Thanksgiving at Kweisos House!

The house

Most people who know me know that I love Thanksgiving. I love the huge meal, baking, and gathering friends to eat! Before I left the US in September, my Dad asked me what I wanted as my “last meal,” and I said “Thanksgiving!!” and we had a full spread before I left for Africa. So when my Kisumu friends started talking about renting a huge house in the hills and celebrating Thanksgiving for a whole weekend, I was super excited!

It turns out my friend that had started organizing the weekend getaway had to go back to the States that week, so I volunteered to take over planning. I reserved the house, gathered tons of money from my friends, and went shopping for enough food for 18 people for 3 days. We were headed to a place called Kweisos House (Kway-sos) that is about 1.5 hours away from Kisumu on a huge hill overlooking the valley full of sugar cane farms.

3 carts!

One of the cool things about the place is that if you pay $20 per person to stay, you can bring any food you want and the property provides 3 cooks to make all your food! So, I made a menu for our breakfasts, lunches, and dinners and then bribed a Kenyan friend to go to the vegetable market for me and buy enough fruit and veggies for all of us for the whole weekend. I bribed another friend to help me head to the grocery store, and we filled 3 carts and his entire SUV with food and supplies. I also pre-ordered two turkeys from a local company, and just to put it in perspective, two 10 pound turkeys cost me almost $85….EIGHTY FIVE DOLLARS! Crazy!

I also attempted to find a keg of beer for the weekend. Kegs aren’t exactly a common thing in Kisumu, so it took me 2 days of running around town and bargaining, but I finally located a keg and a tap! The beer was called “Senator” and I opted for the “dark” version that was made of sorghum and had a whopping 7.5% alcohol. It wasn’t the best beer I ever tasted, but the novelty of a keg in Kenya made it worth the purchase. Also, the locals just call it “Obama” beer now, since Obama was a Senator…that cracked me up enough alone to make me buy it!

Life sized beer pong, and discussing our strategy

I arranged carpools for everyone, and on the Friday afternoon after American Thanksgiving, we all headed up to the house! The property itself was actually a main house with 3 bedrooms, a small but well-stocked kitchen and a huge back porch. From the porch you could see the pool, a cute tree swing, and a view straight west back over Kisumu to Lake Victoria. There were two other small cottages near the main house, and all together there were enough beds for 16 people (but we squeezed a couple extras in on the couches and cots!).

On Friday afternoon I had arranged for us to all play Beer Olympics – it’s a team, tournament-style competition that tests both coordination…and drinking skills :P We had a really fun time playing life-sized beer pong (like normal beer pong, but you use a bucket and a kickball and put a whole can of beer in the bottom), and various other games. I’m still not entirely sure which team scored the most points by the end of the evening, but it was clear we were definitely all winners ;)

For dinner we had a giant meal of spaghetti and meat sauce, a huge salad, and homemade bread I had baked before leaving Kisumu.  The chefs were pretty great, and they turned some ground beef, cans of tomatoes, and random veggies into a tasty meal! I had also gotten us 15 liters of boxed wine, and it was a beautiful evening to eat al fresco, watch the sunset over Kisumu from the dining table on the porch, and have a glass of wine with a bunch of friends!

I decided I absolutely LOVED my new Kisumu friends when they gave me a standing ovation before the meal for organizing the weekend. I was mildly embarrassed, but I was really glad everyone was having a good time, appreciated the effort, and was so easy to please!

We played card games and most of us hung out until pretty late into the night. There were fireflies everywhere, the night was perfectly clear, and for a while we laid in the grass and just watched shooting stars.  It was a great start to a relaxing, food-filled and fun weekend!

The kitchen

Day Two – THANKSGIVING!!

On Saturday, even though I stayed up entirely too late, I woke up early and headed into the kitchen to get breakfast organized and talk to the cooks…it was a big day! We had eggs, bacon, toast and fruit and lots of coffee. Planning for that many people to eat and drink is difficult, and I totally forgot to cater to the British tea drinkers. And even though I bought 80 eggs, we went through way more than half for the first breakfast! Live and learn :P Once breakfast was over and the staff had done the dishes, it was time to get serious! I had put the turkeys in huge buckets of brine the night before because they were still frozen solid…they were thawed, thankfully!

In the kitchen with my menu

But there were so many dishes and so many people in the kitchen that I had no idea how to delegate and organize everyone! I had printed recipes for everything, and decided to just write down a huge list of what to cook and divide it up. I told the staff what we were making, started up all three of the old gas ovens in the little kitchen, and got them started with the peeling, chopping and prepping.

It was a lot of work, and almost everyone ended up wandering by the kitchen, seeing me elbow deep in pie crust or potatoes and volunteered to lend a hand for a shift J By about 2pm I had both turkeys, stuffing, sweet potato casserole, 2 apple pies, 2 pumpkin pies and a pumpkin crisp in the oven. We had green bean casserole, mashed potatoes, creamed corn, squash, chocolate cream pie, and home made bread baked by the cooks. I had even found cranberry sauce! Everything was into the ovens and heating away on the stove (with 3 cooks to monitor it all), so for the first Thanksgiving in a while I got to go relax before dinner!

Croquet!

The whole crew piled into cars and we headed to the owner’s house to play croquet on their giant, sprawling lawn. They had a gorgeous property about 2 miles away surrounded by farms and hills,  so we invaded to enjoy their lush gardens and lawn games. We had a spirited and incredibly long game of croquet (my team won!!), but it started to drizzle and we were all getting hungry, so we went back to the house to have our dinner!

We got back to the house and everything was perfect: the turkeys looked done, the pies were brown and bubbly, and everything that should be served hot seemed ready! So we set up a big buffet of food and dug in! It was all pretty good – I had to make a lot of ingredient substitutions, and it’s hard to cook on 60 year-old-gas stoves, but overall everything was pretty yummy!

I loved the reactions from people who had never experienced Thanksgiving before:

The spread

“Why are there marshmallows on these potatoes???”

“Why are there so many carbs?”

“What is green bean casserole?”

“Why are there 5 different kinds of dessert?”

“I am so full I think I am going to throw up, but I’m going to get seconds.”

Priceless!

The crew!

We completely tore apart both turkeys and demolished the stuffing and green beans before people even went for more. After some creative turkey carving, we ended up having enough for everyone to have seconds, but I was amazed at how much we all ate! Not much survived for the next-day-Thanksgiving-leftover-breakfast ;P After dinner we all collapsed in various heaps and draped ourselves over chairs, moaning and groaning.

We watched another exquisite sunset, played more card games, and had coffee and digestifs to try to prepare for dessert. In typical American tradition, we all ate at least 3 kinds of pie even though we were stuffed already. It was hilarious to watch people go from full to devastatingly stuffed. The first-timers were in agony, but most of the Americans were in stretchy pants and not looking much worse for the wear.

 

Again, we stayed up mostly all night chatting and goofing around playing card games – another fantastic day and evening in the books!

Sunday – Waterfall hike and home

Sunday I decided to take a day off from coordinating the kitchen. Luckily, a few other ladies jumped in and thought up an amazing way to stretch our leftovers and remaining eggs and breakfast food. They made a big egg/stuffing/turkey bake, which was way better than it sounds. We all rolled out of bed in waves, had leisurely cups of coffee and breakfast on the porch, went swimming in the pool, and lounged around. Nobody really wanted to leave and go home, so we decided to hike to a local waterfall.

 

We piled back into the cars and drove about 10 minutes away. We parked the cars just off a small dirt road one what seemed to be someone’s farm, and walked about 2 minutes into the woods before we heard the water – it was much less of a hike and more of a short Sunday stroll, but we found a beautiful little water hole being fed by a rather modest waterfall. A few people had been there before and said the waterfall was much bigger and more powerful last time, but I still thought it was pretty cool!

The water was surprisingly cold, and most of us weren’t feeling brave enough for a dip, so we dangled our legs in the water and enjoyed the scenery, all procrastinating and postponing the journey back home. After the swimmers were sufficiently cool and our snacks and drinks had run out, we had to admit that it was time to leave Kweisos.

The waterfall!

We all reluctantly went back to the house, packed up, and said goodbye to the awesome staff. We poured the rest of our flat keg beer into jugs for them, and hit the road. It was a really great weekend, and I had a blast with the Kisumu–Kweisos Krew. It was fun to organize, and next time I’ll be sure to buy more eggs ;)

You can find all the pictures here: https://kristynspictures.shutterfly.com/10065

I was awarded the Olympics Trophy for organizing :P

Safari Sunday (Day Two)

Lounging cheetah!

Masai Mara Safari: Day Two!

On Sunday morning we woke up around 8am and decided to go to a fancy "Bush Breakfast" that was hosted by one of the upscale lodges in the park. We were headed out of the campsite when we were stopped by a game warden again. Apparently there were some cheetahs spotted about 40 minutes away! Again, we all agreed that putting off breakfast for an hour was totally worth cheetah chasing, so we headed in the direction of the border with Tanzania.

Champagne, madam?!
Yes, please!

My luck held out and we were at the cheetahs before I even started to get hungry :) There were two brothers just lying in the long grass and morning sunshine. They seemed completely unfazed by the two or three cars that were gathered, and we were able to watch them relax, look around, and flick their tails for a while.

Our breakfast table!

Like the rest of the big cats, they seemed pretty content being stationary, and we were starting to hear each other's growling tummies, so we gave up on any action shots and went in search of breakfast. We drove back across the rolling plains and the thorny shrub land to the Mara River. On the bank the Serena Lodge had set up an amazing spread! We were greeted by a lovely gentleman with glasses of champagne and led to our table.

From our little breakfast spot, we had a view of the river and could sit and sip coffee while watching hippos and crocodiles...and we were also surrounded by skittering mongooses. They acted a lot like begging squirrels back home, and were bold enough to crawl right under the table while we were eating to pick up and dropped crumbs :)

Hippos sunbathing

Mongoose eyeing my bacon

It was a really cool breakfast, and almost completely worth the exorbitant (for Kenya) price of 2,500 shillings ($30). But we got champagne, omelets to order, bacon and sausage, fruit and juice, tons of different bread, muffins and rolls, yogurt, and coffee/tea - all with a fantastic view of the wildlife!! I thought it was the perfect start to the day, and before it was even very hot out we had seen cheetahs and sipped champagne on the banks of the river :)

Masai warriors at breakfast

Spear throwing lessons

After breakfast and posing for the obligatory pictures with the "Masai warriors" that were dishing out fruit and bacon, we headed to the Serena Lodge to pay our breakfast tab and check out the hotel. We drove up a huge hill from the river to get to the lodge, and the views from the top were spectacular! The lobby was completely open, U-shaped, and led to floor-to-vaulted-ceiling glass windows with a view of the park.

It was a really cool place, with a pool deck that you could watch the giraffes grazing from and a patio that gave such a perfect vantage of the rolling plains below. I was mesmerized by the epic expanse of the Mara/Serengeti and I vow that one day I'm going to book a room in that lodge and wake up to the view!

The view from the Serena Lodge

After we peeled ourself away from the lodge and it's breath taking patio, we took the long way back through the park and started making our way home. We were hoping to find some wildebeest crossing the river or doing something crazy....we trolled some spots that looked promising for them to swim across, but they are known to gather by the bank of the river and just wait for hours and hours before someone is brave enough to cross and lead the herd, so we didn't stick around for one of the wildebeest to take initiative.

Wildebeest on the move!

We found some pretty huge groups of them though, and drove through herds that seemed endless. At one point we came over a small hill and as far as you could see, there was a single file line of wildebeest just meandering towards the Tanzanian border. They must have stretched 5+ kilometers in an unbroken line of animals! A couple people on the trip had come to Masai Mara before but hadn't seen the wildebeest migrating like that, so even they were impressed.

The rest of the drive was more of the same (awesome). We drove through hundreds and thousands of wildebeest, zebras, giraffes, hyenas, a jackal, elephants, weird birds, hippos, warthogs, and various antelope (gazelles, topi, etc). I saw a snake, some cool lizards, baboons, other monkeys, and buffalo. I loved it, and with the top open, and the music turned up, and a few fun people, I could have driven through the animals and scenery forever!

Super cool lizard

Alas, we headed back to camp, packed up the tents, and started home. The drive wasn't too bad, I made peanut butter, banana and nutella sandwiches about halfway through, and we may have even snuck a bit of our boxed red wine...laws are pretty lenient here for that sort of thing. All together it was a great short safari trip! I loved being outdoors, being able to go camping, the fact that Alkesh had EVERYTHING we needed and I didn't have to think about anything. Just hopped in the car and got shuttled to a bunch of animals in a beautiful location. I would gladly do it again, and there are so many parks in Kenya, I probably will before I leave :)

The rest of my safari shots are here: https://kristynspictures.shutterfly.com/9973

Baby warthog!!

Mama elephant

Morning bush yoga :P

Baby elephants!!

Masai Mara Safari!! (Day one)

Our sweet ride!

I might be the luckiest person in the world.

One Wednesday my landlord mentioned in passing that he was thinking of going on safari - he heard that the wildebeest were making an unseasonable migration back into Kenya from Tanzania during the wrong time! Apparently they were running out of food and water in their typical grazing spots in the Serengeti and were moving back into Kenya to find grass and water. It sounded like a fun trip to me, so I agreed to go if he was serious...and by Friday night we were at the grocery store shopping for food for my first African camping adventure!

Alkesh, my landlord, two of my neighbors, and two of our other friends all piled into Alkesh's awesome 4x4 safari vehicle at around 11am on Saturday morning and started the 4 hour drive to the Masai Mara National Reserve (a continuation of the Serengeti, but what it's called in Kenya). The drive was incredibly scenic, and we wound through fields of sugar cane, up through the hilly highlands, and through long stretches of endless tea plantations. The road was great and paved for the first 2.5 hours out of Kisumu. Eventually we reached the end of that luxury, and were on a not-too-terrible-for-Kenya dirt road. The car we were in was absolutely perfect though: it was so big and stable that I could barely feel the bumpy roads. And the best part of the vehicle was that Alkesh had had the roof custom cut - the whole front roof panel could be lifted up and off, making an epically huge sunroof that you can hang out of while animal watching!

Baby giraffe :)

We got to the gate of the park in about 4 hours, paid our entrance and camping fees (a total of $100 for 24 hours for non-citizens!), and were headed to set up our tents when we were flagged down by a game warden. Alkesh knew a lot of the wardens, and he wanted to tell us that a leopard had been spotted in the area and that he recommended that we skip setting up the tents and instead go track the leopard while he was around!  We all enthusiastically agreed that setting up camp in the dark was worth the chance of seeing a leopard, which is one of the more rare animals to encounter!

We had the warden hop into the car and took off down a dirt road into the park. From the gate we could already see elephants, zebra, warthogs, and giraffes grazing. I was so psyched and hyperactive (anyone who knows my reactions to animals can probably imagine) that one of my friends actually joked that it was actually more entertaining watching my reaction than watching the animals themselves. I was bouncing in my seat and incredibly happy to be driving through a place I had watched over and over again on the Discovery Channel :)

Within about 10 minutes we had made it to the spot where the leopard had been seen.....and sure enough, there he was! High up in a tree he was napping, and not far away dangled a dead impala - he had recently made a kill, and dragged it all the way up into the branches of a rather prickly looking acacia tree to protect it from getting stolen by scavengers. I was so amazed! People come on safari 10 times and don't ever get to spot a leopard (pun intended). Here we were, less than half an hour into our safari and I was hanging out of a Jeep taking photos of a leopard with a kill!

We watched the sleepy leopard for a few minutes, but he seemed pretty cozy in his napping spot, so we made our way further into the park. There were huge water buffalo lumbering around, hyenas prowling, giraffes gracefully gliding, and gigantic elephants everywhere. The warden had heard there were rhino around as well, (which are also notoriously hard to find) and we made out way in their general direction.

The Big Five: Leopard, lion, rhino, water buffalo and elephant!

Sure enough, about 10 minutes later we spotted a rhino and baby rhino galloping across an open plain. There were a few other cars on the move in their direction, which seemed to spook them a bit, and they just ran in circles for a few minutes trying to get wherever their destination was. We snapped a few far off pictures, but we felt like the human attention was bothering them, so we opted to go on a search for lions.

Our campsite in the middle of herds of wild animals

In honor of the search, we blasted "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" and kept moving. The positive lyrical vibes totally worked, and soon we approached two mommy lions with about 7 baby cubs!! They were lying just next to the dirt road relaxing in the grass. I was totally floored - we got so close to them, and by being able to stick our whole upper bodies out of the roof of the safari car, I practically felt like I could just reach down and scoop up an adorable baby lion to take home! They were being tortuously cute, and were rolling onto their backs with their little bellies and feet in the air, snuggling nose-to-nose with each other, and generally just enticing me to steal them.

Lions cubs being adorable

I was forcibly retained in the vehicle, and it was approaching dusk, so we started to make our way back to camp. But by seeing the lions we had successfully seen all five of the "Big Five" that people typically attempt to find on safari (leopards, elephants, rhino, water buffalo and lions!). I'm not sure who determined that those were the "Big" animals to see, but we saw them all and a LOT more in our first 2 hours in the park!!

I was practically overwhelmed and completely giddy with happiness, and was so glad that I agreed to the whirlwind, 24-hour safari! We drove the 30 minutes back to camp through huge fields of grass that was dotted with zebra, wildebeest, elephants and giraffes. We even saw hippos dragging themselves out of the river to start grazing for the evening. Just before it was dark we got all the tents up, food unloaded, and a modest campfire started. It was surprisingly cold and windy, and we made a pretty basic dinner of baked potatoes and corn in the fire....except they were all either burnt or raw...so we put together a salad, ate bread and butter and canned beans, and a glass of the finest boxed wine available in Kisumu.

It was a relaxed evening, and we were all pretty exhausted from the heat and the long drive and the excitement. But as tired as I was, and as brave as I was convincing myself to be, it was still a bit unnerving to be able to hear hyenas, lions, and hippos making noises in the dark just beyond the campfire. I tried to put that out of my mind, and cozied up in a rather small tent with my Dutch friend Annemeik (anne-a-meek). I put in some earplugs and was out almost immediately....

To be continued!

The rest of my safari shots are here: https://kristynspictures.shutterfly.com/9973

My new favorite job requirement: home sampling!

Me on the bike :P

For part of my time here I am managing a project that involves visiting our patients homes and taking samples to try to find environmental source of the fungus we are studying. Cryptococcus (crypt-oh-caulk-us, the name of the fungus) is found in soil contaminated with bird droppings and is also found growing in eucalyptus trees. For this mini-project, we travel to the patient's house and my team and I collect 50 samples of soil, plants, animal droppings, and dust from their home.

Yep, you read that right - I am a PhD with degrees in Molecular Biology and Biomedical Science and I get to scoop goat and chicken poop into a tube with a spoon :P  But I was SO excited to start this project - mainly because it means I get to leave the office/lab, ride a motorbike with my team out into the field, go meet the patients and their family, and go inside rural Kenyan homes and see how they live! The first step was "training" my team.

I use quotes there, because the protocol is just a pilot study, and I thought I had almost no real qualifications or knowledge that would be required to get my team ready to do environmental sampling. But we scheduled a day and I made the team pick a non-patient home (my research assistant's grandmother's brother...I think), and we all got on motorbikes and drove 25 minutes out of the super small village where my rural clinic is.  The scenery was so amazing - the roads are all a dark red clay color, and after a rain, the contrast with the blindingly bright green of the hills and vegetation is so beautiful!

Traveling in the green valleys

On the way, my driver and Research Assistant Milton, had to swerve around goats, cows, donkeys, sheep, chickens and children in and along the dirt road. We arrived safely to the homestead, which was a compound made up of 5 small houses and one main house. There was also an animal pen, a granary to store maize made out of woven reeds, and a huge chicken coop.   Upon arrival, we were greeted very warmly, with lots of hand shaking and formal introductions of the whole team and the older couple who lived there.

Me with my gourd of porridge

Before I knew it, I was guided to a chair, my hands were washed with a pitcher of warm water and bowl with soap, and I was holding half of a dried, empty gourd. Apparently, it is customary and practically required to feed all guests to your home, so soon enough my gourd bowl was filled with a steaming and large helping of porridge. I was told it was made in the traditional Luo manner, but was also seasoned with lemon and honey. I had just finished a huge breakfast, and the porridge was actually really good (like Cream of Wheat, but with lemon and honey :), so I successfully struggled to finish the whole huge bowl and be polite.

My porridge

Once we were finished eating, we talked to the homeowners for a while (they knew a bit of English, but most of what I got was translated later by my team), and then started the training. I taught my team how to use the GPS and record coordinates and elevation of the site, how to take the ambient temperature and humidity, and how to document the samples and pictures we would take in the event of a real patient. It was really fun, and I was surprised how much my previous biology jobs (working at NASA in college when I did beach mouse sampling) helped me know what to do. The lady of the house followed us around answering our questions and showing off her property. We learned about her kitchen and what she cooked, how she makes bricks out of the clay, and about the animals and vegetables they keep.

Goats eating dirt for some reason

The team enjoyed their day away from the clinic and lab, and we all went for lunch afterward. They gave me the most hilarious puppy dog eyes when the bill came for lunch and asked if I would pay since they were doing "such a good job" according to themselves :P I looked at the bill: all 5 of us got a meal with fish or meat, veggies and rice and a soda, and the whole thing wasn't even $10. Even though I should have pretended to be mean and refused to pay, I couldn't help it once I saw how low the total was and just caved. Also, one of my employees had seen a man walk into the small, dirty restaurant we were in and knew he was homeless, so he had ordered him a meal and paid for it himself, which I thought should be rewarded, too!

Getting a brick making demonstration

The next day we had an actual, real patient home visit, so my lab technician and my research assistant and I all got back on motorbikes and headed out early in the morning to try to avoid the heat of the day. The patient lived a solid 45 minute motorbike ride away from the center of town, but most of the drive was on a well-maintained tarmac road. We got a little lost once we got off the main road and had to stop at several houses for directions....but its because once you are off the paved roads we were literally just riding through people's fields and yards on small footpaths that wound through the rural homes. It was so cool (except for all the really spikey plants that scratched me up pretty well even through my pants while we were riding through the fields)!!

My team and I after training!

When we arrived we met the family, got the permission of the head of household to take samples from his land, and started our procedures! We got to go inside the home and sweep the dust from the floor, which was interesting to me because their chickens actually slept inside the house under an upside down laundry basket at night. I am definitely curious to see if we find fungus in the dirt from the chicken room!

Over the next few hours we took the rest of the soil and plant samples from around the compound: we took samples from their three gardens, a few samples from each of the 4 small houses, lots of goat and chicken droppings, and randomly swabbed any rotting trees with huge, scientific looking Q-tips :) I felt like I was working in a scene from a goofy TV show and we were the forensics team sent to find the murder's DNA somewhere in a crime scene. Except we were outside in blazingly hot weather, I don't have a hair and makeup team, and in the end all we had was a cooler full of poop and dirt samples in plastic tubes. Also, when I asked where the bathroom was, my two male colleagues just burst into giggles...I asked if that meant I should just "take a scenic walk" to "survey the bushes around the homestead" and they nodded through their subsequent giggles in response.

My view at the end of field day

Overall it was super interesting experience and a really great change-of-pace. I like getting to go out and see how people live and just being in the rural areas. The place I stay is an insect research facility in the small port town, and I don't mind staying in their dorms. The rooms are cozy (read: small, cramped, warm), the sunset views from their dock are absolutely fantastic, and they serve pretty decent meals. There are always a few other interesting people staying there and usually I try to strike up conversations at dinner in the common dining area. I've met people from the States doing work with orphans, people from India and Pakistan doing projects on agriculture and water purification, and a bunch of other health related scientists.

My room in the field...like a dorm

Field first aid: salt and soap thumb soaking

Sometimes its tough - the commute from the dorms to the field clinic is 45 minutes each way over a pretty bad dirt road. There are shuttles that leave at 7am and come back to the dorm at 6 or 7pm depending on how punctual everyone is at the end of the day...which makes fore VERY long, tiring days when I'm not in Kisumu. And there are no real stores or restaurants out there...and what does exist closes at sunset. I found myself with a pretty nasty little infection/mystery abscess under my thumbnail one day while out in the middle of nowhere, and I didn't get back to the dorms until pretty late. Since running down the block to the drugstore to grab some hydrogen peroxide and bandaids isn't really an option, I ended up concocting a variety of soaks to try to help get rid of it without taking any of my precious antibiotics I brought from the States :P

Sunset again :)

I managed to find a bar of soap, a salt shaker, a cotton ball and some tape....and after two days of hot soap/salt soakings and a bit of hoping I wouldn't have to self-amputate, I was as good as new! My boss looked at it when I got back to Kisumu and just laughed - she bet me I would lose my nail, but it healed up great and the nail looks totally better...and I didn't have to deplete my stock of prescriptions!

I know this isn't exactly a typical job, but the scenery is amazing, the work is interesting, the bednets are without holes, and the people I work with and meet are a lot of fun.

Volunteer little helpers unloading my field supplies :)

A video of the sunset over Lake Victoria from my field lodging :)

Hippo tours!! :)

Nile perch and greens

A few weeks ago one of my friends called me on a random Sunday and asked if I wanted to go out to a spot on the lakeshore for a fish lunch and boat ride with some friends.  There were 10 of us, and we had a huge lunch of Nile perch and tilapia that were fresh from the lake, cooked or fried right next to us, and smothered in greens. Here they serve everything ugali (oo-gall-ee). Ugali is made of maize flour, and it has the consistency of a wet, sticky, dense cornbread and tastes like absolutely nothing.     The whole meal was eaten with our fingers: you take a hunk of ugali, roll it into a ball, then dig into the whole steaming fish covered in greens and eat it all together with your hands.

Beer and fish :)

That white mountain is ugali!

It was an awesome meal! Heavy carbs, salty greens, tasty fish, and a cold beer all made for a nice brunch by the lake. After that we negotiated a boat ride, but I didn’t know we were planning on going to see hippos and I didn’t bring my camera!!  Total rookie mistake! But we had a lovely hour-long boat ride and saw a few hippos hiding under water but coming up to breathe, a lot of birds, and a fair amount of crazy storm clouds coming across the lake. The water was calm for our 30 minute trip away from our starting point, but when we turned around to come home, the wind picked up pretty noticeably, and for the last 15 minutes we were all hugging our bags, bundled in raincoats, and fighting some whipping waves in our wooden motor canoe! At the end most of us were a bit soggy with lakewater (ew), but it was really nice to be out on the lake, and I love a good storm!

The crew :)

The storm!

I was excited when one of my neighbors stopped by and invited me to go on another hippo boat ride - this one was planned for sunrise, which is when the hippos are still active from their nocturnal foraging :) I was glad to have another excuse to go, but this time I was ready to bring my big camera! We woke up super early and 3 of my neighbors and I climbed onto motorbike taxis and headed to the launching point, appropriately named Hippo Point.

Rainbow over the Yacht Club

Our trusty vessel

It was a gorgeous sunrise, and from the boat launch I could hear the hippos grunting! We didn't have to go very far to find them....they were about 100 yards away from us just standing in the shallow water! The first scene we arrived to was a male "taking care of" his harem of ladies. He must have been feeling pretty spunky, because we observed the splashing and other activities associated with his morning duties for quite some time...being the biologist that I am, I found it pretty interesting and entertaining (it's like watching the Discovery Channel IN PERSON!!), but the ladies I was with thought it was a bit icky.

Male hippo taking care of his ladies at sunrise

After a while, he must have begun to tire, and everyone went their separate ways. We saw some baby hippos with their moms and lots of hippos just hanging out in the shallow water staring at us. A few times when we ventured a bit too close for their liking they opened their mouths in a HUGE yawn of a warning: apparently opening their mouth and showing their teeth is a sign to back off! It was pretty effective - their tusks are scary! And if you didn't know it already, hippos kill more people in Africa every year than lions or other predators, so their warnings aren't to be taken too lightly!

Apparently this is a "back off" warning

I was mesmerized by the hippos, I think they are an adorable kind of ugly, and they were just floating around, blowing water into the air as they surfaced, and splashing around with each other. The ladies eventually convinced me to peel myself away from them, and we motored around the shore of the lake learning about the birds and taking in the scenery for a while. When we turned around to make our way back to our launch point, I asked if we could swing back by the hippos.

Time for a teeth cleaning?

I was really glad we did, because when we got back there were two hippos gently snuggling in the sunshine! One hippo had rested his giant head on the back of another hippo and vice versa! I thought it was too cute...hippos cuddling after a frisky morning :)

Overall, in under an hour we saw countless birds and about 10 hippos, all for the bargain price of about $5 a person. I had a great time, and am still amazed that Lake Victoria is about a half mile from my doorstep and contains all these crazy creatures!

The rest of my hippo pictures are here: https://kristynspictures.shutterfly.com/9936

Hippos cuddling :)