Giraffes!

These giraffes look like they were looking at Nairobi,
but they were really staring after a lion.

Part of the day was cloudy.

And part of the day was almost sunny.

And this one stopped and posed for me.

Zebras!

There were a lot of zebras in the park, and
they didn't mind being photographed.

They are very near Nairobi.

They weren't too worried about being caught
between two tour groups.

The colts were a bit more camera shy.

Nairobi National Park

I went to the ICRAF annual science meetings last week
in Nairobi, and took a couple of vacation days
to be a tourist. The Nairobi National Park is right at
the edge of the city.(You can see the skyscrapers
on the horizon behind the acacia tree.

Most of the park is savannah, like the picture above
but a small part is wooded. It gave the antelope in the
picture below a place to hide from my camera.

The park is crisscrossed by dirt roads,
which I suspect are difficult to manage in the
rainy season. Stay tuned for zebras and
giraffes and lions.

Pictures from a village

I gave a friend a ride to a village about an hour from town
last weekend, so that she could buy several sacks of corn
for her family. These corn stores are made from woven
wood slats, and store the corn in the ear. This was the
largest one that I had seen.

The goats in the village are allowed to roam free range
after corn harvest. They are in good shape, and look
like they will have kids soon.

This is a local board game called Bao.
Stones are put into the holes and moved around,
according to some strategy, maybe like checkers.

Hello again!

Sorry for the long absence, work has been really busy lately.
I realized about three weeks ago that the birds were singing again
and that winter was on it's way out. I went outside to look
at the birds, and found light blue finches flying around
with nesting material. There is one sitting in the middle
of the picture, facing left. they are shy and hard to photograph.

I looked up in another direction and saw these nests.
They are near my office, and I plan to keep checking on them.

The barn swallows that sit on my windowsill seem happy
to see warmer weather. They sing a lot more on sunny days.

Happy Independence Day!

Malawi's Independence Day falls on July 6th. The week
before the 6ththese flags and signs went up
in the roundabouts around town.
The sign says, " From poverty to prosperity,
commemorating 45 years of independence."

Oh, also my roommate brought in a replacement camera,
I hope that you like the quality of the photos.

New Malawi Pictures!

Good news! I have just gotten a phone with
a camera. Hope you like the pictures!
This was taken southeast of Lilongwe. These are

very old soils of the Central African Plateau, and they
are depleted both by age and by overuse. The mountains
give a gauge of how the surrounding countryside has eroded.

A roadside stand selling sugarcane, which
is everywhere in both rural and urban settings.
Notice the blue flag coming out of the top of the tree.
It is the flag of the incumbent political party, which just
won another five year term. They are very proud, and to
be honest, they have done well for the country.


Malawi is heavily rural, but this is a shot of a street
in the business district of Blantyre, the largest com-
mercial center. The bulk of the manufacturing in
Malawi is in or near Blantyre.