Weeks 4, 5, 6....

Hello!

The next three weeks passed even faster, and now at seven weeks in I’ve almost completely stopped writing things down in my little daily diary. I figured I would reach this point eventually, but at least I kept it up for a little while.

There’s not a lot of new information for weekly updates, so I’ll group things together and write about the highlights. This post is about things that happened in the last three weeks for me.

The first big thing was that the research assistant who I am replacing came back from vacation so she could train me briefly before leaving more permanently. The two weeks she was back were a whirlwind of details and new information about how to do things. Previously I was being trained by the Ph.D. student who the data was for, but who had not been to the project in a couple years and was a bit behind on how things are done now. But at this point I would say I’m pretty well caught up and ready to train the new volunteer that arrives early next week.

Two old ladies

Life in the lab has become a routine of different experiments, observations, and cleaning. Outside of the lab however, I have been getting a bit more adventurous. I finally went to my first ‘sundowners’ which involves sitting on a sand dune to watch the sunset, while drinking a beverage of choice. This occurs quite randomly, decided by whoever wants to go that particular day.

Not the healthiest pup...but I believe in him. 

I also had my first foray outside of the reserve, on a walk that went onto the neighbor's land. Most of the neighbors around the reserve allow us to venture onto their land, especially since a lot of meerkats live there and the meerkat volunteers have to follow the groups. This particular walk we went to a specific neighbor’s land to check on a camera trap. The other reason was that hopefully, if we were lucky, we would see the single male giraffe that lives there.

Now, this isn’t a wild giraffe. This neighbor and several others raise game animals and breed some wildlife for various reasons. This giraffe used to be one of three, but due to some unfortunate events there is now just one. We were not lucky enough to see the giraffe on this walk, but I’m told he tends to hang out with the cattle, and I plan on trying again in the future. I was lucky enough to see the single zebra that lives there however. The zebra hangs out with the horses, and we got pretty close to the horses but the zebra kept his distance.

Some of the other animals we saw included Red hartebeests, wildebeests, springbok, steenbok, and koi fish (don’t ask). It was an enjoyable trek and we didn’t see any deadly snakes either.

Giraffe hunting 

The most exciting day to day event is often what is for lunch. We are left to our own devices for feeding ourselves breakfast and lunch, which provides a creative outlet for many. The three hour midday break for mole-ratters and longer break for meerkatters is adequate time to make some nearly gourmet meals.

A very memorable meal I had recently was a pizza lunch, where at least ten people all pitched in various ingredients and we make three large pizzas that were amazingly tasty. I’ve also done and witnessed quite a bit of baking. I thought I would be eating so much healthier here...but not with all the cake available!

A grad student in the mole rat lab also left to go back to Cambridge. Whenever someone leaves (permanently or possibly permanently), they get a cake the evening before and a card signed by everyone here. There is also a morning goodbye tradition that I’ll keep a secret for now. This particular person was the first person to leave that I actually knew pretty well at the time of their leaving, so it was a sad day. After now having several goodbye cakes, I’m starting to get used to how things are constantly changing here. New people come, other people leave.

Most volunteers are here at least six months or a year, so it is possible to make very strong friendships, but change is a part of life here.

On a different note, on April 19th I received news that a very special person had finally arrived in Edinburg, Texas. My second niece, Kori Faith, joined her new family in the outside world (outside of the womb anyway), and I hear that everyone is healthy and happy! It is hard at this distance to stay in communication, especially with a seven hour time difference. But I was ready and checking my email every hour from the 17th to the 20th for updates.