Back in the States

I'm at my new job at Clemson University and thought I might continue to update folks about our transition back to the US via my blog. A lot has happened since I left Rwanda. After landing in New York, I spent a single week catching up with people and tying up loose ends before moving to South Carolina. I finally found out why I lost 25lbs while abroad! I had amoebas and worms! I am now de-parasitized and am gaining weight at a steady rate! I miss my little parasites a bit now because I can't eat whatever I want anymore! But my stomach is happier.

We drove the kittens from NY to SC over a long weekend and made the Clemson Day's Inn our new home for the next week while we scheduled and then cancelled FIVE closing dates for our new house (Thanks USAA!). Apparently the real cost of getting a low mortgage rate from them is your sanity and several years off your life.   I started working at Clemson and was still living in the hotel. The closing FINALLY happened and we moved in just after Thanksgiving. We lived in the house for half a week and then packed our bags and left for New Zealand! I had a conference I was presenting at in Auckland so we boarded the flight for another 22 hour trip across the world. It was amazing to see New Zealand. It was beautiful and Okan was ready to move there. I think I prefer Queensland more than the north island of New Zealand, but I still really enjoyed the visit. We ate some lovely seafood and fresh summer fruit and my friend Amanda (from Sydney) came over and visited. All in all it was a terrific trip.

On the flight home I heard that my Aunt had unexpectedly died (well, unexpectedly to me! Seems others knew of her decline). She had end stage Alzheimer's and I was very sad that I didn't get a chance to see her before she died or while she was still cognizant.  We arrived back to the US on Wednesday. Returned to work on Th-Friday, and then drove to Rock Hill for the funeral that weekend. It was nice to see some of my family, albeit for a sad occasion. Rock Hill didn't look anything like I remembered it as a kid- it was huge. Much bigger than Clemson!

After returning to Clemson, I had one week of work and then a quiet Christmas at home with Okan. We didn't really celebrate so much as use the time to unpack! We are still unpacking and it is several weeks later!  Since I hadn't acquired any leave because I was new at my job, I worked through most of the holidays which wasn't so bad because it was quiet. We spent the next weekend in Raleigh visiting Okan's sister, husband and our niece and nephew. It was really great to see them after a year.

We visited my good friends Chris and Andrew, and their 15 month old boy (Rafael) in Athens last weekend. It was really good to catch up with them and visit. I'm hoping Chris and I can collaborate on a toxicology project I have brewing here. I am back at work and both Okan and I are extremely busy playing catch up after our move and year abroad. I have two new projects in the works here in Clemson, plus I still have several other projects I need to write up and finish (including my work in Rwanda!). Our days are still a bit of a whirlwind but we're hopeful that things will settle down later this month. Actually, February 1st we head to Jekyll Island (Georgia) for a four day conference! So maybe after that trip we will settle down a bit. But we are excited to have our next few weekends free so we can continue to unpack and make the house a bit more "homey". The kittens love the new house. They can go upstairs and sit and watch all that goes on downstairs from a safe distance. We bought Zoe a "walking jacket" (aka a harness) and we are training her to walk outside, which she has enthusiastically embraced. Today she got very close to her first bird and she was very excited! Lola is too nervous to venture anywhere outside yet and she prefers to watch Zoe from the safety of the door. I'm pretty sure our neighbors will think we are crazy once we get zoe walking more outside, but since our other cat Celeste got hit by a car, we've promised to not let our girls out alone by themselves. So walking them seems like a good compromise. Right now, Zoe sits by the door in the morning and meows. So we put on her jacket and do a 15 minute walk about until she gets spooked by a dog or noise, and then she seems happy to stay indoors the rest of the day.

Ok, more later!

Last Week in Rwanda

It's hard to believe I only have a week left in Rwanda. The last few days I've been trying to catch up on a lot of my sea turtle research. I have several reports due as well as the presentation I am doing for the conference in New Zealand.  I have more data than I know what to do with. I've also been trying to enjoy swimming outside a few days a week while I still can. I know I'll be entering cold fall/winter when I return so I'm enjoying the warm weather as much as I can. It's not horribly warm here now. Mostly from morning until noon it is quite nice (low 70s) but by 1pm thunderstorms start to roll in and it rains on and off most afternoons. But with this short rainy season (Nov-Dec), it looks like spring again- everything is so bright green!

Tomorrow I'll be heading back to Nyungwe to pick up my camera traps. I'm really excited to see what the last of the data looks like. I'm also excited to be done with the field work and pack up my things. I still have an intern who will be doing small mammal trapping through January for my research project. And then in January my Masters student (Methode) will take over the small mammal trapping and use the data for his thesis. So I'm scoping sites in Nyungwe tomorrow looking for appropriate places to put traps for the next site. I will also be bringing Emmanuel (intern) over to the other side of the forest and setting him up at the other field station for his next month of small mammal trapping. So in addition to retrieving camera traps, I'll also spend time ferrying equipment, tents, and the rest of the camp to the other side of the forest. I've asked for RDB to help me select my next site because I've had FIVE small mammal traps stolen over the last 3 weeks. It has been very disappointing. We hide them very creatively in the vegetation so I'm surprised someone found them. I can't help but wonder if it's an inside job. Anyway, hopefully I can find a place that is a bit more secluded and remote for the next site for trapping.

I finished most of my packing today. All that is left are some clothes and toiletries. I did that today instead of work on my presentation for New Zealand! I'll be back from Nyungwe on Sunday hopefully. On Monday I'm going to Kigali to take the car in for a tune-up. There's also a woman who is interested in buying the car so I am bringing the car to her dad to inspect. I really hope they like the car and want to buy it. That will make life a lot easier for me if I don't have to worry about having a friend sell it after I leave. I also have to go to Kigali to beg RDB to give me an export permit for my samples, and to pick up my extended visa from Emigration (yay it was approved!). So my Monday is pretty full. I had originally not wanted to go to Kigali until Wednesday, the day before my flight. That way I could save time by not driving 2 hrs to and 2hrs back from Kigali twice in one week. But it made me nervous to leave the car, immigration, and my export permit all until the day before I leave, so I'll make an extra trip just for piece of mind.

I've been receiving reports from Okan about NY. He is finally back in the apartment now that the Evil Ones have left (yay!). We are both relieved that nothing was taken/broken and that the kittens look no worse for the wear. Okan has put Zoe on a diet because she has gotten fat while we are away, but other than that, and a dusty, dirty apartment, everything was fine, which was a relief. Poor Okan has been dealing with securing the morgage by himself these last few weeks. I think we both grossly underestimated the toll it would take on him trying to do this all alone. He is really exhausted and stressed out having to deal with USAA all the time. I feel awful that I'm not there to help.

Well, off to Nyungwe soon. Hopefully I'll have some nice pictures to post on my next blog. Keeping my fingers crossed for nice weather in the next few days in the field!

Adventures in Uganda

I’ve just returned from a fabulous trip to Uganda. It was a bit of a spur of the moment idea based primarily on excellent reports from my housemate of their own trips to Uganda, combined with my sense of procrastination over doing real work. I set off for Lake Bunyonyi in southwestern Uganda after heading to Kigali to deal with my visa extension at Emigration.  Lake Bunyonyi is about 2 hours north of Kigali, just over the Ugandan border.  Lake Byunyoni is called the "place of many little birds”.  It has an amazing diversity of birds on the lake. The depth of the lake is rumored to be 900 m, which makes it the second deepest in Africa. It is one of the few lakes in the region that is free of bilharzia and safe for swimming. Unfortunately, I didn’t get to do any swimming because it rained most of the time I was there. But it was still an amazing place to be. To get to the island camp where I stayed, I was taken by canoe to Bushara Island.

First, it was really nice to have some different food. The lake is popular for its abundant crayfish which they make in quiches, burritos, and with avocado salads. I also took a bird tour around the island and learned a lot of new bird species. It was a bit lonely being on the island alone without Okan, but it was relaxing and I finally had time to read a book for fun. It was a beautiful island. The accommodations were simple- just a tent with a cot inside. But at least there was a cover over the tent to protect against the rain.

I decided after a visit to Lake Bunyonyi that I would drive another 3 hours north to Queen Elizabeth National Park (QENP). I had heard from two friends about an incredible lodge that they stayed at with wonderful food and beautiful views.  It looks out over the plains of the park and had a great pool.

I also wanted to do one last game safari before leaving Africa. So I used Okan’s android phone that he had left me to find QENP using the GPS feature on the phone. I spent two nights at a wonderful lodge and went on a great game drive where I finally saw two leopards only a few meters away from the car! It was a true highlight. Leopards are one of those species that most tourists want to see (much less, carnivore biologists!) but they are so elusive, it is very rare to get a glimpse of them. I can’t believe we stumbled on two! 

For links to more animal pics go to:

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.2633188674108.153483.1387146989&type=1&l=e5f7005e9f

I also got my fill of elephants, including a baby elephant that couldn’t have been more than a meter high and probably only a few weeks old. He was adorable (but no pictures because mama shielded him away from us). We also visited several craters which were formed from a volcanic eruption some 8000 years ago. They were stunningly beautiful.  Again, it was lonely without Okan and I felt guilty seeing this amazing park without him. However, the manager of the lodge (Pascal, a German who grew up in Kampala) was very nice to me and since I was the only visitor at the lodge, it was just the two of us on the safari. He was really nice and we had a good time talking and sharing experiences from living in Africa. He was equally excited that we stumbled on the two leopards.

I returned to Rwanda and was stopped at the Ugandan border for immigration. I thought I had done all the things I needed to do when I passed on my way from Rwanda to Uganda. But apparently, I did not. I was meant to declare my car with customs on the way through. It would have been nice if the Rwandan police, with whom I registered my car with on my way out, would have mentioned this. The men on the Ugandan side delighted in torturing me with a threat of a 1 million shilling penalty fee (~$500 USD). I lost my temper and scolded them for being so mean (they were laughing at me, being very aggressive about the error, even though I apologized).  I knew that they didn’t have to fine me for not going through customs and that they were just enjoying rattling my cage with the threat and it was really infuriating. In the end, one of the guys must have felt bad for me as I was on the verge of tears and he let me go with a warning. Anyway, lesson learned.

Despite the border problems, it was an amazing trip and I’m glad I impulsively went to Uganda!

October in Rwanda

I am back at Uwinka in Nyungwe for the last of my more prolonged field research. I spent the last few days deploying camera traps to my last field site (Yay!). Below are pictures of Emmanuel (my intern) and our awesome porter (Jean Paul). We deployed camera traps at the largest marsh in the forest. A really beautiful place that looks like a marsh filling a volcanic crater.

 Seven staff from the National University of Rwanda also came up to get trained by me in how to do a camera trapping survey. We spent about 10 hours hiking to different sites yesterday and deploying camera traps. 

 Most of the staff seemed to enjoy the experience, although 2-3 of them were clearly not prepared to do so much physical activity. I tried not to get irritated but they did slow us down. They sat at the back of the group chatting and walking slowly. Normally I wouldn’t care, but I really needed to get the traps deployed that day because they have to be up for 3 weeks before I take them down. And I have a flight to catch in early November already booked so every day from here on accounted for. Luckily all my worrying was for nothing and we got the cameras deployed.

The other three days I’ve been training my Masters student and intern in small mammal trapping. Below are some of the furry friends we captured.

We deployed 60 traps at three different sites, a cumulative 5km distance from camp (one way) that we have to check for animals twice daily. It was really exhausting but in the end I felt good about their training and felt comfortable leaving them to do the work on their own.  Luckily, the weather was quite nice while I was in the field. It rained every day, but only for an hour here or there. And the other nice part of being in the field was that the chimpanzees are back closer to camp now so we can hear them talking and making noise at night. There are also lots of blue monkeys nearby along the trails and I always enjoy seeing them.  The next trip to Nyungwe to retrieve my camera traps will be my last. I’ve been taking lots of extra pictures in the forest and around Rwanda since my time here is coming to an end. Here are a few of the families and children living just outside the park.

It is hard to imagine that I am leaving in 3 weeks. I feel like I still have a lot I’d like to do. Mostly, I’m stressed because I know that after I leave it will be hard for me to do any work for the month of November because of the move so I feel pressured to tie up a lot of loose ends before the end of this month.  I was very surprised today when I was invited by RDB (the regulatory agency of the park) to attend a meeting on Nyungwe research and management initiatives next week. I have felt fairly disheartened with my research in Nyungwe for several reasons so it was a surprise that they thought to include me. 

I’ve been thinking of the things that I will miss from Rwanda when I leave. Here are a few of them:

1)   Fresh tropical fruit for breakfast every morning

2)   Eating meals in the tropical sun on our porch

3)   The beautiful lush greenness of Rwanda

4)   The vervet monkeys that come to campus (and the other animals of the forest)

5)   Swimming outside

6)   Daily trips to the local ice cream shop here in Butare

7)   Living in a house with someone to cook, clean and do the shopping for me

8)   Walking in the forest

9)   The friends I have made here in Rwanda

10)The isolation away from the US media and the Presidential campaign which I have been able to completely avoid!

Another 15,000 miles

Just back to Butare today after a 10 day trip to South Carolina. Not a lot has changed here since I left except that it has been raining ever since I landed last night. I guess the rainy season has really settled in. I finally read all three of my bachelor student's theses on the plane yesterday. It is a relief to have that done. I gave up on trying to get them not to plagiarize. I know that must sound horrible, but I can't tell you how many times we have gone through what plagiarism is and how to avoid it, replete with threats (by me) of expulsion and apologies (from them) and promises never to do it again. And I only had 3 student theses to supervise! Some professors have 10 or more. Anyway, all I can do is hope that the theses never see the light of day and get filed somewhere that no one can read them. Plagiarism here is too systematic for me to extirpate. Maybe I can just try and reduce it a bit.

South Carolina was a whirlwind. Working during the day and trying to meet with different people while I was in town and then house-hunting from 4pm on- every day of the week. It wasn't exactly relaxing. Although it was nice to have family come for a visit (Okan's dad and my mom). And I did get to enjoy the Waffle House on numerous occasions.  I think we're going to like Clemson but it will definitely take some getting used to. Clemson is super small and we probably tried at least half of the restaurants that they have just in our 10 day visit. Although of course anything/everything is a step up from Butare! We found a house in Seneca (just 5 minutes from Clemson) that we really liked and made the gigantic step to put a bid on it. I just found out from Okan that the bid was basically accepted (we offered $25K less than the asking price and they countered with only a $5K increase). We had such a difficult time deciding on a house. Okan and I are both super indecisive and as first time home buyers we felt very unsure of ourselves. But we finally decided that while it's bigger than we wanted, it was very competitively priced and had almost everything we wanted in a house. We're both so excited about the house! We feel like such grown ups! We hope the deal goes through and that we'll get lots of visitors.

I miss Okan a lot. It's so lonely here without him. Rwanda is definitely less fun without him. I went to the ice cream shop today and had an omelet, which made me sad, because we always split omelets! All the ice cream shop people asked where he was and I had to tell them he was in America.

While I was in South Carolina, Okan and I went round and round about whether I should take this trip to New Zealand in December. I had been planning for this conference since my paper was accepted back in April (well before the job offer). I had planned on using my frequent flyer miles for the flight and was excited to see another country. Okan was also planning on coming. But after starting at work last week, I started to seriously doubt whether the trip was feasible. Everything looked too stressful: go back to Rwanda, finish field work, return to NYC, move, and then go to New Zealand all in the span of 2 months. I even told my new boss (who knew about this conference when he hired me) that I was hesitant to go because I didn't want it to seem like I wasn't committed to this new job, etc. More than a little part of me was hoping he would agree and veto the trip. Then I could take it off my plate and feel a little more relaxed about this fall/winter. Much to my surprise, he took the exact opposite tact and encouraged me to go as professional development! So it looks like I'm going for sure now. Of course it will be a good opportunity to go and present my work and network at the conference but now I can't help but wonder what I've gotten myself into. Yet again. It's something I need to work on. Everyone who knows me recognizes that I have too much on my plate. I know that it's true. But I feel like every year that goes by I let myself get into these impossible predicaments with too much work, too many commitments, and I am increasingly spread thin. I guess maybe that will be my New Year's resolution: to be more proactive of protecting my time and stop over committing myself. So if you have invited Okan or I to come visit in the next few months, don't take it personally if I don't come!

Field Work in Nyungwe

I’m sitting at the Uwinka field station right now with a wet squirrel in a pillow case sitting on my lap. We trapped him this afternoon after a rain storm and he got so cold that he wouldn’t leave when we let him go.

He just curled into a ball and started whimpering. So he sits in my lap now, warming himself against the body heat of my lap. Hopefully he’ll warm up enough so that I don’t have to keep him overnight.

I’ve had other overnight guests this week and I’m not sure if I’m prepared for another one.  Starting last week, I began trapping three small jackal pups. Initially, I thought it was just a single errand pup that had wandered into my trap.

Then the next day a new pup- same size as the last (~2kg). The next day I had two pups in different traps. The following day a third pup.

The day after and the day after, the same three pups were trapped. Jackals are social animals- they are usually reared by at least a mother and a father, along with last year’s litter who are “helpers”. All of the older animals forage for pups for about the first 6-9 months of their lives. They provision them by regurgitating prey they have captured and then teach them to hunt. Having three pups in my traps, all from the same litter, day after day meant trouble. I suspected they were orphans and that their parents were victims of the poaching epidemic at Nyungwe. The pups still had their baby teeth and the fact that these extremely smart animals were coming into my trap every day likely meant they were starving. I caught the smallest of the trio a third time (I had affectionately named them Huey, Luis and Dewey- Dewey was only 1.7kg) and decided to take him back to camp.

We brought him back and started to build an outside enclosure for him. I contacted the Rwandan permitting officials who ok’d my plan to keep the orphans until their adult teeth came in, even offering to split the costs and labor of keeping the pups. However it quickly became clear that I was on my own. Dewey stayed in the field house with me for two nights and he ate (and pooped) like a champ. Downing bowl after bowl of whole milk and sardines. But he was petrified anytime I approached.

I worried that taking in the puppy would mean it would never be able to return to the wild because he would not learn valuable foraging skills from his species. I wrote three prominent carnivore biologists asking for their advice and got a mixed bag of responses and no consensus. Since there was some question as to whether Dewey was actually an orphan or just a “trap happy” mischievous pup, I decided to release him. The decision was also based on the sad reality that I knew I couldn’t rely upon any Rwandan park officials to help me raise the pup for a few months and knowing I wouldn’t be here in Nyungwe long enough to see that it was done properly. Rwandans don’t really like animals- and they definitely don’t like jackals. I worried for Dewey’s safety after I left Nyungwe. Was it possible (even likely) that locals from nearby towns would come for him after I left? I suspected yes. So with a heavy conscience and a lot of uncertainty, I released Dewey back at his original trap site two days later.

Some of the carnivore specialists who suggested the pups were just “trap happy” (i.e. attracted to the traps by the yummy bait) instructed me to move the two traps where I repeatedly trapped the pups. I moved them and returned the next day wondering if the pups would move to adjacent traps. So far, no more pups. I deployed a camera trap baited with a mound of sardines at the side where I last trapped the pups. I hope I can get some data showing that I was wrong and that the puppies do have parents- just perhaps parents not keeping a very watchful eye on their litter! I will keep you posted with the results!

Okan is fairly miserable. Not only is he immobile and fairly helpless (he can’t even carry a cup of tea by himself), but also I’ve been in the field for the better part of the last two weeks. While there is someone at the house who can always cook for him and help him out (between roommates and the cook), I decided to cut my trapping schedule and will return to Butare on Monday. For one, I am miserable without Okan, and my field intern is a pathetic replacement for Super Okan! And second, we hope to travel to Lake Kivu one last time before we return to the States on Sept 23^rd. I know both of us feel like we deserve a vacation! Okan has been working very hard for Kaplan at home, and his patience with me being away has been heroic.

Update the next day: well, I put the wet squirrel in a basket near our campfire last night. My intern was up around 2am and said he was still alive, but by the time we got to breakfast at 5am, the fire was out, and our squirrely buddy was a goner. Presumably hypothermia.  I was very sad. You can imagine my surprise when walking along the trail this morning to find a teeny tiny baby squirrel (of the same species) chirping along the trail’s edge. He was cold and alone.

 We had a big rainstorm yesterday and I imagine he might have fallen out of the nest? I picked him up (he is about the size of half of my hand) and warmed him up a bit. Then I left him where I found him and went along with my day’s work. Three hours later I returned to find him- he had fallen off the trail and was crying. I called Okan and asked him to do some internet searches on baby squirrels: how do you know if it’s an orphan? How long do parent’s leave their offspring? Okan reported back that it was no longer than 2 hrs (according to the internet! For what that is worth) and that you could hand rear them with milk and some electrolytes. I returned a few hours later to find he was still where I left him. I gathered him and put him in the front shirt pocket for the walk home. By the time I got back, he had started moving around again (he was very cold when I found him) and started crying.

I warmed some milk with a teeny bit of sugar and salt and got my pipette out and he quite eagerly lapped up the warm milk. I filled a ziplock with warm water and placed him on it. What have I got myself into!?!? I’ve named him Harvey. I think Okan is pretty excited about our new friend too. I’m hoping our roommate might be bribed into baby-sitting when I return to the States later this month. In the meantime, he’s in a basket on his water bottle and with a towel over him. He cries for milk every 3 or so hours but otherwise sleeps. I wonder what would happen if I tried to bring my scrappy little buddy in my pocket on the plane home? Would his crying give me away? (just kidding folks).  I’ll post pictures of all my wayward animal friends as soon as I have a decent internet connection next week. Pictures up soon!

July in Rwanda

It's been a long time since my last blog, and we've been really busy in the meantime. Our friends, Joy and Margaret, from NYC, came to visit us at the beginning of the month and we spent 11 days traveling all over the entire country with them. It was really fun and a welcome reprieve from field work. We went on safari in the east of Rwanda. Photos of the safari can be found here: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.2317497262020.141630.1387146989&l=a00acfa692&type=1

We also visited Lake Kivu and Nyungwe. Will post those pictures and details soon. More soon...