Still alive and well. (Mail Address Included)

     Alright, it’s about high time I finished this post. It has been half written for a week and things just keep cropping up so that I never finish. Oh well. Today marks just about the one week mark for us in Tanzania and I cannot stress how different this country is from Kenya. Everything is green and lush, the air smells of moisture and vegetation, the weather is cool and mostly overcast in the morning, the terrain is mostly hills and farms, the people hardly know any English at all, all the while Kenya is seemingly the exact opposite. The staff here say that the shocking contrast is only due to the fact that we are here during the wet season and normally water is a problem, I find it extremely hard to believe.

     The camp itself is much more recent, there are five bandas divided into two. Three or four people are on each half. Each side has an attached bathroom, complete with a hot shower…an absolute luxury comparatively though I do miss team showers after playing soccer. The camp is much smaller, still fenced in but we are allowed to leave the fence and wander into the town or wherever else we want at any time. Such freedom did not exist at KBC, in fact our soccer field is at the primary school half a mile down the road. The staff here is just as fantastic and I do wish we had met them earlier so coming here would have been more akin to visiting old comrades rather than a repeat of KBC orientation. Unfortunately, we cannot see Kilimanjaro from where we are, but we do have a similarly fantastic view of the surrounding hills, as we are very near the summit of one of the larger ones.

     The schedule has been quite busy lately which is one of the reasons this post has taken so long. Since arriving, we have had three classes, one traveling lecture, two informational movies, a trip to Lake Manyara National Park, a field exercise, two assignments assigned, and a day trip to Ngorongoro Crater conservation area. Today we have class and packing for expedition. Tomorrow we leave for a five-day spell in Serengeti National Park (be jealous). After that we have one exam, then the remainder of our time will be spent slaving over our Directed Research projects (yes I know this is a fragment).

     In reality, there has just been way too much to talk about in this past week. I’m not even going to try. However, Ngorongoro is the most spectacular place and it would be a shame if I did not elaborate on our time spent there. Lion cubs. That is all.

     Alright fine, I guess more is needed. Ngorongoro crater is the 6^th largest unbroken crater in the world, and it’s extremely unique in that it harbors an extremely high diversity of flora and fauna. In fact, the crater has the highest concentration of large cats than any other protected area. There is also a somewhat healthy population of the extremely endangered black rhino in the area, of which we saw 6. The crater rim is such that some of the wildlife cannot move out of the crater area, presenting a rather unique ecosystem for studying predator-prey relations and human wildlife interactions (as the traditional Maasai still utilize the land for grazing cattle). As already mentioned, we saw rhino’s for the first time, as well as a cerval cat, multiple hyenas, wildebeest galore, elephants, and many lions. In fact, we were at one point 3 feet away from a lion and lioness as they slept o the side of the road. Very cool.

     But the highlight of the day belonged to a rather intimidating lioness with her two young cubs. We happened to spot them as the lioness was observing a large group of zebra and unfortunately for her, the zebra knew she was there. However, her cubs did not care much for hunting They decided to pass the time by playing with each other and trying to take down the mother (which was quite amusing to watch her annoyance build). Fifteen minutes observing them resulted in practically hundreds of photos taken by our group as well as a few videos (ask me about them when you see me next, they are worth seeing).

     So, I think I’m done writing for now. Oh one last note, I shaved my head. Oh and here's the Tanzanian mail address before I forget...

Kevin Sherman
SFS Center for Wildlife Management Studies, 
P.O. Box 304
KARATU, TANZANIA
East Africa
 

Cheers.