From Bob Ferris
Then as now the Sarengeti Park has a problem with poachers coming into the park and disrupting the migratory patterns of the gnus and other animals.(Sidebar-if you go to the national Geographic web site and look back a couple of months you will see an article about the Sarengeti's problems with poachers today. The article is about the same area I was sent to.) The idea was to have me to locate possible sites for charcos(small dams) outside the eastern boundry of the park so the poachers would be less likely to go into the park.
The trip into the Park was miserable. Once we got off the Musoma road we got stuck over and over in that black mud that's everywhere. We arrived late in the day and checked in with manager of the park who insisted we camp out near by because it was to dangerous to continue that night. He also insisted that we have an armed guard with us at all times as the poachers were very dangerous. After a great dinner at the managers home( lots of scotch, a great red wine and freshly killed Eland) we went to set up camp. The camp site was bacically an open grassy area in the middle of no where. The survery guys were very nervous and ask the local game scout if was safe. The scout said they had never had anyone mauled in a tent and advised to not go out to even go to the bathroom. The lions, hyenas, etc found us about midnight and sat around our camp site roaring at the top of their lungs and thrashing around all night. It seemed as if they were right out our tents. We spent a very sleepless night scared out of pants and calling out to each other to see if the lions got anybody. At daybreak we were out of there fast. I spent the next 2 weeks walking around the Sarengeti looking for dam sites with my armed guard. We were never bothered by poachers or anumals which was good thing as I learned later that my guard could not shoot straight and had only three bullets which he never loaded into his rifle.
My other adventue was on a vacation trip to Murchison Falls, Uganda. I think it was with Nancy N., Nancy C., and DicK M. We took the boat across the lake and rented a VW for the trip to the Falls. For those of you who went there you will remember that there is sign at the entrance of the Park that says "Elephants have the right away". We all laughed and took a picture of it. If we only knew up lie ahead. About half way in we had a flat tire in the middle of no where. We had to unload all our stuff to get to the tire and I was elected to change it. Just as I was removing the flat everyone started screaming hysterically, Elelephants, elephants. And sure enough, several of them were lumbering down the rode toward us. Needless to say it was very hard to put the lug nuts back on with everyone screaming and with shaking hands. We just threw everything into the car and bolted with only two lug nuts on the wheel. Then Dick stalls the car as we were trying to make a get away. Fortunately the elephants stopped just short of the car, just trumpeting and flapping their ears, and we avoided becoming mincemeat.
From Norrie Robbins (again):
There is no doubt about this--big animals are part of field work in Tanzania. This story takes place outside the town of Kondoa in central Tanzania.
My field crew and I were out collecting stream sediment samples, looking for evidence of mineralization. This translates into looking for minerals that could be mined. We were walking along a dry, narrow stream bed that had steep banks. On this trip, a young field assistant was with us, being trained by the older field assistants. He decided on his own, I guess, that his job would be to keep tsetse flies off of me. He used a canvas sample bag to do this, so whatever speed I walked, so did he, swatting away. I’m a slow walker, so most of my field crew was way ahead of us. We heard a big noise where they were, and someone yelled out “faro.” I didn’t have a clue what a faro was, but he grabbed my hand and pulled me up the bank. Then a rhino came running through where we had been standing. So that’s how I learned that “faro” was the word for “rhinoceros.”
I went through my notes and my letters home to see if I could find the name of the young field assistant. Nope. But it was fascinating to read about how I stretched the truth of this and other stories so as to not freak out my mother!
From Norrie Robbins (last one, I promise):
This story takes place, yet again, in the field around Kondoa. This was my very very first day in the field in Tanzania. We left Dodoma in three trucks. I was in the second truck. Just before we reached our field location, I saw two elephants cross in front of the first truck. I said: kuna tembo (elephants). Alfred Ndau, my crew chief, said: hapana mama, hayuko (no there aren’t).
About two minutes later we pulled over to park the vehicles for the day. After unloading equipment we went into the field, collecting samples along a dry river bed.
At one point, we were walking in a wide field, where the vegetation was sparse and relatively low. Issa our tracker said: tembo wanapiga, kelele chini (elephants, crouch down). We had walked into an entire herd of elephants. From my lowly vantage point, I watched him set fire to a bush. Of course, the bushes were too far apart for one to even light another. He was just trying to chase the elephants off, I guess. That didn’t work, so we crawled out on hands and knees.When we got back to the trucks, he started yelling at me: Kwa nini umevaa blauzi nyeupe? Tembo anaweza kuona rangi nyeupe. (Why are you wearing a white blouse? Elephants can see white.) Hey, I was taught to wear white in the field. I went to Ohio State field camp in the central Utah desert. There Dr. Ed Spieker taught us desert survival skills—you wear white and other light colors to keep from burning up in the sun. But there are no elephants in Utah. So, there were new skills I had yet to learn
From John Daley
Perhaps a word or two for one of the smallest animals we encountered. As those of you who visited University College Dar may remember, we had a rather luxurious new flat on the fourth floor of a brand new apartment building. The door opened to an open breezeway, with the kitchen to the left. Straight ahead was our common room -- our living room, with louvered windows. Then a closed door led to a corridor, off of which were the three bedrooms -- one for Bwana Bog (Frank Bogdasavich from Saskatchewan), one for Graham Child (from London), and one for me.
To say that we had no sense of decor is an understatement. Fortunately the place was furnished, because for months we added nothing. The last one to bed was to turn out the lights in the common room, but -- as often as not -- the first one up in the morning, opening the door from the bedroom corridor to the common room, would find the lights shining brightly from the night before. For the first few months after we had arrived in Dar, it had been so hot and humid that already mildew covered much of our stuff, and there was absolutely no question of shutting the louvers at night.
And then the first rainy season (well forecast in advance) came along.
Off to bed in our usual "what, me worry?" style, closing the connecting door to the bedroom area. Next morning I was first up, and staggered through that door toward the kitchen for cereal and coffee. At least that was the plan.
I opened the door and came to a full stop, coming awake instantly. While we slept, clearly someone had installed wall to wall carpeting in the flat -- light brown in color. The second shock was that the carpeting was moving. My huffing and puffing woke the other two, and they came out to see what the hue and cry were all about.
Turned out that the rains had brought to life the flying ants, and attracted by the light in the common room, they had flown in through the wide open windows. Like kamikaze pilots, they took on the ceiling light. Their wings burned off, and the wings fell to the floor and stayed where they landed. The bodies of the still living ants fell to the floor, and moved in various directions to cover the floor. Not an empty spot on the floor remained.
The word "gross" comes to mind, as we went for broom, dustpan, and trashcan for the hundreds of wild animals we had bagged on our first African safari.
From Mike Colegrove: “Nyoka, Nyoka Bwana!!”
Snakes (nyoka) were part of our living and working environment. From those two years I remember four incidents where snakes were ‘up close and personal’.
1. Sometime during the school year I was at home grading a series of examinations. I never graded papers in my office…just as a mild security precaution. Athumani, our cook/house boy was working somewhere outside the house. Suddenly there was a loud scream “NYOKA!”. Athumani came roaring into the house…”Nyoka Bwana, Nyoka nkubwa sana” [“Snake sir, a very big snake.”] “Where is the snake Athumani?” “In the garage sir. Come quick and kill it!” “No Athumani I don’t want to kill the snake. Just leave me alone so I can get this work done.”
He left the house; I could hear him yelling outside. Soon there was a mob of all the other domestic staff from the neighboring houses. It was such a racket that I finally got up to see what the ruckus was and to tell them to be quiet. At the side of the house there were 10-15 Africans standing outside the garage entrance. Walking in front of them and looking in, I couldn’t see anything until Athumani pointed to the dark wood pile along the back wall. Lying there were the slowly moving coils of a gigantic cobra wrapped around the large blocks of wood. Turning to the group, I told them all to leave, advising them to let the snake come out on its own. I returned to the house to continue my grading.
Mintues later, I heard a loud ‘thunk’ on the driveway. A few seconds more, another ‘thunk’…some African voices …then again, ‘thunk’. Getting up to see what was going on, i saw that the men had finally gotten their courage up. They began to slip into the garage, grab the pieces of firewood and throw them out of the garage onto the driveway. They reasoned that if they got enough wood out of there, the cobra would not want to ‘hide’ there and would leave. I refused to help - I think they looked upon me as some sort of coward. Not so. I just didn’t want any part of it, plus I needed to get those exams graded.
After a while a great noise came from them. I refused to go out again. The yelling got louder and louder followed by an incredible racket. Finally I got up to tell them to be quiet…again. Coming outside I saw a circle of men holding sticks, pangas (machetes), stones, or blocks of wood. Pushing up to the circle, I saw on the driveway a completely mashed cobra, once well over six feet long when alive, now flattened out to about two feet wide, seventeen feet long and ¼” thick!! Revolting, but understandable in the eyes of the Africans, for whom snakes were not beautiful and noble creatures. They were potential killers of chickens, small animals, and all-too-often children and adults.
2. One day after work I walked up to Anne Jaques’ house [Lake Duluti Estate] for a cup of tea. Anne was working in her extensive rock garden. As I walked into the driveway, Susie, one of their dogs, came loping up to greet me. I wound down the slope in front of the house talking to Anne. Susie, being all dog, then bounded around the garden chasing some scent. Suddenly, a huge cobra stood 3 feet up in front Anne and me. Susie went right for the cobra - just as it reared back and spit a stream of venom. Got her right in the eyes. Susie just crashed to the ground and thrashed around, whining and howling pitifully. The cobra made a quick exit stage-left. We grabbed up Susie, rushed her to the house and irrigated her eyes with condensed milk. She was blind folded for several days. Susie survived, but was always a little more cautious about bounding into the bush around the house...me too.
3. As part of my teaching exercises, I had the students survey a series of paddocks around the research station. Some of these areas were fenced pastures, some were in crops, and some were semi-bush covered. The students always hated working in the bush areas, even though it was necessary to practice for what would be ‘real’ situations later on in their careers. One day we were setting out flags on poles to define the area I wanted the students to measure Wearing my field clothes (bush hat, light shirt, shorts, safari boots) I walked into a field, situated up against a forest block, and stabbed a pole into the grass. A huge black cobra reared up next to me no more than a foot away.
This snake looked right at me, swaying back and forth, paralyzing me with fear. I knew not to move but stifling the urge to scream, or slap at it, or turn and run took breath halting will power. Shortly, the snake lost interest, dropped to the ground and slithered off through the tall grass. After that incident I never went into the bush without a long bamboo stick which I used to poke around in front of me noisily so any critters could get out of the way.
4. Alan Smith had some potato research plots on the Tengeru station. Interested in looking together at his variety trial, we drove his open windowed Land Rover to his field parking under a tree across the road. After looking at the plots we walked back to the car and jumped in, to be welcomed by a thin green snake materializing in front of Alan's face from behind the sun visor. BOOMSLANG! We were out of that Land Rover in world-record time. Another lesson learned…ALWAYS close the car windows when you leave it unattended.