Low Pressure

Last post for tonight:

Today I went out with the group from Trinity.  We went to their 'low pressure' site, which refers to the level of animal pressure.  It was right by the community that's across the river from the park, so we drove up to the river and then were taken across in a boat by a man with a long pole that he used to push against the bottom.  We were looking for evidence of animals being there, specifically their dung.  We actually found two samples, one from a hippo and one from a genet, which was kind of unusual for this specific site. 

After staying in the park itself for six weeks, it was really cool to head over to the community side and be reminded that there are people who live right here, not just the animals I see every day.  As we walked through the village, we said hello to everyone and they all said hi back (very enthusiastically, in the case of the kids).  Many kids followed us around while we were walking, talking and laughing and just being excited kids.  At one point we stopped to take pictures, and we had a whole group of women and children come over who were very interested in me taking their picture.  Which I did, and they had a really positive reaction when they saw the pictures on my camera.       

Looking for poop

A farm in the village, supported in large part by the agriculture project at Gorongosa

TJ, me and Cat

Huge baobab tree in the village

I'm on a boat! On the way home. Trying to even out my horrible farmer's tan

I really enjoyed going out with them today.  Oh!  Something really cool happened last night!  Fredrik, TJ and I drove out to Hippo House because Fredrik hadn't seen it yet and he left this morning.  On our way, we saw a HONEY BADGER.  They're super rare to see, I think mostly because they're nocturnal but also because they're just not super common.  When I saw it, I kind of screamed because I was so excited.  It was awesome.  And it wasn't a questionable sighting, like 'well maybe that was a honey badger?' It was decidedly a honey badger and we saw it in enough daylight to see it well.  So, so cool.

That's it from me for now.  (I think that's enough)

Starting to plan out the rest of what I'll get done before leaving, as there are now less than two weeks until I come home,

Good night!