locals always laugh at us when we speak swahili.

Day 42 (10/16)

Today we went to talk to farmers again, and this time it was mostly about wildlife conflict with humans. Our guide/translator was awesome. He was so funny and in our group I was the one who asked the questions so there were a bunch of times that funny things happened that only the guide and I picked up on. And I was picking up on the swahili words, so even before he translated what they said I had an idea and I sort of guessed what they would say and he was shocked that we knew the amount of swahili. AND everyone thinks its hilarious when we speak swahili...literally we will talk to them and they just laugh at us because they "dont expect white people to know their language" because they mostly see or talk to tourists.

After lunch we watched a movie about some of the national parks in Kenya and their management practices. For example, Kruger National Park will cull elephants to keep the park ecosystem balanced, Zimbabwae allows controlled trophy hunting to bring in money for the government/park management, and Kenya takes in money from tourism mostly.

I went for a run today, and the running trail is right next to the fence that goes around the camp. The askaris were fixing a section where an elephant went through the fence last night. Apparently it was the second night in a row that an elephant came through and ate the tiny plot corn thats in the camp. The first night I didn't believe them, but after I saw the hole in the fence its hard to believe anything but an elephant could have damaged that much of the fence. It came in at 11 pm (as in people were still awake, brushing their teeth and hanging out) I was in my banda, and laying in bed talking to my banda mates at 11. We didn't even hear anything! My banda is pretty far away from where it was though. The askaris knew quickly got it out so that no one knew, they are awesome.
After that I did yoga with some people and it was really relaxing and nice.