Is it March already?

The internet has been ridiculously slow lately, which hasn't inspired me to want to get online and post. Okan is working with the IT folks on campus now and he tried to explain why our internet connectivity has gone down hill recently, but I didn't exactly understand. Something about some person from Congo taking away NUR's bandwidth. So now the entire university is MAXED out on bandwidth and the internet feels glacial.

We went up to Nyungwe yesterday. I was told (or so I understood) that my permit had been approved and we went up to meet the Park warden for a 2:30 meeting. I thought I should utilize the trip to go ahead and deploy some of my camera traps.


Big mistake. So after about 4 hours of hiking and deploying of 5 camera traps we ran into some of the park guards hiking the same trail as we were on, just moments after we had finished our work. I explained that I was a scientist from NUR and that I had a permit to do the work. They told us that the camera traps were not safe and that despite the braided metal cord locking the cameras (with a padlock) to the tree, that they would be stolen. Which is not at all what the Wildlife Conservation Society researchers had told me (they deployed camera traps at Nyungwe with no problems). Having not done this before (camera trapping), I decided to take the traps down. They are too expensive to risk getting stolen even if several different people at Nyungwe had already told me it was safe to deploy them. So that was disappointing. They also told me there were no animals up in this area of the forest so we would never get pictures of animals. I decided to bite my tongue and not pull out the carnivore scat I had collected along the trail that morning.

Then once we hiked down to the bottom of the trail, the guards started acting weird. They wanted our names and phone numbers and wrote down the license plate of our car, like we were going to flee the park or something. We knew we were in trouble then. They insisted on accompanying us back to the park station house, even though I assured them I was going there for a 2:30pm appointment with the warden. While I hate to generalize, my experience so far has given me the impression that Rwandans are generally, suspicious of other people (both foreigners and each other). The guards were no exception and they insisted on cramming into our car to ride to the park station. We were greeted at the station by someone who told us we were not permitted to be in the park and boy were we in trouble! It turns out that even though my permit had been approved, since I had not yet met with the warden (our appointment was at 2:30 that afternoon), I was in a big pile of trouble for going out without permission. Yikes!! It also turned out that the park warden had earlier in the day canceled out meeting, which the person at the station let us know (he had emailed me that morning but we were already hiking by then). Insert heavy sigh here....... So I tried to turn on the dumb-blond charm as best I could and apologized to everyone for my mistake. Luckily it doesn't look like I have done any permanent damage and I have another meeting with the warden on Monday- I'm sure I will be doing more apologizing then.

I feel bad for breaking a rule. Although in my defense, another scientist had taken us out hiking before alone so I didn't realize it would be such a big deal. But it is also frustrating because I feel like time is a wastin' for my research and this whole permit application process (all of Feb) + formal meetings with all the important people, seems to go on forever.  I clearly need to learn to be more patient and readjust my expectations of what research I will be able to get done.  I am in daily contact with the WCS folks too, and they are really the science experts of the park. The Parks department is more like the police of the park. I also found out that researchers are not allowed in the park without a park person accompanying them!! I'm not looking forward to explaining to the park warden that my research requires daily trips into the forest for many consecutive months. I'm not sure how that will work out.  So back to Kitabi (the town at the edge of the park where I will start living full time in April) to meet the warden on Monday!