Notes and Forgotten Moments (2)

1) Giraffes coats get darker as the giraffes age.

2) Lion cubs' noses are black, turn pink, and then turn blacker again with age. You can tell a lion's age by the amount of blackness on its nose. The color of its mane however depends on climate and genetics rather than age. Generally a lion's mane is darker in a cooler climate than in a warmer one.

3) Apparently there was a blue monkey in camp last session. None of us knew about it though. Haha.

4) The fence around camp is a new edition. It was put up because of the hyena attacks in the area. There used to just be bushes lining the property. The fence was only finished a week or so before we arrived.

5) Yohanna is selling bows and arrows in the camp duka. They are very different from bows and arrows that I have used in the US. The bows are made of wood and very stiff. Yohanna showed me that the usually shoot the big bow kneeling and with the bow braced on their knee so that they can get better leverage. The Arrows are much meaner looking than most of those in the US. They varied but the common theme was very nasty looking spikes in the sides of the arrow heads. Yohanna told me that if you shoot some of the more extreme ones into an animal you have to rotate them and shred the flesh around them so that it is possible to pull them out.

6) Many of the maasai have small circles burned onto their cheeks. I asked Yohanna why and he told me that traditionally sick children were given the mark as protection to keep them from getting sick again. It was prescribed by the village medicine man. Today, however, Yohanna said that the burns have become a sort of a fashion statement. Almost all Maasai have the burns as a decorative cultural mark. However, Danson told me that some of the tribes are moving away from the markings because they are moving into towns, modernizing, and sending their children to public schools.

7) This morning there was a white-browed coucal in the dining hall. Martha caught it. I was really excited because I love those birds. They have really intense bright red eyes. It was sad though because the bird was struggling and losing a lot of feathers. I started asking Martha to let it go and Yohanna started yelling at her so she released it out the window. It was a great thing to see first thing in the morning. I didn't even know white-browed coucals lived around our camp.

8) We were doing a field exercise that involved using a couple of measuring stick tied together with a string and a level to create terraces in the land. One of the groups started limboing when they were done with their exercise. It was hilarious to watch.

9) Ninah and Pascal made hats out of some leaves while we were all having a field lecture. The leaves were fuzzy and almost had a velcro interaction when they were stuck together. It was so funny that I think most of us were watching them more than Mwamhanga (the teacher).