Okay, so what has taken place to this point is lack of internet and a hectic schedule. It seems that it is impossible to keep up with editing my pictures and performing research. We just finished on Sunday the field research. That composed of traveling for 1-3 hours one way to particular sites through Amboseli National Park. The 11 students in our group were then subdivided into groups of 2-3 with a guide and an armed Kenya wildlife service guard. We hiked through brush, bushes and barren land for 5-7 hours to map bomas, institution and wildlife. Bomas are little villages usually composed of a family. The structures and wildlife were marked by gps and then we moved on. On average 13 km were covered per group. On the 9th and 10th day we finished the structures within the group ranch and just located wildlife and the distance they were from any structures or road. This will give us information on how much structures and roads displace wildlife. I’m still trying to upload more pictures so hang tight. Oh and the future plans…. Yae…. Travel to Cairo, for 6 days and hopefully catching a boat to Alexandria or Casablanca and then meeting some friends that I have made here back in Kenya to do some traveling in the kakamanga forest and up the coast. I’ll be heading back to the U.S. on the 21 midnight. Oh, and there is no way escaping without a farmers tan here, because it is not acceptable to take off your shirt in front of people so I have a bad one… in-fact the worst one out of the group as I am told.

Okay so this olive baboon was hanging above us when we were eating lunch. This was during a hike we took near Laktotoke.











African Crown Crane






Giraffes in Amboseli National Park










Two common zebras greeting eachother












This Olive baboon obviously
had a little too much
to eat during lunch

Okay, so I know I'm aweful at updating this thing, but hopefully, that won't be an issue anymore as Tuesday are our finals. That's right! We have finals Tuesday and then for now one just Direct Research! To bring everybody up-to-date we have been to Amboseli National Park about 5 times and Tsavo once. Moses, one of the professors who's phrase is "my cup is overflowed with joy" refers to Amboseli as a giant zoo, because of the number of species that reside in the park. This is an issue that we are discussing and figuring out solutions for, one of the very many. Culling-the killing of a specie to reduce its number by park officials, in this case elephants, is being discussed. There are too numerous and destroying the biodiversity in the area. They can't expand, because the land is owned by the Maasia whos land has already been reduced to small fragments by national parks. It's troubling to see.

So besides that, Tsavo is a larger park that contains the man-eating lions. 'The Ghost and the Darkness' was regarding the two lions in this area. We heard many of them during the night roaring, but none came to camp. We were surrounded by our vehicles and spotlights and 4 armed esqaries (guards). Two had Ak-47 and two had spears, which I have purchased. I am coming back with a small armed force. No worries, already checked with the airlines and everything is okay to bring them aboard. In Tasvo, we had squaters, which are most pleasent, especially for the women here! No showers for 6 days and same clothing for the same amount of time. It was beautiful!

Okay, so what I have seen is too many to tell, but the empressive ones include of course the elephants, lions-6 feet away, elands, warthogs-the greatest thing to see run, an attacking baboon in attempt to get our food, sykes monky, black rhino and wild dog. Still have not seen a leopard or a cheetah, but soon will as we were told Nairobi National Park contains them and they are numerous there.

We have had black mambas in our camp several times, but no one has been hurt by them, although one person has had to be sent home, Conrad, due to heart complications. This has just happened and he is going tomorrow.

The people are great and the professors are awesome. They each have their little things they do which the class finds amuzing. The kids at times swarm the vehicles and us when we are teaching them something, drawing in the dirt or taking pictures. Some of them, I have let take pictures and are very amuzing when doing so.

Yesturday, we hiked Latoktok and I jumped up and scaled a rock to get to the highest point on the hill. I was the only one who achieved this great climb......When we came back down, there were two vehicles that took us back to our little shin-dig. However, it was a race and on these roads it's almost impossible to go fast, but somehow we did. The cars only go 80km per hour which supposively shut down if it is above this speed.

Today we went to Latoktok and planted trees with a partner from a secondary school. I was with a guy named Lantoi who is 18 years old and lives in Amboseli. This is an eight hour walk for him from home to school, but he only goes home every 3-4 weeks. He has a little sister and a mother, but no father. He already has 7 cows and 13-15 shoats (goats and sheep), which is really good. Cattle for the Maasai shows how wealthy one is. Most have anywhere from 20-40 cows and 50 shoats. Anyways, the men here hold hands with people from their own age group and particulary a good friend. Women do the same, but when a female and a male hold hands it is considered that they are sleeping with eachother. So many times, you will find guys and me holding hands with other guys. Besides planting trees, we helped plow a field by hand and planted tomotatoes. It was another great and wonderful day here in Kenya. Tomorrow, we get up at 7 to have breakfast have class from 8-12, lunch and then another class 2-4. I have completed laundry, 'by hand' for the week and am ready to turn in. Thank you all for those who have commented and following up. I started to think no one was even reading this.

Josh

I'm having a terrible time trying to upload pictures, but as soon as I have time to do so I will.

I have arrived in Kenya and it is better than I could imagine. Most of the group arrived at JFK to take the group flight to London where we spent the day. Half of us went into town and the other half decided to stay at the airport. Exchanging U.S. money to Euro is expensive as I gave $100.00 U.S. and received only 44 Euros. After the exhausting day of exlporing London we headed back to the airport where we grabbed some food and drinks and hopped on the airplane to Kenya. It was a long 8 hours later when we arrived in Kenya just in time to take a picture of their sunrise.

We unloaded and met our guide where he took our money and passports to get us our documents. In the meantime we exchanged money into Kenya Shillings which was a lot cheaper! 1 1/2 hours later we went down to customs where it took another 2 hours to get cleared to enter the country. We met our drivers and jumped in the rangers as we headed down the devil's highway. Okay, it's not really called the devil's highway, but there are no rulse when it comes to driving here. The construction and dirt roads, traffic, vehicles piled up on the roads, we finally arrived at our camp 6 hours later.

We have been hiking, vistited the maasai, and obviously seen a great deal of wildlife and beautiful scenary. I'll write more info next week.

So, I will be flying out of New York on the 3rd to London where I will return to my hometown, Upperhayford. We will reach Nairobi on the 5th, Friday, where we will meet up with the staff, get our visas and exchange our currency!

address

Mail should be addressed as follows:
Student Name
Center for Wildlife Management Studies
P.O. Box 27743 (Nyayo Stadium)
00506 – Nairobi, KENYA
East Africa

It is the request of the facility that no packages be sent as it will probably be ravaged. Asante (Thank you)