Kenya: Round 2: October 2010

Karibu,

Quite a bit has happened since my last update and I am very excited to fill you in! Last Sunday (October 3^rd), I celebrated my 26^th birthday here in Kenya! Thank you all very much for the kind emails, messages, and blog posts wishing me luck and a happy birthday. It’s great to hear from so many people back home I haven’t connected with in some time. I had a great day on my birthday; we decided to go on a safari to nearby Lake Nakuru. It’s a pretty famous lake because of the large number of flamingos resident to the area. The flamongos love the salty conditions of the lake and the type of algae that grows there, spirulina. Many people eat dried spirulina, take it as a pill supplement, or use it as fish food! Our friend who lives in Nakuru came to Canada on an internship earlier this year and has since returned to Kenya and started a safari business so we went through him for this journey.

The safari was amazing; we saw almost every animal there is to see in Africa other than leopards and elephants. Last time I visited Lake Nakuru, I was pretty bummed out I did not get to see a lion, but this time it was one of the first animals we came across sleeping in a bush. Definitely the largest lion I have ever seen with an enormous head. It was a great day and we travelled around the lake for about seven hours and I made great use of the new camera. My favourite sighting was the black mamba snake and if you have a good eye, you might be able to spot it in one of the pictures below. Here are some pictures of what we saw.

The team with Lake Nakuru flamingos in the background

Checking out Lake Nakuru from eagle eye

The team above Lake Nakuru

With Mike the safari driver and friend Godfrey

Lake Nakuru flamingos

Simba is all grown up

Giraffes roaming the range

Buffalo feats of strength...or mating ritual

Baboon baby watching us closely

Impala saving a snack for later

Just to the right of the lizzard sitting on the rock...in the grasses...black mamba!!

Rhinos always have the right of way

Zebra glam shot

Hyena scoping out dinner

It must seem like all fun and games so far from your end but other than my birthday safari, it has been pretty heavy and engaging work over the last week. As I mentioned, we are here to study Lake Naivasha as part of a greater research project involving the University of Western Ontario and Egerton University in Njoro Kenya. The lake itself experiences immediate pressures from surrounding flower farm industry (major market in Europe), agriculture, and a population explosion of ~48,000 in the ‘60s to over 250,000 today. Last year in February – March 2009, the lake experienced a major fish kill causing a large number of resident fish (tilapia, black bass, common carp, and Nile perch) to die and wash up on shore. Reasons for this fish kill are unknown but this has sparked interest in our research group. The lake is a major source of drinking water and food for the residents of the Naivasha region so needless to say, the lake serves great importance. There is a large range of literature online regarding Lake Naivasha and its history and I urge you to have a look.

On Monday and Tuesday of this week, Jace, Melissa and I set out to sample the lake with our boat driver from the Fisheries Department, Machai. We will be sampling the lake weekly to monitor water quality and the algae community present. I forgot how hot the sun is here in Kenya. Even if there is a strong breeze that cools you down, wherever the sun hits your bare skin becomes scorching hot! I currently have a healthy pink glow to me but once it browns out, I’ll be good to go. Machai is a fantastic person who loves the lake and very eager to help us out in any way he can. He is quite an experienced boat driver (over 20 years with the Fisheries Department) and showed off some of his skills by bringing us quite close to hippos in the lake. He also has a great relationship with fish eagles! Since Machai works with the Fisheries Department, he simply asks any fisherman on the lake for a fish, and they hand it over. He got us a fish and brought us over to a fish eagle nesting site and gave out a loud whistle to get their attention. He threw the fish in the water and the eagle left its perch, swooped down right in front of us, and grabbed the fish. They are enormous and it was great to see them fly so close – they larger than the Bald Eagle with similar colours. I have included some pictures of these sample trips below.

Melissa, Machai, and myself

Collecting some algae

Testing water clarity

A reminder how closely related are the lake, humans, and animals

On Wednesday after the routine sampling was complete, Melissa had to head back to Canada because she has other student obligations leaving Jace and I for the rest of our time here. In addition to the routine sampling, Jace and I are conducting several experiments in the lake! It’s called a ‘mesocosm experiment’ and we are essentially testing nutrient additions that might make the algal community change and if these additions can make the algae toxic. This may be another step to better understand what caused the massive fish kills last year and what may influence the health of Lake Naivasha. The experiment will run for one week and we will look at what’s happening next Wednesday! I have included some pictures below of the experiment Jace and I set up last night just before sundown.

Showing the lake water to a local while Jace samples

The local telling me a bit more about the lake...while Jace samples

Me double checking Jace's samples

Jace braving out the hippos to set up the experiment while I hid...err...take pictures from shore

Experiment set sail

Experiment lake view

Over the next couple days, I will take some pictures of the house we are living in and the awesome research vehicle we have (named Versteeg). The attic in the house is currently infested with bees! Rachel and Melissa had this problem when they arrived in September and had exterminators come in. Well, the bees are back so this is something Jace and I will have to take care of soon because they do like to come out of the attic every once in a while. In other great news, we just received hot water for the first time yesterday! We had been taking cold showers for the past week and now that it’s fixed, things are looking up.

Well tonight marks the kickoff of the Leaf’s 2010-11 season. Jace and I have found a way to watch some games! Since the internet is run off of portable modems here, we have a special fund that will go towards buying internet time for us to stream the games online! Only problem, game time is 2am! Grab a Tusker, Go Leafs Go.

Thanks a lot for checking out the blog and leaving comments! I will continue to update as often as I can with pictures and stories. Again, please send me an email with your mailing address so I can send you a post card!

Bumble Bee Tuna (thanks for the reminder Ed!)

Jambo from Kenya!!

Sorry it took so long for my first post but we are now all settled in at home in Kenya and ready to go! It’s great to be back in Kenya for my second time and I already find myself very comfortable and in the full swing of things. This trip is much different than the last because the work I am doing here is now part of my PhD whereas my first trip in 2007 was part of an international internship. Three more things that are different are: the people I am working with, I have a new camera, we now have a project car! This time I am working with a new graduate student in my lab who worked with me all summer sampling lakes in the Algoma Highlands of Central Ontario – his name is Jace. We had a very productive and successful summer together and I am looking forward to the work we will be doing here – sampling lakes, looking at the algae community, and testing for toxic species such as cyanobacteria that may be harmful to the lake, animals, and humans.

We landed in Nairobi on Wednesday September 29^th at night and were immediately greeted by Melissa, Rachel (and Rachel’s sister Patty), other graduate students in my lab, and our driver who took us to one of my favourite restaurants in the world – The Carnivore! This is an all you can eat meat frenzy where you are served all kinds of exotic meats such as ostrich, crocodile, ox, and many others. We were extremely tired from 18 hours of travel but nothing could stop us from a dinner at The Carnivore. After dinner and a few Tuskers (local beer), we headed to the hotel for a solid night of comatose sleep. The next day (Thursday) we did a bit of touring, shopping, and eating around Nairobi. Unfortunately Rachel and her sister had to leave us that night to head back to Canada and we continued our journey on to Naivasha where we now have rented a house for our project here in Kenya. The house is absolutely gorgeous and very close to our study lake – Lake Naivasha. I will post pictures of the house soon.

Today Jace and I caught up on much of our sleep – 13 hours worth! As soon as we woke up, we went for a long walk around the property down to the lake. On the walk we saw all kinds of animals (giraffe, zebra, wildebeest, impala, and water buck). The house is very near the place where I camped in Naivasha last time I was here so I was very familiar with the area and the animals we saw - I have posted some pictures below! It ended up being quite an eventful walk because on the way back, I had my back to the lake and was taking pictures of Jace and Melissa walking ahead of me. Jace yelled out and pointed behind me at a pair of wildebeest who decided to start charging at us and they were not too far away. Not knowing the protocol for a wildebeest attack, we starting running through the bush hoping to lose them. They eventually stopped running when we were out of sight behind the brush but they did stick around for a while scoping us out as we climbed the hill in the distance. We made it back to the house, looked back at some of the pictures and talked about what could have been headline news in a Naivasha paper if the wildebeest were even a little more determined. We went for a fantastic dinner, came back to the house, and planned out the next few days.

We are going to be very busy lake sampling and setting up experiments in nearby lakes. We have many collaborators and friends in the area and I look forward to working with everyone over the next two months. We brought all kinds of lab gear and I am very well equipped with new field clothes care of mine and Dusa’s parents! I will take many pictures with the new camera and post on this site as often as possible. We have a mailing address here so if you are interested, email me and I’ll let you know what it is. Also, if you would like anything from Kenya (post cards, etc.) email me your address and I will send you something! That’s where we stand and I will leave you with a few pictures and pieces of information I forgot about Kenya but was quickly reminded when I returned:

1) Kenyans are the friendliest most welcoming people, full of culture and always happy

2) Kenya is absolutely gorgeous and is the second best country on Earth – my favourite place to be outside of Canada and happy to call home for the next few months