Thank you all for following along on my adventures–I can’t tell you how much I appreciated your support. Kenya has been an amazing experience, and I’ve learned a lot about the goodness of people, the importance of patience, and the overwhelming necessity to not take things for granted. As Americans we have the most and expect the most, and it’s critical to take a step back to realize just how privileged we are. And hopefully that will lead us to share the wealth, because it’s just wrong to allow billions to live in poverty while we have more money than we know what to do with (ie, the $100 that one spends on a pair of shoes could feed a family for several months–so are those shoes really that important?). The problem is though, that you can’t donate people out of poverty; you have to find ways to increase their income sustainably and on their own terms. Otherwise, once the aid money runs out, the poor are back to square one. This explains how in the last 40 years, over 500 billion has been poured into Africa. And what is there to show for it? More people and more poverty. We have to think of innovative ways to help the farmer to make more money from his crops, and allow the urban Kenyan to start a small business. If we could as a country, ask more of ourselves than just donating money and hoping for a quick fix, we could go far in alleviating many of the world’s problems.

Once again, thanks for reading! I will be posting pictures ASAP.

Love you all!!

35 hours of traveling halfway across the world, and I’m back home. I arrived Saturday night and have been recovering from jet lag since then (I woke up wide-eyed at 4 this morning, which was nice).

My last day in Kenya was quite eventful. As I’ve learned to do in Kenya, I expected the worst and was pleasantly surprised that everything worked out. My friend Alan traveled with me for the day, and we took a matatu to Nairobi from Nakuru early Friday morning. Our friend Wambua met us and we rented a taxi for the day. We first went to the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust, in which they raise 27 orphaned baby elephants and one adorable 3-month-old black rhino. The keepers brought out the stumbling little elephants for the feeding hour, in which the elephants suckled from big milk bottles and wallowed in the mud puddle, falling all over each other.

After the Orphanage, Alan and I enjoyed a lunch at the ridiculous tourist restaurant, The Carnivore. Considering I was a vegetarian for 13 years before I came to Kenya, I just decided, what the heck, let’s go all out. So we gorged ourselves on about 15 different types of meat, ranging from beef to chicken livers to ostrich meatballs. I felt myself slipping into what Alan described as a “meat coma”, which was quite a new experience for me. As game hunting is illegal in Kenya, The Carnivore imports exotic game meat from South Africa. Game management can play a very important role in managing wildlife, and since the law banning hunting was passed in the 70s, both Kenya’s wildlife and economy has suffered. The National Parks have too many herbivores, and since they can’t crop or cull the populations, the animals are starving to death. How starvation is a more humane death than hunting, I don’t know. Even so, the government keeps the law in place largely because of bribes and political pressure from International Animal Welfare groups that are funded by donors who love their pets and therefore don’t want zebras to be hunted, even though it would be for the benefit for the population and the environment. Even The Carnivore restaurant is under pressure to stop importing game meat, which explains why we only could get farmed ostrich meatballs instead of zebra or wildebeest.

This past week has been filled with goodbyes and wrapping things up. Dr. Julian Fennessy of The Giraffe Conservation Foundation came out for a few days and helped me finish up the giraffe stuff. Our particular species of giraffe, the Rothschild’s giraffe, only has 750 remaining worldwide and has never been studied. Julian hopes to turn my project into a long-term study that he can use as background data to try to get the Rothschild giraffe listed as an endangered species. He also helped us start up a habitat assessment, where we set up GPS plots around the lake to measure the amount of bark stripping on the yellow fever acacia trees.

On a different note, we went on a night game drive to days ago and were ridiculously lucky, as usual, and pulled up right next to a huge male leopard that had just killed a big impala that was still kicking. It was so AMAZING! We watched him for over an hour as he protected his kill from several spotted hyenas, and dragged it over the bush and up a steep rock face.

I’m in Nakuru tonight saying my goodbyes, and then tomorrow I head to Nairobi for some tourist stuff before beginning my 30 hour trip home at midnight. Wish me luck, and see you all soon!

Sorry I haven’t been able to write, I don’t have Internet here at Soysambu so this is a special occasion. Things here have been going wonderfully. Everything has come together on the giraffe project, and we did a habitat assessment a few days ago to record data about damage on the yellow fever acacia trees. The giraffe are stripping the bark off the trees, to the extent that it is potentially harming the entire acacia forest. Other than that, I spent a few days last week bedridden because I had the absolute worst sunburn of my life. Intelligent me, I laid out by the Delamere’s Pool all day without sunscreen, forgetting that we are at the equator and at 6000 feet. I’ve finally recovered though and can walk fine now.

Yesterday I had a wonderful surprise and was able to visit lake Nakuru national park! In my last week in Kenya, I finally get to enter the park that I came here to work at. It was amazing. We saw both black and white rhino amongst thousands of flamingos, and had brunch amongst a herd of giraffe and a troop of baboons. To top the day off, it was our boss Kat’s birthday yesterday so we had sundowner drinks by the lake, and then headed into a nearby town for more drinks. Didn’t return until 4 am, which is absolutely unheard of considering I go to bed at 9 PM here. Great fun though. The club we went to is a little slab of England in rural Kenya, as there is an English boarding school across the street. I haven’t been around that many white people for 2 months now! It was a bit strange, I must admit.

I leave next Friday! I will definitely miss Kenya but am really looking forward to seeing everyone and having the comforts of living in the first world again. It’s going to be a shocker, though. I won’t be able to write again until I’m home, but I will send another email and photos later.

I cannot wait to see you all!

Tomorrow hopefully going to go out to do a habitat assessment of the acacia forest on the lakeshore. The giraffe are stripping the bark of the yellow fever acacia trees, which is killing a lot of trees. We’re going to assess the extent of the damage, in order to get an idea as to if there are too many giraffe on the Conservancy. My friend Kendall leaves on Saturday, so that is going to be quite sad. That also means I’ve only got about 2 weeks left in Kenya! My how time flies.

Hope you all are enjoying the summer!

–Shalynn

I am in Nakuru for the day so I finally have Internet again.  This week has been ridiculous. I have no idea, no idea whatsoever how I have gotten lucky enough to be living at Soysambu.  It’s mind-boggling actually.  So get this: on Tuesday, we went on a hot air balloon ride, for free, and watched the sunrise over Lake Elementeita!  The owner of the balloon company is a friend of Soysambu, and had 3 extra spots that day so gave us a call.  It was so amazing, and so peaceful.  We watched all the flamingoes, pelicans, giraffes, buffalo and antelopes wake up over the lake, and were able to see the entire conservancy from an entirely new angle.

It was really beautiful and really tragic at the same time–seeing the extent of the current drought Kenya is in was quite depressing.  The lake is drying up as we speak, and the islands that the pelicans breed on are almost landlocked now.  That is pretty bad news considering the Lake is the only pelican breeding ground in all of Africa.

The following day, we went to a stakeholders meeting of the important members of Soysambu and the neighboring communities.  It was a long 4 hours but it was really interesting for me to see the business side of running a Conservancy. It is so very complicated, with so many issues: the absolute lack of funds, poaching, illegal grazing, resentment within the communities, lack of tourism facilities, too many herbivores with no predators, cattle competing with zebra for not enough grass, the lake drying up; the list goes on and on.  Once again it shows how much there is to do here, with not enough resources to make it happen.  As a good pick-me-up after the meeting, the rangers took us out “to see a big snake”.  So cool! It was an enormous African Rock Python (probably around 10 feet long) that had eaten a dik dik (a small gazelle) whole and was digesting it, and therefore not moving.  Another volunteer, Alan, got a bit too close and the snake snapped at him as a warning, sending us all running and screaming. So that was exciting!

The rest of this week, I’ve been trying to figure out what I can do for Soysambu in my remaining 3 weeks here. They have done so much for us, and I really want to give them something finite in return. My main project is giraffe and colobus monkey monitoring and identification. They would like to know exactly how many giraffe and colobus are here, and know more about their diets, habits and population health.  So far this entails driving around in the Land Rover, locating the herd/pack, and watching them. It’s a pretty good job  .  It’s been really difficult to identify the individual giraffes though, so that is a bit tedious. I’m hoping to put together a report before I leave, so we will see how far I get.

I am dying to upload photos to show you all, but the lack of Internet has made it difficult.  I will try my best!  I will definitely get them up at least when I get home on the 13th.  In the meantime, you all should check out Soysambu’s website:  www.soysambuconservancy.org

Love you all!

–Shalynn

I’ve been out here in African paradise for only 3 days now, but it feels like weeks. It is so amazing here! Soysambu is a 48,000 acre cattle ranch owned by Lord and Lady Delamere, which was just converted into a wildlife conservancy only 1 year ago. Thus, there is A LOT of work to do. The ranch currently has 6000 cattle and about 11,000 wild animals, including zebra, gazelles, buffalo, Colobus monkeys, and Rothschild giraffe (there are only 300 worldwide). The ranch is situated around Lake Elementeita, a Rift Valley alkaline lake that is the only breeding ground for pelicans in Africa. The lake shimmers pink with about 50,000 lesser flamingos that feed on the blue green algae.

There are so many projects and things to do here, but just not enough people to get them done. They want to reintroduce rhino and cheetah here, but doing so requires huge undertakings like fencing the entire property. The ranch adjoins Lake Nakuru National Park which currently has too many rhinos, so it would be very convenient to relocate some here. While I’m here, I’m hoping to work on a giraffe monitoring project and write some grants to fund future projects. There is also work needed on an environmental management plan and water quality monitoring. So many options!

The conservancy is headed by one American woman, Kat Combes, who is the driving force behind everything here. She has been incredibly welcoming and invited us to lunch on her beautiful veranda a few days ago. We almost died–we had bow tie pasta, bread, and cheese! It was the first non-Kenyan food (ie, not potatoes or corn) that we’ve had since we’ve been here. I’m living in a small cottage with 2 fellow volunteers, and wake up every morning to bird song over the lake.

It is so beautiful here.

The last two days, the rangers have taken us out on patrol. We found an impala that had been snared by poachers. Kenya has been in a severe drought for the past 5 years and people are desperate for food. The communities neighboring the ranch set loop snares that animals get caught in and strangled by the wire. The next day we went on early morning patrol at 4 AM to ambush some poachers! I was a bit nervous, but totally safe. We found some Masai cattle illegally grazing on the ranch, and herded them into a holding pen where the owner will collect them and be fined and arrested. Later that day, we investigated a buffalo that had been snared and killed by poachers. It was pretty gruesome–the buffalo had struggled for about a kilometer and had dragged a huge log around its neck, before the poachers cut its neck and took its hindquarters. We followed the tracks with the rangers, and they searched among the community for clues, but no one would talk. It was definitely a community-organized poaching. It’s hard to blame them, though. Their corn crops had been eaten by a herd of buffalo that had escaped from the reserve, and they were already starving. The average Kenyan receives no benefit from tourism, so what is their incentive to conserve wildlife, especially that which harms their livelihoods? On our way back home that evening, there was a huge thunder and rainstorm–wonderful news for this drought-ravaged area.

Tonight we are going to have “sundowners” out near the lake–drinks at sunset. I can’t wait!

Talk to you all soon!

–Shalynn

We just returned from a quick three-day trip to Kakamega Forest Reserve, which is the last remaining portion of virgin Kenyan rainforest. It is INCREDIBLE! The journey took about five hours by bus, traveling through tea plantations and Lake Victoria. We got a taxi from Kakamega town into the Forest Reserve, and stayed in bandas (like huts with beds) owned by KEEP, the Kakamega Environmental Education Program. The campsite looked like my perfect African fairy-tale: tall thatched-roof huts set among lush rainforest, with blue monkeys howling in the trees above us.

The next day we woke up at 4:30 AM to hike the 8 km up to Lirhanda (which means “Holy Place”) Hill Lookout to watch the sunrise. Our incredibly knowledgeable guide Abraham led us through dense jungle trails in the complete darkness. It was a tough hike and we made it to the Hill around 6 AM. We had a complete 360 degree view of the rainforest, which started to wake up with bird song and monkey howling among the mist. I cannot even describe how beautiful it was; I just felt so incredibly lucky to be there.

Abraham taught us all about the forest, which is 14,000 hectares and contains over 400 species of birds, 400 species of butterflies, 70 species of mammals and around 20 species of snakes. Many of these animals are only found in Kakamega Forest, so it’s a pretty unique place. On our way down after the sunrise, we walked through a small cave and saw bats literally 3 inches from our head and flying all around us. It made me a bit jumpy but it was so cool!

After our hike back we relaxed a bit before leaving on our second trek for the day: a 13 km hike to the Yala River. Abraham led us along a lush stream and taught us the common and scientific name of every plant and animal that we saw. He also knows all of the birds by sight and song, which was pretty fun for me as a “wanna-be birder”. The coolest birds we saw were Black and White Casqued Hornbills, and the Great Blue Turaco, which are both around three feet tall. Four hours and some bites from the Safari ants later, we reached the Yala River: raging muddy water surrounded by lush rainforest banks. On the way back we passed through forest that had been logged in the 60s and is now overrun by guava trees. It was interesting to see the difference between virgin primary forest and secondary forest: they’re not even comparable. Abraham taught us the penalty for logging or poaching in the forest: $800 US (which is a FORTUNE here) or 2.5 years in jail (which is not a good option either). One funny quirk: if you are caught with the meat, the rangers will force you to eat it raw. That would deter me from trying to catch a monkey.

We got back right at dusk and it immediately started to downpour. The next day we woke up early and left for Nakuru again. It was a quick trip but worth it in every way possible.

Tomorrow we will be moving into the conservancy! I can’t wait.

Talk to you all soon!

–Shalynn

FINALLY, something is happening with my internship! Yesterday we met with an American woman who runs a private wildlife conservancy at Lake Elementaita, a soda lake that abuts Lake Nakuru National Park. It’s a new conservancy so they need help with just about everything, from giraffe and Colobus monkey monitoring to creating an environmental management plan to construction of research buildings. And get this, she actually wants volunteers! I am so excited! Barring all unfortunate circumstances, I am going to move out there this coming week and start work! I will be living in a banda (a type of permanent tent) on the conservancy, cooking my own food, and working 5 days a week. Although I like Nakuru, I am so excited to move outside of the city and camp with wildlife! It’s what I came here for after all.

This week started out rough with all of the frustrations with KWS, but it ended well.

On Thursday, a Kenyan friend took us through the biggest slum in Nakuru, where 20,000 people literally live in the city dump. Most of the residents are refugees from the post-election violence last year, living there “illegally”. It’s illegal to live there because the Kenyan government wants them to simply disappear. Instead of fixing the problem and building houses for these people, the police periodically raid the slum, trashing houses and beating up the young and elderly. As word got out that a group of mzungus (white people) had visited bringing toys, bananas and candy, we were soon surrounded by children, all dressed in rags and so eager to hold your hand. The residents live in shacks made of garbage and mud, and use piled plastic bottles as mattresses. Their houses are surrounded by piles of trash, with pigs, dogs, and chickens lying about. We met mostly women and children, but we saw two men brewing changa’a, an illegal drink equivalent to moonshine in the US. Equivalent except for the fact that it’s often brewed with battery acid and formaldehyde and can make you go blind, or kill you.

I left the slum feeling very weak in the knees. Walking around town was so surreal, and buying lunch afterwards was even weirder. I kept thinking about how I would easily spend $20 bucks on a T-shirt, something totally useless, while these people could eat for a year on that. Meanwhile I was enjoying my nice lunch.

On Friday we went to the wildlife conservancy, and to an Orphanage for kids with HIV/AIDS. Many of these kids were born and abandoned at the hospital I’ve visited in Nakuru, and then sent here. An elderly Italian nun who has so much compassion runs the Orphanage. Children born with HIV/AIDS usually don’t live past their teens, so most of the children there are very young. They sang worship songs and performed traditional dances for us, and were just all around the most polite, adorable, and lovely children I’ve ever met.

Tomorrow, if I can get my act together, I am going to travel with a few friends to Kakamega Forest Reserve in Western Kenya. It’s the last remaining stand of East African rainforest, and it should be pretty amazing!

Talk to you soon.