On my way out

Goodbye Africa.



This time tomorrow I'll be on my way to London. Not sure what I'll do there quite yet, but I'm guessing that'll figure itself out.

So it's been 2.5 months since I first arrived in Africa, and spending the past day on my own in Windhoek has really helped the whole experience sink in. When I first got here I honestly had no idea what to expect, both from the country and from CCF. I felt like I'd done plenty of work since moving to DC two years ago, so I was fine with almost any outcome. Even if it was just an African vacation I'd have been fine with it.

As it turned out that was far from the case. I worked 6 or 7 days each week, usually for 10+ hours. I helped run an international course in predator/livestock management, organized a lot of the research done on the farm, and met a bunch of great people. It was definitely worth it.

Now I need to get back to business as usual. School starts on the 31st. The grad student government has been waiting on me to start allocating funding for student groups. Discussion sections will be meeting soon, too.

I'll try to post at least once from London, and I'll also start the photo-posting process soon. Expect a post sometime next week with a photo link dump.

One more week...

Somehow the summer has managed to fly by already. Next Sunday I'll be on my way to Windhoek again, then off to London for a few days and finally back to DC. I've been working 6-7 days every week so I guess it just hasn't sunk in yet. It's been an action-packed couple of months (not that you could by my infrequent updates) but I'm feeling alright that it's coming to a close. I haven't been homesick yet, but I do feel ready to get back to my normal routine. I'm ready for classes and teaching, and to get back into my various other activities. It'll also be really nice to make phone calls and use the Internet on a regular basis!

I've been tracking rhinos for 12 days straight now. They've finally started to settle down so we've set up some camera traps along the roads they use. That should provide some good evidence of their physical condition...unless they decide to break the cameras. The transmitter on one our females has gone very weak (we haven't been able to track her in 6 days) so I spent most of yesterday climbing the Waterberg Plateau to try and get a better signal. I couldn't find her, but I did climb a lot of rocks and got some nice pics. It's possible that next week I'll be going up in a small plane to track from the air. I'll keep you posted.

That's about all for now. I wish I had more time to edit these things, but if I did it'd take even longer to post than it does now. Hopefully the "stream of consciousness" approach I'm using now works just as well.