Updates from the Field!

	Update #8
	Marcella had lots of expectations surrounding her visit to the Serengeti mostly, she said, because so many people described the vast, open plain as positively mind-boggling. For a couple of reasons: The sheer scale; And the uncountable number and diversity of animals, especially ungulates. On the latter point, Marcella completely agreed. Animals everywhere. Mind-boggling! In every e-mail she sent me, she mentioned the animals absolutely all over the place, as if she were trapped inside a massive Wild Animal Park. On the former point, however, she felt somewhat nonplussed by the scale. As a girl she lived in the rural Central Valley of California, a huge, flat, sparsely-populated agricultural region. She'd grown accustomed to looking out at the landscape and seeing next to nothing in every direction...few buildings, dirt roads disappearing at the horizon, a sea of green and brown vegetation in every direction. A quick comparison of area-- Tanzania's Serengeti National Park: 5,700 square miles Serengeti Ecosystem (as defined by the annual wildebeest migration): ±15,000 square miles. California's Central Valley: 27,280 square miles She felt bad for not dropping her jaw over the size of the Serengeti when everyone around her kept stopping to pick theirs up. In a way though, she realised that she could focus more on animals (the main reason she went there) since the vastness of the landscape didn't distract her. The Serengeti has one geographic feature that the Central Valley doesn't: kopjes (pronounced copies). These kopjes sit around on the plain in random fashion, blobby formations of rock from some geologic process, irregular, scattered, and lovely. Some sprout grasses; others anchor trees. Kopjes add relief to an otherwise fairly flat landscape. And the cats love 'em. They sit on top. Hang out. Bask in the sun. Walk around the base, sniffing things. You cat people know the drill. Marcella found herself at times gazing at the kopjes to the exclusion of everything else. Something about the way these rocky lumps broke up the plains or, more to the point, fractured the static quality of the Serengeti flatness pleased her. In a surprise move Peter Laver, one of her graduate students, joined her in the field on the 26th. He analyses part of the massive cheetah data set inherited from Marcella, and after nearly two years riding a computer terminal he decided it was high time he took a peek at the actual critters. So when I ran into him in town a couple of weeks ago he wondered aloud if he ought to go to Tanzania while Marcella was there. Without hesitation I said "Hell Yeah!!" and in doing so, lit a fire under the poor boy's ass. See, as a faculty spouse I can say things like that and then go to bed at night completely unaware of any consequences. Peter, on the other hand, suffered innumerable consequences as he interpreted my naïve enthusiasm for an official directive. He nodded, went home, packed his bags, and flew to Tanzania. I frantically e-mailed Marcella in hopes of warning her. No good. Oftentimes Marcella works in the field excommunicado. And sometimes this isn't the best situation. Peter arrived with virtually no information at all--no map, one incorrect phone number, no contacts, and armed only with the knowledge that someone named Anne had parents arriving in Arusha the same day. I'd told him about J 'n J which probably did him more harm than good. Arusha has over ten-thousand people whose names begin with "J" as Peter discovered. He asked around. Somehow he connected with Anne's parents who coïncidentally planned to motor north from Arusha in a hired car that afternoon. They didn't actually have room for him but as he is both skinny and limber he soon found himself packed in between several massive suitcases. No one complained; Peter can be, when absolutely necessary, a quiet and gentle soul. Hours later and once on-site at the cheetah project lodgings in the Serengeti, Anne's parents gently unfolded Peter and slid him under the door to his room. So what the heck is an Un-birthday anyway? In short, a birthday which seems just like any other day of the year. In a way, Marcella has had loads of un-birthdays. Hers follows a little too quickly on the heels of Christmas. Talk about stealing thunder. While she'd prefer her fête d'anniversaire received principle billing she accepts the reduced status without complaint. She has never, in the years I've known her, deliberately made a big deal of her birthday. In a way, I think she gets some secret delight out of not telling anyone. Spending her birthday, then, in the company of mostly strangers gave her both the anonymity she loves and the bonus of keeping her special day a secret. On the morning of her birthday Marcella, Anne, and Peter set out in the Land Rover in search of cheetahs. In a few hours they encountered a female with three cubs. The three humans observed for four hours. And took notes: Three attempted hunts; Three failures. Not at all uncommon. Three cubs rolling around in the sun-bathed grass. Then one of the kittens one shot straight up into the air, four legs spread, mouth gaping open, eyes huge, hair standing on end as if electrified. A disoriented Thompson's gazelle fawn appeared in the grass right in the midst of the cats. Inexplicable! The mother cheetah looked mildly surprised, got up, trotted casually over to the fawn, and strangled it on the spot with vise-like jaws to the throat. With that the four cats dove into the carcase head first and ploughed, stopping when only ragged bones remained. Just a snack for those cats, really. They sat there in the grass afterwards, faces bloodied, blinking in the afternoon sun, and looking at nothing in particular. Not a bad birthday present for the M-girl. Coming Next: Home
	Posted on 12 January 2005

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