Mzuri Sana

In Swahili when someone says "Habari?" they are asking "How are you?" The response, "Mzuri Sana" means "Really good". And these days...that's pretty accurate!

We've finished our first week of training and I passed my tests with flying colors!! I can now identify 6 species of dolphins, 3 species of monkeys, 2 sea turtles and a host of other animals in the wild! We've already seen about 20 Bottlenose Dolphins when crossing the channel from Wasini Island to Shimoni Village. Earlier that week some of the others saw 300 at one go! I've been snorkelling in the Kisitie-Mpunguti National Marine Park - and while we haven't yet seen Sea Turtles, we have seen loads of tropical fish, a moray eel, flying fish and a few African Sea Eagles!

I'm getting used to living on a tropical equatorial island...all of our showers and washing is done with salt water from the ocean that we haul up in buckets every day. It really makes you awayre of how much water we use! Getting to shower outside under the stars is a pretty cool experience...and you get used to sharing your space with millipedes, slugs and all sorts of other creepy crawlies pretty quickly...though I

haven't yet found any in my bed...that would probably change my feelings about them... Not having much electricity (we use solar panels or a generator for a few hours of the day to use the computers for scientific data entry) has changed the social activities significantly. We actually have had some great nights playing games like Celebrity or telling stories or singing as we look out over the island sunsets. This picture is a view from our "lounge" area on base out onto the ocean.

In the forest portion we've already seen troops of Colobus monkeys, sykes monkeys and vervet monkeys..as well as a couple of impressive yellow baboons. We spend a lot of time studying the behavior of the Colobus...but I'm starting to feel like they spend just as much time studying us. I hope to have some better pictures of them to share with you soon..my wildlife photography skills are only just beginning. This picture is taken using both the zoom on my camera and my binoculars!

In the village of Mkwiro, where we live, the community isn't exposed to tourism, so we mzungu's (foreigners) are pretty novel. The kids come up to us yelling Jambo! and are ready to grab our hands and ask us our names and basically giggle at everything we do. We had a short reading session with some of the boys from the orphanage and I was so impressed with how eager to learn these guys were. I'm really looking forward to working in the classrooms. As it is a Muslim community we have to wear head scarves when we leave the base, but that doesn't take a whole lot of getting used to either. And, as you can see at the top of this page, some of the Kangas (sarongs) the ladies make are pretty cool.

Last night was our first night off in over a week and we went to the nearby tourist beach town of Diani where we were able to get in some fun and relaxation. Reggae is pretty popular here in the coast so I've been treated to the sounds of Bob Marley pretty often. Lots of dancing and fun and sleeping in all the way till 9am!! (most days we are up by 6 cooking for each other and preparing the gear and in the field by 7:30...very different from my After School hours!!)

Lastly, if anyone wants to write to me, there has been a change in my address, please send mail to: Sara Mayer c/o GVI PO Box 10 Shimoni 80409 Kenya

I hope you are all happy and well back home - don't forget to vote this election! (Kenyan's here are pretty interested as you can imagine) I'll leave you with this picture of a Baobob tree...the Colobus Monkeys love to climb them, and our friend will help to give it some scale for you. Remember, I always love hearing from you!!