Working in the Bush

Jambo everyone,

I know I haven't been in contact for a while so I am here to inform you on the lots of awesome things that I have done here in Kenya over the last few days. The AV's which are a group of volunteers that are camping in the bush, invited me to stay with them for a few days and to help them with their work. I was thrilled that I could do this because I can only spend so much time at the Research Center. So I packed my sleeping bag and day pack and headed to their campsite. I had my own little visitors tent and there was a kitchen tent where everyone socializes. The campsite was really cool because of its remoteness in the wild. That afternoon when we arrived at the camp, we worked on the game hide, which is a pit with wall so you can view the wildlife at night from ground level, and then relaxed and played cards for the rest of the night. Although, these games were fun, sleeping wasn't. I slept horribly due to the fact that I am not used to all the animal noises. I heard a leopard pass my tent (but I didn't see it), a group of hyenas came into the campsite at 1am and in the morning I could hear buffalo running around only a few feet outside the camp. Even though I slept horribly, this was a great night. That morning we split into two groups. One group would work on the game hide for the first half of the day and then the other group would work on giraffe monitoring, which involves tracking down the animal and identifying it. Then the groups switch jobs half way through the day. Both of these tasks were amazing experiences and there are more stories I'll tell about them when I arrive home. We did this same routine for the next 3 days and then they returned me to the Research Center in the morning. At the Research Center another volunteer named Kerry arrived so she will be staying here as well. So my meals wont be too lonely anymore. Camping and working in the bush was amazing and I hope to do more work like it when I am here.