- Carole B. - Physical Education teacher for junior high school girls, very fit and trim person who brought good company and an incredible amount of camera equipment. She lives in Cincinnati, Ohio.
- Dorothy B. - "Dee", a college instructor of botany, just recently moved to Ohio. A person with lots of energy and quite bubbly.
- Carolyn E. - Already went to the "Rainforests of Kenya" Earthwatch project prior to this project. She has a son five years younger than me, and she is seeing the world before returning to the U.S. She's a strong-willed woman with lots of drive and charisma.
- Angela G. - English microbiologist living in Scotland with her two daughters. She does her work aided by Macintoshes and was kind enough to invite me to stay at her parents' place in Ascot Town, London. Her brother Richard (not related to Richard S. below) also travels the world.
- Karen G. - psychologist working in a neurology department, she investigates the effectivity of new drugs and treatments. She's currently writing a treatise in Sacramento, flying back & forth from her home in Newport Beach, California. Became quite good friends with Karen as well as Carolyn.
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- Dorothy P. - "Dot", loves to fish, not really an avid birder. Retired high school English teacher, and previously worked in the local government of Bernardsville, New Jersey. I call her Miz Smiley as she was always one of good cheer and humour!
- Dorothy R. - "Dottie" (boy, we sure do have a lot of Dorothies, don't we?), recently retired from the Federal government. She did a previous dolphins Earthwatch project in Florida where she lives. Very giggly and squeaks cutely when she laughs which made Richard and I crack up.
- David and Judy S. - our avid "twitchers" (the English nickname for birders) - they find all sorts of birds big time! Both have chemistry backgrounds and support lab automation/information systems for a pharmaceutical company in North Carolina. We celebrated David's birthday during our stay in Kenya.
- Richard St. - a cool, recently retired construction management engineer from Ohio who lives in Houston, Texas. A good buddy with an incredibly youthful mind, he was my roommate at Elsamere and made a great pal! Richard thought he broke a rib but probably just bruised it during a papyrus sampling foray. We both shopped and ate and drank Tusker beers like crazy!
- Rome - that's me, the author of these pages. I had the least knowledge about anything out there, so I sucked up as much as I could.
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The Researchers:
- Rick North, Ph.D. - head principal scientist for Team III, he's from the University of Leicester, England. He was the team leader for the black bass diet analysis and crayfish tracking team. The nickname we gave him was "Bwana Samaki" or Mr. Fish.
- Ros Boar, Ph.D. - principal scientist from University of East Anglia, England. She was the swamp papyrus biomass sampling team leader. We nicknamed her "Bibi Maua" or Miss Flower.
- Phillip Raburu, Ph.D. - principal scientist from University of Nairobi, Kenya. He was the team leader for the lake bottom worms study. "Bwana Menyo" or Mr. Worm was the nickname we gave Phillip.
- Patrick Loki - principal investigator, Kenya National Marine & Fisheries Department, Naivasha, Kenya. He was the team leader for two studies: crayfish population & effort tracking and river flow & mouth width measurements. His nickname was "Bwana kamba" or Mr. Lobster.
- Mary Gikungu - principal investigator, University of Nairobi, Kenya. She was the water hyacinth ecosystem team leader.
The Elsamere Support Team:
- Tony and Brenda Bates - hosts and wardens of Elsamere Conservation Centre where we were fed and treated like royalty. They have a daughter in the area named Lisa. Their two dogs are Miss Lucy and Puppy Jaxie.
- Isaac - Mr. Funny Guy at Elsamere and Tony's No. 1.
- Peter - Elsamere shopkeeper and Brenda's assistant.
- Henry Nbebe - Elsamere Field Study Centre head and one impressive- looking Luo.
- Di North and Tom North - Di is Rick North's wife (a teacher in England for mentally handicapped children) and Tom is one of their sons (a PC games programmer along with his brother Ben in England). Tom did a side project of making paper from the swamp papyrus.
- The Pilot - who flew us to Maasai Mara and back. I apologize for forgetting his name...
Other Guests of Elsamere:
Werner (German agro-engineer automating one of the larger flower plantations in Naivasha), Lukaas (Belgian friend and colleague of Werner), and Maria (young Portuguese teacher who spent 4 years as a child in Mozambique). |
