The eve of my flight, I was barely finished with all the preparatives. I had packed every belonging staying behind into boxes and stowed those bozes in any available nook and cranny I could find. Most of the things stayed in my room, under the bed, but some had to be taken to the laundry room in the front house. Now, with these quintesentially Dutch stairs (read: narrower than a mayan temple and spiraled to boot), that was not the most pleasant of tasks.

But everything was stuffed away, as were all the things I was taking with me. It was quite a bit of luggage: one suitcase (of doom!), one trolley and one backpack. I was exhausted from the physical effort, the emotional rollercoaster, the stress wringer and, of course, the nasty cold that'd leached onto me.

As my flight was the next morning at 7 am (and I therefore had to be checked in at 5 am) I decided to go to the airport the night before. (Bloody trains stopped working in the late hours.) So, armed with what would be all my belongings for the next four months and the adult equivalent of security blankets (Terry Pratchett and Supernatural, in my case) I headed off for the train station. All I knew about the immediate future was that I'd be a) sleeping until around 4:30 am, b) flying out at around 7 am, c) sleeping in Nairobi Saturday, d) heading off to Amboseli National Park Sunday and e) back in Nairobi around the 26th. Anything else, I was completely blank.

I remember the train ride in all its blurry glory, and my stay in the train hall of the airport was uneventful. Most everything was closed, though I managed to grab a carrot cake and latté from Starbucks (practically the only one in the country, back then, at least). I plunked down to watch Supernatural which did wonders to take my mind off things. I then wandered around a bit until I found someplace where I could sleep for a few hours. Turns out I needn't have bothered overmuch, as it was breezy and - shock of shocks - airport waiting chairs are hardly comfortable. But I managed to catch a bit of shut eye, talk to my mother and then head on upstairs to the check-in hall.

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Preparatives

Health:

• Multivitamins


• First aid kit


• Vaccines


• Yellow Fever




• DTP


• Hepatitis A


• Rabies*


• Typherix (Typhoid)


• Menigitis


• B.C.G. (Tuberculosis)**




• Malaria prophylaxis: Lariam


• Taken once weekley for the duration of the stay in Kenya, as well as 2 weeks prior and 3 weeks post.

Supplies:

• GPS


• Rangefinder


• Binoculars


• Field and Lab notebook


• Camera and videocamera


• Laptop

Clothes:
Mainly geared for warm weather, so mostly consisting of various versions of tank tops and khaki shorts. Also included were some pants, light sweaters and long sleeves. Sensibly included (but, we later discovered, pointless) was a raincoat and rainboots.

Housing
I managed to find a girl to take over my room for the duration of my stay in Kenya. We drew up an unofficial subletter's agreement, exchanged contacts and bank account information, and settled where to leave the keys for each other. All things considered, it went very smoothly.


* This vaccines was actually quite awesome and bright pink. It's injected just under the skin to give you a pink spot that lasted for a week or so. (Neat, yes, but it also itched like a mother after a while.) This had to be injected three times over a number of weeks.

** "This will probably get infected." Words I never thought would be used in conjunction with a vaccine. But, after a few weeks, the tuberculosis vaccine did, in fact, get infected. Nastily. The end result was a thick pale spot of a scar. I'm a bit peeved because a) can't we make vaccines that don't result in pus and scars? and b) if it's goning to scar, can't you place it somewhere more discrete than my shoulder?

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To give you all an idea of what this will be like, some pictures off the internet.

Para daros una idea de como va a ser esto, unas fotos del internet.

( Photos / Fotos )

As part of my Master's programme, I went to Kenya for an intership to do research on the African lion in Amboseli National Park. I was to stay there, along with fellow researcher Willemijn, for about four months. While I, the biologist, would be focusing on the lions themselves, Willy, the anthropoligist, would be focusing on the local people's perceptions of the lion.

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