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Picture this: you've never been out of the United States before, and the very first international place you decide to venture off to is the Tanzanian Savannah with a field-based study abroad program. You arrive at the Arusha International airport in the middle of the night after a very long journey and are immediately hurried onto a small bus with the rest of your new classmates. This is where my journey began. No one told us where we were going, so I assumed they were taking us to a college campus or a hotel for the first night to ease our way into the program. Boy was I wrong.
After about 45 minutes of driving through cities and towns, we took a sharp turn down a dirt road. The ride suddenly got much darker, bumpier, and dustier. After a questionably long amount of time on the dirt road, the bus finally stopped. The driver jumped out of the vehicle and started unloading our bags onto the ground. "Pitch your tents and be ready for dinner in 20" he yelled. I took a deep breath and decided to look around. The sky was like something out of a movie- there were so many stars you could barely see any of the darkness. The calls of hyenas in the distance sent chills down my spine as the thought of "holy shit- this is really happening" repeatedly circled around my head. I quickly pitched my tent and headed to dinner, ready to embark on the journey of a lifetime.
The next several weeks were filled with incredible adventures, which I hope to share on this page as well. But the particular story I want to write about now is my first fieldwork experience, which happened in the last month of my program when I completed an independent research project (actually, my first ever independent research project). I worked at a wildlife reserve called Namalok Conservation Area, which was a 4500-hectare area that was once flourishing with wildlife. However, the implementation of a neighboring sugarcane plantation and misuse of conservation land had caused a decline in species diversity. This is where I came in- my original research idea was to conduct new diversity surveys throughout the park and compare them to surveys conducted pre-sugarcane. The rangers at the park offered me some camera traps, and we made a schedule to set them up throughout the park. This is where things took a turn...
It rained for a week straight, and all the access roads to the park were completely flooded. Finally, bright and early on the first day of sunshine, I jumped on the morning bus and headed to the fieldsite. As soon as I arrived, a ranger who had offered to help me put the camera traps out pulled up to the station in a tractor with wheels as tall as me. Finally, my first day of fieldwork could begin! We headed off to the park, which I immediately realized was probably a big mistake. It was only a few minutes before we reached roads that were still flooded, but the ranger ensured that the tractor would be able to push through. Slowly, the water started to get deeper and deeper. This is when I made my first mistake- I accidentally dropped my sunscreen into the muddy water. Great. And I couldn't find it anywhere. Even better.
About 45 minutes into the ride, we reached a part of the road that looked more like a lake. I remember thinking to myself "please tell me he isn't going to try to drive through this." But the ranger was determined to help me get my cameras out and attempted to push through the water. The tractor immediately halted to a stop and we slowly started to sink deeper into the mud below.
The ranger jumped out of the tractor and tossed me his rifle. "Hold this while I try to find cell service" he said. He called for backup, and I slowly began to realize that we would be stuck for quite a while. I was running low on water, my cell phone had no service, and my sunscreen was miles away buried under the muck. Thankfully, the ranger was great company and had plenty of stories to fill the time. It was a little over an hour before the other tractor arrived, which was filled with an additional five rangers. I figured we would just hop on their tractor and head back to the station and try our luck again the following day, but the second ranger was equally as determined to get across the lake. However, for whatever reason, the ranger driving the second tractor attempted to pass the first tractor, and immediately got stuck in the mud.
At this point, all six rangers now threw me their rifles while they slugged through the mud to try to find logs and rocks to put underneath the tires of the tractors. Yet every time they tried to get out, the tractors would sink even farther. At this point, my face felt like a lobster, I was covered in mud and sweat, and I had six giant rifles slung across my chest. "Well, the last tractor is stuck on the opposite end of the park, so looks like we're walking back".
I'm very fortunate that the rangers were so kind. On the trek back I chatted with the few who knew English, and tried my best to communicate to the others in my broken Swahili. We could hear hyenas laughing at us in the distance, and at one point a troop of baboons stopped to throw sticks at us. Four miles and a few hours later, we finally arrived back at the station. I was covered in mud and water, and everyone kept commenting on how red I looked.
The rangers gave me some of their clothes to change into while mine were hung out to dry. I thought for sure we would wait a few more days to set the cameras up, but low and behold when we arrived at the station there was already a safari truck waiting for us. This time, though, there were about twelve rangers loaded into the back. "Is everyone coming to help?" I asked the ranger who I had originally gotten stuck with. He told me they were going to help tie up the bait to attract some animals. I assumed that meant that they had a steak or some chicken in the trunk that they were going to string up into the tree. Poor naive Nicole. I hopped in the front and was squished between two new rangers who only spoke KiMassai, which was not a language I had learned yet. We drove to a new area of the park that was less flooded than before but still flooded.
Suddenly, I heard yelling from the bed of the truck and watched as three rangers jumped out and took off into the brush. A few seconds later I heard gunshots fire from their rifles, and then the rest of the rangers jumped out of the back and ran after them. This is probably the first time all day that I started panicking. What the hell was going on out there? The two rangers in the front tried their best to describe what was happening, but all I could make out was something about bait. About thirty minutes later, one of the rangers came back. "Are you okay? What's going on?" I yelled to him. "We are trying to get a baboon to put near your camera trap!" He yelled back. Oh shit.
Surely there was some ethical paperwork I had signed to be here that I promised no animal would be harmed for this project. Also, I didn't want to be responsible for the death of an animal! How could I explain this to my advisors? My program? What am I going to do if they really bring back a dead baboon? I was for sure going to be scarred for life. "You really don't have to do that" I yelled back, trying not to offend him. He said he was heading to the truck anyways and jumped back in the bed. Soon after that the rest of the rangers followed him, none with a baboon in hand. Thank god. They reminded me it would be getting dark soon and they didn't want to waste any more time trying to chase down a monkey.
Finally, we arrived at a dry(ish) area and began setting up the cameras. It was getting dark out, and I knew for sure I would miss my bus ride home. Thankfully, a few of the rangers were heading into the city and offered to drop me off. When we finished setting the cameras up, I headed back to my homestay. I stumbled into my house and was immediately welcomed by several people staring at me from the community dinner table. Rightfully so, as I was as red as a coke can, wearing an entirely new set of clothes that were much too large for me, and was covered in dirt, scratches, and sweat. I cleaned off and then downed three bowls of beef stew, and told the table about my day. And that's how my first day of independent field work went.
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