We have been here for about two weeks now and it seems to become second nature to us, last week we went a day out to Isiolo with some of the guys from Save the Elephants to have a good day off. It was a nice trip and we had roasted goat and some beers for lunch and looked around in the “big city of Isiolo”. We also did some shopping for the research camp (drinking water, vegetables, tomato sauce etc.) and bought some news papers for the staff. We still need to take the bridge at archer’s post, because the bridge close to our camp is still not fixed. So the trip took us about one and a half hours. We found out that a projector survived the floods and made our own Sunday Cinema here at the research camp and watched a movie or two with everyone (unfortunately, the projector gave out just a couple of days ago).
The recovery of the camp is still in progress and men are working hard. Some are still digging the well with large concrete pipes, sand and stones still coming out. The well will be an important source of water to keep the whole camp running. Others are building new proper toilets. They have built a small house with two rooms and they are now filling the walls with sand and cement. Furthermore new structures are being built where large tents can be hung up in as we are now all still sleeping in pitch tents, this will be a nice change. The river is flowing slowly now. Although it rains once every 2 or 3 days, it seems that the river is not a major threat, at least not at the moment.
Now that we can’t help much more rebuilding the camp we started with our own research. We are getting along quite well, from the rubbish material around we built a small stove to dry plants and made a start building a herbarium for the STE. We’ve already found quite some species along the riverbanks which have survived the floods or are emerging now from the big pile of sand that has washed up the shores. We also had the pleasure of seeing many elephant families who now have returned to Samburu and experienced some fantastic moments with them! These guys will give us some interesting data in the upcoming weeks and surrounded by a very helpful staff we are ready and thrilled to start working with them!