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.