Location: Ewaso Nyiro River Camp, Mpala Wildlife Conservancy, Laikipia Valley
I was going to talk more about what happened with the woman and the buffalo but I think I just need more time to process it. Here's the summary though: Africa will never look like the United States. It's not coincidence that all of the most well-developed countries in the world are in the temperate climates; Africa is mankind's ideal range where human populations are kept in check by environmental factors while these temperate zones allow humans the ability to control and exploit natural resources most efficiently. Here in Africa, people are not so lucky; here the landscape controls them, not the other way around.
We were going to have one of K's mentors, a pastoralist specialist named Bilal Butt, lecture us but apparently a cyclist (carrying several crates of chickens on the back no doubt) swerved in front of Bilal's truck and lost control and Bilal hit him. The man was taken to the hospital by Bilal in Nanyuki but Bilal was unable to come and lecture (he had to deal with legal stuff (sometimes people want to sue in situations like this simply because they see someone is white)). Instead, a colleague of Lamine Sagna's named Jesse Njoka from the University of Nairobi lectured about a project of his concerning sustainable pastoralism.
It's been raining briefly every afternoon since last week but tonight it poured. A, Z, K, and L and the master's students got stuck in the mud next to a semi on the way back from Nanyuki and missed the lecture. My converter got fried so no more charge for my camera but I got to check email.
The hyenas were really bad--S, J, and I waited for an ascari for a while and then braved the darkness alone, even though we were sure we could hear the hyenas in the bushes around us. It was so scary.
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