Giant Bugs (And the Rest of My Day)

Currently there is a giant beetle struggling to flip over after it was just flying at the wall and almost hitting me in the head. They buzz very very loudly. There is also what I think may be the world's loudest cricket in the computer room. It is making a really high picked squeaking noise that is echoing around the room. It terrified me because I was sitting in there alone and it was in the middle of all of the internet equipment- I thought it was the equipment and it might explode or something!

Now one of the assari (camp gaurds) just came by and herded the beetle away from us with his baton. Haha.

We spent the morning looking for Baboons. We were supposed to spend 2 hours watching them and recording their behaviors but it took so long to find a troop that we ended up only watching them for an hour. It was really interesting though. They were mostly eating and wandering around but the babies were really cute and it was fun to watch them interact. I thought the most interesting thing was when one in the distance started barking. I guess they do this when there is a predator or something, as our driver said "bad for baboons." The weird part of it was that when they started barking all except a handful of the baboons by us ran off to see what the bad thing was. It was very human of them I thought... to run to see the danger rather than hide from it.

In the process of finding baboons (niyani) we saw a bunch of giraffes, some mongooses, and other animals. You all should look up what a dik dik looks like. I love them. They have giant eyes and little pointed tufts of hair on their heads. And one we saw had a puff of red-orange hair that was awesome. I don't know if he was just having a bad hair day or what... They are also cool because they live in pairs (one male and one female) which is pretty unique compared to the other animals around here. Oh! And they have noses like rabbits except they wiggle about the first inch of their snot not just their nose. It is really funny to watch. I think I could watch them all day.

When we got back from the parks we had lunch and class and then went to play soccer. About half the staff and a dozen local kids joined our game. I love playing soccer here. We have a rematch tomorrow or the next day because we tied. Also, I learned that ninya means go and so I kept yelling "Ninya ninya!!" It is really fun to yell. You should try it.

Tomorrow we are going hiking to a place called the elephant caves, going to a store that sells Tanzanite, and spending some more time in Karatu. Every day is jam packed here. It is exhausting but awesome.