Hippos and Protecting the Gonads of Africans

Over the weekend, I was able to travel up to Lake Baringo NP. This place is famed the world over for its winged wildlife. Home to hundreds of different birds, the place definitely lived up to its billing. However, for me, the most fascinating thing I saw, I could barely see. As the matatu trip itself wore me out, I was in my tent pretty early. At some pint during the night I was awakened by a deep, cackling, burst of a "roar". Not having ever heard this in my life, I still had serious doubts that this came from a bird. So, peering out from my screened tent, I saw a massive, hulking creature the size of a Honda CRV... 10 feet from my tent. Now, I had been warned that hippos might be on shore during the night, and was further warned to NEVER take a flash photo, as it would turn hippo on me and try to crush anything in its path back to water. I decided to listen to this bit. I was still able to unzip the cover and get an unfiltered view of my first hippo, who was hiding behind it, a baby hippo. Now I really got nervous thinking about it charging me if the wind happened to blow a leaf into its eye or something. Thankfully, its so hot here that not many leaves remain on the branches for that to happen. It managed to eat its fill of grass and then retreat back to the water. Over the course of the night, I must have seen 10 hippos, all within 100' radius of my tent. It was truly breathtaking to see these hulking creatures evolve out of the darkness, lit for moments by the full moon peering through the branches. Waking up the next morning, me, Lydia (the other volunteer) and the 2 Israelis we met at dinner at the "Thirsty Goat" camp restaurant, went out on a boat tour of the lake. While I can say that bird watching does not thrill me like a certain trampling death from a 2 ton animal outside my tent, the place was teeming with so many birds that it floored me, nonetheless. Eagles diving into the water for fish, lizards sunning on rocks, teams of swallows and other crazy looking birds made it worth getting up at 06:30 after having not slept much. If people could please email me more ways to say "amazing", I would be appreciative.

A side note, Israelis must be the toughest people on the planet. The ones I have met have a total disregard for conventional means, personal safety, and tact, especially when it comes to personal space. A few Kenyan touts (people responsible for convincing you that their bus is better than the one you are already on) who were trying to pull their arms away from the bus they were entering found this out real quick. Strangely, this was very similar to my first Israeli female encounter at the Cambodian border, the verbal lashing so amazingly abusive that she almost got the whole lot of us stranded. At least that one was in English, so I understood the pounding the Cambodian took. This however, devolved into a Hebrew lashing no one but the 2 Israelis knew the specifics of, but everyone certainly knew of the meaning. Needless to say, they got on the right bus... the one they wanted. My respect for them continues to grow.

Now on to the gonads. It seems as though the biggest therapy achievement that I will have here comes in the form of an idea I had about why so many clubfoot babies were crying uncontrollably after corrective casting treatments. It has been frustrating Vitalis immensely. Upon viewing the methods, I happened to notice a lack of space for the boys' essentials between the two casts. So, after looking back on the reports for only two weeks, it was fairly easy to see that bilaterally effected males (needing casts on both legs) were the ones coming back with the casts removed by their parents. So, a simple bar included in the plaster mold, holding the legs enough apart to allow for some gonadal freedom has seemed to do the trick. Vitalis can't stop smiling every time he now uses it, calling it the "Meella" (Miller) method." It feels good knowing that it will be used after I leave.

My lasting gift to Kenyans? Healthy gonads.

Nuts, isn't it?