Caroline’s Blog: Pre-Departure Blog

I am not sure what to expect from this trip – I am certainly very, very excited, but also quite nervous. I am for sure expecting to learn a lot, to go outside my comfort zone, and to experience a region of the world that I have yet to see!
I have prepared a lot for this course. First, I prepared academically. I carefully read the two textbooks assigned, taking notes in the margins and underlining to get information to stick in my mind. There was a lot I already knew, and so much more that I was entirely unaware of, especially about grasses. Turns out that grasses are quite important, especially for the large ungulates that eat them. I made my two slideshows, which enabled me to expand my knowledge of birds and learn something new in ecometrics/community structure analysis. I practiced those presentations multiple times, including for my mom and my sister, who I’m sure are now experts in both topics. I also prepared quite a lot medically – I am now the recipient of two rabies shots, a polio vaccine, typhoid, and yellow fever vaccines. If someone came up to me this time last year and said “Next year, you are going to get vaccinated for canine rabies” I would have been quite concerned and more than a little confused, but here we are and I am quite happy to be rabies immune. Lastly, I prepared by creating a two page bulleted list of things to pack and carefully putting each one in my suitcase in a carefully organized and somewhat well contained chaos.
There is so much I hope to learn and accomplish! I hope to learn as much as I can about the incredible savannah ecosystem, even more than what I have already learned from reading our textbooks. I hope to learn by seeing these amazing, iconic species in the field and observing their interactions and behavior! I also am definitely looking forward to learning more about the human and cultural history of Tanzania. As someone who loves paleontology, but hasn’t had the opportunity to learn about it from anything other than a book before, I am very excited to gain practical knowledge about paleontology! I am also very excited to get to see everyone’s presentations and learn about other taxa and paleontological methods from my classmates.
There is definitely a lot I am nervous about. For starters, the longest plane flight I’ve been on was 8 hours – I have no idea how I am going to get through the 14 hour flight from Houston to Istanbul. I downloaded all three Lord of the Rings films (extended editions of course), which is 17 hours, so hopefully that will help. I was also informed that Tanzanian cuisine involves a lot of peanuts and cashews, both of which I am severely allergic to. I brought two Epipens, but I do not especially want to use them. I also took Insect Bio last semester (a very fun course) but I think I may have learned a bit too much about insect vector-borne disease because I am terrified of getting sleeping sickness, or dengue fever, or tick fever, or any of those other horrific illnesses. I brought lots of bug spray. Overall, I am a very anxious person and there are a lot of worries I have about this trip, but I know I would regret it for the rest of my life if I didn’t go, so I am doing this!
I am so excited to learn more about ecology and paleontology through this course. Ecology is what I study at Rice, but paleontology is somewhat of a side hobby for me, and there is really nothing I love more than a good fossil. I am unbelievably excited to get to see the amazing wildlife of Northern Tanzania (especially the birds), and learn more about how they interact with each other and their environment, and the role that humans play in those interactions. And I am so so so excited to see the Olduvai Gorge! It is a place that I have read so much about, and to say that I have actually learned about paleontology and paleontological methods there is just incredible. I am also generally quite excited to get to see so many new places and experience so many different parts of the world – Tanzania, Nairobi, Istanbul – I think that getting to see other places and meet people from those places is so important, and I am so grateful to have that opportunity.
I do have one previous experience in the tropics! My family rarely travels, but my gift for graduating high school was a vacation to Costa Rica. It was an amazing experience. We did so much hiking, I woke up early every morning to watch for birds, and I just got to spend every moment dazzled by the biodiversity of the rainforest. I brought a field guide with me and checked off every species I saw – it was amazing! I love getting to be in nature, and getting to see this ecosystem that I had read so much about was probably one of the highlights of my life up to now.