I...need....water.....ahhhh

Water is fast becoming the world’s most precious natural resource. You can read about droughts in various parts of the world and about human conflicts over access to water supplies, but until it hits close to home most Americans won’t recognize the value of a clean clear glass of pure H2O! Lately, filtering and boiling our drinking water each day has made us a bit more appreciative. My limited experiences with water’s importance began in Humboldt county California where farmers went head to head with fisherman, environmentalists and local tribes over the water use rights of the Klamath River. Farmers wanted more water for their crops, but the river was drying up and choking on algae and weeds and the salmon which for eons swam up the river to spawn were cut off and left for dead with roe still in their bellies. For at least one year, an entire generation of Klamath River salmon never spawned. That sucked. After that, there were the massive fires in southern California which were fueled by dried up and diseased forests and there were the years of water shortages in San Diego and even in Durham when I moved to the east coast! It seems that anywhere I go, the story is the same.
We are becoming aware that Tanzania is on the brink of water related calamity. The country is mostly dry savannah. The water that falls here comes in air-born moisture during the rainy season from the coast passing right over the savannah and rains when it meets the interior mountains of the eastern arc. This would simply run off over the hard packed, cracked and cemented dry soil back into the ocean if not for the rain forests on the lower mountain slopes which help to keep the water in the system throughout the dry season. As I’ve mentioned before, about 50% of Tanzania’s electricity is generated from this water and of course it’s also used for farming. The Ruaha is the largest river in our area and it supports all kinds of animals from elephants and hippos to crocodiles as it flows across the country, spreading into a huge wetland at the coast. Apparently, and we just learned this, the Ruaha DRIED up for the first time ever during the dry season in 1993! This caused the riverbed and feeding wetlands to dry out and harden and for many animals to die of thirst and poisoning from drinking the remaining contaminated pools of water. Electricity shortages, desertification and stories like the one above are becoming a huge problem for Tanzania because people have moved into the limited forested area and have been cutting trees for fuel and to clear areas for farms which also siphon off water from the river. When the trees are gone, the whole country will dry up and blow away. Of course it sounds like a story that we’ve all heard a million times! The rainforest is disappearing and humans are consuming at an unsustainable self destructive pace. Indeed. So why do I even bring it up if it’s so common and inevitable? One, because this is really a blog about the zombocalypse and who says this isn’t one more click of the pawl on the big gear? Two, to explain this next photo- which is not so clear! Aloyce and I snuck up on these folks cutting trees and harvesting wood from Magombera. Ruth is infuriated because it’s also destroying the small remaining habitat of so many threatened species including the Red Colobus she’s studying. There is some concern at high levels of the government for the future of Tanzania’s ecology and so wood harvesting has been outlawed and entire villages evacuated from critical forests, but individuals do what they must to feed and shelter their families. There lies the rub. We see people chopping wood just about every day.



OK, enough of that! It’s Mdudu time. Let’s be glad that there are enough trees left for this bug to hide. We never would have seen this sucker if it wasn’t for Aloyce pointing it out because its camouflage technique is THAT good it can fool two sharp eyed wazungus from the city. In fact, you might recognize this bug from the movie Master and Commander where it inspired one of my favorite fictional characters, Jack Aubrey, to sneak up on, surprise and engage superior forces in a climactic cinema (cinematic?) marine battle.

Seed Bombs

Has anybody read The Urban Homesteader yet? Now, while it won’t appeal to everyone, it’s still a worthwhile read to cause us to reflect on our typical lifestyles. Why make a costly lonely commute to and from a sterile suburban bedroom community surrounded by un-edible chemically supported lawnscapes and suspicious fearful neighbors peeking out from behind high tech security systems? Why not abandon the old unsustainable American dream and begin a new one? Learn how to grow and prepare your own food even in a tiny urban home, how to forage, or how to become a pirate gardener and transform under utilized public spaces with seed bombs. Become involved with your local community, get to know our neighbors, get out of the car and walk or bike. Whether the zombocalypse occurs within our lifetimes or not, if there is ever a devaluation of the currency then there is ample reason, if not just for the fun of it, to have some old-timey skill which you can fall back on. If sod-busting isn't your idea of a fun future, then I personally (do not) RECOMMEND distilling moonshine and fixing bikes, which complement each other nicely. These are skills you will not learn from your television - so go ahead and kill it now - before Glenn Beck and his army of nincompoops eat your head ensuring that you will wander numbly through any unconventional future scenarios with your arms outstretched, eyes rolled back, moaning from hunger and confusion.

On a more serious note, the rainy season isn’t anything like what we expected. We prepared for the worst kind of downpours, but have only had one day and a night of moderate precipitation. We met a guy in Dar es Salaam named Manji that told us how he was trapped on the road in his car between two impassably swollen rivers during the rainy season for 10 days. He had no food and was stung by so many mosquitoes that he developed an acute case of malaria that he suffered from for over a year! So, I was expecting to be trapped by floods, to be unable to get dry, to get trench foot and to get our car stuck in the mud on the way to and from the forest. Instead, we pray for rain to bring sweet coolness and knock the flies and pollen down for a while.

Mdudu of the Day time- This bug was large but fairly harmless looking. However, when I showed this picture to Leonardi -who is one of the staff here at the research center- he told me in Swahili and broken English something about fire spitting from the mouth. That the bug breathed fire? I could not understand all of his exaggerated words and hand waving but perhaps we’ll call this the dragon bug.

Jungle

What a dramatic change from the way my life used to be like! We’re up at 6:30 each morning and I roll out from under the mosquito net trying not to let any of the buggers in to get Ruth and head to the kitchen. I pour out the boiled clean water from the night before into the 1.5 liter water bottles that we carry in our packs and put a pot of water on to boil for oatmeal. Thankfully, I brought 4 boxes from Dar es Salaam. They were filled with moths, but I ziplocked and froze the oats when we got here to kill off the suckers. A little more protein is OK by me, but now that I think about it that might be why Ruth isn’t so excited by the oatmeal. After breakfast we make our peace with the porcelain god- a minor deity here since it’s really just a hole in the ground. However, our health and happiness depend on the whims of this god, so we pray earnestly and follow all of the recommended practices. Once our bags are packed with raingear, research equipment and leftover food for lunch, we don our rubber boots and head to the car. It’s a half hour drive on the muddy roads over to the village of Katarukila on the edge of the forest called Magombera where we work for the day. Ruth’s research is going to be in two nearby areas, the Magombera forest and the Mwanihana forest. Magombera is only 11 square kilometers and is cut off from the rest of the Udzungwa Mountains by a train tack and many sugar cane farms. Mwanihana is in the heart of the Udzungwas. The idea is to learn how the Colobus monkeys in Magombera are affected by the pressures of a shrinking closed off forest and to develop a conservation plan. Each day we meet up with our guide Aloyce and hike into Magombera and track monkeys. Needless to say, this is Africa and the forest is filled with a strange (to us) plants and animals. Aloyce has local knowledge that keeps us safe.
Ruth and Aloyce- Udzungwa mountains in the background


Ruth has hired Aloyce to help with all of the work she’ll be doing in Magombera. He lives in Katarukila and knows the forest well. He’s a really nice guy. The average daily income is around 2 dollars here so he’s not expensive to hire. Aloyce also spends most of the day teaching us to speak Swahili. Basically, when we’re in Magombera he takes point. That means he spots the monkeys and the hazards before we stumble into them. So far, in four days, the hazards we have encountered include the Black Mamba snake, stinging plants and bugs, Ciafu (fire ants), spiders and fresh elephant tracks/poop not to mention the mosquitoes and flies.
Harmless Spider


We literally RUN across rivers of Ciafu and stomp our feet to shake them off before they can sting. Yesterday, Aloyce walked into a patch of them unawares and had to strip his pants off, their sting is very painful. Thank god we have our tall rubber boots. We tuck our pants into our high socks and pull the boots up over all- this seems to keep the bugs out OK on the lower half. We try to wear long sleeves above, but it’s so hot and humid that, for me, it’s literally impossible and I have to strip down to the wife beater. I’m soaked in sweat and smattered with organic jungle matter from pushing through the undergrowth. I have a bandanna sprayed by repellant that I wrap around my neck or head or wherever the bugs seem to be the most densely populated. All I need is a cigar and with a 5 day beard will look exactly like Humphrey Bogart from The African Queen. Elephants wander into Magombera from the Selous game reserve which borders the forest and is the size of France. These elephants don’t like humans. We hope that we don’t encounter any, but if we do we are supposed to just turn and run. I think Aloyce and I are both secretly fearing and dreading the days when Ruth will have us out in the forest from before first light until after dark as these are the times when the elephants are most dangerous. I took point for Ruth while Aloyce was going to the bathroom and I made it 5 feet, hacking away with my panga, before something stung my hand. By evening it was difficult even to make a fist. No idea what it was and there were no marks above the skin, but it ended my career as a bush guide and we backtracked to where we were. I’ll stick with just being a porter. When Aloyce returned and we told him we wanted to go that way he took a wide route around the spot that I got stung. He saw something there that I didn’t. Perhaps it was one of these poisonous butterfly caterpillars.
Caterpillars


We have found the Red Colobus monkeys that Ruth will be studying. The trouble is identifying which group is which and pinning down their general location so that we can re-find them on another day.
Red Colobus


There are at least three other types of monkey that we have seen which are sometimes interspersed with the Red Colobus groups. We find the monkeys by scanning the trees for motion, listening for their sounds and waiting for Aloyce to tell us where they are. Let me just say here that Ruth LOVES monkeys. She’s been yearning for them since she was a small child. I learned yesterday that she got her Swahili language book when she was only 12 to prepare for this day. She can stand- in the heat- her neck craned back 90 degrees staring up with determination at a group for 10 straight hours. Whenever the monkeys settle in a tree I find a safe looking spot on the ground and sit with a faraway look in my eyes- perhaps from dehydration and mild heat stroke- rubbing the back of my neck cursing and slapping away mozzies, wondering at Ruth’s steadfast focus. She’s amazing.
Looking up at the trees


When you look up all day you see all kinds of neat creatures.
Chameleon


Owl


Battling Millipeds


We generally spread out our poncho near a monkey filled tree for lunch break. The first couple of days we were eating leftover oatmeal for lunch, but since Thursday we have had leftovers from mama Sharifa’s dinners! Ruth has hired mama Sharifa to cook one big dinner for us each day. She drops off 3-4 covered pots on our doorstep each evening and picks them up in the morning. It’s been fantastic. We get rice, beans, cooked mchicha, chapatti and even avocado. I went from starving to eating more than I should so as not to let down mama. I might already be getting fat, but we love mama Sharifa. Aloyce is supposed to bring his own food and water for the day, but usually has such a meager amount of either that we give him some of ours for which he is really grateful. I drink 2 liters of water per day while Aloyce has a small cupful.

At the end of the day, there’s a gaggle of kids running up to stand by our car while we load our gear and say our goodbye’s to Aloyce. They are afraid of the camera and run when I pull it out. They stare at us like we’re from another planet and sometimes if I make a fast movement they all scatter.
Kids Running


But after a bit of coaxing we can get them to stand there for us to Piga Picta.
Kids


Then they all gather around and laugh at the kids who were captured on film. Once they get warmed up then the boys always want me to take a photo of them doing karate with each other. I haven’t dared to show them the camera’s video function yet since the will go crazy over that and we’re usually in a hurry to get back home. As we drive through the village everyone stops what they are doing to wave at us and kids run up to the car. We feel like we’re in a parade waving to the right and left- it’s not possible to remain anonymous and unnoticed for us. Word spreads in advance of our vehicle. If we get home before dark we have this beautiful mountain to watch the sun set behind.
Udzungwa


And finally, it’s Bug (Mdudu) of the Day time! We thought that this bug was really interesting. It looks a lot like an elephant. I’ve never seen anything like it before.
Elephant Bug

Safari

Yesterday, we woke up at the Jambo Inn in Dar es Salaam at 7am which, as those who know me well will agree, is an uncommonly early hour for me to rise from bed. So it must have been for good reason, right? It was. We were leaving Dar es Salaam! Thank god, finally! Our sweet new red Suzuki Escudo was safely parked at the front of the hotel being guarded by the security man who works at the front door. He had been up all night standing by it making sure that nobody stole the car or the mirrors or windows or the distributor cap or even the spare tire. We thanked him by tipping 2,000 shillings and a coke. In fact our last evening and morning in town was more than usually costly since we were mobbed by all of our associates who congratulated us as we pulled up in the new car and hoped to be tipped for whatever slight connections they had to our good fortunes. Mohammed convinced us to pay him 10,000 shillings to scribe the license plate numbers onto all the windows and mirrors to deter their theft. Rubes we may have been, but if 7 dollars kept our car intact through the night we felt it was worth the skinning. We paid Samuel 10,000 shillings for being nice and 10,000 more for his brother Eddie who was in the hospital receiving medication for his infected swollen legs and feet (mosquito parasite - which we hope doesn’t happen to us). We gave Ali 2,000 shillings for finding us a car fire extinguisher. We loaded our car and sat for a short breakfast while a persistent old Iranian traveler pestered us with claims that he performed the first arm transplant in IRAN 32 years ago, and sketched my profile on a napkin. By the time we pulled away in the morning, our car loaded down with supplies, we were happy to be leaving the city headed for greener views, cleaner air and less crafty people!
It took us a couple of hours to clear the city traffic and surrounding towns. We drove slowly and cautiously, for not only were we on the left side of the road surrounded by maniacs driving huge trucks, but also there are two species of speed bumps all along the main highway lying in wait to disable tourists’ cars. There’s the lowly short ribbed speed bump, similar in height to the US beast, but stacked 4 deep like a brutal washboard and it can shake the HELL out of your car even at 5-10 mph. Then there’s the Giant whoop de do – don’t know what else to call it- which is a really BIG speed bump about 2-3 feet tall. You can roll over it at low speeds no problem, but if for some reason you didn’t see it at all (since it isn’t marked for example, and camouflages itself with African dust and shadows) then hope you watched a lot of Duke’s of Hazard because that’s what it would be like. We hit one at about 15mph because we didn’t see it in time to slow down enough and everything inside the car got air-born.
The drive from Dar es Salaam to the Kilombero valley where we are living took us through some spectacular scenery and we saw lot’s of animals along the way. If you look closely in the panorama image above you might see giraffe and an elephant. For 50 kilometers we were in the Mikumi National Park. Here we had a little bit of an emergency and I had to get out of the car (which is not recommended) and sneak into the bushes to heed the call. We had stopped anyway to take some pictures of giraffes on the other side of the road, but this is not how I planned to enjoy my first sight of the famous African creature.



We also saw water buffalo, warthogs, impala, elephants, and baboons!



As we neared our destination I was amazed to see how many of the villagers were traveling along the roads on bikes. Unlike Dar es Salaam, it’s the main mode of transportation out here in the sticks. We would drive through small villages and see every type of person on bikes- small kids, young couples, old couples, mothers, fathers, grandparents, government officials and laborers. Some people were pedaling or pushing massive loads.



Our new home is on the edge of the Udzungwa Mountains National Park. We drove 7 hours from Dar- the last hour on a dirt road. We are staying in the research station established by Francesco Rovero and Tom Struhsaker (Ruth’s adviser) with funding from research grants. It’s an amazing spot as you can see from the view out our front door!



I am hereby beginning a new feature section of my blog, titled BUG OF THE DAY. Each time I post I will put up a photo of one of the crazy insects that we see here in the Udzungwa Mountains. This forest is unique in that it contains a high number of unidentified species (and also a high number of species unique only to this forest). This is due to the remote location of the mountains and their geographic isolation from other forests which allowed species to evolve independently. There should be many more researchers here cataloging birds, insects and mammals, but there are just not enough. There are many insects which have yet to be named but I know next to nothing about bugs, so perhaps an aspiring entomologist will see one of these photos and recognize a new species.

April 5, 2009- found on a fig tree (?) leaf in front of our house.