Kenya
Everyday Life
Fierce Sun
Our home base was the Jua Kali Field Station. In Swahili, Jua Kali means "fierce sun." The field station consisted of small spread of land inside Game Ranching Limited (GRL), a game ranch owned by David Hopcraft. The ranch was located near the Athi River, near Nairobi.
There wasn't much to our humble field station. We definitely didn't have fences. Wildlife roamed freely throughout our home base if they chose. We had some pretty nice facilities, relative to what was available to most Kenyans. The building pictured at the left held our kitchen, lecture "hall," a small lounge, a tiny computer lab, an eensy-weensy communications office, and woodshop/workshop used by the staff.
The Ranch
The surrounding ranch was wild and untouched, for the most part. Wildlife came and went as they wished. In the distance, Mount Lukenya was visible. Contrary to the dry, golden savannah that is normally seen on wildlife documentaries of Africa, the land can be quite green during the wet seasons.
Our group hiked up Mount Lukenya soon after we arrived. One of the most beautiful silhouettes in the world belong to the acacia tree. Acacia xanthoploea or "fever trees," were very common on the ranch. They sported thorns that supposedly caused a fever in whomever unlucky enough to be stuck by them.
David Hopcraft, the owner of the ranch, had a pet cheetah named Mshala. It was a very tame, allowing us to come up close to give it a hearty massage and purring deeply in response. According to Hopcraft, Mshala was allowed to roam freely to hunt for itself.
Bandas
We lived in bandas, or thatch-roof huts. The students and interns lived in bandas. The teaching faculty lived in large, fancy tents.
As you can see, none of the buildings at the field station, including our bandas, really sealed us off from the outside. Windows consisted of a mesh screen with a flap. A rolled up flap of reeds or thatch covered the gaping window in the doorway. A large spider visited nightly my bed area. Ick! A wasp once tried to build a nest above my bed, too. Agh! I once left some potato chips in the banda, and we were promptly raided by vervet monkeys.
Four, yes four!, students were assigned to a banda. We each had a quarter of the banda where we had a small nightstand/drawer and a bed, consisting of a foam pad on slats. A mosquito net protected us from insects, and a kerosene lamp provided some dim light at night.
Amenities
After reading about how we lived, you may think that our living conditions were really awful. I thought so, too, when I first arrived. After going on expedition and exploring Kenyan cities and towns, however, I began to think of Jua Kali as very clean and luxurious!
We showered in open-air stalls. First, we had to visit the water heater to fill a bucket with hot water. Then we had to lug the bucket to the shower. Next, we filled the shower contraption, which consisted of a nylon bag with a water valve. We pullied the nylon bag up over our heads. Voila! A shower!
One common annoyance at the showers were bees. They came to the shower bags to collect water all the time. It was a bit nerve-wracking at first to stand naked before so many bees. After some time, I learned to shower during the bee down-times.
We had the option of having one of the staff do our laundry. I did my own.
We were fortunate to have breakfast and lunch cooked by the staff. Peter, one of the Kenyan staff, was the head "chef." On the other hand, the students had to cook dinner. We were divided into teams, and each team cooked one night a week. In the picture on the right, the faculty and interns cook (finally) for the students!
The best saved for last! The toilet was called the "choo," pronounced Choh. These were simply outhouses with a toilet seat resting over a hole. Flies were very abundant. Sometimes the choos stunk badly. Going to the choo was a miserable experience.
However, among all the choos I experienced in Kenya, these rank high in cleanliness and bearable odor. Another demonstration that how life is viewed, whether luxurious or apalling, is all relative.
Education
Our classes were held in the lecture "hall." It wasn't really a hall, of course. It wasn't a room, also. It was just an open air area with chalkboards and tables. During the day, we studied and listened to lectures there. At meal times, the place was our dining area.
We were fortunate to have a small computer lab. Inside were 4 laptops that were no faster than an old 386 and which ran outdated programs like Lotus 123, Harvard Graphics, and WordPerfect 5. We even had a small laser printer!
A small student "lounge" housed an old, beat-up arm chair and sofa. Our student mailboxes hung on the wall. Some students had found a dead raptor on the road. Craig and Kari decided to stuff it. The finished product was displayed in the lounge for a while, until it disintegrated.
The Staff
Nearly all of the teaching staff were American or South African. We had one Kenyan, Richard, who is pictured at the right with his wife, Cindy, and daughter, Tierra. Toni, an American, was the field station director. Wayne and Derek were South African. Mike was American. The interns, Lisa and Nicki, were American as well. Brett and Trelss, the other interns, were South African.
The support staff were all Kenyan. Pictured on the left is Maraka. He ran the duka, the mini snack shop. All sorts of wares--postage stamps, chips, soda--could be bought at the duka. What I remember the most about Maraka is that on one of the last days of the semester, he said that he was going to miss me because I was so quiet. I was touched and amazed.
Getting Around
We got around in very old, clunky Range Rovers and Land Cruisers. There was a roof in the back through which we could stand and view wildlife. Passengers in the back sat on meagerly padded benches. Suspension? What is a suspension? My advice to potential passengers of these modern machine marvels: Never, never forget to wear a bra.
Once the rainy season started, breakdowns and getting stuck in the mud were regular occurrences. In the picture on the left, our rover had broken down in Tsavo National Park. Not a minute after, another of the rovers (you can see it far away in the background) promptly broke down, too.
My research group, on a data collection outing on GRL, got stuck in the mud. Jo, Kari, Keiko and I pushed. I don't remember if we got out of our rut until additional help arrived. Guess which are my feet!
Expeditions Away From Home
The luxuries of Jua Kali became very evident after we went on expedition to various towns and national parks in Kenya. We went on a total of three expeditions, spending 1 to 1.5 weeks each on the road. We slept in tents and ate lunch out of the back of our rovers. Roadfare was usually PB&J or avocado sandwiches. Sometimes we had showers available to us, and sometimes we sponge-bathed out of buckets. Outhouses away from Jua Kali were overwhelming, nauseating messes.
Holiday Festivities
Although we were all so far away from home, we tried to celebrate all the normal holidays and events, like birthdays, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. Late in the semester, during one of our last days in Kenya, we had a special going-away, pre-Christmas dinner. Roasted Tommy (Thomson's gazelle) was the special fare. I didn't like the taste of it. I stuck to the Coke's hartebeest meat.
For one final good-bye jab in the ribs, the staff came up with the bright (ha ha) idea of handing out awards to memorable students. I suppose in our case, all the students were memorable. In this picture, Craig receives the "Boyds will be boyds" award. I got the Joan Rivers' "Can't Get a Word In Edgewise" award.