Skip to main content

from the beginning...

I'll start the Peter visit story with his arrival. His flight was scheduled to arrive at 6:30 am, which is about the worst possible time because allowing for the hour or so post-arrival time to get through passport control and baggage claim, driving back from the airport to Nairobi would be right during rush hour. And rush hour traffic in Nairobi is awful. But thankfully, he was arriving on a Sunday, when there is relatively little traffic. However, even in my sleepy state at 6am when I woke up that morning I thought to call the airport to see if his flight was on time - and it wasn't, it was delayed by about 3 hours. I tried to go back to sleep, but I was too excited about his arrival to do more than doze a little.

(As an aside - Peter's flight home from Nairobi was delayed, too, due to a herd of zebra on the runway. Yes, at the international airport, I kid you not. Gotta love it!)

Anyway, I ended up getting to the airport about 15 minutes after Peter had gotten out with his bag - I'd given him some tips for getting out of the airport quickly, and they seemed to work too well! He was waiting for me on the side of the arrivals terminal, having fended off several friendly taxi drivers who offered to take him into Nairobi, or even to call me to make sure I was coming. I was so happy to see him! We did hit some traffic getting back to the apartment in Nairobi, due to a bad accident on the road from the airport. The rest of the day was kind of a blur, and consisted of him taking about a 1.5 hour nap; then us getting some lunch (Java House!) and doing a little shopping (errands I had to do); then him taking another nap for about 2 hours; then I dragged him out to dinner with several friends/fellow researchers who were in Nairobi. We went to my favorite restaurant in Nairobi, Tamambo, where I got my usual ostrich... yum! He was tired, but a really good sport.

The next day was pretty intense. I had to go to the bank and do some more research project-related errands, and then we headed to the museum.



I had fun introducing him to everyone, and he had fun seeing the Palentology (fossils) and Osteology (modern bones) Departments. For bonehead dorks like the two of us, it's like a playground. Giant fossil tortoises and elephant skulls decorate the floor of the Paleontology lab, and rows and rows of antelope skulls with spiraling horns run down one part of Osteology.



Then, after lunch at the museum with some more colleagues, we headed to the field site. Tune in soon for the next installment... in the field!

(pictures courtesy of Peter)

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

D minus a week and a day

I'm leaving for my annual migration to Kenya soon, just like the wildebeest.... well, only there's a few million less of me than there are of them. Also, I'd like to think I run in a few less circles than they do, given that they spend their year basically making a big circle between Kenya and Tanzania in the Serengeti/Mara ecosystem (though that's debatable!). I'm going through my usual 'I'm leaving soon' routine: getting together with friends who want to spend a little time before I leave for a few months; making sure I can take care of all my (as my fab friend Fire calls it) "personal admin" online while I'm gone - banking, paying utilities, etc.; adding things to the duffel bag I keep stocked during the rest of the year with my 'going to Kenya' things. It's always hectic, and no matter how well I plan - and those of you who know me know I plan! - there's always a lot to do at the last minute. So it's D (departure) mi...
5 comments
Read more

bones and animals

Fire and I left Nairobi at about 9:45 am yesterday and drove to Ol Pejeta Conservancy, where we're doing pilot work for what we hope will be a long term study. Our project is called BONES (it took a long time to think of that cool an acronym!): Bones of Ol Pejeta, Neotaphonomic and Ecological Survey. We have several interesting research questions which we hope to answer using a study of bones scattered across the landscape of this conservation area. One of them is this: paleontologists and archaeologists dig up fossils, and we use these fossils to reconstruct animal communities and ancient habitats. For instance, if we find 50% grassland adapted animals and 25% forest adapted animals and 25% woodland adapted animals, we use this information to look at the animal community, and reconstruct the vegetaiton. When we do this, we assume that the types of animals we find as fossils are preserved in the same proportions as in the living community they came from. But is this the case? We ca...
2 comments
Read more

99 transects for bones in the bush, 99 transects for bones…

(sing the title of this blog post to the tune of 99 bottles of beer on the wall) We completed our 99th transect this morning – and then our 100th! It was a momentous occasion. I started doing bone transects here on my own in 2003, and while I always envisioned this as a long-term research project, it’s exciting to see it really happening. Team photo after our 100th transect today - Fire, me, Isaack, and Kari (Ella was in camp not feeling well) Ella, Fire, and Kari looking at and measuring bones in a bush transect Fire and Kari walking around a small muddy water puddle Ella and Fire getting ready for a transect Our vehicle with "gari ya mifupa"  (which means "bones car" in Kiswahili)  written in the dirt on the back door Ella, Fire, and Kari hard at work Kari still drinks a can of Coke at the turnaround point on every transect Ella and Isaack with their weapons of choice, a giraffe radius and a rifle Kari asking Fire ...
Post a Comment
Read more