Bucket of Beetles

Night after night a plethora of beetles have been slipping through the window cracks to keep me company - whether it be to cozy up in my tangled mane of hair or to repeatedly dive bomb my computer screen, eventually collapsing on the keyboard and zoning out to the mesmerizing glow of what they must deem as heaven.  I wonder if they are disappointed when, after they have rammed the source of that sweet light to past exhaustion, they fail to be consumed by the divine.  Today while combing my hair on the stoop, I absentmindedly glanced to the right, and to my surprise discovered a Bucket of Beetles strategically placed underneath my window sill.  There they sat, swarming, waiting at the gates.

The Darja Race for 77...

...was a huge success! Over in the United States the extended Daraja family and supporters were able to raise $52,000 towards the girls' education.  Over here in Kenya the girls proudly adorned their donated Bay of Breakers t-shirts as they completed 28 laps at .4 km per lap, for a total of 12 km.  I decided to join them despite jet lag and still getting re-accustomed to the 6,519 ft. elevation, and so happy I did.  Despite the event being good preparation for the Wild Camel Day half marathon coming up this July north of Rumuruti,  I had the pleasure of running half the race beside our sponsor Fatuma M.  Her enthusiasm and drive to complete every lap motivated me to ignore my effort at devising mental rationalizations at why it would be ok if I only ran half the race :)

Maria

Ndege

I was in my room reading, with my new cat friend on my lap, when I heard a symphony of birds outside.  One very attention-hungry bird was omitting a shrieking call that could wake the dead.  I assumed it was one of the pied crows I had seen looming lately, but I was surprised to find that it was merely a red-winged starling conducting atop the banda, and its call had summoned droves of birds: eight species were nestled in the acacia tree across from my doorstep.  The cat and I ventured out to inspect, camera in hand.  The birds were so mesmerized by the call, that they permitted me (and the cat) to nestle within the very tree they were sitting, transfixed.  The result - some great photos of several species of birds, including superb starling, hildebrandt's starling, blue-eared starling, arrow-marked babbler, white browed sparrow-weaver, grey-capped social weaver, and the white-bellied go-away-bird. I have never before been able to snap a clear picture of one of those bashful (yet raucous) white-bellied turacos! I did a little dance afterwards :) 

The co-star

Bay of Breakers/Daraja's Race for 77

On 15 May 2011, while the Bay of Breakers race takes place in San Francisco, all the way across the globe the 77 students of the Daraja Academy in Nanyuki Kenya will be running as well.  Check out the link below for event details.  The 77 girls have been partnered with 77 runners over in the United States to raise funds for their education.  I will be part of the Kenya event.  Maria

http://daraja-academy.org/daraja-race-for-77/

Home and back again

Greater blue eared starling:  Lamprotornis c. chloropterus perched on an acacia 

View of Mt. Kenya from the doorstep of the banda the Darja Academy has generously loaned to me

Superb starling: Lamptotorns superbus 

So good to be back in Kenya!  I made it back safe and sound - the only inconvenience being a large group of drunk and very privileged, young U.S. college students who surrounded me during my first flight to Zurich.  They spent the entire eight hours screaming to each other or climbing over chairs or sitting on each others laps while they read aloud Vogue (could have been another trendy magazine) quizzes concerning sex and/or relationships, all the time keeping the flight attendants busy with their frequent demands (because it really is crucial that they do a taste test of the different brands of hot cocoa carried on Swiss Air at 3 in the morning!).  I think this is how many spiritual ventures to Israel begin… :)

Anyway… I missed the smell of the air here, the music, the friendly people so excited to hear your story and so genuinely proud that you have come to Kenya and love it.  I missed falling asleep to the sound of bugs, howling dogs, tree hyrax, hyena, mongoose, large cats, and of course the bush rats and other stuff of unknown identity seeking warmth in your thatched roof.  When I stepped foot on the Daraja Academy campus the sophomore girls were on the field playing volleyball and they nearly knocked me over as they came rushing in waves.  What a nice welcoming!

I was able to acquire a new 300mm lens while I was back home, and I am so excited to get to work documenting the wildlife and of course those human primates as well.  During my absence the rains did come and continue to come, albeit not heavily, and the environment is so lush and verdant - a whole new world that invited a slew of seasonally fastidious creatures  that will soon be added to the species list (I know some of you out there appreciate that list, i.e. Jeff :) 

Maria

Male and female red-winged starlings

Bronfenbrenner puts it so nicely.

I couldn't have more acutely described this integral slant inspiring my current and future research aims/interests for my primate work, whether it be human or non human...

Quoted from The Ecology of Human Development: Experiments by Nature and Design, Urie Bronfenbrenner: 1979 Harvard University Press, p.128

"One can also question whether establishing transcontextual validity is, as Weisz seems to imply, the ultimate goal in the scientific study of human development, which he defines as one of finding psychological "universals", developmental principles "that can be shown to hold good across physical and cultural setting, time, or cohort" (p.2).  A distinctive property of human beings, however, appears to be precisely their capacity to adapt - to respond differently to diverse physical and cultural settings.  Given the ecologically dependent character of behavior and development in humans, processes that are invariant across contexts are likely to be few in number and fairly close to the physiological level.  What behavioral scientists should be seeking, therefore, are not primarily these universal principles but rather the laws of invariance at the next higher level  - principles that describe how developmental processes are mediated by the general properties of settings and of more remote aspects of the ecological environment."

 (Bronfenbrenner quoting Weisz, J. 1978. Transcontextual validity in developmental research. Child Development 49: 1-12)