Wading in Wetlands

Since I arrived last week Sunday until today, I have been working without waders. I have done a decent job of avoiding wetlands so I could keep my feet dry in the mornings, but those days are over. I got my waders in the mail today, they're a little big but they stay up ok. I went through some of the smaller wetlands in Pasture 4 with Molly as a depth checker for me, and the ground was decently solid in most places. Then later I went out with Eric, he's pretty solid on his feet in the water, more so than I am, but then he has had two years of practice, if not more from previous jobs. I didn't fall in yet (and hope I don't!), but I'm going to do my best to stay in places where I'm most comfortable wading through. Marissa, my boss who is in South Dakota, said in an e-mail to me today "Happy Wading! I love waders, they make me feel like I can go anywhere if I want to." So I can't avoid the wetlands any more, but I sure will not be moving very quickly through them just yet! But I'm glad to have the appropriate field gear now.

My evenings have been pretty boring out here. Mostly been reading a book (almost finished with East of Eden after having started it in Kenya!), and watching Fringe online. I'm also trying to get a few papers submitted for publication, which always takes longer than I want it to take (and is extremely tedious). I'm looking forward to a few people arriving next week, two girls will be staying for about 2.5 weeks to do vegetation surveys, and my boss will be coming up to train them as well. Eric is also going away next week, and I will get to take care of Molly, his dog. It'll be nice to have some companionship! (Not just the dog, but the people, too!)

I'll check back in to let everyone know how my wading experience is going. I'm obviously nervous to get out there, but I think it is more fear of the unknown than anything else. It's just like when I was nervous about learning to drive boats on the Missouri River, or to drive trucks along narrow dikes in the San Francisco Bay. Once I get the hang of spotting solid places, I'm sure I'll be cruising along. In the meantime, I'm just going to take it easy.

Living and Working at the Brown Ranch

On May 21st, after two full days of driving my new car, I arrived at the Brown Ranch near McLeod, North Dakota and was greeted by Eric Hoff, the preserve manager, and his dog Molly (I sure was glad his dog wasn't named Maggi). The Brown Ranch is headquarters for The Nature Conservancy's land holdings in and around the Sheyenne National Grasslands, which are owned and run by the Forest Service (so technically, they are public lands). Because these are National Grasslands, they aren't farmed, like most of the exceedingly fertile (but extremely wet) land around here. Instead, they are grazed by local landowners under lease or rental agreements.

As in any place that is not owned and run by local landowners, there are tensions between both the National Grasslands, The Nature Conservancy, and ranchers. The ranchers want more land drained of water so that the land will grow more grass for their cattle. But part of the purpose for National Grasslands is to maintain the ecosystem in its fully functional state, which around here includes lots of wetlands. The Nature Conservancy is also doing its part to maintain the wetlands and the upland tallgrass prairies, both by not draining the lands and by burning the uplands, which would have been a big part of the ecosystem two hundred years ago. There are also lots of invasive species to take care of, like Kentucky Blue Grass, and the horridly successful Leafy Spurge. So I think I will experience an interesting dynamic between people wanting to be friendly to me but also having big reservations about The Nature Conservancy holding the lands they want.

I miss my Cora!

Yellow-headed Blackbird, beautiful bird, but funny sounding song.

Sunset behind the field house.

Windmill pulling up water for the cattle to drink.

My job this summer, as in many of my summers, will be to monitor breeding birds in the tallgrass prairies. Thankfully I don't have to monitor ducks, since I can't ID most of them to save myself. I'm doing "distance sampling" for Grasshopper Sparrows, Marbled Godwits, Bobolinks, and Upland Sandpipers. I got two days of surveying in this last week, and have probably 25 more to go, depending on the weather. I will also be surveying vegetation, so I'm really glad to have learned some of the plant species already in the mixed-grass prairies; there is quite a lot of overlap here. Next week will be a little lonely since I should be the only one around the house (besides Eric, who lives in a separate house but comes in to work in the office). But I'm used to being in the field alone, and there should be people arriving in a week or two. Today I had a day off because of wind and rain, and I'm not sure I'll work tomorrow or the next day, either, since it's a holiday weekend. But I'm looking forward to getting more settled in with the field work and with the house, hoping to get some nice photos this summer to share with everyone!

Bobolink, I love these guys!

Jury Duty

In October 2011 I received a form in the mail calling me to my civic responsibility, jury duty. I was upset. I was leaving for a conference in Hawaii in a couple weeks, and what if I ended up on a trial that lasted a month or even longer? I decided it was best to postpone jury duty, and I was extremely lucky that the postponement took me to a week after getting home from Kenya, because I had already bought my plane tickets. So, I was scheduled for jury duty for April 23rd.

After struggling through a bit of traffic at the bottom of the Skyway in Buffalo, I parked in the garage across from the courthouse and went through a long line in security. In the jury assembly room, there were supposed to be exactly 550 people waiting, nervously, to be called. I got about two pages into my book when I heard my name on the loudspeaker. Eighty of us lined up in doubles and were marched to a courtroom where we learned what our sentence would be.

The judge was very pleasant, but I could feel the hope leave the room when we learned we were to be prospective jurors on a case trying Dr. James Corasanti for vehicular manslaughter. The case was expected to last at least a month and had been all over the news since the incident in July 2011. Since I am never home, I had not even heard of the guy, which probably made me a pretty good candidate for juror. But I have a job starting on May 21, what was I going to do?! Immediately, I started to think of excuses.

First excuse up, after being in Kenya, how can I trust any authority? In Kenya, police officers expect to be bribed so that people can get away with lawlessness, and the corruption goes straight up to the highest office. Since I didn't know anything about the case (and just about everyone else did), I could not know if some cop had something against the defendant, and framed him, or if someone had been bribed one way or another. There was a list of about 50 witnesses that were going to testify, half of them in law enforcement, but we didn't know whose side they were on.

But having this additional information was not necessary for deciding if I could be a good juror, all I had to do was promise that I could be unbiased and base my judgement only on the facts presented by the witnesses and the evidence. In my opinion, this is an impossible requirement for any juror. We all have preconceptions about people, and we go in with assumptions about certain professions, races, accents, ethnicities, and the legal system in general, no matter how much we want to believe these preconceptions aren't there. How can any person be asked to be completely objective and base their judgement only on what is heard in court? This was excuse number two.

In watching the juror selection process, I could see that the lawyers were doing their best to pick jurors without any prior knowledge of the case, and without expertise in any of the areas where evidence would come from. For example, one piece of evidence was the blood test taken and the extrapolation done to determine what the defendant's blood-alcohol level was at the time of the incident. There were lots of nurses and phlebotomists in the jury box (I don't know how there were so many!) but they were questioned heavily by the prosecuting lawyers about their expertise, and whether they would be able to set it aside during the trial. Why would you want to set aside your expertise when you might be able to interpret the witness' testimony and find a lie or an error in their reasoning? It seemed to me like the lawyers wanted to fill the jury with people who were uneducated and who couldn't interpret any of the evidence for themselves. I disagree with this practice. I would want people on the jury who could understand the testimony, be able to explain it to other jurors who maybe did not understand it, and then determine whether or not it fits with reality.

My final problem with being a juror was that I would have to pass judgement, but I would not be allowed to determine (with the other jurors of course), the appropriate punishment, that was up to the judge. Dr. Corasanti had five or six charges against him. I knew for a fact that I would want to play around with determining punishment by picking carefully which charges he was found guilty of. This is illegal for a jury to do, but I would be empathizing with the defendant. I would be trying to determine how I might feel if I drove tipsy (like so many people do in this country, unfortunately it is true), hit someone by accident, freaked out because I knew how it would negatively impact my life, and tried to cover it up. Of course it's wrong, but we are all human beings with weaknesses trying to ensure stability in our lives. And what I think is the appropriate punishment for this may be very different from what a judge or the law thinks is appropriate.

In the end, I did not have to be a juror on this case, all I needed as a reason to get off the hook was that I have a new job starting in North Dakota before a month is up, and I will have to relocate there. I spent the whole day in the court room worrying that maybe the judge would hang on to me for some crazy reason (i.e., I had never heard of the case, having been in Kenya for three months!). I think that jury duty is an important responsibility, but I in no way agree that any jury can be completely objective, or that it should be filled with people without expertise, or that the jury should not also be responsible in part for determining punishment. But who knows, maybe I will be in court some day and will see exactly why our system is the way it is, and I will want it that way...

How to buy a car when you have no money

So I have decided since coming home from Kenya that I am going to need a car this summer. I will be in North Dakota for a field job doing songbird surveys in the tallgrass prairies, and that means I will be near to the middle of nowhere (again...it's what I like, after all). I'm stationed in Milnor, ND (have you ever heard of that?), and will be working in the Sheyenne National Grasslands. I have to get to Lincoln, Nebraska a few times over the summer to find a place to live during my PhD for four years. I also have to get to Winnipeg, Manitoba, which is only about 4 hours from Milnor, to pick up some stuff I left there after my Masters and visit some friends. So how should I get around?

One of my goals has always been to never own a vehicle, but I think my future circumstances are going to force me to rescind that goal. I've looked into buses for getting to/from Nebraska, they're not straightforward, and they're not fast. I've looked at flights to get to Winnipeg, $500! I even looked into Amtrak...nothing seems to go to Manitoba from Fargo that is relatively cheap and easy. And rental cars won't allow me to cross the border. How ridiculous! Canada is three hours from Fargo, how can it be so impossible to get there?!

So, I've decided that I need a car. But, I don't really have any money. So I'm trying to figure out how I can possibly get a car without any cash. I will have income very soon, and will have enough money to pay for a car, but at the moment, it's hard to get anyone to approve my credit because of high student loan debt (I think). And, my income isn't like that of a working 26-year-old should be, but it's definitely enough to pay for a lease. But how can I build credit when I can't get approved to take on a lease? There has to be a better way to find out if a person is responsible enough to take on a lease...that is the rant. Where did credit agencies even come from, why are they so important, and why are there only three? Isn't that some sort of oligopoly? Jeesh...this country can be so screwed up!

Culture Shock? Not yet...

I have had a couple of people ask me whether or not I have experienced culture shock yet upon my return home. As far as I know and understand, I haven't had any symptoms of culture shock. I think there are a couple of reasons for this. For one thing, I was not truly and fully immersed in a different culture while in Kenya. I had many glimpses of and interactions with the Kenyan culture, but I was housed at Mwamba, a safe place for foreigners, and a place where the staff and other volunteers are used to having people of different cultures around. I worked with Westerners for the most part, or at least reported to Westerners, so didn't have to switch my working style to meet the Kenyan pace. For certain, I could see the cultural differences between myself and the other Kenyan volunteers, but it was not something that I really had the deal with. It was still okay (or maybe just understandable) for me to offend other Kenyans, because they understood I was new there and Kenyans are too kind to point out my indiscretions.

Priscilla, me, and Mathias

Also, I was only there for three months. According to Wikipedia, the "honeymoon" stage of visiting a foreign country, or the stage when everything is still new and exciting, lasts about three months. So I didn't have a real opportunity to become frustrated with the different culture, I was too busy enjoying it. Benjo, who had been there for much longer, was often frustrated by how things function and how hard it was for him to get work done efficiently. I have to say it is nice to be back on roads that have rules and in a place where (for the most part) the police force can be trusted.

But there are things we Westerners can learn from places like Kenya. For instance, I am pretty disgusted to be reminded how Americans and most other Western countries focus so much on material things, and material things that don't matter. We need new cars, the biggest television, the smallest computers, and the exciting video games. Sure, people in Kenya may want those things, too, but here it seems to be the focus of most people's lives. Keeping up with the Jones's. We need to be more focused on our relationships and on our health, and I am not leaving myself out of these criticisms. I hope to remind myself about the other culture I experienced, what they valued, and to use that to make my life more meaningful.

Even being thankful every day for clean water would be a good first step.

Last Post from Mwamba

I haven't written a post in longer than usual...not because nothing interesting has happened, but because I've been pretty busy finishing things up here and doing a few fun, last-minute excursions. Two nights ago the rains decided to come, after a couple weeks of building heat and humidity it was quite a relief to hear the sky pouring down on the roof. Not only did we get rain, but last night and the previous night we've had awesome thunderstorms. I'm thankful to have seen the rains here, as they are life-giving, and a couple other volunteers missed it by just a day. Yesterday, after the first night of rain, the driveway was filled with crabs and the kitchen with moths. Apparently, things respond to the rain very quickly.

We've also done a whole bunch of bird banding the last week, with one epic night of Crab Plovers and Whimbrels at Mida Creek and some very nice sunbirds and migrants here on the Nature Trail. I also spent an afternoon in Malindi at the museum, old Portuguese church, and Vasco da Gama pillar, and a day at Gede Ruins. I will write more about both of those later, but for now I have to sleep. Will be a long day of traveling starting tomorrow. In the meantime, enjoy the photos!

Lots of Crab Plovers on the recent Mida ringing.

Crab Plover city!

Me and a beautiful greater sandplover early in the morning (~7am)

Beautiful Red-fronted tinkerbird I ringed. Unfortunately, due to lack
of vigilance at the nets a couple days later, this individual died of heat
exhaustion. Lesson learned the hard way.

Olive Sunbird with a beautiful yellow patch under the wing.
Andrew and Colin were nice enough to let me band any of the
cool or new birds that we caught!

Mouse-colored sunbird with a patch of red under the wing.

Christianity for Real

In a couple of previous posts I mentioned about the Christian aspect of working at A Rocha, how they pray before meals, at the Monday morning meetings, and also hold bible studies. At first I was feeling a bit uncomfortable about all the praying, but I've come to enjoy it, although I have not yet decided to participate in saying prayers. I think that the Christianity practiced by the people in charge here at Mwamba is different from the Christianity I learned about growing up. I went to Sunday school at a Presbyterian church growing up and went through Confirmation in the ninth grade. Even though at that time I didn't have any solid beliefs in God or Jesus, mainly because I didn't understand, I was still made to say the prayer in front of the church community and vow my life to Christ, or whatever it was I actually did. Part of the problem, as I see it, was that confirmation class was all about memorizing books of the bible, rehearsing specific prayers, and filing away other useless information, when we should have been talking about and trying to understand faith and what Christianity is really about, and using the Bible as our foundation.

Last night we watched a video at Colin's house called "Fruitcake and Ice cream", and had a really long discussion afterward, mostly lead by probing questions about Christianity from yours truly. The video was basically a sermon by this guy named Louie Giglio (see more info here), who is really passionate and interesting to listen to--I only noticed myself drifting away twice, when it is normally more frequent. Louie read a verse from the Bible that holds one of the few basic tenets of Christianity, and it is so simple:

"God made him (Jesus) who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him (Jesus) we might become the righteousness of God." (2 Corinthians 5:21)

As human beings, we tend to complicate matters and want to explain things and know all the answers. This Bible verse basically says that God took Jesus' righteousness and gave it to us freely, and took our sins and placed them on Jesus when he was crucified; this is called Grace, and it is a gift. I asked Colin, how can this be true, how we can not have to do anything to have our sins relieved (because as a gift, Grace is freely given)? This is how we complicate things. It simply is true, but we do have to do one thing to be actually have our sins relieved, and that is to accept this gift of Grace from God. There is no requirement for doing good works, or for paying the Church, or for going to Church every Sunday, or for praying in a certain way, or believing certain things about Evolution or Creation. You simply have to accept this gift of Grace from God.

Now, there are a couple of other tenets that are required to get to this point and to make you a true Christian. First, you have to actually believe that Jesus is the Son of God. Jews and Muslims revere Jesus as a prophet, but not as the Son of God. Second, you have to believe that Jesus died for our sins and was miraculously resurrected. Then from there, you understand what the gift of Grace is and accept it from God to have your sins relieved. No more, no less. The Christians here at Mwamba say that once you get this, actually truly get it, your life will be changed for the better and you'll want to be a better person, because God is embracing you.

Certainly there are hundreds of questions about the details that we, as humans, want answers to. For instance, I want to know if a child dies before it is able to understand and accept the gift from God, can he get into heaven? Or if a person is never exposed to Christianity or the Bible, can she get into heaven? I want answers to these questions, but probably will never get them. Colin said to me that not having these answers should not prevent a person from accepting the gift of Grace from God and having faith that He can make everything right in the world when He so chooses.

Now, back to my original pondering on the problems with the church today. I simply feel that these basic tenets of Christianity are either not taught properly by churches, or they are not fully understood by church-goers, and probably both. There seems to be a lot of division among Christians, about what to believe and what not to believe and who is right or wrong. Is evolution real? Or is creation real? I don't believe they are mutually exclusive, and the Bible also does not show otherwise.

Further, I realize that humans do wrong and we sin, but some of that sin seems to come from people's faith. For instance, Christians sin against homosexuals because they believe the Bible states that homosexuality is wrong. I've read the Sodom and Gomorrah story (Genesis 19) and I don't understand how people can take from that and state that homosexuality is wrong in the eyes of God. Further, Jesus walked with wrong-doers and blessed and healed them, and it is stated that our gift is the poor and helpless. (Little children, let us stop just saying we love people; let us really love them, and show it by our actions. 1 John 3:18) I think Christians in general need to take a long, hard look at their beliefs and go back to what the Bible says, because we have simply strayed too far from the teachings of Jesus. As for myself, I intend to continue learning about Christianity, and I see myself embracing these concepts because I think they are good for the world. I have also been reading other books that are showing me why Christianity is actually different from all other religions, but maybe that should be left for another post.

Beautiful sunrise yesterday morning.

Beautiful flower on the Mwamba Nature Trail.