Feb. 14.  The limo to Logan was amazingly fast: must try the 290-495-90 route next time.  There was remarkably little rush hour traffic, so I'm at the airport now, at 5:00 pm, with boarding to begin at 6:45, and takeoff not until 7:30.  This leaves lots of dead time, but it's a nonsmoking airport and I'd have to pay an outlandish price and haul all my carry-on stuff outside and then wash up so as not to smell.  I'm likely to be sitting with a fellow review committee member the whole way, a well-known conservation biologist.  Mustn't let him think I'm a dolt.  No, on second thought, the important point is not to BE a dolt, it doesn't matter how it appears.
Speaking of dolts, the guy next to me is actually using a Palm Pilot.
Richard has arrived.  He prefers to be called Richard.  He seems all right, though he speaks too carefully, as if he might have had diction lessons and is trying to cover up an accent or something.  He's about my age, perhaps a couple of years older, and bald (he said "balding" on the phone, but he's clearly in denial).  We shared small-talk prior to boarding.  I'm sure he's never smoked.  Told me of a professor who moved to California for two years, taught every Wednesday in Boston, and eventually was fired because he refused to give up the one day a week pattern.  It took his university a year and a half just to discover what he was doing.
We're on the plane now, and Richard and I have been separated by our seat assignments.  Instead of Richard, I'm sitting next to a gregarious 12-year-old boy who talks non-stop.  To my eventual relief, he figured out how to use the headphones to watch TV.  Yes, this plane has little TV monitors in front of each seat, so we don't have to interact at all!  I found a pair of vacant seats and moved to them to stretch out a little and try to sleep.  I'm very sleepy, having had a fitful night of travel-anticipation-paranoia last night, but I can't do it.  The upright position has never been right for me.  I'm starting to wonder about the other passengers on this plane.  Is that man in the gabardeen suit Winston in disguise, or is he a spy?  He must surely be one or the other.
The service on the flight is much better than domestic flights American Airlines flights.  I've had two free gin & tonics now, and wine with dinner.  I have caught myself contemplating a smoke on arrival in London, after Richard and I separate.  I'm trying now to visualize not doing that and boarding the Kenya flight 14 hours later in triumph.  Problem here is that the gratification will have to wait for two weeks, while at the Q I could count on an attaboy within minutes, usually.  Will try to sleep.
not much luck with the sleeping I see that Richard is having no trouble.  I've just started to dislike him a bit.
We're now passing south of Reykjavik, and I'm wondering if they pronounce it correctly in Iceland?  Or does everyone pronounce it differently each time they say it, just to make it interesting?
Wow!  Right now, according to the flight map on the little tv screen, we're heading right over Limerick, Ireland!  Just have to do this, sorry  


With one hundred days on my new quit
 I would rather not say that I blew it
So I don't really mind
Leaving Winston behind
I'm quite sure that I'm not gonna do it.

 Feb. 15, evening, Gatwick Airport, near London, drinking cappucino and trying to seem cosmopolitan.  At the table next to me, there is clearly a brand-new romance in the making.  He has given her flowers.  She looks exceedingly French.  A bit of a trollop, maybe.  They both look smitten.
Well now, where were we?
Got off the plane at 6:00 am in Heathrow Airport, having slept maybe 2 minutes of the flight.  Being about 5 points shy of a 2-digit IQ makes for complete bewilderment on arriving in a foreign land.  Not all their coins are round!  And they all seem worthless, except for the thick brass ones.  Changed some money, got through customs, found my way to the shuttle to Gatwick, where a day room had been reserved for me at a hotel attached to the terminal.  The shuttle bus ride was a horrible thing for a tall person who had just spent 6 hours folded up.  Not only did it make the plane seem spacious, but a huge fat guy landed right next to me and I had to sit with my feet up on top of my carryon bags for a goddamn hour and a half with a bright morning sun in our eyes the whole way.  They did serve us complimentary luke-warm tea or coffee.  Important lesson:  NEVER fly to one London airport with a connection to a flight out of the other one.  Now I'm dreading the return flight already, which will have the same problem.
Anyway, eventually I checked into the hotel, a fancy place attached to the terminal.  It was very inviting and I should have just gone directly to bed.  But this was my only real chance to see London, and it was a beautiful morning, so I found a quick train to London from Gatwick, taking only a half-hour to Victoria Station.  I walked around in a daze for a couple of hours, taking pictures, circumnavigated Buckingham Palace, and decided I'd better get back and sleep or I'd end up passed out on a park bench.  So, I did that, after a quick lunch, and felt much better with three hours of sleep.  I had to check out of my room by 6 pm, though, so here I am digesting an Indian dinner in Gatwick with little to do except read and write until the 10:30 pm departure.
I'm still managing to stay a step ahead of Winston, but I do believe he is at large in this country.  I am sure Dem's contacts with Kenyan Immigration authorities will pay off.  Sounds like I won't even have the opportunity to buy any forbidden substance where I will be staying, and all travel will be in a group.  There's significantly more smoking here in London than I'm used to seeing, and they do allow it in airports!  In the bookstore, I noticed a large display of Allen Carr books.
I was last in England in 1984.  It seems both more American and more continental now than it did then.  London is a very charming place for such a large city, but quite expensive.  And it is still a big city, with many of the accompanying problems of size.  It is good to see green grass: lots of it, with sheep and horsies grazing the hillsides.
I thought I saw Ringo Starr in Heathrow this morning, but then it was 6:15 am and I wasn't at my best.  Later, at Gatwick, I saw Inspector Morse, driving something other than his old red Jaguar: a Bentley, I think.
While waiting in Gatwick for the plane, I had a beer in a pub.  This was the first first time I'd been in a bar for more than a few minutes since my last smoke on November 6.  I was eager to get out of there, as it was smoky and bothering me quite a lot.  I found the smoke wafting over from smoking-designated areas in the airport quite bothersome, too.
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Finally, we're on the plane to Nairobi, on British Airways this time.  It's a 747, completely full.  At the moment, we're flying over Dijon, France, at 32,000 ft., moving along at 1000 km/hour.  I cannot think of a limerick for Dijon, but maybe I'll come up with one for the return flight.
Just prior to boarding, I fetched up with Tom, our third committee member.  He flew by way of Philadelphia and did not have to do the transfer between airports.  I've met Tom several times previously at meetings, and he is ever-pleasant and chatty.  He'll be easy to coexist with. Richard spent his London time sleeping and dining with friends, and nearly missed the boarding.  All our seats are separate, and I'm sitting next to a couple who are headed for an elderhostel tour of several national parks in Kenya.
Our flight took us over many places with familiar names: Geneva, Syracuse, Malta, Entebbe, the Nile.  I was told that we'd be flying down the Nile valley for quite a way, but there was no clear view of the land when the sun came up.  Puffy clouds of dust covered the desert.
Feb. 15, Evening, at the Centre for Wildlife Management Studies
We landed in Nairobi at 10:00 am, greeted by the organizer of our trip and a staff worker/driver.  After getting through customs and changing some money, we piled into a beaten up old Land Cruiser for a quick drive from the airport, only about 45 minutes to the Centre. My first sights on arrival here were an ostrich that seems to think he/she owns the place, and a troop of vervet monkeys.  The monkeys are very cute, but we are told they are a real pain in the butt, getting into everything, especially edibles, and crapping in the outdoor showers just to make a statement.
After a detailed orientation tour of the facilities, we took a sunset game drive before dinner.  We saw zebra, giraffe, wildebeest, hartebeest, oryx, Thompson's gazelles, bustards on display, vultures, eagles, and many more birds than I can remember.  We had dinner with the students, faculty and staff.  The whole community here eats together for each meal, and 6 nights out of 7 the dinner is prepared by the students. Kitchen staff workers make breakfast and lunch.  The Rap is an after-dinner tradition in which a student gets up and talks for a few minutes about anything, often reading something they consider inspirational.  Tonight's rap was a brief report about aardvarks, followed by a reading from J.R.R.Tolkien.
Feb. 17
We were all quite jet-lagged last night, and went to bed right after dinner.  I slept pretty well, until a pair of hyraxes started screaming at each other at about 5:00, making the most god-awful noises, the like of which I have never heard.  I've recently seen a vivid description that's pretty close: it's the sound one you might imagine a male to make while he's having his balls twisted off.
We attended morning lectures, both of which were fairly flat, and interviewed the Centre Director, who was a wildlife biologist with the National Forest Service and later a professor and dean at two Arizona universities.  He's probably going to retire in a few years, but seems very capable and well-organized.  The afternoon was more interesting, with a student field exercise examining wildebeest and hartebeest skulls on the game ranch, which enables determination of age and sex composition of the herd.
During free time in the late afternoon, I went for a short walk and encountered an impressive herd of giraffe just outside the Center grounds.  I spent an entire roll of film on them.
Dinner and early to bed again, still recovering from jet-lag.
Feb. 18
Today began with an interview of the faculty at the Game Ranch camp.  Faculty seemed to be facing nearly the same conflicts as those at any small college, between the demands of teaching and research.  It was a pleasant conversation.  We went to Sinnary's house for coffee.  He's from northwestern Sudan (=the middle of NOWHERE) and is finishing his Ph.D. at the University in Nairobi.  Sinnary is very tall, maybe 6' 5", affable, and Muslim.  On the way to Sinnary's house, Richard was botanizing with one of the faculty, which brought him into some high brush where he became covered with hundreds of pepper ticks, each about a millimeter across.  The best way to remove them is to rub a piece of duct tape over your clothing and skin.
We were to leave the Game Ranch site to visit the other site, called the Kuku Bush Camp, located near the Tanzania border at the base of Mt. Kilimanjaro.  It's a long and dusty drive, and they had arrangements to fly us down in a small plane.  Ed (the organizer of our review, who works at the SFS headquarters in Massachusetts) took off for Kuku in a Land Cruiser with our luggage, and we waited for our ride at the game ranch.  The ride to Kuku was long, hot and bumpy even in the air.  Richard was overcome by the turbulence but remained his superior self through it all.  As he was vomiting next to me, it was all I could do to keep from saying "yeah, it doesn't get any better than this!"  It was not an easy day for poor Richard.
It was an interesting view of Kenya, which could easily be mistaken for Arizona from the air: dry, mountainous country, sparsely vegetated.  We landed in a wildlife sanctuary between zebra herds, and on the way to Kuku (a very bumby and dusty dirt road), we saw many zebra, baboons, wildebeest, Thompson's gazelle, Grant's gazelle, and giraffe.  On a walk before dinner at Kuku, we saw hippo tracks, termites and lots of elephant dung, and took more zebra pictures.  We'll spend the next two days here at the Kuku camp, attending classes and interviewing faculty and staff, and then we will go on expedition with the whole group for 5 days, ending up at the Game Ranch again.
Feb. 21.  Tsavo West National Park
The place I'm writing from now is best known for the "man-eaters of Tsavo," a large pride of lions that rampaged during the construction of the Nairobi-Mombasa railroad and killed 180 people during the 1890's.
It's been a while since an update.  Conditions at Kuku were definitely more primitive than at the Game Ranch, except their kitchen was equally well-equipped and they had abundant clean drinking water drawn straight from the mountain.  Kuku is completely solar-powered, and quite beautifully situated at the northeastern side of Mt. Kilimanjaro, whose summit sits just across the Tanzanian border.  The altitude is not so high, only about 4000 ft (1300 ft. lower than the game ranch).  However, the mountain rises quickly from here, to a summit of about 19,000 feet: the highest isolated mountain in the world.  It's so isolated from similar high-altitude places that some species have evolved with peculiar features unique to that place.  For example, there is a wingless cranefly at high altitudes.  Apparently, all the high altitude craneflies who had wings have already left.   I found myself continually looking up at the mountain, which is snow-capped even though its latitude is only about 2° south.
On our first full day at Kuku (Saturday) we heard lectures in the morning and interviewed the faculty in the afternoon.  Heard drums in the distance that night (Maasai ceremonies of some sort).  Sunday, we interviewed the staff and interns, and got ready for the expedition that we're on now.  We went for a drive through a nearby wildlife sanctuary (the one we landed in) and saw Thompson's and Grant's gazelles again.  These antelopes are quite similar, both small, and slender, the Grant's having white rumps and flanks ("Grant's wear pants and Tommies don't").  We passed by giraffe, zebra, wildebeest, elands, impalas (I had not seen them or the waterbucks before).  As we wound further in among the trees, we were told to expect some elephants, and there they were in just a minute or so.  The driver shut off the engine and the group of eight headed our way.  Seven of them crossed the road in front of us and headed off to the nearby stream, while the largest one, a bull, came over to check us out, ears flapping.  He was huge, with 5-foot long tusks, easily.  Apparently, he decided we were not a threat to his ladies, and headed off to rejoin them.  Had he decided to, he could easily have squashed us all.
I had been reading a book by David Western, In the Dust of Kilimanjaro.  It's a largely autobiographical account of his boyhood and career leading to his appointment as director of the Kenya Wildlife Service, and details the problems of establishing national parks in Kenya.   Just the night before, I read the section describing how his father was killed by an elephant in Tanganyika when Western was 14.  This book has traced many of the same footsteps I'll be taking on this expedition, especially the visit to Amboseli National Park, where we're headed next.
Last night, we met to gather thoughts about the review we need to write.  I was pretty tired, having slept badly the night before (Tom snores), but my tiredness didn't really help.  Tom was snoring again, and my mind was racing.  Finally did get to sleep, but then there was a ruckus in the tent.  Tom was being attacked by driver ants!  And then they moved on and attacked Richard.  I was somehow spared, and finally got back to sleep, but woke up to find an ant with its head buried in my arm.  Anyway, we were up early to leave for expedition.
The drive to Tsavo West N.P. was hot and dusty, only about 60 miles long but it took us several hours.  The rocky dirt roads are very punishing at any speed, but especially so at speeds higher than about 20 mph.  We stopped at a Maasai village, and were later accosted by Maasai trinket-sellers, hawking spears, beaded jewelry, and carvings.  Very persistent.  Bought a spear for 250 shillings (seemed like a steal, at about $3.50), but this was a mistake as all the others flocked to me and shoved their wares in my face.
We entered the park after a very long time at the gates, waiting for the bureaucrat to stamp all the tickets and calculate the price.  Park entry is fairly expensive for foreigners, (virtually all visitors to the park are foreigners):  $27 for non-Kenyans and 200 shillings (about $3) for Kenyans, per day, plus vehicle charges, and we have 5 off-road type vehicles and a pack truck called the White Rhino.
Our first stop in the park was a lava flow, which could easily have inspired the first hyena scene in The Lion King.  I saw a rock hyrax there.  Then it was on to Mizuma Springs, which has beautifully clear water, but no swimming.  It's very dangerous there, with crocodiles and hippos (we saw one of each).  The park has constructed an underwater observatory for hippo and croc watching, but both were too far from it to see.  Still the spring was filled with countless Telapia fish that appeared to be making a living on hippo dung.  Aggressive vervet monkeys patrolled the parking area, and one of them tried to break into my knapsack as I took pictures of his relatives-- a mom and child.
It was a slow drive the rest of the way to the campsite.  We saw a wallowing buffalo: a very big animal.  Shortly after setting up my tent, I bagged my first Tsetse fly.  They look much like horseflies back home, but these can give you African Sleeping Sickness.  We had a great dinner cooked by students, and saw stars brighter than I've ever seen, until the moon came up.  From here, you can see the Southern Cross.  The North Star is beyond the horizon.
Ed says we may well hear lions communicating tonight.  We've been warned to keep flaps up on our tent so the hyenas don't get ideas about attacking us in our sleep.  These are described as remote threats, but the leaders are adamant about the buddy system.  We must wake someone else up if we need to visit the choo at night.  So, it's time to dream of ants, lions, and maybe ant-lions.
Feb. 22.
It was a fitful night's sleep.  I awoke at 3 am to a repetitive deep growling noise, like someone starting up a chain saw.  I'm quite sure it was a lion.  Nobody else heard it, though.  Given this, it stands to reason why I slept poorly!  There was also an elephant tramping around the edge of camp, and a mournful whooping noise that Ed recognized as a hyena.  This noise was wandering around at very close range, among the tents.
This morning we went for a game/bird drive.  We didn't see as much as we'd hoped, as the savanna is quite dense and green, easy for game to hide in.  We did see four hippos in a waterhole, a buffalo, dik-dik (tiny and very cute forest antelopes), and two elephants.  We saw many more birds than I can remember.  Tsavo seems particularly rich for birds, including Zazu's species, the red-billed hornbill, guinea fowl, yellow-necked spur fowl, ostrich, numerous raptors and buzzards.  Other cars saw more elephants than this, but we were in a trailing vehicle.  We stopped at a cinder cone and climbed it, several hundred feet or so up a steep path in loose black lava sand.  From the top, we saw a troop of baboons, 20 or more, walking through the brush.  Students climbed the lava wearing flip-flops or sandals, but had no injuries (one flipflop was lost while skiing down the hill, though).
Now, we're back at the campsite, had lunch, I've done some wash, and we're waiting for a Kenya Wildlife Service guest lecturer.  Its very hot in mid-day here in Kenya, so I dont expect my clothes will take long to dry.
Feb. 23, evening.
The guest lecture was read to us from handwritten posters.  I think the faithful assistant may have written them as his superior dictated.  His other job was to tape them onto the side of the truck as they were needed.  He had all his pieces of tape loosely stuck to the table and ready for action.  Kenyans believe in division of labor, and I found this loyal assistant a worthy diversion for a boring lecture on the history and mission of the KWS.
Last night, I just had to sleep early, having slept so little for three consecutive nights.  I finally got a good solid night of rest.  This morning, we started early and headed toward the Rhino Sanctuary, where they have about 10% of Kenyas remaining 600 black rhinos behind an electric fence and under guard against poachers.  They have driven them near extinction because of the value of their horns, which some Asian cultures value for alleged aphrodisiac qualities.
We were allowed to drive around in the sanctuary, an area of about 80 square kilometers.  It was late morning, and the wrong time to look for rhinos, but we did see elephants, dik-diks, zebra, giraffe, warthogs, jackals, impalas and naked mole rats: not bad for a mornings drive.
From the sanctuary, we headed for the Ngulia lodge, a fancy place with a good buffet lunch for 500 shillings and a pool and bar.  Gin and tonic here, and another, and another, please.  The lodge was gorgeous, with fabulous views of spectacular geology and wildlife, situated on a sharp ridge where winds sweep upward off a broad savanna.  Birds find the spot uplifting, and this was truly a place to hope to return someday.
Heading back to our campsite, we saw elephants, hippos, and many more birds than I can name.  We had dinner waiting for us, prepared by staff members tonight.  We didnt need much, but ate it all anyway.  This has been our best day yet, and I have really gotten to appreciate the nights away from the sound of all internal combustion engines.  Its been many years since I could say that I couldnt hear a gas engine of some sort in the distance, but here the only night sounds are animals.  On the negative side, Ive just tried to squash a centipede on the ceiling of my tent but can find no remains and it seems to have vanished.  Hope it doesnt return with its big brother.  Yes, it has occurred to me that there might be interesting things wandering around beneath my tent.  With that thought, Ill be off to sleep.
Feb. 24, Amboseli.
Today we left Tsavo and headed for Amboseli National Park.  It was a long, hot, and extremely dusty and bumpy drive.  At Tsavos gate, we had to pick up an armed guard to deter bandits on the road to Amboseli.  We got here at about 2:00, and drove around with jaws agape.  Its easy to see why this is the most heavily visited of Kenyas parks.  The wildlife is everywhere in great numbers.  Everything is dry and dusty here, and a shower tomorrow, when we will return to the Game Ranch, will be most welcome.  We will leave for the Game Ranch site after a cultural Manyatta (an exhibition of sorts) at a Maasai community and a drive through the park.
Tonight, after dinner, we were visited by a group of Maasai warriors who came to dance and sing for us.  It was a very interesting atmosphere by campfire, and they did some impressive jumping.  The Maasai culture is nothing to envy, especially for women.  Ill have to write about that later.
Feb. 26, at the Game Ranch.  Tea with a cheetah.
We arrived here last night (Friday), after a long drive from Amboseli.  It was good to return to a paved road for part of that stretch, but Ive had about enough time in a vehicle.  It was good to see these students again, who are less close-knit than the Kuku group, and more receptive to outsiders.  We spent most of our time on Friday cleaning up and recovering from five days of camping, then went out to a nearby bar for drinks.
We headed east for about 1 1/2 hours, driving through agricultural land with terraced hillsides, impoverished small villages, until we reached a wood-carving center where I did my requisite shopping.  On returning, I worked on the review committees report for a while, then we went to David Hopcrafts for tea.  David Hopcraft owns Game Ranch, Ltd., and he invited us to tea yesterday.  We had heard about him and were not eager to go.  He had been described to us by Ed as a scurrilous basterd without scruples, who had been extremely difficult to deal with as a landlord over the years.  SFS founding president, recently departed, must have had a fondness for David, perhaps because of professional courtesy (i.e., honor among thieves).  He was described as deceptively charming, and when we went to his home, it was clear where the rent proceeds had gone.  It was a fabulous house, and it was all I could to to keep from pocketing some silverware and objets dart.
David appeared in shorts, a striking figure with a wide toothy Brit grin and curly grey hair.  He led us out to tea, in view of the pool but some distance from it.  We sat on hand-carved chairs and were promptly joined by Shala, a cheetah, and Davids wife, Carol.  Carol seemed to be working on the Jane Goodall look.  Shala was a very friendly animal, purring very loudly throughout our visit.  She did have the unfortunate habit of sitting on the coffee table and leaking a bit before getting off.  But that was okay, the dog promptly cleaned that up quite nicely, and then the tea and cookies were served by their servant.  We had only a little time, sufficient for David to regale us on how Cornell had tried to prevent him from getting his Ph.D. in Animal Science.  I heard later from Ed that his data were quite suspect.  After the Centre director became emphatic, we left with gracious thanks and goodbyes.
Shortly thereafter, we were off to a farewell dinner at a relatively fancy restaurant.  From there, one vehicle took Ed, Tom and Richard to the airport, and I came home for an evening alone to write my part of the report.
Feb. 27, at the Game Ranch.
I'm leaving tonight at 11:00 pm.
I've been transcribing my notes, and its time for lunch, after which the generator shuts down for the afternoon.  Ill be finishing off my rolls of film, and packing for my 11:00 pm flight.  Need to arrive at the airport by 8:00 to avoid chaos.
Evening, Feb. 27, Nairobi Airport.
My fellow committee members left last night.  I had the whole day for writing, reading, chooing, showering, and packing.  Now Im in the Nairobi airport, waiting to board.
Okiape drove me to the airport, after fond farewells to the folds at the Centre.  I will miss Sinnary, the spindly Sudanese, the most.
Okiape has worked at the Centre longer than anyone, almost 19 years.  The students refer to him as Homer Simpson because he has the same face, but a very black version.  Okiape has a family of 5 children living in a village near Lake Victoria, a 7-hour bus ride from Nairobi.  He sees them three times a year, and cannot afford to move them nearby, as it would cost 400 Kenya Shillings per day (about $3.70), a huge sum, just for transportation costs to send them to school.  This is a typical African pattern: the husband goes wherever the best work is, regardless of how far it takes him from home.  This tradition applies to the Maasai as well, who might have one village that they stop at while theyre herding goats and another for sheep, sometimes a long walk apart, often with harems living at each.
There is certainly little for us to envy about African culture, especially for women.  The Maasai traditions are particularly gruesome for women.  Maasai boys become warriors at puberty, and they become elders with herds to tend when they marry at the discretion of the tribal leaders.  Between those events, while they are warriors, they have sex freely with the young girls of the tribe, as young as 6 years old!  Children are released from the family hut at age 5, to find other places to sleep, and this is what happens to the girls: they go off to sleep with the warriors.  I dont know what happens to the boys.
It gets worse.  At puberty, the girls are genitally mutilated and married off with a dowery of a cow, perhaps, to a herdsman.  If she is his first wife, she will build a hut from cattle dung and sticks on the right side of the herdsmans entrance to the banta.  The second wife builds on the left, third on the right, fourth on the left, etc. I dont know what happens to wives beyond reproductive age: it may be that only a small number survive that long.  The women at the manyatta were all in their teens and twenties, except for a very few old women who were involved in crafts and selling to tourists.  Seven of the 17 women who sang for us had babies on their backs.
Meanwhile, the herdsman may be travelling to other bantas, where he may have other wives, or he may be visiting larger towns and picking up HIV.  You may well imagine how fast such a disease could spread in such a society, and I heard that more than 10% of Kenyans are HIV positive.  Can you imagine having 1 in 10 people infected with a lethal disease?  Well, it seems to be worse than that.  I've just checked the UN statistics and see that one study found 15.9% seropositive for HIV among pregnant Nairobi women, 9% of pregnant women positive in a study at Mosoriot (a rural town), 33.6% positive (both sexes) in a study in Kisumu, and a whopping 53.5% seropositive for prostitutes in Mombasa, on the coast.
This airport is hot and disgusting, and I want to get on the plane, just to get out of the heat.  Hopefully, well get on in a few minutes.  The flight is overbooked, and I was offered a free night at a Nairobi hotel at British Airways expense.  I declined.  Its time to get home.  Even a couple of Tuskers ("My country, my beer") have done little to cool me off or to make me long for more Kenya time.
So, I was herded through numerous check-points, and have finally made it on the plane.  As I sat down, who should come down the aisle but Ed and his son Eric, who were bumped last night.  And Tom is here as well, several rows back, another bumpee.  Only Richard was allowed on last nights flight.  This may have been payback from the gods for the unpleasantness he endured with the ticks, and again on the flight to Kuku. It seems that it is "half-term" holiday in the UK, a very big time to travel.  Someone please explain to me the rationale behind overbooking when reservations are prepaid and nonrefundable.  Seems theyll make their money whether there are no-shows or not, and theyll certainly make no more money than the number of seats will allow.  Anyway, this plane is full of at least 60 people who were bumped last night, including some first class passengers!  Imagine how ticked they were!  Eds not happy, either!  I, however, feel quite fortunate.  Ed and Eric spent the whole day in the Nairobi hotel, having survived chaos at the airport last night and not getting there until 2:30 am.
The interior of the plane is now being sprayed for mosquitoes.  I have seen exactly one mosquito in the last two weeks in Kenya, but they say they are required to do this to minimize risk of transmitting malaria and yellow fever back to the UK.
I claim victory for passing by a sea of duty-free shops in Nairobi airport, and buying only:  1) a small blue carved stone hippo for my secretary, 2) native Kenyan coffee beans for us, and 3) Kenyan tea for the mother-in-law.  No cigarettes were purchased!  Not even one, despite many alluring ads on the walls and ample opportunity.  My deterrent?  Telling you about it, and more significantly, not wanting to mark myself with that telltale smell.  There will be no showering opportunities in London, and from there it's straight home on a limo.  So, I have won the game: this time.  I expect the challenge to emerge with every trip I take for years to come, but this one has not been that difficult.  The hardest moment was after reaching Gatwick airport, getting rid of Richard, with hours to kill in London.  I have about 10 fewer hours on this go-around, and I feel Ive already passed the worst obstacle.
There was one other test.  When we went out for beer with the GRL faculty, Sinnary pulled out his cigarettes and offered me one.  I could have had one, nobody would have cared.  Instead, I told him that I had smoked for a long time, and had invested a lot of effort and time in quitting.  He told me of his trial quits, lying in bed useless and grouchy, and his wife begging him to start smoking again.
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Though Dijon is not known for its custahd, It's renowned far and wide for its mustahd. On hot dogs it's fine With a sip of fine wine, Hey, git ya hands off my mustahd, ya bastahd!
 We did not pass over Dijon, after all that.  And maybe its just as well.  It was a long and restless night without sleep on a full plane.  Why cant I sleep sitting upright?  I even took a melatonin which does make me drowsy, but I was too drowsy to be awake, and too wakeful to sleep.
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I endured the long, slow "Speedlink" shuttle from Gatwick.  I felt a virus coming on, and managed to sleep for a couple of hours on the bench here at Heathrow.  That helped.  But this has been a long couple of flights!   Were presently a half-hour from Boston, somewhere near Els' house.
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Got home in the limo.  Empty house, and Id left my key with the dogsitter.  So, I hung out in the garage while Scuppers yelped hello through the door.  Alice and Emily arrived a few minutes later. Its good to be back, and Im very glad I went.  I cant wait to see my pictures.

Conditions at the Centre for Wildlife Management Studies, Kenya
Life is interesting in Kenya.  Although Im not sure too many Americans would be willing to exchange their amenities and safety for the interest, it is certainly worth a visit.  We take a lot for granted that a trip to Kenya will make you appreciate a great deal.
My experience in Kenya was at the Centre for Wildlife Management Studies.  They have two sites, with parallel programs and equal numbers of students (22), interns (3) and faculty (3) at each site, along with supporting staff.  The original site, rented from Game Ranch Ltd. (GRL) is the most well-developed, with permanent buildings for student/faculty lodging.  A second site has just been established in the middle of the Kuku Group Ranch, an area on the southern border near Kilimanjaro surrounded by Masai tribes and pastures.  Students switch sites in mid-semester, and rumors about the other site dominate much of their conversation during the first half of the semester.


The Game Ranch site is near Nairobi, 45 minutes southeast, next to the Nairobi-Mombasa highway near the town of Athi River.  The game ranch is a huge fenced area where wild animals are raised for meat.  There are a few cheetahs on the property, but otherwise the profit is obtained from culling the herds of zebra, wildebeest, oryx, eland, giraffe, and other kinds of antelope.  In reality, I believe the owner, David Hopcraft, a 3rd generation descendent of British colonial wealth, makes most of his money by charging rent for the School for Field Studies.  He earns over $200,000 per year in rent.  In return, he provides no services in the way of upkeep or repairs, and the SFS has recently decided that they will purchase property of their own, at a cost of only a couple of years rent, and get out of this exploitative relationship.
Housing.We spent our 12 days in tents.  When we were on expedition at Tsavo and Amoseli, our tents were the ordinary camping type A-frame tents with external frames.  When we were at a center facility, both at the Game Ranch and at Kuku, our tents were much more spacious platform tents, large enough for four people to sleep in beds (the beds in Kuku were not comfortable and the three reviewers shared a tent in Kuku, while we had better beds and our own tents at the Game Ranch).  These tents at each site were high enough for me to stand in and were covered by a thatched roof for shade.  We did not see any rain throughout the trip.
Water was something to be careful about.  Both sites had water lines running to the shower areas and various washing stations throughout the camp.  At Kuku, the piped water was drinkable, coming straight from Kilimanjaro.  At the Game Ranch, the drinkable water was obtained from a central cooler, and the piped water was strictly for washing.
Food was also something to be careful about, although I did not hesitate to eat anything served at the SFS sites.  If the students werent sick, I probably wouldnt be, either.  They told us they are very careful in buying their vegetables only from certain places where the contamination is not a problem, and I have had no problems throughout the trip. The food was always delicious and welcome, and all of the staff were Kenyan natives, very friendly and pleasant people.
Hazardous animals.  Insects, and the diseases they carry in Africa, can be a serious problem here.  They were not bad during the dry season while we were in Kenya.  I saw only one mosquito and was bitten by one or two tsetse flies.  Beds are equipped with mosquito netting for protection against the mosquitoes that find their way into the tents and huts.  We did discover the hazards of tropical ants, and we were also warned to watch for scorpions and snakes.  One student found a scorpion in her clothes while camping, and a puff adder had been caught at Kuku just before we arrived.  Large carnivores can also be a problem.  With the exception of one park, which has neither lions or elephants, it is illegal to get out of your vehicle in the national parks of Kenya, except in campgrounds.  And I'm not sure why campgrounds are an exception!
Sanitary facilities consisted of outhouses (Swahili for outhouse is "choo," pronounced cho) each with a concrete floor and a wooden platform equipped with a toilet seat that  covered a deep pit below.  These pits probably contain a number of flashlights dropped into them over the years: I nearly lost my own that way.
Each choo has some evidence of student or staff humor.  I particularly liked the following notice posted in the choo nearest our tent:  
ALWAYS REMEMBER!
1)  IF YOU PREFER TO STAND ON THE SEAT WHILE YOU CHOO RATHER THAN SITTING ON IT, THEN PLEASE DO THE FOLLOWING THINGS:  
A) AFTER YOU FINISH CHOOING, USE THE DISINFECTANT THAT IS IN THE SPRAY CAN TO WIPE THE CHOO SEAT FOR THE SAKE OF THE NEXT USER.
B) IT WOULD MAKE SENSE IF YOU COULD LIFT UP THE CHOO SEAT BEFORE YOU STEP ON TOP SUCH THAT YOU DONT STAND ON IT; THAT WAY IT WILL NOT BE EASILY BROKEN AS IT DOES HAPPEN SOME TIMES
C) ENJOY YOUR CHOOING AND KEEP OTHER CHOO GOERS HAPPY!
A CONCERNED CHOOER
Showers consisted of open air outdoor stalls, a pulley a rope, and a canvas bag.  The idea is to fill the bag with a 5 gal. bucket of water, raise it up above your head with the rope (it's heavy when full), and open the valve at the bottom of the bag, lathering and rinsing feverishly before the water runs out.  It is actually a very pleasant experience in the middle of  the hot afternoons under the equatorial sun.
All around, this is a great way to spend a couple of weeks, or a semester, or maybe even a year.  After that, I think the difficulties of making contact with family would become wearisome, and the dangers of crime would become oppressive.
The newer site, called Kuku Bush Camp, is much more confined than the Game Ranch, largely because it is dangerous to wander beyond its fences.  There are lions roaming the countryside, along with buffalo, elephants, hippos, and other dangerous things.  It is the more spectacular of the two sites, but life there is not as comfortable.