Jambo!
Greetings from Tanzania! Things are exciting out here in the bush. The Ruaha Elephant Project has been keeping quite busy with a new round of park trips starting up. We just began taking eleven new villages into Ruaha National Park (seven from Pawaga, three from Idodi, and one village near Iringa that is known for having a lot of poaching). On Monday I personally had the privilege of taking the first group of folks from our very own Tungamelenga on safari. I loved seeing how excited they were to visit the park- everyone was dressed up in their finest clothes and constantly smiling and laughing. Rowland was bombarded with questions during the trip- even throughout lunch. Some of the things they asked were pretty impressive, for example, one guy noticed that a group of impala had no females and inquired why this was the case. Rowland went on to explain the different between hariem groups and bachelor groups.
In other news, the beehive fence the volunteers constructed in early July is finally finished and looking wonderful! I unfortunately missed the building of the fence, but Julius was kind enough to take Janae and myself out to Makifu Village to see it on the piki piki. There are already two hives swarming with bees! Hopefully we can get some pictures up soon. Then today, Tara and I taught two classes at the Pawaga secondary school and found there was a lot of interest in the beehive fences. I am excited to see how successful it will be in Makifu.
While teaching today, we explained to the students from Forms 3 and 4 all about elephants and their behavior, what Wildlife Connections is working on in the villages, how to recognize when an elephant is going to charge, the benefits and history of the park; as well as a little review of the food web and what an ecosystem is. I am curious about what people taught previously and would love to hear any suggestions for what we might teach in the future! The students are very excited for us to come back and told us that they want to know more about all the different animals.
Finally, the garden here in Pawaga is starting to flourish with all our Money-Maker action, and we will hopefully start to put up regular blog posts soon so everyone can be kept up to date! Please drop us a line anytime at our new email address set up my Noah: support@thewildlifeconnection.
Badai!
Erin
