To put it in perspective, one snail was only a little
bit smaller than my hand! Thank goodness the bugs haven’t been too bad so far,
and we can just enjoy all the other creatures that hang about. On Saturday I
officially started classes, and I already love my wildlife management class
(WFS 310 for all you Penn Staters). It was a little weird to have class on a Saturday
but the days have quickly lost a lot of meaning for me. I either have a
combination of classes or a free day to get off campus and have a group
adventure. We pretty much have class 6-7 days a week, but they only last 6
weeks! It’s kind of cool to know how completely integrated everything is here.
Our teachers live in the same campus and often join us for dinner! Today a few
of us decided to try doing laundry for the first time. I say the first time
because for many of us, we have the luxury of a washer/dryer for this task.
This time, we went armed with scrub brushes, soap, and a bucket of water. It
took us a long time but we finally got the hang of scrubbing our clothes on the
sides of the bucket, then hanging them on a line. Definitely a new experience
for me, although my mother would be proud…all the wrinkles were hung! We also
got our slingshots today and one of the staff members taught us all how to
shoot rocks. I felt like one of the lost boys from Peter Pan! It was surprisingly
easy once I got the technique down. I’m good at hitting small trees and bushes
right now, but tomorrow I’m going to practice aiming higher.
Tomorrow I wake up early to help the cook crew make
breakfast. Later in the day we’re going on a boma visit to get a lesson on how
the local Maasai live! I’m so excited J
Until next time,
Dani
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