A bit about my science (May 27, 2011)

          Now that I’ve given you a small tidbit of a blog about my adventures in Africa, I am going to introduce you to a topic that interests me a lot but might cause some of you to skip to the next blog - - the details of my science (buahahaha).  Even if you are tempted to stop reading, I challenge you to press on.

            For those of you who don’t know what I’m studying here in Lake Naivasha, allow me to give you a brief introduction.  My project is part of an ‘ecosystem health’ project.  The exciting thing about ecosystem health is that it is research that believes that human health and environmental health are related.  A healthy environment means that the humans that depend on its meat, water and other resources will also be healthier.  On the other hand, healthy people are much more likely to care about and have the resources to protect their environment.  For this reason, ecosystem health projects study the link between human health and environmental health.  Now that I’ve got you on the edge of your seat, I’m going to tell you how my project falls under the umbrella of ecosystem health.

Metals and persistent organic pollutants (or POPs) are two harmful types of chemicals that often find their way into ecosystems that have been polluted by humans.  Persistent organic pollutants is a fancy way of describing a group chemicals that includes pesticides and some industrial chemicals that take a really long time to break down.  They stick around for a long time and they build up in places like lake sediment and animal tissue.  The concern with both POPs and metals is that if they end up in a lake, humans can be exposed.  Remember how I mentioned that environmental health influences human health?  So, in steps my project.  I will be looking at where the POPs and metals are located in Lake Naivasha and how their levels have been changing over time.

I have already predicted your next question: “Chelsea, how will you do this??”  Well, wonder no more.  I am going to collect sediment and fish from different areas across the entire lake.  These samples will be analyzed in a lab to determine the levels of POPs and metals, which will allow us to see if some areas of the lake have higher levels of contamination than others.  I am really curious to see if different types of land use around the lake, such as flower farms, cities, slums and wildlife conservations will actually differ much in the amount of contaminants that the release into the lake.  Stay tuned over the next year for more exciting details on that!

So, that gives you an idea how I will look at where in the lake POPs and metals are living, but I will also be looking at how these levels have changed over time.  To do this, we will be using the lake sediments.  Sediments are kind of like tree rings.  Each year, another layer is laid down and the sediment in that layer can tell you what was going on in the lake at that time.  If you take a core of sediment, you can slice it up into layers and figure out the age of each layer.  You can then look at the amount of contamination in each of those layers to determine how much pollution was loaded into the lake that year.  Neat stuff!

This site was so shallow that we had to get out of the boat and walk towards shore to collect our water sample!

So finally, I’m sure you’re wondering how this is all progressing?  Afterall, I’ve only been blogging about the boring stuff like hippos and slums to date.  Over the last two weeks, me and the 3 other students studying the lake have been out sampling water.  We have a piece of equipment that instantly measures a variety of water quality characteristics such as pH, dissolved oxygen, the amount of algae and more.  Our goal is to see if the water quality is different in different areas around the lake.  Because what’s going on in the water is related to what’s happening in the sediment, if we see differences in the water it will tell us where we should in interested in collecting our sediment and fish samples for the rest of this summer.

Last week was the week that Melissa very patiently taught Vincent and I how to use the YSI.

And voila, there you have the story of my research.  This coming week will be dedicated to practicing using the equipment I have to use and hopefully the week after I can begin the real work of collecting all the samples for my project.  I can’t wait to get my hands dirty!

A stroll through the backyard (May 22, 2011)

          Finally, after a week of watching the wildlife in my backyard pass me by at a distance, I went for my first walk today.  I'm not sure if I could have acted like any more of a tourist if I tried.  As we strolled down the hill into the enormous open green space behind our house, we were greeted by a heard of 30 impala.  Impala are like miniature deer, but much cuter.  What's interesting is that in a heard of 30 or so, there only seemed to be one male, surrounded by a family of female and young.  If being an impala spouse and father is anything like it is in the human species, that must be one very busy man!

A herd of impala

          Within 100 m of the herd of impala, we came across 5 giraffes sitting in the shade and grazing on acacia trees.  It is interesting to note that acacia trees are the most common type of tree around the lake and are heavily browsed by giraffes.  As development around the lake continues, giraffes (and other wildlife) find themselves forced into an increasingly small grazing space.  This also means that the trees in that grazing space are very heavily browsed.  But, the trees don't go down without a fight.  You can always tell the trees that are over browsed because they are the ones that are short and gnarly and they have developed 2 inch spikes all over their branches.  It's a rather interesting adaptation!

My roomie, Melissa, caught this great shot.  It would look even nicer if I could figure out how to rotate it!

           OK, back to the giraffes.  As we approached, the 3 of us girls did a 3 way camera exchange, each hoping that the other would be able to snap one or two good shots of them with a real, wild giraffe!  (Did I mention that I was a big, fat tourist?)  In the end, we got a few good ones.  The giraffes tried to avoid us by moving further into the field, but we followed them, cameras still clicking.  (I now know that I shouldn't be that really invasive type of tourist because it isn't healthy for this already stressed population of animals to be disrupted and stressed unnecessarily by humans.)  On the ensuing 30 minute walk to the yacht club, I never felt lonely in the field.  We past one heard after another of zebra, wildebeests, impala, waterbuck and an assortment of birds.  The highlight of the trip was seeing a baby zebra suckling!  Over the course of the last week and a half I have seen all sorts of interesting animal behaviour, including mating monkeys, jumping fish, grunting hippos, and suckling baby wildlife of various species, but I have to say, it never gets old!  Kenya is truly a very beautiful country.

A journey into Karagita, Naivasha’s largest slum (May 15, 2011)

Today was yet another first for me; the first time I have ever visited a slum.  In contrast to the lovely guarded property on which we are living, the largest slum on the lake, called Karagita, sits right across the road.  The reason for the occasion was the collection of 40 disposable cameras that had been distributed to members of the community the week before.  Participants were asked to take pictures of “the good, the bad and the ugly” in their community.  The goal is to use the pictures that result to inform a documentary about Lake Naivasha that will be made later this summer. 

So off we went, the 5 students, walking 25 minutes into Karagita to attend the meeting at the chief’s house.  The first thing that one notices on such a walk is that the children are either excited or terrified to see a ‘muzungu’.  Most of them are excited.  They run after you, all of them repeating: “How are you?”, “How are you!?”, “How are you, muzungu?”.  (When you reply, they usually smile sheepishly but aren’t quite sure what to say anymore.)  Some of the children even sneak a feel of your arm, just in case muzungu skin is in some way different than their own.  I’m not sure what they think about the touch of my skin, but I hope it reassures them that I am more similar to them than they might think.

The beginning of our walk down the dirt roads of Karagita 

      My second major observation of the day is the type of traffic that lines the bumpy dirt roads of Karagita.  There are 2 common types of vehicles.  The first type are the picapicas.  These are motorcycle taxis, which shuffle one or more customers from place to place.  The second type of vehicle is the donkey drawn cart.  I find these much more interesting.  The carts are pulled by between 1-3 donkeys and carry a driver and 1-3 large buckets of water.  I suspect that this is the water has recently been collected from the shore of the lake and it is brought back to Karagita where it is sold to the community, most of whom lack running water.

These men collecting water are not using the carts seen on the roads of Karagita.  They are collecting containers of water and securing them directly to their donkeys for the walk back to the settlement.

Along the same vein as water collection by donkey, I am reminded of a story recently told to me by our documentary expert.  While she was working in the community, she was giving out tasty treats to the children.  When her bag of treats was empty, she moved to throw out her Ziploc bag, only to find that the children were more excited to take her bag from her than they were about the treats.  They planned to use it to collect water.  This story makes me so reflective and grateful for the basic services that I take for granted at home.  I have NEVER had to ask myself where or how I would collect my water.  I have always taken for granted that I would simply walk to a tap and pour myself a nice cold glass of clean water.  I won’t ever take that for granted again.

Exploring the lake and the wildlife (May 14, 2011)

I have now settled into my summer home in Naivasha.  Actually, the my new summer home is beautiful!  I get to walk out my door every morning and see the biggest expanse of green space I’ve ever seen in my life.  What’s more, the green space is full of gorgeous exotic animals, like zebra, giraffe, water buck and more! 

Papyrus reeds are gorgeous!  They have long, thin stalks up to 5 m long, which support a head of spiky leaves at the top.  Not only are they eye catching, but they are also great natural water filters for water running into the lake.

The flip side of this beautiful exotic wildlife is all the new exotic BUGS!  Yesterday, we discovered a visitor in our house.  He was the largest, fuzziest spider I’ve ever seen.   I first advocated that we save him by catching him and putting him outside.  I then approached him, saw that his fangs could probably penetrate the plastic container I was holding and I promptly discarded my tree-hugging ways.  Megan squished him with a shoe and he literally exploded.  Barf.

In addition to adventures in my own yard, I also got to get out on the lake today with Irena.  It was so refreshing to actually get to see and touch all of the things that I’ve been reading about for 8 months.  I even found the infamous papyrus plants intriguing.  Check out the picture… these plants line a good portion of the shore line here and filter the incoming runoff.  They are much taller than I ever imagined!

Like the scary critters we’ve discovered in our house, the lake also has its own scary critters.  The one small difference is that the scary critters in the lake are 2000 lbs hippos, known to be the most dangerous animal in Africa.  I have also discovered that pods of these guys oh-so-conveniently inhabit the shorelines of half the places we want to take samples… Great.  AND… if guarding the my sampling sites wasn’t bad enough, we also have a hippo who enjoys feasting on the flowers in our garden.  We stumbled across our friend one day while returning home from dinner.  He was at least half the height of our house.  He looked up at us, tilted his head and then very slowly waddled his way deeper into the backyard.  It was quite an amazing site!

Hippos are beautiful, but not terribly conducive to science.  They seem to enjoy bathing in many of the sites we want to sample!

Cultural difference, power and privilege (May 12, 2011)

            I woke up this morning to find myself in my very first full day in Kenya.  Another student, Megan, and I are staying with Dr. O and her son in their townhouse in Nairobi.  Dr. A Obeen nothing but accommodating since I arrived.  For dinner last night we had rice, chicken and carrots – and the carrots had far more flavor than anything I’ve ever made.  I’ve decided that I’ve got a thing or two to learn from Kenya cooking!  After chatting for a while, largely about Dr. O’s career as a lawyer and passion for gender equality issues (fascinating!), we called it a night.

        When I woke up this morning, I was the last one out of bed.  Megan was dressed and on her way out the door for a meeting with a contact in one of Nairobi’s slums.  Her goal is find out learn what type of NGO presence is currently there and to find out about volunteer opportunities.  Her invite to go with her brought to what is sure to be my first of many debates about learning experience vs safety.  I would have absolutely loved to have tagged along.  I am sure that it would have been an experience unlike anything I have ever experienced, however, I recognize that I am still completely naïve about the risks and safety precautions in my new environment – and let’s be honest, I’m pretty naïve in general!  I could see Warren and my parents in my mind and I could hear my promise to choose safety over adventure if the two were ever in conflict.  I decided to stay behind.  Instead, I had my first shower in several days and talked to Dr. O until her friend arrived to pick her and her son up at 11am.  This brings me to the discovery of my first interesting cultural difference: perception of time.

            Kenyan’s don’t make a habit of wearing wrist watches.  From what I can tell, an appointment time is a rough guideline, to be achieved within plus or minus two hours.  Dr. O’s friend was scheduled to pick her up at 9am, but rolled in shortly after 11.  When she called to find out where he was, she promptly informed him that through his tardiness, he had proven himself to be truly African.  When she hung up, she explained to me that when someone in Africa “keeps time” for their appointments, people jokingly refer to them as “Muzungus” (white people), but when you don’t keep time, you must be African.  Based on this, I feel that I should have been born African and my lack of ability to keep time should fit in just nicely here.

This picture was taken in Naivasha Town, the formal settlement on the lake.  It's not my crummy photography skills that make it blurry - this is a very dusty place!  It's a good thing we're analyzing what's in the dust, huh?

            On a completely unrelated note, something that I have found even more interesting than perceptions of time is my hesitation to discuss power and privilege.  I have always felt somewhat uncomfortable and guilty for the privilege that I was born into.  When I do talk about privilege and power, it’s usually with people who were born into the same privileged situation as me, so we’re like two guilty people discussing a crime, but without judging one another because we both share the same guilt (a little melodramatic perhaps, but that’s pretty close to how I feel!).  I’ve noticed over the past two days, however, that I am no longer as comfortable talking about this subject.  Yesterday, I was asked in front of a group of Kenyans if I had started to see the signs of a developing country.  The honest answer would have been that I did see differences.  Things I have seen in Kenya that I don’t often see in my own back yard include burnt out street lights, guarded neighbourhoods, broken glass on top of the clay walls that surround peoples’ homes to protect from intruders, potholes that make some of the larger potholes in London seem modest and overcrowding of cars and parking lots.  But I don’t yet feel comfortable admitting to the world that I haven’t seen most of this in my own country.  I’m a bit embarrassed by my privilege.  So, when people ask me about the signs of a developing country, I avoid the question.  This has led to my new personal goal for this trip: figure out a way to deal with my privilege, without simply pretending that it doesn’t exist.

            On a brighter note, I have noticed that there other differences that I am perfectly comfortable discussing, including the fact people are so friendly!  They smile at and engage in meaningful conversation with strangers.  This is so very refreshing.  What I have seen of Nairobi is also much greener than any of the big cities in Canada.  The trees and greenery are gorgeous.  I am told by Vincent’s cousin that these are not actually real trees.  If I want to see real trees, I will have to come and visit their home, where I will see what real Kenyan trees look like.  Vincent’s home looks beautiful in the pictures and his family seems absolutely charming.  I can hardly wait to visit!

You don’t know what you’ve got, until it’s gone (May 10, 2011)

I have always wanted to keep a blog.  I’ve always wanted to, but never had time.  Hey wait a minute… It seems like say that an awful lot.  There are a huge number of things that I “want to do”, but I just don’t seem to “have time for”.  As I sit here on flight KL692 en route to Amsterdam, I find myself thinking that I do, in fact, have time to make the blog that I have always wanted to make, but “never had time”.  Actually, the more I think, the more I realize that I am my own biggest obstacle to “making time” for all of the things I want to do and I think that’s got to change.  It’s a matter-of-fact, this is going to be the official personal goal of my summer: work hard at work, be efficient with my time, but reserve enough time every week to do some of those things that I “want to do but never have time for”.  Keeping a blog seems like a great place to start:

Today was a bittersweet day.  Today begins my 4-month adventure in a new world.  Today marks the start of what is sure to be a huge amount of cultural and scientific learning, sure to both overwhelm and thrill me.  I love learning!  Today also marks the day that I am leaving behind my friends and family in London (again).  If being in France taught me anything, it’s that just because I’ve been in London for 22 years, doesn’t mean that it’s boring and that I need to look elsewhere for excitement in my life.  I am so, fantastically lucky to have the family and friends that I have – everyone.  Warren has never once (in 7 years!) been unsupportive of my dreams – any of them.  I can’t tell you how much I love you.  My mom loves me so much that she showed up at Robert Q to see me off right after she got out of surgery today.  My dad is always there to tell me how proud I make him, even when I’m crying and frustrated (which seems to happen more often than I’d care to admit).  My little brother is always a wonderful source of both deep, analytical conversation and wildly inappropriate (but hilarious) jokes.  He also calls me day in and day out, regardless of how many times I “don’t have time to call him back” – thank you Jeff.   My grandparents, all 5 of them, have always made me feel loved and supported.  I also have an amazing extended family, who have taught me that there as many different ways to be a family as there are families in the world.  All of my in-laws are hands-down the best I could ask for.  My friends are always there to make me laugh (perhaps over a competitive game of ‘You Don’t Say’ or pictionary) and to remind me that there always needs to be “enough time” in life to laugh a little.  So, while I am excited for the growth and learning that will come out of this summer, I’m also going to miss the friendship and support of everyone at home.  So, it’s with this bittersweet feeling that I’ve started my adventure.  Blessed to have the opportunity to become a better scientist and a more aware global citizen, but painfully aware of how much I will be leaving behind in Canada (I guess it’s true that nothing in life is free – everything is a tradeoff!).   With that, I dedicate my first blog entry to everyone who means the most to me.  Thank you for everything you give me.

I guess I’ll leave it there for today.  I can assure you that there are a million more things running through my head, but if I try to get them all down on paper tonight, I may scare you away from reading my future blogs.