Charter Plane

This is a picture of the charter plane the TBI uses to bring students, visitors, etc over to the campus. We had to fly in two shifts because of all the luggage from Mpala Ranch to the Turkana Basin Institute. The pilot is a petite woman named Miriam, very experienced in flying. The flight over was very smooth.

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Turkana Basin Institute

Hello Family and Friends,

This is more of a pictorial email of the “campus” of TBI. The dorms are very exposed, doors and windows are left open because of the high temperatures, there have been some good winds but if there is no wind it can get very hot. Beds are outside with mosquito net coverings.

One should not walk around in their underwear since there are no curtains. When I shower, which may be two or three times a day, I make sure all the clothes I need are with me.

There is a lot of sand around here and acacia trees and small bushes that have thorns, so walking barefoot is not recommended.

Meals are served three times a day, and the food is quite good, we usually get a fresh salad at each meal. There is free laundry service here.

Every day has been a bit different, but when we go out of the compound we have to climb up into a large passenger truck and the ride to wherever we are going is sure to be bumpy. A picture of that will come later in the next e-mail.

Merrianne

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Turkana Basin Institute

I will go back and forth from sending out a mass e-mail to individual emails. We settled into our rooms at TBI, they were not quite what I expected but they are sufficient. I did not comprehend that we would be here for 8 days, only 5 of those are working days, thankfully.

We went out to the site today to get a preview of where and what we will be doing. It is very warm here, you would have liked it here. The room is sparse and the windows and doors are left open to let the breeze through. I just spotted a squirrel like animal outside my room.

Most of the food is grown on the premises and they have their own workshop where tables, chairs, and other things are built. The food is simple but satisfying. Spaghetti was served for lunch with a choice of lentils and a meat sauce along with a salad and watermelon. Dinner was roast chicken, baked potato strips and salad. I was advised that there are scorpions and snakes around here but I have not seen any yet. The mosquitos bite in the morning and late afternoon, but they are not terribly itchy and go away fairly quickly.

Below is a picture of my sleeping accommodation.
P.s. The adapter I purchased from the flea market works great!

Love,
Merrianne

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Mpala Ranch Research Center

Hello Family and Friends,

Below is a tooth pick tree. No, actually it is a thorn tree, with very sharp toothpick-like thorns. Our open window bus passed very close to these trees on our way to a hiking site breaking off some of the branches and thorns into the bus and it would be extremely painful if one sat on it the wrong way.

The place we stayed at was amazing, zebras, giraffes, impalas and dik diks were sighted frequently. Since I lost my camera on the flight coming over, (actually my iPhone) I have only been able to take limited photos. But several other people have telephoto cameras so I can get excellent animal pictures from them after the trip. The third picture is an example of why I shouldn’t bother taking pictures with my iPad or the android phone that was lent to me. Can you spot the zebras?

In the second picture can you spot the elephant…dung? We know they were in this area and this is the best I could do with my iPad. Elephants and giraffes can eat the thorny tree and the thorns will pass right through their system with no harm to the animal. However, if you step on the elephant dung the thorns that were eliminated are still sharp enough to go through one’s shoe, it is better to walk around the dry dung.

For those of you that I promised a post card to, I may not be able to keep that promise, I have not seen any postcards for sale at the few shops that we stopped at, let alone being able to get to post office to mail it.

We are now at the Turkana Basin Institute, founded by Richard Leakey. It is in Turkwel, northern Kenya. We are close to the Ethiopian border. The weather is much warmer here, 86 degrees F and we are in the middle of nowhere. The landscape is very dry here, very little vegetation but lots of thorny acacia trees.

The Internet is very slow here so emails may be more sporadic, we will start the “working part” of our trip in a day or so do excavating from 8:30 in the morning until 4 or 5 in the afternoon.

Merrianne

At The Equator

Hello everyone,
I am trying to carefully choose pictures that will be interesting and unique to Kenya. Today we packed up our things from the Wildebeest Eco Camp and had a long ride in a safari vehicle to our next destination, the Mpala research center which is a ranch on 50 thousand acres.
On the way there I was sitting right behind the driver, who was on the right side. The driving system here is like Britain, and all the signs are in English here since Kenya was a British colony for over a hundred years until 1963. Professor Nengo was in our vehicle and I asked him questions about the people, the economy, education, elderly care, employment, and other subjects.
Driving along the highway was most fascinating to me, there were people walking on the side of the road almost the whole way to our destination. We passed several stalls where goods were sold, the stalls were rather makeshift, I tried to take pictures of them. Because the highway was only two lanes, drivers were constantly going into the lane of oncoming traffic to pass slow vehicles. Our driver had to do this several times, one time it seemed pretty close to a head on collision with another car.
We made a brief stop at the equator, which is shown in one of the pictures. We were given a very entertaining demonstration on the direction of the water going down a funnel on either side of the equator.
On our way into the Mpala Ranch Research center we saw zebra, elephants, giraffe-necked deer, impalas, and giraffes. While we were getting settled into our rooms I came out and a giraffe was standing out in the field very close to the buildings. Amazing! It was a reticulated giraffe, the pattern is very clean and precise. We will be here two nights.
Merrianne

Baby Elephant Orphanage

I tried sending text with a picture yesterday and it would not send so I am trying again, I have to do emails really early in the morning or very late at night. I was feeling very tired after lunch and wasn’t sure if I would make it to the evening event but after taking a cool shower I revived and attended a rotary meeting with the rest of the group. Lots of observations about the people that I will share later. Tourists do not walk around the streets where we are staying at the Wildebeest Eco Inn.  More later, have to eat breakfast.
Love,
Merrianne

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Giraffe Center

It was a very long flight, two layovers, first leg was 3 1/2 hours, second leg 9 1/2 hours, third leg 8 hours. Unfortunately my phone was lost on the last leg, I gave information to the airport in case the phone was turned in.

Did not sleep well the first night here, it turned out to be colder than I expected, during the night it was 50 degrees. I had to layer up on my clothes. I did not have time to take care of the Citibank account, I could not quite remember my user name, can you see if you can log in and pay the amount?

Today we visited a Giraffe center and an Elephant orphanage. I still have my iPad so I can send email and pictures through this device.

The food has been okay, nothing really interesting yet.

Love,
Merrianne

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