It's technically winter in Kenya, but all day yesterday we were enjoying 70-80 degree weather so we assumed that would be the case for the whole week. Unfortunately...we were wrong. Today we woke up to a campsite enveloped in fog - misty, chilly weather. Marissa, Steve, and Ryan were assigned to our first "Game Count," in which we take a pick-up truck out with the researchers to collect a count of the game we see along pipeline trails outside of Salama (the closest village to our campsite). We got to ride with our heads sticking out of the open top of the truck, which was very enjoyable minus the freezing rain hitting our faces. The group came back so thrilled with their experience, however, that they decided to lie to the rest of the group and say that it was the worst time they had ever had in their lives. Nobody bought it, and everyone is extremely excited for their game counts. The scenery was breathtaking.

Next up: The Stevens' Cow Ranch Cattle Dip. Cattle in this area experience a high rate of death due to disease-carrying tics. In order to prevent this, cattle ranchers must periodically "dip" all of their cattle in a chemical bath to kill tics. Our group had the pleasure of visiting the Stevens' Ranch, 5000 acres with over 1000 cows! The chemical bath smelled unpleasant, but it was seriously incredible to see hundreds of cows jumping into a trench and emerging tic-free. What a crazy experience!!!

We were most looking forward to visiting the kids today, and sure enough we were able to make it out for the end of their school day (approx. 2 pm to 4:30 pm). Kiima-Kiu Secondary School has about the same amount of students as KCHS - but we were working in particular with about 36 students grades 9-12. Here they refer to high school grades as Form 1, 2, 3, and 4. We all went around and introduced ourselves in slow English (since they're still learning) and played a bunch of "ice-breaker" games to get comfortable with one another. Every kid was very enthusiastic and full of smiles - it made our day! We are so excited to spend the rest of the week with them.

Quick endnote - on FOOD! Our meals today consisted of seasoned eggs with vegetables and delicious pancakes and sausages and ham for breakfast; "chapata" bread with curried lentils (green gram, so Kenyans call them) for lunch; and "ugali" corn cakes with beef and carrots. Yum. Our stomachs are being fed well :)

We are absolutely loving our time here - the only thing we are really missing (besides YOU) are continuous hot showers - a luxury we have taken for granted! Our showers are buckets with a small faucet - we heat up our own water over a fire, pour it into the bucket and mix it with some cool water - and hope it will do! Oh well. We're getting relatively clean. We think.