July 17: What a difference nine hours of sleep makes. I awoke refreshed and only a bit jet lagged. We departed today to seek out the head waters of the river system we will be studying. Off the main road, we drove down a series of dirt pathways that, were they rivers, would have been white water streams! An hour's drive brought us to a spring with water gushing out from a hole in the ground. We understand that this spring is water being pushed from the pressure head that is Mount Kilimanjaro. The stream starts out cold and clear but less than a mile downstream it is cloudy with what appears to be runoff from the numerous agricultural fields tended by the Massai people of the Kuku group ranch. Our sampling took us overland via foot across fields and brush, passing the Bomas (mud huts) of the farmers. Our team included Jim and myself as well as two staff members from the Center for Wildlife Management. Those guys are real troopers, hauling our gear across hill and dale, all the time smiling and serving as the ambassadors for the crazy Mzungus (foreigners) who wanted to tramp in their streams.
Along the way, we passed a small group of school children hiking the muddy path on their way to school. They were wearing their school uniforms and smiled and let me take a picture. I made the mistake of showing them the picture on the camera's screen, so I then had to photograph each of them in turn so they could each see their picture on the little screen. Very cute.
We sampled through to the early afternoon and then returned to the Center to process samples. We quit (but did not finish) just after ten and will return tomorrow. Good day, very productive.
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