Oloitokitok

July 27. There hasn't been much going on the last couplee of days. On Wednesday Jim and I took the students from the Center down to the "local" spring to take our final samples. This spring is within walking distance from the Center and we had a bit of a parade as we took 15 people to do the job of two. Those samples were the last of our field work here as we have literally run out of deionized water and several of the chemicals needed to do our work. We've been more productive than I ever imagined we would be.

Thursday was spent with light cleaning of the lab and the beginning of the process of sorting and packing our gear for heading back to the U.S. Thursday evening Jim and I gave a short presentation of our data with a view of explaining to the students what we had been doing over the last week and a half. The presentation went well with several excellent questions from students and staff. The Kenyan staff in particular seem to really appreciate the work we have been doing. I really hope that we will be able to turn this into a long-term project in years to come.

Today, with very little to do other than wait for our bacterial plates to "cook", we took off to the border town of Oloitokitok. This used to be a two-hour trip back when I was working for SFS in 2000, but now it's barely a half hour drive along a nicely paved road. This place has really changed over the past decade. Our expedition included Jim and myself as well as the Student Affairs Manager, Tara and our intrepid driver Moses.

We drove to the outskirts of town and took an amazing hike down into a river valley to a gorgeous waterfall. We didn't see any wildlife other than some safari ants which we carefully avoided. I learned my lesson with those buggers on out first day in the field. They are tenacious and have a very nasty bite. We spent a few minutes at the waterfall and then an hour or so rock hopping our way downstream. We did a bit of mild bouldering and generally just enjoyed the peaceful little stream. It felt wierd to be walking along a stream bed without taking a sample or making a measurement. It was also nice to spend some time around clear water!

We returned to our starting point and headed back into town for a nice lunch. Service was a bit slow, but the food was excellent and it was nice to chill a bit after such a busy schedule we've been maintaining. Following lunch we drove up to an HIV support center where local women have set up a small craft store to help support their efforts of improving the life of folks with AIDS. Treatments have gotten better, but HIV is still a huge problem in Africa.

Tomorrow is our last full day in Kenya and we have had the wonderful opportunity to join the Wildlife Management faculty here at the Center in a wildlife game count in Amboseli National Park. Yes, we're getting another trip to the park! I am quite excited. More on that later....