Chololo

This has nothing to do with baboons - I just like this and the subsequent photo (taken by a Daraja Media Club member). Here is Elizabeth about to score a goal at our first football game of the year...

Wow February has flown by.  My aunt and uncle just left town and I think they had a pretty successful visit! We really enjoyed their company and it was an added bonus that we share a similar travel style and desire to be outdoors.  Next post will cover in detail our adventures!

During my family's visit I was called away on duty to take part in some ecological monitoring at baboon-ologist Shirley Strum's research site Chololo.  Dr. Strum successfully relocated three troops of baboons in 1984 to their current location (Laikipia Plateau just 20 km to the NE of Daraja), and she has been monitoring their behavior and their environment ever since.  Her project is entitled the Uaso Ngiro Baboon Project.  Its focus being not only baboon research but also community-based conservation projects - they have implemented several education, employment, and enterprise activities.  Their eco-tourism endeavor, the Baboon Walk, is a very popular outing for Daraja volunteers.  I met with Dr. Strum in December, and she suggested I pay a visit so that we my brainstorm ideas for my proposal and future research, as well as gain some insight into their methodology which has been evolving since Dr. Strum came to Kenya in 1972.

Our friend Charles gave me a ride up to the research site and dropped me at their simple bush home (similar to our simple bush home), only theirs had a panoramic view of giraffe and Grevy's zebra.  I awoke before sunrise the next morning to join one of the researchers in his daily activities.  We hopped aboard a piki piki (motorbike) and tore off in the direction of the large outcroppings the baboons prefer to sleep atop (for predator-protection purposes).  What a great way to start the morning, the icy wind stung my face as we zigzagged amongst giant African mammals - we flew past elephant and giraffe, so close that I could have extended my arm and touched them.

Twenty minutes later on a piki piki we reached the sleeping site the baboons had utilized the night previous.  We hiked up the steep rock face, a small mountain comprised entirely of boulder, en route passing baboon after baboon squabbling and appeasing, infants clinging desperately both ventrally and dorsally to their mothers,  males chasing females and females protesting.  On the highest peak sat a burly male, perhaps the alpha of this troop, serenely staring off into the horizon as the sun rose in the distance, not pausing in his mediation to acknowledge our presence.  He found as much peace in that morning as I.

We rapidly descended the other side to catch up with the troop we were scheduled to observe (the troop currently occupying the rock face was a neighboring troop which was attempting to shoo their resource-rivals away).  When we joined our target troop, we watched as they made their daily rounds exploiting the ripest Opuntia cactus fruit (a prickly pear species that was introduced and subsequently took over the area, much to the chagrin of the native grasses) mouths smeared in its blood-red juice, watched as they relaxed in the minimal shade provided by the Acacia trees and enjoyed bouts of grooming, and watched as they ran wildly from the local children attempting to scare them away from their property and hence their food.  These baboons are so familiar with a consistent and harmless human-researcher presence that they stroll alongside you.  On a couple of occasions I nearly trampled on one as I became lost in the enchantment of the situation.

As the sun nestled into its favorite position directly above our heads, we took off to conduct some ecological monitoring of the local grasses (whose presence was little more than a fleeting memory).  For the next five hours we jotted around on the piki piki, stopping every twenty minutes to count blades of grass and determine if they were brown or green (which there really was no need to question), as well as to count the presence of wildlife - and in this dust bowl we only had the pleasure of meeting the lawnmower goat and sheep.  Although counting grass can be quite exhilarating, I think I preferred my time mingling with the baboons :)

Eight hours in the equatorial sun proved to be quite an exercise and by the end I was bit delirious.  But wow what a day!  I nodded in an out of consciousness the remainder of the day, and then awoke before sunrise again the next morning to make the journey back to Daraja.  I was piki-piki-ed to the gate where I was assured a public matatu would round the corner at any moment and scoop me up.  But why lull around when you can walk (and daybreak is the best time to spot wildlife!) - so I started in the direction of home.  Luckily on either side, the property is conserved and therefore fenced, because I trudged right through herds of elephants and cackling hyena.  Two hours into my trek and halfway to Daraja (walking), I was offered a ride by a Toyota Hylux which flew down those primitive roads and dropped me off 20 minutes later.  I almost regret not opting to walk the duration, but the rising equatorial sun warned me that I best choose door number two.

Hope all is well with everyone out there.  The new class of girls arrive tomorrow at Daraja from all over Kenya! It should be an exciting weekend. Maria

And here is Elizabeth in the middle of scoring that goal! (We are training future photo journalists here!)