Trav's Travels: Happy Mpala Halloween

10/27

I surprised the my roommates with pumpkins when I returned back from the camping trip. As they aren't American (Stef is Swiss Tanzanian and Helen is British), pumpkin carving isn't something they've ever done before. So we had a pumpkin carving party complete with an orange halloween beverage (passion fruit juice and mango vodka). I suggested that everyone carve their study species, so Helen carved a cheetah and Stef a wild dog. As pollinators are particularly interesting to carve, nor unique to Kenya, I carved an elephant since my project indirectly related to the extinction of megaherbivores. After the carving party, we watched the Phantom of the Opera as a sort of halloweeny movie.

10/29

On Wednesday Helen and Stef through a going away/thank you party for me at our house. They cooked a nice meal and made some fancy beverages for me and some of my closest friends, so that was really nice. They also presented me with some gifts and a funny trophy!

10/31 Happy Halloween!!

Went on my last sundowner of my time hear to my favorite sundowner place, Clifford Rocks. It was beautiful, and we even got a nice rainbow.

Julia, Sally, and Ann through me a huge going away party on Halloween day. The actual Halloween party was going to be on Saturday when the Wildmers were going to be having a goat roast. But the 3 girls really wanted to throw me a big last bash, so we had a pre-halloween party. It was really great b/c it was our biggest party yet with all the mazungus going as well as all the Kenyan researchers and a good chunk of the Kenyan support people (kitchen staff, ascaris). The girls made a fancy squash dish, a chocolate cake, and mojitos and dark and stormies. A lot of us dressed up. I dressed up as a male dik dik ready to fight. When they fight, they get a little Mohawk going, so I cut my Mohawk so that it looked like a male dik dik hairdo. Stef dressed up as a wild dog (who love to eat dik dik). Julia was a superhero bumblebee, Ann was a Sheik, Colin was a muzungu tourist, and Sally was a naughty santa. They had also bought a couple cases of Tusker beer for the part so after dinner and hanging out we played some beer pong and flippy cup. Flippy cup was especially fun b/c we had 12 vs 12 and the Kenyans really loved it. After we were all feeling quite good after the games, the party moved inside for some good dancing

11/1

A very sad day as I had to say goodbye to everyone. It was so very tough to say goodbye! I have grown so close to all those people and we are all such a tight knit group of friends. I felt so honored by the amazing generosity of everyone the last week towards me. I really just couldn’t believe it. They were so nice, and I really felt their love towards me so that made it extra hard to leave. When my matatu came to the Centre I hugged everyone goodbye and all the girls were crying. It was so sad.

When I got to Nairobi I went to the museum for a bit of last minute sorting and to collect my insects. I met field assistant Zachary there (he’s working in Nairobi now) so that I could give him the photos that Elisha had printed out for the field assistants. Matt unfortunately had been stuck in Nairobi and so had missed the big party, but he was still in Nairobi when I got there, so he treated me to a fancy Italian dinner in Westlands before my 12:30 am flight