Back in Skukuza

So despite the fact that I've had internet for the past few weeks, I've still been really bad at posting. Here's the latest:

It’s hard to believe that there’s only about a week left to my program. Although I’m sticking around for an extra week to travel a bit, it’s still starting to make me depressed that I will be leaving this country so soon. We’ve been back in Skukuza in Kruger for the past few weeks. It’s been nice coming back here because we were here earlier in the semester so it feels like we already know this place. The past few weeks have been very busy in terms of work. It was a definite change coming from the relaxation of spring break to the final projects of the semester.

As soon as we returned here we started our second Independent Projects. These are our second big research projects of the semester and are a lot longer and more in depth than our first projects. Although the intention for the second project is to explore a completely different topic than the first project, my group had a lot of success with our first project and enjoyed the topic, so we decided to continue with our original research on termites. At first we weren’t sure it was going to work out because basically no one in the history of the program had extended their first project, so our professors were a little skeptical. In the end though, it turned out okay. We went back to the same location of our first study and sampled about 40 more termite mounds to determine the genera of the species living there. We also decided to collect termite samples from wood in order to get a better idea of the overall diversity of termites in the area. The fieldwork went pretty smoothly although in some mounds we dug for about an hour and never managed to get deep enough to actually find the termites. Luckily the weather wasn’t too hot because we had to spend a lot of time out in the field in order to get the samples that we needed. One day we left around 6:30 in the morning and didn’t return to our camp until about 5 that night. Just like the first time, this project ended up involving a lot of time sitting at a microscope trying to distinguish between different termite samples. My professor who was in charge of advising our project wanted us to try to figure out the species of all the samples, in addition to the genera, but we quickly gave that up after we found out that it involved counting individual hairs on the termites’ heads and trying to measure the length of their legs. Although we didn’t have to completely have to rewrite our entire first paper, we had to do a lot of additional analysis and add a lot of extra information. The whole paper (including the appendix) ended up being over 40 pages, so it was such a relief when we finally turned in our final draft.  I’m sure that no one reading this is super interested in the density and distribution of termites in the savanna, so I won’t go into details about our actual results. We still need to present our projects to all of the staff, other students and people who work here in the park, so the work on it isn’t completely done. There’s also the chance that we might continue revising our paper once the program is over in hopes of getting it published at some point. Although coming into this program, termites wouldn’t have been my top choice to study, I ended up becoming really interested in them, so I’m glad that I’ve spent so long on this one project.

Although we haven’t had a lot of free time, we’ve still managed to get in a lot of game drives. I’m realizing that I only have a short amount of time left here, so I’m trying to go out and see animals whenever possible. It’s definitely paid off because we’ve seen some amazing animal sightings lately. The highlight would probably be seeing a lot of lions (including some young ones, and some eating a freshly caught giraffe) because we spent the first two months of the program without seeing a single lion. So now I have officially seen the Big Five in South Africa.  

Technically it’s getting to be winter here, which is weird to think about considering that it is just starting to warm up at home. It can still be really hot here during the day (sometimes hotter than summer at home), although we’ve had a few pretty cold early morning game drives. The idea of winter here is definitely different from the snow and ice of the winter at home. The most noticeable change is that the sun sets a lot earlier now than it did earlier in the semester. We also had a week of very overcast and rainy weather, which is unusual considering that it is supposed to be getting into the dry season here. Although I’m not really looking forward to summer back in the US, I’m glad that I’m basically getting one long extended period of warm weather and missing out on winter entirely.

Links to prior pictures (the Skukuza ones are still in progress):

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/fbx/?set=a.10150574871875078.662251.870290077&l=1cd954e7ca

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/fbx/?set=a.10150580061030078.669795.870290077&l=60e75eb555

 

Spring Break in Cape Town

From last week in Cape Town:

   

  Although we are more than halfway through with the semester, we had our “midterm break” last week in Cape Town. We have only had a few full days off up until this point because this course doesn’t follow the typical schedule of having no class on weekends, so this was our first time with a lot of freedom. We stayed as a group in a hostel  (called a “backpacker” here) near Long Street which is a street with lots of restaurants and shops and is a pretty touristy area.

     I was really impressed by the city itself. It is sandwiched between mountains and the ocean, so it is in a beautiful location. I definitely didn’t get to explore all of it, but the areas that I did see were clean and there were a lot of beautiful old buildings. Compared to cities in the US, it doesn’t seem as developed, at least in terms of skyscrapers and large buildings, although it’s definitely still growing (for example, I drove past the new stadium built for the World Cup). From where we were staying there were a lot of places within walking distance although we had to take taxis often to get to further locations. Although our last two days in the city were scheduled for lectures and class activities, we were free to do whatever we wanted for the rest of the time. So here are the highlights of my time in Cape Town:

·         Climbed Table Mountain: This is one of the major landmarks of Cape Town and is always listed as a must-do thing for visitors to the city. I went with a group of friends and our original plan was to walk from our hostel to the mountain itself, hike up the mountain, walk around the top of the mountain and have lunch, take the cable car down the mountain and then walk back to the hostel. Our day didn’t end up going according to plan though. After we had walked uphill for about 45 minutes to actually reach the base of the mountain we learned that the cable car wasn’t running that day due to high winds. We decided to climb the mountain anyways and hike back down too. The climb itself was kind of challenging and involved climbing up natural rock steps for almost two hours. Once we got about halfway up, the wind started to pick up, which made hiking a little harder. When we finally reached the top, we experienced the full force of the wind. We ate our lunch huddled next to a wall trying to get out of the wind because all of the buildings and shops at the top of the mountain were closed. It was the coldest I have been in South Africa and being at the top of the mountain wasn’t the most enjoyable experience. It also was a very tiring day of walking because once we reached the top we still had to hike back down, plus walk back to our hostel. Overall it was a really good workout and I enjoyed most of the experience.

·         Swam with seals: I went on a snorkeling trip out of a place called Haut Bay in order to swim with Cape Fur Seals. We went out to an area called Seal Islands which is a colony of about 3000 seals. The water was pretty cold, but we were able to wear wetsuits while swimming. The seals have no fear of humans and in fact were very curious. The baby seals in particular would swim right up to us. It also should be noted that these seals are the favorite prey of all the sharks that live around here. Luckily we didn’t see any while swimming though.

·         Toured several vineyards: The area around Cape Town in South Africa is known for its amazing wine, so I went with a group on a biking wine tour. We went on a prearranged tour with several other people. We had a very multi-national group – there were people from Australia, Spain, Germany, Norway, England and Israel. Our tour guide drove us to a town about an hour away; then we got on bikes and rode to the first vineyard. The bike ride was beautiful and took us through the countryside on dirt roads. Unfortunately we were only able to ride to the first two vineyards because the final two were too far to reach by bike. At each of the four vineyards we had a chance to sit down and sample some of their wines (anywhere between 4 and 9 samples). I don’t really know much about wine, but after this tour I’m starting to learn the difference between all of the different kinds. I also don’t really know how to classify a “good” wine, but a lot of the wines we tried won some sort of awards, so I guess some people would consider them to be good.

·         Saw a concert in the botanical gardens: These gardens are some sort of heritage site, I think, so the place was beautiful. We saw some South African band which I had never heard of, but it was a good way to spend the night.

·         Ate lots and lots of good food : This was the first time that we really had the freedom to choose our meals, because they have been cooked for us during the semester. We were given food money that we could budget however we wanted. The restaurants in Cape Town are pretty amazing. My favorite was a place called Café Royale which has some of the best burgers/milkshakes I have ever had. I also got to try sushi and Ethiopian food (thanks to having friends who are more worldly in their food choices) both of which were interesting, although I’d have to say that I liked the Ethiopian a lot more.

·         Visited Cape Point/Penguins: As a class we went to see Cape Point, which is often confused with the Cape of Good Hope which is located right next to it. Cape Point is the southernmost point of Cape Town. On the same day we also visited the beach to go surfing and to a colony of penguins that live nearby. They lived right next to a parking lot by the ocean, so their environment didn’t look too natural, but it was still interesting to see them.

·         Tried to visit Robbin Island (where Mandela was imprisoned): Unfortunately the wind was too strong and the seas were too rough, so our ferry was cancelled. Hopefully I’ll be able to come back to Cape Town at some point, because it’s supposed to be a really interesting tour.

So overall Cape Town was a lot of fun and I would recommend that anyone visit if they are ever in South Africa.  

De Hoop

     Our next location was De Hoop, which is close to the Southern Coast of the country. It took a few hours to get there from Cape Town, but we stopped in a town called Hermanus on the way. It is considered to be one of the best places for land-based whale watching in the world, and as a result a lot of the town is whale-themed. Unfortunately we are here in the wrong season – the whales are down in Antarctica right now. It definitely would have been amazing to see whales while I was here, but this just means I’ll have to visit South Africa another time in the fall, so I can actually see them. The town itself was really nice and reminded me kind of like Cape Cod – lots of little shops and restaurants right by the water. We were able to walk around for a few hours and discovered this amazing café which sold crepes. The water itself was also really beautiful and I was glad to see the ocean again because it’s one of the things that I have missed.

     The place that we stayed in De Hoop is usually used for an environmental education camp, I think. We were in large dorm rooms above a big meeting room, which was been converted into our classroom/eating area. We were also right by a lot of hiking trails, one of which leads to a big cave in the hills with a great view of the area. The area we were in is considered to be the fynbos, which in non-scientific language means that it has special soil and moisture characteristics. It is also one of the most diverse areas of the world in terms of plant species and has a high percentage of species that don’t grow anywhere else. I don’t know much about plants, so I can’t really say what makes these plants so different but most of are low to the ground and seem similar to plants that you might find on a mountain.

     Our time in De Hoop was pretty busy in terms of work. We had two FFP’s, presentations on conservation and a history paper due. I wasn’t in either of these FFP groups, but still had to participate in the fieldwork. The first one was with a scientist from the University of Cape Town who led a project about tide pools. We were trying to determine if the size of the pool and the distance from the water had an effect of the oxygen levels and the species diversity. It was probably the FFP that I have enjoyed the most in terms of fieldwork because it consisted of going to the beach and exploring tide pools for a day. I was responsible for collecting sea urchins, sea cucumbers, whelks, winkles and crabs from the pools for a behavioral experiment based on the oxygen levels in water. Watching the animals and recording their movements wasn’t too interesting, but I really liked being right by the ocean. A huge pod of common dolphins swam by which was exciting because we have the same species at home. We also got a chance to swim once we were done, so I can now say that I have swum in the Indian Ocean.

     The other FFP dealt with a type of insect called a leafhopper, which is nothing like a grasshopper. They are really small and thin, but have noses that are about the size of half their bodies. This project was done with a professor from the University of Stellenbosch, but it was really the master’s project of one of his students. This school is pretty close to where we are, so the professor brought his honors class (basically the last year of college, although they have a different system here) with him to work on the project with us. It was nice to be able to work with new people and here what they had to say about living in South Africa, although it definitely made the place more crowded for three days. That FFP project involved looking at leafhoppers, which are nothing like grasshoppers. They are very small insects with very long noses and are often found on a certain type of plant. The project dealt with figuring out if there was in preference for plant species, or if the type of camouflage could be considered crypsis (meaning that it just blends into their surroundings) or masquerade (meaning that it pretends to be part of the actual plant). The whole day basically involved walking around hitting grasses and trying to capture the leafhoppers. Later in the afternoon we had to spend about 2 hours observing the leafhoppers, which turned out to be extremely boring because they really don’t do too much.

     We actually had a day off during our time in De Hoop so we spent a good portion of the day at a beach. The water was surprisingly warm and I was really impressed by the lack of seaweed. I also had the chance to try surfing because one of my professors is big into it and brought along a few surfboards. It was a lot of fun, and I’m hopefully going to try it out again during our time in Cape Town. We didn’t see any sharks, but the coast of South Africa has one of the highest densities of sharks in the world. In addition, we visited Cape Agulhus, which is the very Southern tip of Africa. Besides that, De Hoop was filled with a lot of work, so I’m glad to be done with in and move on to the fun of Cape Town.

Pretoria and Joberg

So now that I finally have free internet once I again, I can post all of these updates from the past month:

     It’s hard to believe that I’m already more than halfway done with this program – time has flown by. After our time in Mapungubwe, we drove to Pretoria to experience a few days in the city. It was definitely a change to be back in a place with lots of people, buildings and traffic after being isolated for so long. We stayed in a hostel in Pretoria which was on a really quiet street. Although most people stayed in large rooms, I was lucky enough to stay in a small cottage off the main building with several other people. Although we were never actually at the hostel too often, it was still nice to have such a large space to spread out. It was also really nice that the hostel had internet, so I was able to finally check my e-mail once again.

     We were only in Pretoria for two full days, so we were pretty busy. On our first day there we went to the Hector Pieterson Museum which is in a township near Johannesburg called Soweto. Pretoria and Johannesburg are located really near each other, so it didn’t take too long to reach there. This museum was all about black uprising during the Apartheid Era in South Africa. We had learned a little about this topic towards the beginning of the semester, but this museum was very helpful in clearing up a lot of the confusion that I had about the topic. I’ve never officially taken a class on South African history or the Apartheid, so I’ve learned a lot in my time here. That same afternoon we visited the Apartheid Museum in Johannesburg. This museum was huge and it took a while to see everything. It basically gave a chronological history of the Apartheid and included a lot of pictures and news clips. There was also a large exhibit on Nelson Mandela’s life, which was really interesting. The subject matter of these two museums definitely wasn’t too uplifting and happy, but they were informational so I’m glad that we got a chance to see them.

     After visiting the two museums we went out to dinner at this really great buffet. When I heard that we were going to a buffet, I kind of expected huge amounts of okay-quality food, but the place we went had some of the best food I’ve had all semester. It was a really small place, so our group took up most of the space. The food was international – a mix of traditional African dishes with Indian and Mediterranean plates. There were also a lot of amazing desserts. Once we finished eating we headed next door to a theater where we saw a play. I don’t actually know what the play was called because we were never given a playbill or anything, but it had to do with a young man growing up during the Apartheid. It was a one-man production without any props, effects or lighting but the actor was really good. I feel like I would have enjoyed it more if I actually understood what was going on. Parts of it were in Afrikaans and other South African tribal languages, meaning that I had no idea what the man was saying. I think a lot of it was supposed to be funny, because a lot of people in the audience were laughing, but I had no way of really knowing.

     On our second day in Pretoria we visited two more sights – some caves and a museum on the Cradle of Humankind. The area that we were in is thought to be where human originated from. The caves that we visited are archeological sites where some early skeletons of human ancestors have been discovered. Right now they are excavating a skeleton known as “Little Foot” that is a complete skeleton of an ancient human ancestor, but they have been working on this for the past 14 years. We didn’t actually get to see the actual archeological site, but the caves themselves were pretty interesting. In one part of the cave there was a huge underground lake. A university tried to map out how big this lake is, but never reached its far limits because it’s so big.

     The museum that we visited was also about the origins of humans. It was definitely geared towards younger kids and there were a lot of school groups there. There were lots of hands-on activities, including this weird boat ride that seemed like it should be in a theme park or something. It was a “journey through the 4 elements of life” which basically consisted of sitting on a boat that went by volcanoes, waterfalls, wind and moving rocks. I honestly don’t know what the point of it was considering it had nothing to do with the rest of the museum, but I’m sure that it is pretty popular with all the kids who visit the museum. There was also a spinning vortex tunnel to walk though, which makes you feel like you are in a spinning tunnel of stars and unable to walk straight. The museum was definitely a change from the kind of depressing museums the day before, but I didn’t really learn much from visiting it.

     On our final day in Pretoria we woke up around 4 in the morning to make a 7am flight to Cape Town. It’s definitely a challenge traveling with 25 college students, but we managed to make the flight on time. It takes less than two hours by air from Johannesburg to Cape Town, so we arrived in the city relatively early. On a side note, I was really impressed that we were served a full breakfast on the plane even though it was such a short flight. If it had been an American flight, we probably wouldn’t have even been given drinks. We only spent a day in Cape Town (we’ll be back after our time in De Hoop) but it was long enough to begin exploring the city. Because we’ll be spending more time there for our “midterm break” I’ll save my descriptions of the city until then, because I’ll probably have a lot more exciting things to write about.    

Mapungubwe

Mapungubwe

After leaving Hamakuya we traveled to Mapungubwe, which is located near the Northeast border of South Africa and is another of the South African National Parks. The landscape was very different there compared to the other places that we have stayed. It reminded me a lot of the Southwest in the US. There were a lot of large red sandstone rock formations and the soil was also red in color. The area that we stayed at was situated in the middle of a lot of these rocks, so we were basically surrounded on all sides. The views around there were amazing – I would say that it was my favorite place that we have been so far. There were still a lot of wild animals, but we didn’t see them quite as much as when we were in Skukuza. Because of the animals, we couldn’t really go running or even walk around alone, even though we rarely saw any animals near where we stayed.

 It’s also amazing how close we were to the border of the country. Several times we went to watch the sunset at a specific spot where you could see Zimbabwe and Botswana. These two countries, along with South Africa, are separated by two rivers – the Limpopo and the Shashi. From our spot in South Africa, we were only a few kilometers from both of these other countries. If the Limpopo River had been dry (the Shashi  is completely dry at this time of year), we could have walked across into these two other countries, which everyone really wanted to do, just so we could say that we did. Unfortunately there was still water in the river, meaning that there were also crocodiles, so we weren’t able to (illegally) cross the border.

As far as accommodations go, Mapungubwe definitely surpasses some of the other places where we have been. We stayed in beautiful 3-person huts which had lots of extra room, a big porch and an outdoor shower. Each hut also had a kitchen, which meant that we were able to keep food and drinks cold without having to walk all the way to the main kitchen. We were given food to make breakfast, but we also got really creative with our supplies and managed to make a lot of desserts out of our limited ingredients.

During our time there, I had to work on my Faculty Field Project for the semester. I worked with 3 other students on a project dealing with the behavior of a certain species of lizard called a flat lizard (Platysaurus). We worked with a visiting professor from a university in Joberg. He does most of his research on snakes and had a lot of amazing pictures to show us and stories about all the snakes that he has encountered. When we had to sign up for projects at the beginning of the semester, I choose this one because I was interested in the behavioral aspect of it. I really had no passion for studying lizards, but the general topic sounded interesting. We ended up looking at the foraging and predator avoidance behaviors in the lizards and seeing if there were any differences between male and females or adults and juveniles. Males and females have very different coloring, so it would make sense that they would have different behaviors as a result of this. The project ended up being three very long days of fieldwork. Because I was actually part of this project group, I had to work on it every day, and I had to help organize the rest of the class (each person only worked on it for 1 day). Part of the project involved observing lizards that live in the rocks near the pool and recording their behavior for 30 minute intervals. The part of the project that I was more involved with though involved climbing around the rocks surrounding where we are staying and searching for lizards. Whenever we found a lizard, one person acted as a “predator” and approached it slowly. We then had to record how close the predator was to the lizard when the lizard started to move, how far the lizard ran, and how long it took for the lizard to flee to its final location. The work itself wasn’t too difficult, but it was usually pretty hard to actually find lizards to use. If it was cloudy, windy, too hot, or too cold, the lizards would stay in their crevices in the rocks. We ended up going out two times a day for three days and only finding 55 lizards to use as samples. It involved a lot of time out in the sun and heat (it was very very hot), so although it was a very interesting experiment, I’m glad that part of it is done. Now my group is responsible for analyzing the data and writing up a final report for the project. In addition to this project, we also had a stats test and an ecology essay due, so it was definitely one of the busier times so far this semester.

We also had the bad luck of having a day-long power outage due to some problem with a transformer. This caused some problems because we were supposed to have a statistics test, which required us to use laptops, and a full day ecology essay, which also required laptops. On the day of the stats exam we basically sat around all day waiting for the power to come back on so we could start the test. It never ended up coming on, so the test was postponed. There was no way to postpone the essay however, because we don’t have any open free days when we could do it. As a result, we had to write out our essays by hand and complete it without the resources that we needed, which were on our computers. It was frustrating, but there was really nothing that we could do about it. It was also two of the hottest days that I have experienced this semester, so without power, we also didn’t have fans and air conditioning. It was almost too hot to move at some times. We ended up spending a lot of time outside watching a thunderstorm approaching. It was really cool to see the lightening light up the clouds and eventually there was a huge storm which was amazing. I definitely enjoyed my time at Mapungubwe and would say that it is my favorite place that we have been so far.

Photos:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=646866&id=870290077&l=06fe34acfc

 

Hamakuya Homestay

Sorry this blog is so long - I had way to much to talk about.

For three days out of our time at Hamakuya we stayed with families at local villages. We were put into groups of 4 and paired with a translator. The families that we stayed with were of the Venda ethnic group and their primary language was TshiVenda. For the three days we were there, we essentially had no contact with anything outside of the village. Although some villages that students were in did not have electricity, I stayed in a village called Mukoma, which was recently hooked up to electricity. It was overwhelming when we first got there because we really hadn’t been taught anything about the Venda language or culture. We had a sheet of key phrases and our translator, but besides that we were basically thrown into this household. We were first introduced to our host mother, Joyce, but after that there was a constant stream of people who wanted to meet us. I never really understood who lived in our house, and who was related to whom. Because the people we lived with had such limited English, they had trouble pronouncing our names. They had particular trouble with my name, because the letter L is pronounced like an R in their language. Our host mother and some of her friends ended up giving the four of us Venda names that they could pronounce. I was named Thabelo, which means prayer. This added some additional stress because it took forever to actually remember the name well enough to recognize when people were talking to me.

                Overall, I glad I got to experience this homestay, but I did not enjoy a lot of it. My group had issues with our translator so the experience was not too great. Her job was supposed to be to tell us, word-for-word everything that was being said, even if it was something unimportant. She definitely didn’t do this, and sometimes would tell us absolutely nothing so we would be sitting there in silence while all these Venda people had conversations around us. She enjoyed telling us that someone was talking to us, but then wouldn’t tell us what that person said, or what to say in response. She also liked to joke with us, but because we didn’t know anything about the culture, we didn’t understand the humor. On the first day she told us that we needed to finish all the food that was given to us for lunch, or else it would be rude. We almost made ourselves sick trying to finish it before she started laughing and told us that she was kidding.

                My other main complaint about the homestay was the constant swarm of children that were always around. The village rarely gets visitors so it was very exciting for all of the villagers that we were there. The kids in particular loved to be around us and hold our hands and touch our hair and play games with us. I wouldn’t mind this so much, except for the fact that there were always so many of them around. My host family actually didn’t have any kids under the age of about 13, but it seemed like all of the kids in the village would show up daily. It was very overwhelming to be surrounded by so many kids all of whom were yelling loudly in a language I couldn’t understand.

So to try to compress three full days into one longish blog, here is what we did:

·         Made marula beer (actually more of marula juice because it wasn’t given time to ferment properly) by peeling and squeezing the pits. It has a very mild flavor and looks almost like lemonade

·         Played endless games with the kids: Strangely a lot of their games are counting games involving saying an English sentence and having a person be out on a particular word. There is one about a policeman shooting someone over a letter and one about a father smoking cigarettes. I’m pretty sure the kids don’t even know what they are saying. Another popular game is like jacks except it involves throwing a rock up and sweeping a certain number of rocks into/out of a circle before catching the rock. I was horrible at this game and they loved to tease me about it.

·         Visited with the local headman who is basically the chief of the village who works under a main headman for several villages all together. Our host family dressed us up in traditional Venda clothing so that we would be dressed properly to see him. He answered a lot of our questions about improvements he wanted to make and challenges that the village faces. It was also surprising when he told us that he has three wives and 17 children. 

·         Visited a local primary school: The school was severely understaffed. On the day we visited several teachers were away at a conference so a lot of classrooms were unsupervised and we could hear the kids yelling the entire time. Some of the school was really rundown and in the process of being renovated but the newer classrooms weren’t too bad. The principal gave us a tour and answered a lot of questions for us. The school also had their own garden to use for school lunches which I thought was interesting.

·         Visiting a sangoma – a local traditional healer: She had a small hut that was almost completely filled with hundreds of bottles of herbs and powders and liquids. There were also lots of animal skins and elephant fat hanging from the ceiling. She told us a little about how she got started in healing (she was sick and ancestors came to her in a dream). One girl in our group had her prophecy read by the healer throwing bones and looking at the way they landed. I’m kind of skeptical about the whole thing because the predictions seemed kind of scripted (eg. You will get married, you will have a car etc.)

·         Cooking/eating traditional Venda food: The staple to the Venda diet is called pap (pronounced “pup”). It’s made out of white cornmeal and has a mushy texture and very little taste. It is eaten at basically every meal, sometimes with other things, which meant that we had to cook it every day. Most of the cooking is done inside a hut with very little air circulation, making it uncomfortably hot and smoky. We also killed a chicken one day (which was kind of a horrifying experience because the knife was so blunt that the chicken took forever to actually die), which was the only meat we ate the entire time. We also got to eat mopane worms (look up a picture of them online) which wasn’t too great because they were really salty. All of the food is eaten with your hands and most of it has a soft mush consistency. Although it doesn’t taste bad, I was sick of the texture by the end.

·         Entertained most of the village: All of the villagers were excited that we were there, so they would visit throughout the day. We were told several times that just being there made their lives more interesting. A lot of times it felt like we were expected to entertain the children because they constantly asked (through the translator) for us to teach them something American. We tried teaching them simple games like London Bridge and the hokey-pokey, but what they liked best was the macarana. We also drew a large map of the world (that most of them had never seen) in order to show them where we were all from. We also provided entertainment at night when they tried to teach us to dance. A lot of the neighbors would show up in order to dance for us, while other people beat out rhythms on an empty water jug. They loved pretended that they were going to teach us a dance, and then abandoning us so that they could laugh as we struggled with the Venda dances (they involve a lot of fast footwork).

·         Carried water on our heads: They didn’t trust us with the large water jugs (which probably would have been too heavy anyway) but we were given smaller jugs. It was amazing to see all of these little girls balancing huge containers on their heads while we struggled with small containers and never managed to do it without hands

·         Learned a lot about the Venda culture: This society is still pretty unequal in terms of gender. Gender roles still exist, so it’s usually the men who work (although a majority of them are unemployed in which case they sit around a do nothing) while women do the housework and raise children. There was a 19 year old girl in our household who basically did everything for her family, while still attempting to finish school. I was in a group with 4 female students, which meant that we were treated differently than if a guy had been with us. Some of the guys in my program essentially did nothing strenuous for the entire homestay because their translators thought that it would be going against Venda tradition if they learned “female” tasks. Some translators wouldn’t even let the guys pour their own water, and made the girls do it for them. The gender division is also apparent in the way that women are expected to greet visitors. You basically have to lie on the floor with your hands clasped together whenever you greet someone. It got to be really annoying because there were so many visitors so we always had to get on the floor to greet them. Females also aren’t really allowed to sit in chairs or sit crossed-legged, so we spent the whole time being really uncomfortable while sitting with our legs folded to the side. This was also difficult in the long (but beautiful) skirts that they made us wear (it’s not appropriate for girls to show their knees)

·         Attempting to learn the language: After three days without English, I can only say “good morning”, “good afternoon”, “good evening”, “fine”, “name”, “water” and “it was delicious” in TsiVenda, which is less than I expected. It’s definitely good to be back to a place where I can communicate normally.

So overall, I’m glad I was able to take part in this experience. I know that when I look back I’ll be very grateful for the lessons that it taught me, although at the time it was kind of stressful.  

Also - pictures from my time in Hamakuya!

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=645965&id=870290077&l=2058a86787

 

Hamakuya (aka basically the middle of nowhere)

                After leaving Skukuza, we spent nine days in Hamakuya, which is located just above the northern edge of Kruger National Park. In order to reach there, we had to spend about 12 hours driving through the park. It took so long because it is a national park and there are strict speed restrictions on all of the roads. We were able to drive in our game drive vehicles (GDV’s) which are open-backed trucks with benches and an overhead covering – basically the stereotypical safari vehicle. The benefit of this was that we got to see a lot of amazing scenery and animals. Not even 15 minutes into the drive, we were stopped while we watched a leopard stalking some oblivious impala. Unfortunately the leopard lost interest, so we didn’t get to see a kill take place. We also saw a herd of about 30 elephants which was incredible, and several herd of buffalo which was exciting because it was first time that we had seen them. Sadly though, we went the entire day without seeing a lion. It’s pretty surprising that we have already had multiple sightings of wild dogs and leopards which are relatively rare, but we still have yet to see a lion, which are a lot more common in these areas. Although it was great to see all of the animals, being in a GDV for such a long time is pretty uncomfortable because you constantly have to deal with wind in your face, which made it a very cold, loud and dusty experience.  It also rained at one point, meaning that we all got soaked.

While we were at Hamakuya we stayed in platform tents that overlooked a river. There wasn’t a lot of free space and we only had electricity for a few hours a day because it ran on a generator, but the views were beautiful. A lot of local villages let their cattle roam free, so there was always a constant clanging of cowbells by the river. There were also a lot of baboons in the area which was annoying at times. They can be very loud and would often wake me up very early in the morning. It was definitely the hottest there than it has been. Although it wasn’t too humid, by the middle of the day it was really hot. Our tents had large decks off of them, so it was nice to be able to sit out there and try to catch a breeze.

Onward and upward

The past week has mainly been focused around another main component of this course – Faculty Field Projects. Throughout the course of the semester, we will complete 7 of these FFP’s. Scientists from all over the country come and spend a few days with us, while we work on a project with them. Each person is assigned to a group for a specific project for which they are responsible for organizing equipment and ultimately writing up the report. Everyone works on gathering data for all of the projects though. It’s an interesting way to be exposed to a wide range of topics and meet scientists other than our standard professors.

This week we did our first two FFP’s. The first one dealt with the dynamics between grass and trees and trying to use this relationship to create fire management plans. Wildfires burn differently based on the composition of the landscape. When there are a lot of trees, fires tend not to burn. This project involved measuring grasses and trees in different locations and looking for signs of fire. I wasn’t assigned to write up this report, so I don’t know the exact findings but the concept seemed interesting. The other FFP this week involved looking at how marula seeds are dispersed. Marula trees are very common here and produce a very sweet fruit. The fruit can be eaten raw, or it is often fermented to make marula beer. Marula seeds are a popular food for elephants, which is a main way that the seeds are dispersed. Squirrels also eat the seeds and sometimes hoard them in large bunches. The project we worked on dealt with determining how both elephants and squirrels play a role in dispersing the seeds. A large number of seeds were marked with magnets and fluorescent powder and set out to see how far squirrels can carry them to hoard them. We will have to wait a few months to go back and see the results of this part of the experiment. To determine the impact of elephants, we measured how far marula seedlings were found from the parent plant. We also collected elephant dung to see how many marula seeds the elephants had ingested. We only worked on these projects with the visiting scientists for about three days, but even in this short amount of time I was able to learn a lot.

                It’s hard to believe it, but we are already moving on from Skukuza after spending a little over two weeks here. We’ll be back here once again in the beginning of April to do more fieldwork. It will be nice to come back to some place that we have already experienced. Tomorrow morning we are driving north to Hamakuya where we will spend a few days in homestays, and a few days in the classroom. From there we will be traveling to Mapungubwe which is near the Northern border of South Africa. These two places don’t have internet access, so I will be internet-less for about two weeks. Hopefully I’ll have some good stories to share the next time I’m online though.

Lots and lots of termites

Sorry this blog is so long - the internet has been down for a few days so I've had a while to write it:

One of the major components of this study abroad program is the completion of two independent projects (IP’s). These projects allow us to experience the work that is needed to plan, carry out, and write up scientific experiments. For the past week, we have been working on our first IP. Because this is our first experience with this type of fieldwork, the subject area was somewhat assigned - all projects needed to have something to do with termites. This announcement was a little disappointing to a lot of people (myself included), who had envisioned doing a project on animals that are more exciting and glamorous than termites. After actually doing research and carrying out the project, I realized how interesting termites actually are. They play a huge role in determining the soil and nutrient dynamics of the savanna by cycling soil to build their mounds. Even though they are only millimeters in length, they are still able to create termite mounds that are taller than I am.

I ended up working with three other students on a project that expanded on a project that was completed by students last fall. In their study they found out that termite mound height decreases as you move down a catena (basically a slope down to a river that has changing vegetation patterns). We decided to take this project further by studying if this change in height was related to a change in termite species down the catena. We spent three days in the field gathering data, and two days analyzing and writing up a report. The fieldwork was definitely intense. Because it’s the middle of summer here, we needed to try to get all of our work out of the way in the morning before it got too hot towards the midday. As a result, we usually got up around 4:45 each morning and headed out to our study site by 5:30, finishing up around 12:30. The work itself was pretty tiring. We selected 40 termite mounds to sample, and for each mound we had to take measurements and obtain a specimen for identification. Some of these mounds were over 2 meters high and other were about 4 meters in diameter, so it usually took a while to dig far enough into the mound to actually reach the termites. I think that we were all envisioning putting a stick into a hole in the mound and coming out with termites. In reality though, it required a lot of hard work with a shovel and a pickax to actually get the samples we needed.

                Other groups of students worked on project about vegetation diversity on termite mounds, soil moisture in and around mounds, and rodent species that are found near termite mounds. While they were done every day when fieldwork was over, my group had to continue our work once we got back to the classroom. We had to look at samples of termites from each mound that we sampled in order to identify their species. It required a lot of time looking through a microscope and trying to pick out tiny differences between the termites. It reminded me a lot of looking at fruit flies in genetics lab.

                Although the project was a lot of work, it was worth it in the end when we actually got to analyzing our results. There are only 5 genera of termites that build mounds in Kruger National Park, and even though we sampled a very small area, we found all 5 genera. In total we found 11 out of the 22 possible genera of termites in the area, which is really impressive. There’s also the chance that we could have discovered a new species of termite. The key that we were using to identify the termites only went down to the genus level, so we weren’t able to figure out the specific species of our samples. For one of our termites, the book that we were using said that there are only 2 previously identified species of that genus, but they know that there are a lot more left to be discovered. Not many people actually study termites, so the work that our program is doing could be substantial. We still have a lot more revising to do, but eventually we will present our project to the staff here at the park.

So now that I’ve bored you with all of this science stuff – an exciting fieldwork story. Because we are part of this program, we have the rare opportunity to actually do work in Kruger National Park. When tourists come here, they aren’t even allowed to get out of their cars and explore on foot, so we are incredibly lucky to have this experience. Doing fieldwork here comes with its risks though. The terrain here is nothing like you would expect, if you watched the Lion King. Disney wants you to view the savanna as a flat plain with lot of short grass, sand and a few trees and rocks scattered here and there. Although other places might look like that, the terrain here is very different. There is waist high grass and large clumps of short bushes and vegetation, making it impossible to see past a few feet. Basically every plant has some sort of thorn or burr which immediately imbed themselves into your shoes and clothes. In addition, because we are working out in the open, there is always the danger of encountering wild animals. Because of this, each group was assigned to a game guard for protection purposes. My group was lucky and was assigned to one of our professors (who is also a licensed game guard), so he was able to help us out with the academic side of our project as well. Although we knew that there were animals out there, for the first two days we never really encountered anything except for a few impala (and of course, our termites). On the third day though, we got a first-hand experience on what working in the field truly means. We were sampling our third mound of the day when all of a sudden, we saw our professor/game guard (Alan) aiming his gun at something. We quickly realized that there was a hyena right in front of us. Alan tried to scare it off by shouting at it and waving his arms, but it kept inching closer with its head up and its ears moving. When it was probably about 5 meters from us, Alan fired a warning shot into the ground next to it, which thankfully sent it running. Not five minutes later though, we saw it walking past us again, but luckily it didn’t stop this time and we were done sampling our mound so we were able to move on. No one was hurt (including the hyena), and although it was startling, not many people can say that they’ve been that close to a wild hyena. Later that day we also came across a large group of elephants. Because they are so large and unpredictable, it’s not a good idea to be anywhere near them in the field. We ended up skipping 2 of our sampling mounds because it was better to get out of the way of the elephants. Even with the danger of being out in the field, I definitely prefer this to learning in the classroom.       

And finally - a link to my newest pictures (all from Skukuza):

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=632674&id=870290077&l=078bab841e

 

Link to pics

Here's the link to my pictures from Nylsvley, since I forgot the link yesterday. Pictures from Skukuza will be up as soon as I have enough internet time to upload them.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=631336&id=870290077&l=d5e7c2c2f1

Skukuza part 1

So I think that after this post I'll be almost caught up with this blog:

Last Monday we packed up the cars and vans and headed for our next location – Skukuza. We were told that the trip would take about 8 hours, but almost immediately we were delayed by a flat tire. It ended up being a very long car ride, but it was worth it because the scenery was so beautiful. There are a lot of hills and mountains here, but it’s very different from home because most of them are covered with only grass, or very little vegetation. A lot of the ride was up in the tops of the mountains, with lots of tight turns and dips in the road. At one point, we did drive through an area that looked like home, with lots of hills covered in thousands of pine trees. My professor who was driving told us that it is one of the largest man made forests in the world. The trees were imported from Australia to use in potential paper mills, but the paper business never really took off, most likely because it isn’t too easy to access the trees in the first place. As a result, there are now miles of pine trees in a place where you wouldn’t expect to see them.  

Skukuza is different from the first two places that we stayed because it is a major tourist attraction. It’s located in Kruger National Park, which is South Africa’s largest national park. It’s also the headquarters for the park and holds the largest tourist rest camp. Before we even entered the tourist camp where we will be staying, we drove through the staff village, where most of the staff with my program has their permanent houses, and the research village, where visiting researchers stay while they study here. I definitely didn’t expect such a large community within a national park, but the number of people who live here full-time is impressive. We are staying in a large dorm building within the tourist area. This area is fenced off to reduce the risk of animals entering, but there’s always the chance of animals jumping the fence. The facilities are very nice, and in addition to having a pool right outside of our rooms, there are also two restaurants, a store, a post office and a library to use while we are here. There are lots of tourists here, as opposed to our last two locations where it was basically just us. It’s nice to have some modern amenities (namely internet) back again though.

So far we’ve been on a lot of game drives because Skukuza has a lot of interesting animal and plant diversity. Everyone here refers to the “Big Five” which are the five animals that people aspire to see in Africa – elephant, lion, leopard, rhino and buffalo. So far I’ve only seen two, elephant and rhino, but with the amount of time that we spend outside in the field, there’s a good chance I’ll see the rest before we leave. The other morning we also had the opportunity to see a group of African wild dogs, which are pretty rare to see. We were on a hill overlooking them, and from that view it looked like they were stalking prey, although we didn’t have enough time to stay and find out. Another animal that I really like here is the impala. They remind me of the deer from back home, except they really aren’t fazed to be around people. Everywhere we drive, we pass by groups of them grazing on the side of the road. Only the tiny young impala are ever startled by the cars.  

Nylsvley in Review

Although we were told that it would only take about 2 hours to get to Nylsvley from Ezemvelo, it ended up taking about 5 hours by van, with a stop to pick up supplies. The lodging was much nicer. We stayed in one large dorm building, with 2 to 4 people per room. Although my room was still small, it was still nice to have enough room to actually open my bag. There also weren’t any monkeys there, so we were able to keep our windows open (at Enzemvelo there was an incident when someone left their window open and a vervet monkey got in and managed to make a mess and try to eat someone’s toothpaste). We also had a very spacious dining room and a large classroom with lots of windows. Even with all the windows though, the room still got very hot and we weren’t able to use fans because we couldn’t hear the professors. Something that’s really surprised me is how soft-spoken most of the South Africans (especially the men) are. Most of my professors have very quiet voices which has been difficult at times. We were in Nylsvley for about a week and since I didn’t have internet – here are the highlights:

1)      Most of the time was spent in the classroom. These first few weeks are very lecture-intensive in order to prepare us for doing fieldwork projects later in the semester. Because everyone on the program has a different academic background, some of these lectures are meant to get everyone on the same page. A lot of the time has been focused on statistics, and although it isn’t too interesting, it has definitely been helpful because my background with stats isn’t too strong.  We have also started to consider the stages of planning a scientific experiment in preparation for our independent projects. This involved being out in the field and planning a mock experiment to investigate some interesting aspect of the savanna. Although we don’t actually have to perform the experiments, it was still difficult to work with a group and plan something out.

2)      The grass here is much higher so it’s slightly harder to spot animals. Even so, I’ve seen lots of giraffes, which is exciting. We also were able to see a family of genets, which look like small cats, but are actually more related to weasels or mongooses. The birds here are also impressive. I don’t know a lot about the different species, but they are definitely different from the birds at home.

3)      With all of the lectures, there still hasn’t been a whole lot of free time. It’s been an adjustment going from a very defined class schedule, to a schedule that changes every day, and classes on weekends. Even so, the staff knows that the amount of work is intense and often try to set up fun or relaxing activities. A big thing in South Africa is “Sundowners” which is where you go and relax while you watch the sun set. The stars are also pretty amazing here and one night we got the chance to stargaze from a watch tower. There’s basically no light pollution here, so the sky is really clear. It’s weird to see all of the constellations flipped upside down from what I am used to. It was also pretty interesting to see the Southern Cross in the sky, which is never visible from the Northern hemisphere.

4)      On our last day before leaving for Skukuza, we had most of the day off, but one of the staff members set up an OTS-style Amazing Race, which was basically a huge scavenger hunt across the savanna. The whole thing was based on GPS locations and required lots of walking though tall grasses and swamps. Because there are no predators around, we were safe to walk wherever we wanted. Our GPS wasn’t really functioning at first so my group ended up wandering around for a while. It was a fun experience, but it was a lot more exhausting than I had expected.  

Ezemvelo - The Beginning

Now that we are finally in a place with internet (Skukuza), I can write about my first two weeks in South Africa. After one short flight, two really long flights and my first experience with extreme jetlag, I arrived in Johannesburg where I met up with the rest of my group. There are 25 of us all together. Most people are from small colleges in the US, similar to Colby, but we also have three students in the program that go to University here in South Africa. From the airport it was about a two hour drive to the first place that we stayed at – Ezemvelo. It was definitely a different experience to be driving on the left side of the road, and in addition, many of the roads were not paved so it was a bumpy ride. Ezemvelo is a nature reserve that is pretty isolated. Although it also functions as a campground, we rarely saw any other people. We stayed in a large building with two large bedrooms and two bathrooms. There was also a separate building that functioned as a classroom and dining room, a swimming pool and a lake to swim in. So here are the highlights from the 4 days we spent there:

Classes: It’s weird to think that this is actually a study abroad program that I am getting credit for – it feels too much like a vacation. The first few days were mainly filled with introductory lectures. We have four main professors, although other lecturers will be visiting throughout the semester. Although there are four classes, there is so much overlap between them that all of the professors kind of teach everything. Most of them have been with this program since it started about 7 years ago, and one of the lecturers participated in the program a few years ago, so they are all very knowledgeable. It’s also nice to have a group of professors that knows the students really well and can coordinate when all of the major assignments are due, so we aren’t swamped by work.  It’s definitely a different experience from Colby. There were frequently Vervet monkeys that ran by the classroom window, and we are all encouraged to walk barefoot everywhere, including to class (our professors never wear shoes themselves). It’s also been different to be in class for such long periods of time. The schedule changes every day, but we usually start classes by 8 and are busy until about 3 or 4, occasionally with early morning game drives or night lectures. Although we get breaks throughout the day, there is not a lot of free time for ourselves, so it’s hard to imagine how we are going to actually do homework and reading once they assign it. A large part of the first few days focused on the history of South Africa which was really interesting. One of the professors, David was involved in many governmental organizations and resistance groups during the time of the apartheid so we got a lot of first-hand accounts. We also started one of our semester-long projects which is an insect collection (It’s biologically-incorrect to refer to them simply as “bugs” but it’s a hard habit to break).

Animals: The wildlife here is amazing. There aren’t any large predators here so many animals have free reign of the area. Driving in on the first day, we got to see wildebeests and ostriches. We also had the chance to go on a morning game drive where I was able to see lots of zebras, warthogs, a black-backed jackal, springbuck, waterbuck, impala, and lots of birds. There was also a snake hanging around our rooms one night. Because there are no real predators, we were free to walk around whenever we wanted. It was quite the experience to be able to go running and see wildebeests and zebras running in the next field over.    

Weather: It’s definitely warmer than home, but it’s not as hot as I expected. It’s hard to get used to everything being in Celsius, but I think it’s been in the high seventies maybe? It’s definitely nice to be out of the snow, but it’s just going to get hotter as the semester goes on.

Pictures are taking forever to upload because the internet is so slow, but I posted them on facebook, so this link might work:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=628003&id=870290077&l=836459f48b

 

Why South Africa?

I’ve received a wide variety of responses when I have told people that I am going to spending my spring semester in South Africa. Some people are very excited for me and can appreciate everything that the country has to offer. On the other hand, some people simple cannot believe that out of all the countries in the world, I would willingly choose to spend over three months in South Africa. So, to all of you skeptics out there (I doubt too many people are reading this though), here is why I am studying abroad in South Africa:

1)      I wanted a field study program, as opposed to a program where you simply take classes at a university somewhere. I figure that I’ve spent the last two and a half years sitting in classrooms and listening to lectures, so doing fieldwork will be a change for me. As a biology major, I also feel that I can learn so much more by actually doing fieldwork instead of just learning concepts in class. Plus, who wouldn’t want to have class outside and be able to see wildlife on a daily basis?

2)      I wanted to be in a country that speaks English. Although I appreciate foreign languages, I do not particularly enjoy learning how to speak and understand them. It would have been an extra challenge to sit in a lecture where the professor was speaking in a different language. Although South Africa has 11 official languages, most people there speak English (with a great accent too).

3)      I wanted to go somewhere I might never have the chance to visit again. There is a good chance that this will be the only time in my life that I will be able to do research in national parks in South Africa and have the experience of learning everything first hand. Even if I visit South Africa at other times in my life, this is a once in a lifetime opportunity.

So for all of these reasons, I am currently spending my spring semester studying abroad in South Africa with the Duke University/Organization for Tropical Studies program. Along with a group of 24 other students, I will be travelling all over South Africa while learning about the ecology, conservation and history of the country. Throughout the semester I'll bin Ezemvelo, Nylsvley, Skukuza, HaMakuya, Mapungubwe, DeHoop, Pretoria and Cape Town. Although internet will not be available at all of the locations, I’ll do my best to update this blog/post some pictures.