Bill Toone, a conservation program specialist for CRES, helped implement a teacher training program in Kenya. In blogs, he shares his experience as he works with Dan Rubenstein, a Princeton University scientist, and Louise Bradshaw, the St. Louis Zoo's education director, to inspire the next generation of Kenyans to work for wildlife conservation. Read Bill's previous blog, Teacher Camp in Kenya.

Today was a dreary day in our portion of Kenya: cloudy skies and the distant rumble of thunder added to an uncomfortable cool breeze. We met in a cold concrete room to plan our teaching session. Lights are used sparingly as we operate on a combination of generators, photovoltaic panels, and batteries. Generators are turned off by 10 a.m., so on cloudy days we work carefully off what energy has been stored in the batteries. Matching the day's weather, the room was cold and dark.

It was hard to work"”we were tired from thousands of miles of travel, a major time shift, and a new situation. As rain began to tip tap on the metal roof it only became harder to concentrate. The tip tap turned into a thunder of rain and gradually our working situation fell apart.

It was the first and most serious downpour of rain in a long time. We noticed many winged insects taking to the air, then landing on the soft ground where they fluttered, appearing helpless on the ground. Closer examination revealed them to be winged termites. As the minutes went by, more and more of them filled the air. The ground was carpeted by the gossamer wings and birds celebrated, filling themselves with all the termites they could eat. We soon discovered several spots where these termites were erupting from the ground by the hundreds"”a perfect scene for a horror movie!

Soon the adults on the ground began stripping away their wings and following each other single file on the ground. I have no idea what exactly was happening at each stage of the phenomenon, but soon the now wingless termites began to bury themselves in the wet soil. Soon, if not for the widespread litter of wings, it appeared that nothing at all had occurred.

By late afternoon the rain had passed and early evening found us back in camp where, following a small dinner, we fell exhausted into our tents and slept soundly"”even with the huffing, chuffing, and grumbling of invisible animals among our tents.

As we fell asleep, 25 teachers from nearby communities arrived at the camp, and at 3 to a tent, the camp was filled to capacity. Each of these teachers will be our students over the next two weeks.

Bill Toone is a conservation program specialist for Conservation Education/CRES.

Posted in Conservation, Default, Field Studies, General | Link to this post

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Scroll to the end to leave a comment. Pinging is not allowed.