October already

We’re deep in the dry season now, the little swamps in Magombera have dried up and most of the trees have lost their foliage. When we look out on the mountainside from our front porch we no longer see vivid deep green jungle but patchy browns and greens washed out by the flat white sunshine and the smoky haze created by fires from the farms and sugar cane fields and the dust kicked up from the road. A couple of weeks ago the monkeys seemed frantically hungry and were in constant flight searching for the few remaining edible leaves and fruits, but now the leaf buds and new leaves have begun popping out on some of the trees which were the first to change and they’re getting really lazy. It looks like the period of feasting is about to arrive.

Ironically, during this time of the year it appears that the popular thing to do is to set fires. Everybody does it. In the savannah area the fires are set to burn away all of the old grass and speed up the generation of new seedlings for the masai cattle to graze on. In this area, the farmers burn up the sugar cane fields, old crops and weeds by setting fire to their fields and yards. There are literally fires all the time. It’s used as a clearing tool. What has been surprising to me is how the forest seems to survive during the dry season with all the burning on its borders. When we’re in Magombera following the monkeys you can hear the popping and cracking of the big fires in the fields at the edge and we marvel that they never seemed to get blown into the forest. The fields surrounding the research station and our house were burned up last week. I took a picture of the front of the house during the fire:



And the back of the house after the fire:



It was smoky as hell for a few hours but the lawn in the front and the bare dirt in the back were effective enough fire breaks that there was never any danger to the house. Also, the roof is tin (or aluminum) so the embers had nothing to catch on. I am sure that the landscaping was designed with the yearly burning in mind and nobody bats an eye and business just goes on as usual. It seems that most of the big trees are impervious to the fires, but the bushes and small trees (and a bit of the lawn) go down.

Of course it’s not all that predictable either. A large portion of the Magombera forest actually was burned during the week that we weren’t working there. Alan and Aloyce say that it was a fire set by one of the neighboring villagers who wanted to have easier access to the river to fish. Also there are rumors that it was the masai (who get blamed for a lot of things by the farmers since the masai cattle sometimes graze on crops) or that it was a farmer who’s fire got out of control. Who knows what really happened. Considering the vulnerability of the small forest, containing unique species and surrounded by farms on basically all sides it’s tragic that a huge portion just got burned up for no good reason. The burn area thankfully is outside the borders of the range occupied by the two red colobus groups that Ruth is studying. We drove over to check it out yesterday and found that many acres were burned.



Most of the big trees are still standing but it’s likely that the smaller trees were destroyed which makes the forest vulnerable to being overrun by crawling vines and bushes. I can’t say really what it means for the future of that area, but it was sad to watch Aloyce and Alan walk through it muttering “pole mswehile” or “pole mpoloto”, saying sorry for the different tree types that were burnt.



Ironically this occurred just as it seemed that the villages were going to jumpstart the anti-woodcutter patrols. One big burn, set possibly by one knucklehead, does orders of magnitude more destruction than wood gathering. We did see red colobus monkeys foraging on the edge of the burn area, and perhaps since most of the large trees were still standing perhaps the area will quickly recover? I don’t know.

Lately, Ruth and I have been splitting up and simultaneously following Magombera groups 1 and 2 throughout the day. It’s interesting to see how their ranges compare and occasionally, like the other day, to see the two neighboring groups meet at the same trees. There’s usually a bunch of screaming and some scuffling and they move off again into their own areas. That’s about all that I can discern anyway. I am sure that Ruth can elaborate. Anyway, when we do the simultaneous follows my job is to track the other group, gps and tag the trees they go in and map their path. Alan goes with me and Aloyce with Ruth. Alan is not as experienced in the forest as Aloyce, so sometimes we wander a while searching for our way and Alan tends to make a lot more noise which can unsettle the monkeys, but we manage. We’re like the B-team. Not sure if Ruth will ever be able to make sense of my nearly illegible field notes when she goes to compile all the data, but it makes me feel helpful. It can be busy and challenging if the group is on the move and your running from tree to tree, but the other day we sat with group 1 at the same tree for 7 straight hours, and they only did a small amount of travel during the other 5. And it’s HOT, like no place else. It’s a challenge to stay entertained, I can tell you. Lately I have been combing through my past trying to remember events and names and places, so it’s been a great opportunity for me to exercise those unused memory neurons. For example, I’ll think OK today I am going to remember everything I can about the different jobs I had when I was in college. This train of thought produced to one of my top ten ‘pearls of wisdom’ listed below. Thank god Carolyn sent us the amazing backpack hammock after I told her how awesome they are for long backpack trips and hanging around in the woods. I was able to sling this in the shade under some low vines and bushes and rock back and forth just enough to keep a small breeze going through the heat of the day. Nothing like swinging in a hammock just out of reach of all the ticks and ants, especially compared to laying on the ground for hours. When you’re on the ground the sweat tends to pool underneath and by hour two that can pose a big problem. Alan’s eyes lit up when he laid in the hammock as he had never seen anything like it. Although Alan can happily flop down on the ground and fall asleep in minutes, I’ll still pick one up for him and Aloyce when we go back to the US for Christmas. They’ll be the envy of all the villagers when their chillin’ in their hammocks after work while everyone else is squatting in the dirt. I am sure that some entrepreneurial talent will figure out how to make a copy of these in no time. Here’s a picture of Alan getting a taste of the good life from which there is no going back.



I am going to have to place the backpacker hammock in my top ten obscure ‘pearls of wisdom’ list. Imparting this wisdom, acquired from years of experience, to some of Ruth’s younger friends earned me the nickname ‘coach’. Tragically, unless there’s an heir some day, all this priceless knowledge may be lost. Here’s how the always evolving list stands at the age of 38 (not necessarily in order of importance):
1) nobody knows nuthin’-including me, but you gotta have a theory
2) Winter big lobster in shallow reefs, spring halibut in Cardiff, summer yellowtail in LJ, fall halibut in Del Mar
3) Critical staples for daily survival- Green juice, green tea and Guinness
4) Need fuel for a long ass day? Eat a big bowl of oatmeal. Careful though. My dad never fed oats to his horses unless he was going to run them through the woods for hours. Same rule applies to humans so don’t try to sit in an office after eating this you fool.
5) An old canning jar once used to preserve cloves spiced apple butter makes a great scented coffee mug. Even better than a blue tin camper’s cup.
4) If life gets you down and you feel like a clown then for 10 days stop eating, drink a liter of salt water every morning to clean out the bowels and copious amounts of lemonade the rest of each day for energy.
5) Sinus trouble? Tilt your head over the sink and pour salt water up one nostril while letting it drain out the other.
6) Bike everywhere, ride steel if possible, ditch the mostly useless front derailleur, kill your TV.
7) There’s ultimately only one way to rid yourself of a scary fluorescent green fungus growing between your toes for many years- pour alcohol on it after every shower.
8) Double 6oz glass on the deck and single 6oz glass on the bottom- and use a super green dense foam blank. Anything less on a surfboard is criminal.
9) Rub olive oil on the old knees after b-ball or for any joint pains and stuff cotton swabs with warm olive oil in the ears to kill an ear infection.
10) Never camp without a small packer’s hammock
…which bumped out the old #10) Not sure if it’s a girl you’re kissing? Slyly check the back of the head for a bony protrusion at the base of the skull. If it’s there you’ve been drinking way too much. Sort of like closing the barn door after the horses have bolted though isn’t it? I never had any use for that one actually and it was relegated to the bottom of the list for years out of nostalgia for my hard working but not super bright old bud I learnt it from and whom I built scaffolding with in San Diego when I was in college. It may not even be true, but he drank a lot and placed great faith in it.

I had a chance to hand out some soccer balls last week! One sent from Josh went to the little kids who bring our food over each day. Our cook, mama Rehema (we had to get rid of mama Sharifa), is one of three widows who were all married to the same man who only recently died. All three ladies live and work together nearby and they have a gaggle of kids who take turns bringing our food over. The soccer ball will find a good home over there.



Ruth and I crashed a soccer game in the field near the house carrying Ryan’s soccer ball and handed it over to a crowd of players.



Incorrect assumption # 329- the small twine ball is used only because they can’t afford a real soccer ball. Wrong. Here the players are explaining to me that on Tuesdays they play small ball soccer, and on Wednesdays they play with the big ball.



Of course they were happy to have a nice ball anyway. Note: I look kind of yoked and tall in these pictures though don’t I? It’s only an optical illusion caused by the smallness of the local Tanzanians. I had to measure my height the other day just to check because I’ve been feeling huge lately and in fact found out that I have actually shrunk 1 inch.

I handed out another one of the soccer balls Josh sent to a group of bike mechanics in Sanje village and had a great picture of it that somehow got deleted from the camera when we were in Egypt(sorry Josh). I can describe it though. It’s me looking all big and muscular dressed same as above, this time facing the camera so you can see that I am in my second trimester impregnated by chapatti and beans, and standing with a bunch of Tanzanians holding a green monster soccer ball with big smiles on their faces!

My plan for the rest of the soccer balls, including Carolyn’s is to bring some of them to the orphanages in Mang’ula and Mwaya and perhaps give another one to the kids in Katurukila. I’ll post the pics as soon as I get them.

Nobel Peace Prize for Obama? Wow. This isn’t just a prize for not being Bush. I think the Europeans are trying to encourage Obama to live up to all the hype, I mean hope, generated during his candidacy. To shame him into actually following through on his campaign promises. Just as Obama is adopting all the old Bush policies, the Nobel committee launches a preemptive strike on American imperialism, using the NPP as a weapon inducing shock and awe and confusion into the local population. It’s genius, employing our own tactics against us.