sealnarcisa

[sealnarcisa]

Kyle Woodward’s final blog post from Southern Africa. My visa issue finally got resolved, albeit with quite a lot of effort and frustration on my part. Unfortunately they couldn't swap my business visa for a tourist visa while in the country and the only way to fix it was to leave the country and come back in. Luckily Zimbabwe is just a 10 minutes drive to the border. It also just happens that the Zambia/Zimbabwe border is right at Victoria Falls. The border bridge is a tourist attraction, where people zip-line across the gorge and bungee jump off the bridge. Walking across the bridge with Victoria Falls as a backdrop was an unexpexted and surreal moment, and i made sure to take my time walking across both ways. It was a much needed stress reliever. The Falls are so close to you as you walk toward the Zimbabwe border post that the mist creates a perpetual light rain. Having not seen or felt rain in 2 months I was very confused at first. Since i got my necessary tasks done on Friday, I decided to go see the Falls properly all day on Saturday. I was going to be a tourist for a day, so exciting! On Saturday I had a relaxing morning and got a shuttle to the Victoria Falls Park entrance. I met another friend from the same hostel, and we hiked all the trails together. The Knife's Edge trail leads you out on a narrow peice of land thats been carved away by the Falls over time. It's the closest you can get to the Falls, and when you get out onto the edge you are completely soaked in a matter of seconds. Its like walking into a category 1 hurricane: the force of the water falling into the gorge creates a powerful uplift of air that shoots the trailing mist straight back to the top of the gorge, creating a barrage of wind and rain. There is no escape, and we willingly walked out to meet it in our bare feet and cheap ponchos. It is one of the best 20 bucks ive ever spent, and somehow my passport didn't even get wet. On our way down a separate trail to the bottom of the gorge, we were ambushed by a massive male baboon. We learned quite quickly that its not wise to carry food or drinks out in the open in this park because of these guys. We dropped our bottles of soda in order to avoid being mauled. It was actually terrifying in the moment but we laughed about it later. It was pretty funny watching this baboon open our soda bottles, dump out a ton of orange Fanta and sit there slurping it off the ground. On Sunday I went to the bus station at noon to catch my bus back to Sesheke, only to find out that the 12:00 bus i had purchased a seat on had left at 10:30 just because it got there early. It was another lesson in how things work out here: Disorder and unreliable public services create enough inevitable inconveniences in day to day life that society has adapted in order to provide quick and easy solutions. One of the bus company managers immediately took my money back from the attendant and drove me in his own car to the outskirts of town where a bunch of vans wait all day to give rides at the same or cheaper rate. He paid the van driver my bus money, I hopped in, and within a half hour we were on the way to Sesheke. We even got there right around the same time my bus would have. I met up with Michael and one of our enumerators in the afternoon and we drove back up to Sioma District for the night. The next day we drove the 1.5 hour journey into the bush to Makande. The drive seems to take forever as we creep along through a narrow sandy track, dodging trees and trying not to get stuck. Even with a 4wd truck it's not easy to get to by any means, yet people live here the same way as those right on the tar road in Lusu, Kaale, and Kalobolelwa. It's a remarkable thing seeing these communities operate with little to no outside aid. The idea that one can create and maintain their entire livelihood from the surrounding natural resources is so foreign to me, as I presume it is for many other 'Westerners'. Your health (ability to perform manual labor) and work ethic (determination to do so) hold greatest weight in village life. Lin, Michael, and I split our enumerators into teams of 2 for the first day of household surveys, then the second day Lin and I finished the rest of the surveys and did reference samples while Michael worked on resource area mapping. It went by so quick that I found myself scrambling on the last day to take a few pictures to remember this experience by. My pictures are mediocre at best, but Im pretty sure I won't ever forget this. Our last night camping in Makande was so fun. We ended the month of work talking, joking, singing, and dancing around our campfire, trading ideas, experiences, and standing on common ground. We also chased this weird goat around that kept walking into our camp. It was the funniest thing ever. No matter how far we chased it away from our camp, it would eventually wander back and stand there just staring at us. If they make another Disney movie based in Africa (shout out Lion King), this goat needs to be the typecast dumb animal comic relief character. The long weekend was spent back in our home sweet home, Sesheke. Michael needed to finish resource area mapping in Lusu, and Lin and i decided to collect more reference samples in Kalobolelwa, so we decided to set up at our usual campground in town. We took one of our enumerators along who wants to study environmental science, and he absorbed all the vegetation and GPS stuff like a sponge. It was a really fun day just walking around, seeing different landscapes, and talking about plants. Since we were officially done with the Zambia field season by the end of that day, we got to be lazy the next day in Sesheke. We walked around the market, bought some food and gifts, learned how to play Zambian rules Checkers, and had a good dinner in town. This past Sunday turned out to be a really special day, and may turn out to be one of the most important for future research pursuits in Zambia. Henry from DNPW allowed us to come along with him into Sioma-Ngwezi NP, where they are working on re-introducing wildlife the next 4 years. They created a fenced-in 100 hectare enclosure for the animals which they use to acclimate them before releasing them into the park. They had about 180 impala and 32 buffalo that they transported there a few weeks ago, and we got to come along on their weekly check up. We got to stand in their pickup truck bed as we patrolled inside the fence perimeter, trying to spot and count all the buffalo and impala. Michael and I came up with another research idea pretty organically as we chatted about the wildlife re-introduction process and the ways they currently monitor wildlife numbers in the park. The folks at DNPW and WWF sound quite keen to begin some research collaboration this coming year with us, and I'm glad Michael and I prioritized time to build those relationships. On Monday we said goodbye to Lin as she headed back to Botswana, then Michael and I drove to Livingstone. Having been in Livingstone last weekend, I already knew what it was like, so it was really great seeing Michael be totally blown away by all the city people, restaurants, shops, and 2 story buildings. We had fun wandering around, getting lost, and eating a ton of really good food. We have a special place in our hearts for Sesheke, but it is by no means a city. The fact that Sesheke ever felt like a city to us speaks to how much time we have spent in remote areas of rural Zambia. We felt like the Zambian village children this time, amazed to see so many white people in one place. I'm writing this on my flight back home and reflecting on all of the new and unique experiences I've had these past two months: flying drones in the Chobe river floodplain in Botswana, digging ourselves out of the sand more times than i can count, being immersed in village life and the language, playing sports with village children in Kapau and Makande, crossing international borders on my own, learning to drive stick in Zambia, and many others. They've all offered an opportunity to learn, challenge my own paradigms, and grow into a more worldly and introspective person. Southern Africa has given me so much, and I am eager to give back in any way an academic researcher can. I am so grateful to Dr. Pricope and all of the KAZAVA collaborators for supporting me and allowing me into their network. Michael gets a special shout out; we started out as two unacquainted grad students working on the same project, but by experiencing all the challenges and joys of a productive field season, we became both an unstoppable duo and great friends. I'm excited to pursue some of the research ideas we have developed in Zambia together. Lastly, for anyone who has not yet stepped foot on the African continent, this is my 5 star recommendation. It turns out Africa is huge and offers so much to the new traveller: the diverse cultures, the wildlife, and spectacular landscapes. I've only seen small parts of 3 countries, but I'm obsessed now. Africa will be high on my list for travelling the rest of my life, and I will do everything I can to get family and friends to experience it as well. Kyle Woodward.

[sealnarcisa]

Almost all of the household survey work has been done since my last post. We finished Kaale early that first week then had a break over the weekend. We went out on a boat on the Zambezi that Sunday and saw two huge crocs and a group of hippos. The next week was hard work. After getting camp set up at the school grounds in Lusu, Michael and I said goodbye to Jon. We finished Lusu and Kalobolelwa over the course of that week, and everything went smoothly. I even was able to get a handful of reference samples in between my supervisor duties. Michael and I have both picked up more Silozi since earlier this month, and the people we interview are usually surprised and happy that we are speaking it. Speaking Silozi to kids always gets a big reaction. I'm sure a lot of them have never heard a Makua speak their language before and it blows their minds. They usually laugh. A highlight of the Lusu/Kalobolelwa week was playing soccer with a group of kids in a village in Kalobolelwa. The kids were using a ball made out of rolled up plastic bags. The oldest kid and I played keep away with all the younger boys for probably 20-30 minutes. I've never had more fun playing soccer. I faked one boy out and all of his friends screamed and laughed in excitement. I'll never forget that. Also in the name of having new experiences, I agreed to kill one of the two chickens we had bought for dinner one day. I was nervous about the idea going in, but I surprised myself and handled it remarkably well. I won't volunteer to kill the next one, but I do feel that it was a valuable experience. So many of us who eat meat never have had to kill the animal ourselves or see it happen in person. Now I have, and I think it will definitely influence my next grocery store trip in America. The weekend between Lusu/Kalobolelwa and Kapau was spent in Sesheke and Katima. We did a big grocery run, watched the world cup final and tried to sort my visa issue out (unsuccessfully). We also met some Namibia Peace Corps Volunteers who live close to Katima. It was cool finding more Americans out here, and I enjoyed talking to them about their experience living the rural village life in Southern Africa. It's way more intense than anything I would choose to do. 2.5 years is a long time to live abroad, especially when foregoing certain lifestyle amenities that everyone in the States would deem a basic necessity. We drove into Kapau on the following Monday and spent the next two full days conducting our surveys, collecting vegetation reference samples, and mapping resource collection areas. The household survey process has become so familiar to both our enumerators and me that we are now just moving parts in a well oiled machine. Michael has been so appreciative of my being with him this month, and its nice to feel integral to the project in some way. This kind of research feels no different than what I imagine an anthropologist would do to conduct research: temporarily living in a community, immersing oneself in the local culture, trying to learn the local language, and asking people questions about their livelihoods. It feels like environmental anthropology, and I have enjoyed the experience thus far. As of now, I still find my research interests lying right in the middle of the biophysical and social science camps. I'm very happy to have landed where I did for graduate studies. Two awesome things happened in Kapau: 1. I joined in on a full soccer scrimmage on their soccer field (all sand, playing barefoot) and even scored a goal before we broke the ball; 2) after the ball broke I pulled out the ultimate frisbee disc that one of the Peace Corps Volunteers gave me and the kids loved it. At first they didn't seem to understand what it was, but I told one of the other boys to run across the field and I hucked it to him. After doing that 2-3 times everyone was all into it. I spent the next 30 minutes hucking floaty throws across the field into a crowd of younger boys who fell over each other chasing it down all trying to catch it. Everytime someone caught a throw we all cheered. Pure joy. I have definitely had one of the most challenging months of my life so far, but I've grown a lot in the process. Solving various day-to-day issues hasn't necessarily gotten any easier, but I've become a lot more resilient to living in adverse conditions constantly. If we puncture a tire or run out of supplies far away from civilization, we just immediately start working to solve it. There's no time to wish it hadn't happened, and there certainly is no one coming to help. I've learned a lot from Michael in this regard the past few weeks, and now I feel much more capable in every aspect of working out here. Self-sufficiency is extremely important here. With that being said, Im sending this blog post from a backpackers hostel in Livingstone. I got a 4 hour bus from Sesheke then walked in the city to the hostel. Just 2 weeks ago I would have been very nervous to do that on my own, and today I did it with confidence and ease. I will resolve my visa issue this weekend in Livingstone and try to fit in some fun and relaxation while I'm at it. On Sunday I will head back to Sesheke to meet up with the team again. Makande is our last area to survey next week. It's the most remote area in the bush, but now we have Lin, another KAZAVA Principal Investigator, to help us on the ground. After Makande surveys we will finish up resource area mapping and tie up the loose ends to our field season here in Zambia. We're hitting the final stretch here soon and it's been a remarkable journey thus far.

[sealnarcisa]

Kyle shifts to working in Zambia

It turns out the food we ate in Sesheke our last night there was kind of funky. The first 2-3 days in Sioma District were spent largely at our campground while Michael recovered from some form of food-related stomach illness. We went to the health clinic in the town of Sioma, which was an interesting experience. This clinic, like many others we have seen, are run and funded by the church. Therefore, treatment and medication was free. It is also very apparent that the clinic and the church are the largest and best built structures in the entire town. 

Once Michael was feeling better, we took a day to go meet a few of the Induna's (village heads) and important people to let them know we will be working in their areas soon. This was our first real day transitioning into the social team's work for the summer. The 5 areas we will be working in are Kaale, Kalobolelwa, Mutemwa-Lusu, Kapau, and Makande. Within each area, our enumerators will be conducting surveys/interviews at households that aim to understand both how climate change is impacting livelihoods and how people may be adapting to the changes in order to make their conditions liveable.

We had one more day before Jon arrived so we went out to collect some more vegetation reference samples near Kaale, the closest area to our campground. We saw a lot of evidence of heavy firewood collection which will be interesting to look at later on satellite imagery. Ill continue to collect reference samples for the biophys team this next month when im not needed to facilitate the househild survey effort. There is a type of fly out in the bush areas of Zambia that I have not yet managed to escape from anywhere. These guys love to swarm my head and I've had to pick them out of my ears and catch a few before they crawled into my eyes. I have yet to discover a better solution than wrapping a shirt around my head. 

Jon arrived on the first of July and the next day we held interviews for 6 household enumerator positions. We had a much larger pool of applicants than we expected, and we conducted interviews non-stop from 9am till 8pm. It was a long and arduous process, and deliberating over our selections was quite an ordeal as well. In the end we had 6 very capable enumerators who are highly educated and quite proficient in English. The region we are in speaks Silozi primarily, which is one of the Bantu languages.  Our enumerators will conduct the surveys in Silozi and complete the survey form in English for us to review later. As an American, I find this so impressive. The diversity of languages here is so vast and almost everyone out here is coversational in 2-3 languages if not more. 

The next three days consisted of enumerator training, which went well. We read the survey questions many times over, discussed the best way to record respondent answers, and gave our enumerators plenty of practice time with each other. One stark difference from the biophysical team's work is that there are way more day-to-day logistics that need to be sorted out. Managing people requires many more moving parts compared to a few researchers walking into the bush and measuring vegetation (I miss that being my whole day). Simple things like making sure our employees are getting adequate meals and lodging every day turns out to be quite an ordeal. On the other hand I've become much more confident getting errands done on my own.  Buying grocery items on my own in Sioma no longer feels like I've been dropped off on Mars. I'm very comfortable walking around, talking to people, and most of all I'm not afraid to make a fool of myself. 

Today was the first real day of surveys and we completed 21 of them! We were all happy to have such a good start, and with only one truck as well (field seasons = car issues galore). I've been having our enumerators teach me some Silozi phrases as well because i love learning languages. I hope by the end of the month I'll be able to do greetings, introduce myself, and to say thanks and closing regards at every household I'm sitting in on. Everyone I've spoken Lozi to has been pleasantly surprised. They appreciate me taking the time to learn their language even a little bit. Early next week we expect to finish the Kaale area, then it's on to Makande. 

[sealnarcisa]

Kyle goes resource mapping in Botswana

The first two days after dropping the biophysical team off at the airport were spent doing necessary shopping and errands in preparation for our week of resource area mapping in the Chobe Enclave. It was a nice change of pace but by the time we headed out of town I was eager to start doing more work. We arrived at our campsite in Muchenje in the mid afternoon then got organized for the first big day of research. After dinner we drove out onto a dirt road along the river to see if we could spot any Nightjars (bird) eating insects at dusk. Not sure if we ever saw one, but it was still worth the trip. The acacia and baobab trees looked spectacular silhouetted in front of the darkening sky, with the most prominent stars beginning to emerge in the background.

In the morning we drove to Satau, one of two villages in the Chobe Enclave that sits within the Chobe river floodplain. There we met Eric, who had worked as a local research assistant when the project conducted household interviews here the previous year. In these interviews, respondents were asked where they were gathering their natural resources (wood for various uses, fruits, grasses, palm leaves, fish, etc). Michael has compiled a list of the place names given, and we were to travel to those places on our list that Eric recognized as legitimate resource collection areas. Once within each area, Michael would record GPS points of the approximate boundaries that Eric helped us define. These GPS points will be added into a geographic information system (GIS) database later, where Michael will use GIS software to connect the boundary dots, making a database of polygons that represent each known resource area in the region.

Over the next 3 days, we mapped resource areas near Satau, Kachikau, Parakurungu, Kavimba, and Muchenje-Mabele. Eric's friend Chukwu came along for the last 2 days which made things more efficient because he was also very knowledgeable. As a side task, I tried to collect vegetation reference samples at a few of these resource areas where evidence of resource collection was visible on the landscape. The challenge with this was that harvesting evidence wasn't as visible and spatially explicit as we expected. It was hard to discern whether harvesting was done systematically from one point heading in a particular direction. It will be interesting to test whether we can see these signs of harvesting from satellite imagery.

Speaking with Eric and Chukwu during our work gave me quite a new perspective about village life and how locals perceive Americans/westerners. Eric said that everyone believes every white person they see is rich. As a grad student and young adult still recently out of undergrad, I found issue with that. I'm certainly not rich. After hearing more about how hard Eric and Chukwu work, and how much land and cattle they own, I had to assume things were pretty decent for them relatively. Eric was curious what kind of living situation a low-income American could afford. I wasn't sure how to categorize that, so I just said a very small apartment with likely one bedroom, a small kitchen, and bathroom. He said that would be a dream for him. It's a very tough issue; people like Eric and Chukwu work very hard every week and still do not have enough resources to pull themselves up from their low economic status, yet someone working a full time, pretty low wage job in America has many more resources available to them. They are such nice, intelligent, and hard-working men. If I come back next year to the Chobe Enclave I'm going to buy Eric the soccer cleats he said he wants. I have the same pair back home.

Another fun thing I learned this week is that Michael and I are Makua: white people! As we drive down the road, the smaller children will point and yell "MAKUA!!" excitedly. You just smile and wave, and it's fun. Once I knew this word, though, I began to realize that people talk about us all the time, either in a neutral or negative way (rarely positive, sometimes in a light-hearted joking tone), in front of us in their language. Eric and Chukwu would tell us what people said about us sometimes. The usual things in the villages were: "where did you get these Makua?" Or "Are you selling land to these Makua?" People don't like Makua buying land in their communities, because the land is often developed into a resort, or tourist lodge of some sort, which no longer benefits anyone but the new land owner and others coming to vacation. That's at least how they see it. Locals have as valid a reason as any to be wary of 'rich' white people coming into their villages. Once they understood that we are conducting research that will hopefully benefit them in the future, they are a little more welcoming.

During resource mapping, we spoke to two cattle owners in different areas within the Enclave about some very interesting human-wildlife conflict issues. In an area known as Tinto, there was a cattle post some 2-3km off the tar road, inside one of the forest reserves. The owner's friend was currently watching it, and he explained to us how his own cattle post was destroyed by elephants recently. He has since not had the time and/or resources to rebuild it, so he must move his cattle from place to place much more frequently. Also in March, this post lost 3 cattle to lions that had jumped over the fence into the corral. The owner of the adjacent and recently abandoned cattle post was killed by an elephant in 2015. The cattle post owner out in an area known as Matsimahura has had similar issues with lions killing cattle and elephants destroying cattle post fences. Both of these men are still waiting on compensation from the government for their lost income. Elephants and lions are protected from hunting under law, so this means it is illegal to take matters into one's own hands to protect one's property and means of income. This doesn't mean that people aren't still killing these animals in defense or retaliation, albeit illegally. Regardless, this scenario is a compelling example of how difficult it is to create and execute conservation policies that benefit all parties.

Once back in Kasane, Michael and I went on a game drive through Chobe National Park. We saw a huge variety of wildlife! The highlights: seeing close to 100 giraffes throughout the day; saw bee-eaters, a spoonbill, a coucal, and cori bustards (all birds); massive buffalo with ox peckers climbing all over them eating bugs; tons of kudu and waterbucks; and of course plenty of elephants.

The next two days we were in Katima, Namibia. We had some heavy grocery and item shopping to do to prepare for the next month in Zambia. Katima is the largest city/town I've still seen, which is funny in its own way. Michael joked that it's got enough roads to actually get lost for about a minute. It was nice having a good restaurant to go to, and we even got to watch a World Cup match. Yesterday we went through to Zambia and stayed in Sesheke for a night. We ate some dinner and watched another world cup game with some local Zambians. The next day we headed to Sioma District about 2 hours north up the west coast of the Zambezi river. Here we will meet Jon from the social team and begin the logistics work to get the household surveys started in early July.

Stay tuned for next week’s post!’

[sealnarcisa]

Kyle’s first week in Africa

SEAL graduate student Kyle Woodward’s first week in Southern Africa

Ive learned so much in the short time since arriving in Livingstone, Zambia, both as a grad student researcher and as a person. Today is the first full day without the rest of the biophysical team, and it’s definitely different without them. Narcisa, Forrest, and Andrea really took me under their wing while they were here and made me feel like a valuable member of the research team. Ive gained three great mentors. I was also happy to have met Nick - the Louisville grad student - and hope to keep in contact with him as we both progress in our programs. He’s doing some cool things on the remote sensing side of this project.

We’ve done a lot during the 8 -9 days I was with the biophysical team. The first 3 days were spent collecting drone imagery and reference sample data in the Chobe Enclave area of Botswana. In order to get there, we had to drive through the Chobe National Park and I saw my first giraffe and a few impala just off the road! The Chobe Enclave holds a collection of communities that sit between the Chobe river on one side and the Chobe National Park and various Forest Reserves on the other. I was blown away by the beautiful landscapes we saw here: the Chobe River, with its bright green river grasses and shimmering water, were a perfect backdrop for the Baobab and Acacia trees which stand out so iconically on the landscape. It wasn’t hard to take an amazing picture in any direction.

Data collection here was fun and I learned a lot very quickly. We made two teams out of the 5 of us, each team having their own drone equipment for flying imagery and a Trimble GPS receiver for reference samples. At random and opportunistic locations within this area, each team walked a predetermined distance from the road on either side and flew their drone imagery. Simultaneously, we used the Trimble to collect our location and fill out a land use/land cover and vegetation assessment form which was imported to it. We did this for about 3 days and I tried to absorb as much as I could regarding drone protocol and identifying land cover types and plant species. I went into this having never held a drone before, and by the last day I had successfully learned how to rig the drone with its equipment, launch it, monitor the flight, and land it. Narcisa and I only had a few mini heart attacks each in the process.

We stopped over in Namibia for a day and night in order to break up the journey from Botswana to Zambia, and we decided to camp at a campground in Katima. Katima is the largest city I have seen thus far, it’s got a nice shopping center, multiple gas stations, hotels, campgrounds, and even a good restaurant. Crossing international borders and going thru immigration is an interesting procedure, but I’ve already become more accustomed to it just after a week because of our frequent traveling. Comically enough, I saw my first elephant of the trip right next to the Namibia border fence, not in a national park or reserve.

Zambia looked and felt different almost immediately. Compared to the Chobe Enclave of Botswana, this region in Zambia had way more people and much less wildlife. 5 white people in a big white truck was much more of a spectacle to these people than where we had been in Botswana, because tourism is not as developed here. Most times we stopped to do anything near the road there were at least a few kids watching us, probably wondering what the heck we were doing. Most spoke English enough to say hello, but sometimes you wouldn’t get much further than that. I understand that this area speaks Lozi primarily.

The following 2-3 days we focused on collecting more vegetation reference samples and figuring out how feasible it is traveling to the 2 more remote villages the team will be working in. It turns out they are pretty remote and the narrow sandy roads take quite a while to travel (family members think of 4 wheeling in the moors on Nantucket but deeper sand). We collected as many reference samples as we could over the next few days, but due to this being a new fieldwork area we lost some time to logistics. The whole team was excited about the various land use and land cover types we sampled. Narcisa and I even stumbled across an active fire that was burning off the understory for slash and burn agriculture. I began learning how to identify various plants at the genus level, got better at assessing the types of land cover we encountered, and how to identify evidence of different types of land use.

One of the coolest things so far in Zambia was the community meeting we attended in the village of Kapau. Lawrence, who serves as the personal secretary to the Chief in this region, acted as liaison and translator for us as we formally introduced our research project and asked permission of the community to conduct our fieldwork and interviews in the coming weeks. It was really neat to observe how the hierarchy of the community was demonstrated in the village members’ discourse, even in the most minor social transaction. Lawrence was given everyone’s undivided attention throughout his entire speech. I didn’t understand one word Lawrence said for at least 30-45 minutes, but tried to determine through the audience’s body language if the community was receiving it well. They did, and the Induna (elder male, head of the village) accepted our request and thanked us for visiting and for the introduction. It was a very positive experience with respect and gratitude on both sides.

We decided to visit the Ngonye falls near our campground and ran into Henry from the Department of National Parks and Wildlife (DNPW). I got to chat with him for a bit and learned about some of their GPS collared elephants and other wildlife they are re-introducing to the Sioma Ngwezi National Park. The falls were obviously beautiful. We met Michael - the CU Boulder PhD student - in Sesheke, Zambia the next day, then the next two days consisted of more reference samples, errands and watching soccer. The night before the biophys team flew out from Kasane, we all went out on the Chobe River for a boat safari and it was so cool! We saw elephants, impala, sable, baboons, hippos, crocodiles, mongoose, water buffalo, and tons of birds. Hippos are actualy pretty scary it turns out.

Michael and I dropped the biophysical team off at the Kasane airport yesterday and now it’s just us 2 for a while. We will be on our way back to the Chobe Enclave tomorrow to begin mapping known resource areas for people living in those communities.

[sealnarcisa]

Kyle’s first week in Africa

SEAL graduate student Kyle Woodward’s first week in Southern Africa

Ive learned so much in the short time since arriving in Livingstone, Zambia, both as a grad student researcher and as a person. Today is the first full day without the rest of the biophysical team, and it’s definitely different without them. Narcisa, Forrest, and Andrea really took me under their wing while they were here and made me feel like a valuable member of the research team. Ive gained three great mentors. I was also happy to have met Nick - the Louisville grad student - and hope to keep in contact with him as we both progress in our programs. He’s doing some cool things on the remote sensing side of this project.

We’ve done a lot during the 8 -9 days I was with the biophysical team. The first 3 days were spent collecting drone imagery and reference sample data in the Chobe Enclave area of Botswana. In order to get there, we had to drive through the Chobe National Park and I saw my first giraffe and a few impala just off the road! The Chobe Enclave holds a collection of communities that sit between the Chobe river on one side and the Chobe National Park and various Forest Reserves on the other. I was blown away by the beautiful landscapes we saw here: the Chobe River, with its bright green river grasses and shimmering water, were a perfect backdrop for the Baobab and Acacia trees which stand out so iconically on the landscape. It wasn’t hard to take an amazing picture in any direction.

Data collection here was fun and I learned a lot very quickly. We made two teams out of the 5 of us, each team having their own drone equipment for flying imagery and a Trimble GPS receiver for reference samples. At random and opportunistic locations within this area, each team walked a predetermined distance from the road on either side and flew their drone imagery. Simultaneously, we used the Trimble to collect our location and fill out a land use/land cover and vegetation assessment form which was imported to it. We did this for about 3 days and I tried to absorb as much as I could regarding drone protocol and identifying land cover types and plant species. I went into this having never held a drone before, and by the last day I had successfully learned how to rig the drone with its equipment, launch it, monitor the flight, and land it. Narcisa and I only had a few mini heart attacks each in the process.

We stopped over in Namibia for a day and night in order to break up the journey from Botswana to Zambia, and we decided to camp at a campground in Katima. Katima is the largest city I have seen thus far, it’s got a nice shopping center, multiple gas stations, hotels, campgrounds, and even a good restaurant. Crossing international borders and going thru immigration is an interesting procedure, but I’ve already become more accustomed to it just after a week because of our frequent traveling. Comically enough, I saw my first elephant of the trip right next to the Namibia border fence, not in a national park or reserve.

Zambia looked and felt different almost immediately. Compared to the Chobe Enclave of Botswana, this region in Zambia had way more people and much less wildlife. 5 white people in a big white truck was much more of a spectacle to these people than where we had been in Botswana, because tourism is not as developed here. Most times we stopped to do anything near the road there were at least a few kids watching us, probably wondering what the heck we were doing. Most spoke English enough to say hello, but sometimes you wouldn’t get much further than that. I understand that this area speaks Lozi primarily.

The following 2-3 days we focused on collecting more vegetation reference samples and figuring out how feasible it is traveling to the 2 more remote villages the team will be working in. It turns out they are pretty remote and the narrow sandy roads take quite a while to travel (family members think of 4 wheeling in the moors on Nantucket but deeper sand). We collected as many reference samples as we could over the next few days, but due to this being a new fieldwork area we lost some time to logistics. The whole team was excited about the various land use and land cover types we sampled. Narcisa and I even stumbled across an active fire that was burning off the understory for slash and burn agriculture. I began learning how to identify various plants at the genus level, got better at assessing the types of land cover we encountered, and how to identify evidence of different types of land use.

One of the coolest things so far in Zambia was the community meeting we attended in the village of Kapau. Lawrence, who serves as the personal secretary to the Chief in this region, acted as liaison and translator for us as we formally introduced our research project and asked permission of the community to conduct our fieldwork and interviews in the coming weeks. It was really neat to observe how the hierarchy of the community was demonstrated in the village members’ discourse, even in the most minor social transaction. Lawrence was given everyone’s undivided attention throughout his entire speech. I didn’t understand one word Lawrence said for at least 30-45 minutes, but tried to determine through the audience’s body language if the community was receiving it well. They did, and the Induna (elder male, head of the village) accepted our request and thanked us for visiting and for the introduction. It was a very positive experience with respect and gratitude on both sides.

We decided to visit the Ngonye falls near our campground and ran into Henry from the Department of National Parks and Wildlife (DNPW). I got to chat with him for a bit and learned about some of their GPS collared elephants and other wildlife they are re-introducing to the Sioma Ngwezi National Park. The falls were obviously beautiful. We met Michael - the CU Boulder PhD student - in Sesheke, Zambia the next day, then the next two days consisted of more reference samples, errands and watching soccer. The night before the biophys team flew out from Kasane, we all went out on the Chobe River for a boat safari and it was so cool! We saw elephants, impala, sable, baboons, hippos, crocodiles, mongoose, water buffalo, and tons of birds. Hippos are actualy pretty scary it turns out.

Michael and I dropped the biophysical team off at the Kasane airport yesterday and now it’s just us 2 for a while. We will be on our way back to the Chobe Enclave tomorrow to begin mapping known resource areas for people living in those communities.

[sealnarcisa]

Kyle’s first week in Africa

SEAL graduate student Kyle Woodward’s first week in Southern Africa

Ive learned so much in the short time since arriving in Livingstone, Zambia, both as a grad student researcher and as a person. Today is the first full day without the rest of the biophysical team, and it's definitely different without them. Narcisa, Forrest, and Andrea really took me under their wing while they were here and made me feel like a valuable member of the research team. Ive gained three great mentors. I was also happy to have met Nick - the Louisville grad student - and hope to keep in contact with him as we both progress in our programs. He's doing some cool things on the remote sensing side of this project.

We've done a lot during the 8 -9 days I was with the biophysical team. The first 3 days were spent collecting drone imagery and reference sample data in the Chobe Enclave area of Botswana. In order to get there, we had to drive through the Chobe National Park and I saw my first giraffe and a few impala just off the road! The Chobe Enclave holds a collection of communities that sit between the Chobe river on one side and the Chobe National Park and various Forest Reserves on the other. I was blown away by the beautiful landscapes we saw here: the Chobe River, with its bright green river grasses and shimmering water, were a perfect backdrop for the Baobab and Acacia trees which stand out so iconically on the landscape. It wasn't hard to take an amazing picture in any direction.

Data collection here was fun and I learned a lot very quickly. We made two teams out of the 5 of us, each team having their own drone equipment for flying imagery and a Trimble GPS receiver for reference samples. At random and opportunistic locations within this area, each team walked a predetermined distance from the road on either side and flew their drone imagery. Simultaneously, we used the Trimble to collect our location and fill out a land use/land cover and vegetation assessment form which was imported to it. We did this for about 3 days and I tried to absorb as much as I could regarding drone protocol and identifying land cover types and plant species. I went into this having never held a drone before, and by the last day I had successfully learned how to rig the drone with its equipment, launch it, monitor the flight, and land it. Narcisa and I only had a few mini heart attacks each in the process.

We stopped over in Namibia for a day and night in order to break up the journey from Botswana to Zambia, and we decided to camp at a campground in Katima. Katima is the largest city I have seen thus far, it's got a nice shopping center, multiple gas stations, hotels, campgrounds, and even a good restaurant. Crossing international borders and going thru immigration is an interesting procedure, but I've already become more accustomed to it just after a week because of our frequent traveling. Comically enough, I saw my first elephant of the trip right next to the Namibia border fence, not in a national park or reserve.

Zambia looked and felt different almost immediately. Compared to the Chobe Enclave of Botswana, this region in Zambia had way more people and much less wildlife. 5 white people in a big white truck was much more of a spectacle to these people than where we had been in Botswana, because tourism is not as developed here. Most times we stopped to do anything near the road there were at least a few kids watching us, probably wondering what the heck we were doing. Most spoke English enough to say hello, but sometimes you wouldn't get much further than that. I understand that this area speaks Lozi primarily.

The following 2-3 days we focused on collecting more vegetation reference samples and figuring out how feasible it is traveling to the 2 more remote villages the team will be working in. It turns out they are pretty remote and the narrow sandy roads take quite a while to travel (family members think of 4 wheeling in the moors on Nantucket but deeper sand). We collected as many reference samples as we could over the next few days, but due to this being a new fieldwork area we lost some time to logistics. The whole team was excited about the various land use and land cover types we sampled. Narcisa and I even stumbled across an active fire that was burning off the understory for slash and burn agriculture. I began learning how to identify various plants at the genus level, got better at assessing the types of land cover we encountered, and how to identify evidence of different types of land use.

One of the coolest things so far in Zambia was the community meeting we attended in the village of Kapau. Lawrence, who serves as the personal secretary to the Chief in this region, acted as liaison and translator for us as we formally introduced our research project and asked permission of the community to conduct our fieldwork and interviews in the coming weeks. It was really neat to observe how the hierarchy of the community was demonstrated in the village members' discourse, even in the most minor social transaction. Lawrence was given everyone's undivided attention throughout his entire speech. I didn't understand one word Lawrence said for at least 30-45 minutes, but tried to determine through the audience's body language if the community was receiving it well. They did, and the Induna (elder male, head of the village) accepted our request and thanked us for visiting and for the introduction. It was a very positive experience with respect and gratitude on both sides.

We decided to visit the Ngonye falls near our campground and ran into Henry from the Department of National Parks and Wildlife (DNPW). I got to chat with him for a bit and learned about some of their GPS collared elephants and other wildlife they are re-introducing to the Sioma Ngwezi National Park. The falls were obviously beautiful. We met Michael - the CU Boulder PhD student - in Sesheke, Zambia the next day, then the next two days consisted of more reference samples, errands and watching soccer. The night before the biophys team flew out from Kasane, we all went out on the Chobe River for a boat safari and it was so cool! We saw elephants, impala, sable, baboons, hippos, crocodiles, mongoose, water buffalo, and tons of birds. Hippos are actualy pretty scary it turns out.

Michael and I dropped the biophysical team off at the Kasane airport yesterday and now it's just us 2 for a while. We will be on our way back to the Chobe Enclave tomorrow to begin mapping known resource areas for people living in those communities.

[sealnarcisa]

[sealnarcisa]

That's it, folks!

I feel as though the incredibly cliche name for this blog post actually perfectly depicts how I'm feeling right now. And how can I not when I feel, like so many other visitors, that my experience in Kenya was eye-opening, rewarding, and challenging all wrapped into one. Let's start with the things I will not miss about Kenya: - the garbage, it's rampant! And what's more shocking is not that it's there because, let's face it, America produces a lot of garbage. No, what's shocking is the cavalier manner in which people toss their garbage on the road, the fact that you can legally and frequently walk through dump sites, and they burn everything even the plastics! - being called "ching chong". Apparently, there's a primary school song about Chinese people and the person in the song is unfortunately named Ching Chong. As a result, the first reaction Kenyans have to someone remotely Asian is to ask "ching chong?" or better yet "how are you, chinese?" At first, I patiently tried to explain that I wasn't Chinese, but by week two, I was just flat out ignoring them. - in general, being touched and stared at. In a weird way, I'm craving the anonymity and solitude I associate with flying and traveling. You can be anyone, going anywhere, doing really anything. Best part is, no one really gives two stones either way, they just want to get to their destination just like everyone else. Now on to the things that really surprised me about Kenya despite my extensive research: - Although I found it to be bordering on offensive the way people kept calling out and asking if we were Chinese, Kenyans actually enjoy and embrace the Chinese people that live and work there. In fact, to quote Doris, she said, "We thank God for the Chinese in Kenya" because they are working to build high quality roads throughout the country. Having traveled said roads for a month, I'm pretty thankful myself. - My poor understanding of water access and its extremes. Before coming to Kenya, I created a survey that I thought would help guide my field work to gain the type of information I would need to create a better way of planning for water access. I was completely unprepared for the range of ways in which families access water. Although some Kenyan citizens are experiencing poverty, some live in large homes with electricity and even a tv, but still need to access water from springs and wells far from their households. To me, clean water is a basic human right so this realization has only fueled my desire to continue working hard to improve water access for as many people as possible. Last but not least, let's talk about the things that I really enjoyed and will miss about Kenya. - As mentioned in other posts, the weather! Kenya is blessed with the most consecutive sunny skies I've ever witnessed. Doris was even shocked when I told her that it can rain for several days in a row in the US. She said that no one must go to work then! - The politeness and easy generosity of many Kenyans. I can't imagine ever going house to house in the US and receiving the same reception that I have in the Kenyan countryside. One family even remarked that if we did not come in the house and let them give us something to drink and a place to rest, they would be moved to anger! I obviously hustled inside after that. - Easily my favorite thing about Kenya is that everyone lives unassumingly within an immeasurably beautiful landscape without even recognizing its beauty. The number of stars you can see in the night sky is so precious I just want to bottle it and look at it every night. I could sit on a bus all day (in fact I really did) and just gaze out the window. And yet, when you mention it to them they think nothing of it and are even surprised we even noticed. There is something undeniably precious and intangible about their oblivious behavior to something I find so unique. And with that, I'll leave you with some numbers that I am very proud of. With Doris' help, I was able to survey 162 households all throughout the Nzoia Basin. To do that, we walked close to 150 miles, ate way too many peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and 'irrigated' many a corn field. I'm dreading telling US customs that I did, in fact, spend some time on farms. Here's to clearing customs in record time, until the next research adventure!

[sealnarcisa]

Sewage, cabbage, birds...oh my!

Before getting to the meat and potatoes of the blog, first the unveiling of the answers to Kenya by the numbers!

10 - The number of liters that I am able to lift to my head and carry 14 - The number of bug bites I have currently 8 - The average number of miles we walk per day 14 - The number of people you're supposed to have in a matatu 26 - The number of people they actually manage to fit into a matatu 50 - The number of shillings it usually costs for a ride on a piki piki 17 - The number of people in Doris' immediate family 1 - The number of shillings per minute you pay to use the internet 2 - The number of Imodium you're supposed to take at the first signs of tummy trouble 1/2 - The number of Imodium I took in my half awake stupor

Hope some of you were surprised and most of you were at least mildly amused! We are now almost done with the third week of field work and it's wearing on us a bit both physically and mentally. Although I've been able to keep my cool through strange men putting their arms around me, men asking Doris if they can have ‘that Chinese lady’, and many people touching and asking for things, I lost my cool with a woman who asked me for a bottle of water (oh the irony!) seconds after I got on a bus. To be fair, we had been waiting for the bus for some time and had been getting harassed by a few men while we were standing there who kept asking to hold our bags and find us a vehicle. But I was still astonished by my outburst (even though it only consisted of telling her she really was not being polite) and realized that the travel at last has begun to catch up with me. I think it's also starting to catch up with Doris who has never been away from her home this long let alone walked this much in her life!

We've moved now from Webuye to Kitale, a rather large agricultural hub in the northeastern part of the Nzoia Basin. Already, we've seen much larger agricultural plots of land and more types of crops as well. Doris told us that we probably have been eating vegetables from this area the entire time we have been in western Kenya. Today, one woman was very excited to show us her seedling beds and fruit trees, we learned a lot about what goes into small scale commercial farming! The hard part about collecting ground control points of agricultural land is that it inevitably belongs to someone who lives nearby, making it difficult to collect information within the plot of land without incurring a cost or making someone upset (rightfully so in my opinion). One particularly shocking thing we saw today was a sewage treatment plant located directly adjacent to the commercial agricultural land. There were even several pools of effluent that had channels leading to plots of cabbage should they overflow! I made sure not to order cabbage for dinner tonight...

On a happier note, we also got to see birds that I recognized from the Ugandan flag! At first, my dad thought that they were ostriches and began excitedly running towards them to get a picture. Don't worry, he was still excited when Doris and I explained what they really were because they really are beautiful and majestic birds. We've been excitedly looking at the different bird species as we walk around the Kenyan countryside and swear one even sounds like it's saying "mzungu mzungu" just like many of the kids in the area. We're using the bird watching as a way to feel less bad about not being able to experience the wild animals Africa is known for.

Unfortunately, I don't have a game to share this time, but I'll leave you with a fun story instead. Of all the things that Kenya has to offer, the kids are what I find to be the most heartwarming. Their favorite and possibly only English phrase they know is "How are you?" and they rarely listen to your response and simply say it over and over again. They are fascinated with seeing themselves in a picture because most have grown up without a mirror and are getting to see themselves for the very first time! But my favorite story so far is all because my dad thought it would be funny to only respond with one phrase, "buon giorno". Sadly, I don't even know if that's spelled correctly. Doris translated for us the whole time, but they began with total and utter confusion, moved onto thinking it was his name, and ended with believing it was the name of a dance move and would even yell "buon giorno" periodically while dancing about. It brought complete and utter clarity to the origins of dances like the wobble, the dougie, and the Cupid shuffle.

Stay tuned for more updates on our last week of field work!

P.S. Mom, if you're reading this, I've been oddly dreaming of salads (hint hint!)

[sealnarcisa]

Kenya by the numbers

It's been quite a while since I last posted, but we've been very busy and moving around western Kenya quite a bit. We finished sampling in Kakamega, but spent two somewhat frustrating days trying to find an area where I have a Worldview-2 image. It turns out the location is on the Mumias sugar plantation, one of the largest producers of sugar in Kenya. We weren't able to access the area as a result, but I took a few ground control points on property very quickly and we were thankfully not caught!

We then spent two days at Doris' family's compound and were treated to warm welcomes from all her family members, delicious meals, and an opportunity to understand what life is like in the village. Her mother and father kept commenting that I wasn't acting like a mzungu because I was helping cook, wash bed sheets, and fetch water. My Dad would have helped do all of those things I suspect, but in Kenyan culture all of those activities are considered work for women. The well I got water from wasn't far from the compound, but it put into perspective the distances that some of our interviewees claim they walk daily to fetch water. Doris' mother was so busy the entire time we were there, I don't think I saw her rest for more than an hour the entire day! The community that Doris' family lives in (Nabuyole) is a picturesque and lush valley with the Nzoia River flowing through the middle of it. We were very lucky to spend time there!

We've now moved on to Webuye, a town close to Nabuyole, and it will be our base for the next few days. I was sick for a few days, there's a hint at the end of the blog post regarding with what, but recovered quickly to get back to work! Today, we sampled in a community that sometimes waits up to four hours in the dry season to collect water with some of the members living a 30 minutes walk from the spring! Some people leave their households at 9 PM hoping for shorter waits and don't return until midnight. We will try and collect more data from surrounding communities to see if the pattern is similar.

Now on to the fun part and the reason for the title of this blog post. I will give you a list of numbers and a list of descriptions and you'll have to match them up. Before I get to that though, and for all those who were waiting with bated breath, it takes about a day and a half for your underwear to dry, but only if you're shy about your hot pink underwear and try and dry it inside your room. Otherwise, if you hang it outside, I'm sure the time frame is much shorter. So here is Kenya by the numbers!

17 2 26 8 14 50 1 10 1/2

The number of liters that I am able to lift to my head and carry The number of bug bites I have currently The average number of miles we walk per day The number of people you're supposed to have in a matatu The number of people they actually manage to fit into a matatu The number of shillings it usually costs for a ride on a piki piki The number of people in Doris' immediate family The number of shillings per minute you pay to use the internet The number of Imodium you're supposed to take at the first signs of tummy trouble The number of Imodium I took in my half awake stupor

Check back soon to see how well you know Kenya, may the odds be ever in your favor!

[sealnarcisa]

Mzungu mzungu!

The first week in Kenya has passed by so quickly! It mostly consisted of traveling out to the study area and becoming acquainted with it. However, despite the few days we have been able to spend in the field, Doris and I have sampled over 30 households, collected ground control points for several land use types, and attended a local water use authority meeting. More importantly, I held a live chicken for the first time, fed a cow, and learned how to beat mangoes out of a tree. So far, we've focused our surveying on rural homesteads and feel as though this has led us to have a poor understanding of how and why people change their land use type since most of the homesteads have never and likely won't change their land use in the future. As a result, we will be sampling and collecting ground control points in the busier areas of Kakamega for the next few days.

It's hard to go anywhere without attracting attention because of how light our skin color is. We hear the word mzungu (lighter skinned foreigner) a lot and I can even see the word on kids' mouths as we drive by them on a piki piki or matatu (bus). I've learned a few phrases in Swahili so that people can feel more comfortable when I visit their homestead, but Doris tells me that my accent is very American. Even though I love Kenya and have been enjoying working here, it's hard to feel innately connected to a place that almost constantly reminds you that you don't belong.

We occasionally receive requests for money and gifts and it's hard to put into words why that upsets me. I'm not particularly upset with the person asking for aid, but really with the people that have perpetuated this culture. My Mom has fed the birds in our backyard for as long as I can remember. Whenever she thinks about moving though, she worries that the new owners of the house won't feed the birds and that the birds will have a hard time surviving. Whether fairly or not, I think of foreign aid in much the same way. Doris tells me the requests for money and gifts are because villagers often associate mzungus with missionaries who often bring aid like food and clothes. Her analogy is that mission work, although helpful, usually provides fish (and who doesn't love fish!?), but doesn't teach a village how to fish. She usually puts things more eloquently than I do.

Every day after field work, Doris and I get together to talk about how the day went and we brainstorm improvements and share stories about how different our lives are. She showed me how to wash my clothes with bar soap and a basin, and I've been telling her stories about what dishwashers look like and showing her ridiculous things Americans do like sit-ups and toe touches.

For updates on how quickly it takes for underwear to dry in a tropical climate, check back in a few days! (I really hope they'll be dry by then...)

[sealnarcisa]

A journey full of emotions in Nepal!

Blog Post by UNCW SEAL graduate student and Fulbright Scholar Janardan Mainali In my last blog post I promised to come back with the emotional journey during my field visit. Now I find hard time defining emotions.  I can't just describe my journey here; I need to find flavors of emotions associated with the moments of my journey. I gave my brain a little push, and they were not difficult to find. They came as a lady in the plane to Philadelphia, who gave me Halls candies to deal with my cough, a tractor driver who takes us to destination after full day of work at Manthali, an ambulance driver of Ramechhap who happily allowed all of our team to hop in so that we could reach destination faster, an old lady where I saw face of my mother etc. The story starts from my home village, Sundrawati. I went there the day after I landed at Kathmandu. We need to walk for few minutes from road to my home. Unfortunately, the trail that goes to my home from main road was obstructed at couple of places due to our uncle's broken houses and debris due to the earthquake.  We had to take longer trail to our home. Our parents were sharing their home with a buffalo and goats in our barn house as our original house was not habitable after the April 25 and May 12 Earthquake. The barn house was open from all direction except from the roof. That day we accommodated us there with the hope that tomorrow we will make better home. We were happier than ever to sleep our entire family under the same roof (buffaloes and goats included) after a long time. That buffalo provides milk and manure. Goats help to make some cash. I am abroad- studying, and my sisters are working in different parts of Nepal. Goats and buffalo are only permanent companions for my parents. During next few days, I helped my parents to move buffalo and goats by making new cottage and repaired our barn house to make it more habitable. Even after the deadly earthquake which killed more than 8500 people in Nepal, show had to continue. People were slowly starting to take up their business. Feeding cattle is compulsory; you can't just leave your wheat unharnessed only because there was an earthquake. I also had a separate mission of data collection for my thesis. I left my parents among broken houses and debris to continue their business, packed my backpack and headed to Ramechhap with my friends for datathon- a rapid data collection trip to the southern region of Ramechhap district , central-east Nepal. A real emotional journey starts here. I mean my journey that fits in the cloud space of my lab. We, four friends from Research and Development Society-Nepal office of Kathmandu, took a bus to Manthali, Ramechhap district.  We were accompanied by two more friends in Manthali. Our hunt for data started from Bhaluwajor village, next to the Manthali. We hiked, hiked and hiked with occasional use of vehicles to carry our extra loads. We were carrying tarpaulin, sleeping bags and all other necessary supplie,s as after earthquake most of the houses in our study region were not habitable. We went to the every settlement of our study region where more than 40,000 people live in more than 8,000 households. The settlements are scattered along the ridges of hills from bank of the river to the very top. The region we were visiting is a dry region. Water availability is the main limitation for the livelihood of the people. Needless to say, this region is economically backward and is so called remote. Most of the people told us that their major occupation is agriculture. But, it was evident that it was not major source of income. Every people we spoke told us that 'mausam ramro bhaye ta pugthyo ni, pani nai pardaina (if weather was good we would grow sufficient crop, but what to do, it doesn't rain). Therefore people have to depend on other options for their livelihood. As of most of the parts of Nepal, the remittance is major source of income for people of this region too. Many people of this region also go to brick factories of Kathmandu valley to make money during winter season. I knocked door of many people. Every people I approached spoke with great energy, enthusiasm and excitement. No one declined our request to be interviewed. Instead, they offered me  meal, tea, or cold drink. I drank locally made cold drink, or water or tea in many homes. Don't tell my dad-mom, I drank the Chhyang too in couple of places. Chhyang is a local wine like alcoholic beverage usually made from the grains. In many places they used to tell us that  they spent hours to bring a pot of water, but when we asked to fill our bottle they were more than happy to provide us for free. In Nepal, serving water to people in need is a part of culture. I could sense the unique feeling mixed with strangeness, intimacy and respect. During most of the time my interview question would finish in few minutes, but I kept on speaking with them for hours as they wanted to tell elongated stories. That gave me sense of belonging to the place I visited and sense of intimacy to the person I spoke. It was the time immediately after disaster. I was there only after a week of large scale aftershock of May 12. All the houses were broken. People are still living in the temporary homes made from the bamboo and corrugated sheets. They are not worried much though. As the entire region is rural, people are quite knowledgeable to live with the limited resources. They have indigenous knowledge to make use of the natural resources available around them.  They immediately built homes which can last for few years. In some places they already made one storied traditional home using mud, stones, wood and corrugated sheets. People here are also already into their normal business. I talked with the people while they were plowing their corn field, or while they were busy in making their new home, or bringing water, or busy in their shop or tea stalls. Our journeys started from district headquarter Manthali. Then we travelled Bhauwajor, Ramechhap Sukajor and Rampur to the eastern side of Manthali. We returned to Manthali to sleep in a room with fan and soft mattress for a night. I bought a new pair of shoes as my older pair didn't even last for half of my journey. There we started our westerly journey from Pakarbas, and continued to Bhirpani, Majuwa, Rakathum, Khaniyapani and Bethan. We ended our journey in the Lubhughat, a small rural town next to Sunkoshi River. We hiked fourty five minutes to the west and reached Nepalthok- a highway town. Then we boarded a bus to Kathmandu with a sense of accomplishment. Many people and institutions helped us during this journey. Local people of Ramechhap are to be thanked firstly. International Foundation for Science provided grant to the Research and Development Society, Nepal to carry out this research. UNCW graduate school paid a part of my travel expense. SEAL provided me all the instruments required to carry out this field visit. And again, I am indebted to my companions from RDS Nepal, Shyam Paudel, Jayram Ghimire, Mahesh Limbu and Krishna Bahadur Karki for their awesome help to execute this task. I also thank Ms. Mina Dahal and Ms Dev Kumari Nepali for their help to coordinate in local level. It was an awesome journey and I am already missing it. I hope to come back.

[sealnarcisa]

Kenya through Doris’ eyes

The past few days have been extremely eye-opening because we‘ve been experiencing Kenya through Doris’ eyes. We’re staying and eating at places recommended by her friends and family and bartering for tuk tuks (the best explanation I can think of is a motorized tricycle with a bench in the back) and piki pikis (motorbikes). Although after an unsuccessful attempt to bring down fare from $5 to $3, Doris politely asked if it would be better if we let her handle the talking. Lately, we’ve resorted to a lot of smiling and laughing with our transporters as Doris plays bad cop.

On Saturday, we had our first day out in the field and I was nervous for most of the morning. Although there were a few hiccups (we tweaked a few questions on our survey after learning which questions and phrasings were the most appropriate), the process was relatively smooth. Doris and I are excited to go back in the field to test out the improvements we have brainstormed. Doris invited her friend Seraphine to accompany us and she hiked through the countryside to help us survey households despite it being her day off! She even invited us to take fellowship at her church and we joined her for lunch after the service. Although Doris, Seraphine, and I have only known each other for a short time, I feel as though I’ve known them for a very long time. I think it’s partially due to the candidness with which we ask each other questions about each other’s lives. But, more importantly, I think it’s because of their overwhelming hospitality and kindness.

The most important thing that I have taken away from the past few days is that I now can’t imagine completing my project without having completed this field component. Some trends are lining up with information cited in the literature and others I couldn’t have ever anticipated. I was most startled when one interviewee explained that even though they don’t have the luxuries of those living in the city, they would never move because everything is free in the countryside. In fact, the mangos growing wild on a tree in their yard that they gave us before leaving were being sold for several shillings a piece when we got closer to Kisumu!

And now that i’ve thoroughly bored you, here are a few fun facts:

- Yes, the rumor is in fact true that Super Bowl shirts from the losing team make their way to Africa.

- It is also true that Let It Go is internationally known. I heard little children singing it on tv.

- Last but definitely not least, Doris informs me that because I don’t carry a handkerchief and I insist on walking everywhere that I’m not very ladylike and act like I’m poor...

For more Doris logic and fun facts, stay tuned!

[sealnarcisa]

You can't always believe the internet

The Le's have finally made it to Kenya! After 20 hours of flight time and advice mostly gleaned from the internet, I was skeptical that Nairobi would be the relaxing place that we would need to rest and recharge for our first full day in Kenya! As the title implies, the internet was very wrong ( TripAdvisor - 0 Nairobi and its friendly inhabitants - 1). In fact, we have been met with nothing but genuine hospitality and kindness. For those of you who don't know, I traveled to Kenya to complete the fieldwork necessary to build a combined sociotechnical model that works to identify sustainable water access points. Currently, researchers are working to understand where water will be based on changing climatic variables at the same time as other researchers are working to understand potential changes in population density, land use change, and individual water usage. My fieldwork will focus on determining the primary drivers behind changing water and land usage to incorporate into a combined model that will help to meld these schools of thought. Overall, I hope to provide pertinent information to policy makers in the Nzoia Basin to help guide their water management initiatives. Today, I finally got to meet my field assistant (Doris Lunani) in person and it was such a pleasure. We are planning to meet her family in Bungoma during our travels through Western Kenya and I can't wait. She is practicing with the field equipment that I brought from the US that was fortunately provided by Narcisa and the SEAL lab and the Department of Geography and Geology back at UNCW. We'll be leaving early tomorrow for Kisumu where we will meet with the Lake Victoria Basin Commission before beginning fieldwork in the lowland region of the Nzoia Basin. Check back often to hear about our progress and adventures!

[sealnarcisa]

“Datathon”:  collecting field data in Nepal after the April 2015 Earthquake

Blog post by SEAL member Janardan Mainali, Nepali Fulbright Scholar

We are at 550 meter of elevation, next to the Sunkoshi River, at a small settlement called Lubhughat. Our westernmost study village, Bethan, also meets the Sunkoshi River at this point and we just completed data collection there. That was the last village to hike through. It is half past three of day; we are sweating under the hot shade of corrugated steel roof, as there is not any electricity at this settlement. Mr. Baburam, who runs a diner here, is hosting us and feeding with daal-bhaat-tarkari (Lentil soup, rice and vegetable). He also served us Pepsi chilled by keeping the bottles underground. We don't have any complaint as our hunt for data finally concludes here. We hike forty-five more minute to the west and we are there at BP highway, which will take us to the Kathmandu, the capital city of Nepal. River Sunkoshi is flowing less than 50 meter from our shelter. We are planning to enjoy that cold water coming from the high Himalaya later on the day. At the moment, I am ruminating crazy activities we performed during past couple of weeks. The study region I chose is among the remotest part in Ramechhap district, central Nepal. We had to collect data from the ten village development committee, all of which range from river side to hill tops with steep slopes. Settlements are not homogenous; in some cases we had to hike hours to get sight of another settlement. There are only dirt roads in our study area and the public transport system is not well developed. We couldn't afford private vehicles. That left us only one option- hiking. We hiked, hiked and hiked through this treacherous terrain under the sweltering heat. This time of the year is the hottest time in this region and the temperature crosses 35 degree Celsius limit. I may be tired, got some blisters in my foot, or some sun burns as byproducts. But, I feel extremely fortunate to be able to travel and meet people during this post-earthquake period. Nepal was hit by the 7.9 magnitudes earthquake on the 25th of April and another strong aftershock of the 7.3 magnitudes was felt on the 12th of May, 2015. Aftershock did more damage in this part of Nepal as its epicenter was closer. Although there is not any causality in this region of Ramechhap district, most of the houses are damaged. We started our field work from the 29th of May and were skeptic about the people's response towards us during this time of grief. But, we were fortunate as people responded well and helped us to complete our task. I came from the different part of country or the different part of the world to this so called a remote place when the entire region was hit by deadly earthquake. I got a feeling here that a place is remote only when you don't step on it. At the time we step on a place the remoteness vanishes. We hiked hours and hours to find a settlement. But even in a so called remote place people are living their normal life. They have connections with the Kathmandu (National capital), the Manthali (district headquarter) and in many cases to the different countries as people go abroad to make money. They may not have the restaurants in their locality but they can serve thousands of people with the food they grow in their farms or brought from markets on their back. They wouldn't send us hungry. They open their kitchen and feed us. I experienced this feeling every day. During data collection we had to go to different places and people from every household used to ask khana khanubho? Natra bhane hami banauchhau (Did you have meal? otherwise we will cook for you). In most of the case they got offended, if I tried to pay for it. This past couple of weeks had been the most adventurous time of my life, as I stepped into the every settlement in this region. I called this mission a datathon as we hiked dozens of miles to collect data within limited period of time. We started our mission from the Kathmandu where we arranged our logistics, made team of four members and contacted local support personnel in Ramechhap district. We took a bus to Manthali (district head quarter of Ramechhap district) from Kathmandu. In Manthali, we were accompanied by two ladies Dev Kumari Thapa and Mina Dahal. At the very first day of our field visit, we went to the Bhaluwajor village for piloting our data collection. We collected data in three wards of that village. We didn't make any itinerary for our study period, instead made a plan for next day or next couple of day only. That made our plan flexible and helped in speeding the process. Most of the personal houses are not habitable after earthquake. Envisioning that risk of not finding shelter we were carrying a tarpaulin, sleeping bags and mattresses. For most of the night we used our own sleeping gear. But, we never had to make our own roof, people provided us roof in the form of their house, or a school, a church, or a temple. We were welcomed by warm heart and were never denied. They provided us the best bed available in their home and the best food from their kitchen. It had been wonderful experience. I still savor the intimacy, the hospitality and the benevolence shown by people in sharing their ideas, information and hospitality. We were in rush, so we had to move faster and hike like marathon. But I am satisfied with the data we collected. I got information what I was looking for, with more than 900 respondents responding to the same set of questionnaire. Did I forget to tell- why I am here? I will try to explain. I have been working to analyze climate vulnerabilities of drought prone region of southern part of Ramechhap district, central Nepal, as a part of my thesis of my Master's degree in geography and geology at University of North Carolina Wilmington. I am trying to use biophysical and social data in this process. The mission, I mentioned above, was for socioeconomic data collection for my thesis work.  I performed my fieldwork from 29 May to 12 June of 2015. I am trying to use the livelihood vulnerability index approach of the socioeconomic data collection and blend that with other climate, land cover, vegetation vigor, and topography data to assess the spatial variation of climate vulnerability in this region. Oops sorry….. I forgot to acknowledge support from my teammates Shyam Paudel, Mahesh Limbu and Jayram Ghimire in carrying out this field work. Ms. Mina Dahal and Ms. Dev Kumari Nepali also worked day and night to coordinate from the local level. This work couldn’t be completed without this wonderful team. I am very much indebted to you guys. I have many more things to tell you through this blog post- that I can't write in my thesis. I will definitely come with new blog post which will explain and elaborate my emotional journey during this field visit.  See you in next episode.

[sealnarcisa]

Musings on humanity from SEAL Amelia Sosnowski

A funny thing happened to me. After years of studying physiological and ecological processes, I've felt very far removed from things outside the laboratory. I chose to study Biology because life fascinates me. The intricate neural networks, the almost magical functioning of organ systems and their responses to changes in external and internal stimuli--these sustain what we call life. But it's taken a complete removal from my surroundings to remind me of facts lost after childhood. Those such things studied in biology are universal, sure, but they do not capture the essence of life. In America, we shy from touch. We have these expansive "personal bubbles" that keep us safely isolated from the rest of the world. We drive individually in our personal vehicles and live in expansive homes with relatively few people. But here, the world is full--full of people, and full of sensations, especially those of touch. We touch shoulders, we hold hands, we are crammed into buses until we are breathing each other's exhalations. And when you're this close, this connected to humanity, you're reminded of the reality of life. Humanity here ebbs and flows like the waters on the shores of Lake Victoria, surrounded by chickens and goats and cattle and dirt and dust and sugarcane and mangos and avocados and bananas and oranges and furniture and coca-cola interspersed with a variety of languages, spreading words like colorful streamers across the streets. I'm at once swept up and into the city--the thrall of life--and isolated by my foreignness. Then a car backfires loudly, causing us all to panic and run away with our heads covered, rushing from the source of the noise, and we are one people again-just trying to sustain life. These ties to humanity become so essential when you depend on one another, especially in times of crisis. Friendliness, kindness, and a willingness to help--all of these are derived from a society in which it is impossible to have all of the resources yourself. In America, we kid ourselves into thinking we are some form of self-sufficient. We avoid eye contact with they cashier at the grocery store, study our own feet as we walk, ignore people who may be lost or confused, jutting our chins forward like the self-important carriers of souls we pretend to be. It's no wonder we feel so isolated and so lonely in everyday life. No wonder depression and anxiety grips our nation; we are quite alone. We speak of growth along a line-isolated, forever moving forward, instead of a branching tree-spreading in all directions, expansive and thorough. Maybe there's even something to be said for interdisciplinary collaborative efforts in sustaining populations. Somehow, our work might be tied to this place in spirit and it's very nature, as much as it is tied to the lake itself. Never let it be said that social aspects of a problem are unimportant or to be neglected in a project; this is my most personal insight on this trip: the thorough appreciation of humanity.