By Emma Rosenfield (Colby College)
What a week! In preparation for our great journey into the bush, we practiced birding on a sunset cruise, met with various organizations to learn about fieldwork, and cut a few inches off of Hailey’s hair. With everything packed onto/into the three vehicles, we headed out on Wednesday for Santawani. We drove from pavement to dirt roads to tracks amidst towering grasses. After living in camp with monkeys and fussing over baby donkeys, you can imagine how excited we were to see some big wildlife. At lunch we made guesses at what big animal we would see first. Jackie guessed elephant, Sixteen and Maya thought zebra, Bekah said impala, and Genifer added kudu. No one was right! I’ll give you a hint: it’s super tall. Woohoo a giraffe!
When we finally made it to camp in the late afternoon, we added elephants, buffalo, and impala to our list. Exhausted by our excitement, we rallied to set up our new homes, clueless about what was going to happen… LION!! No wonder we saw impala running off in one direction. We quickly hopped back into the cars and headed the other way. Of course, Sixteen was the first to spot her. We followed her around until the sun started to set. I felt like I could have spent the rest of my life watching this beautiful creature, but hunger won over the group, and we went back to camp.
With a couple of days in the bush under our belt, we are starting to get the hang of things, including getting comfortable enough to pee in buckets in our tents during the night! It’s amazing how being in the bush brings us together!
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