Arriving at CCF

Travel

The flight from JFK airport to Johannesburg is 16 hours long. They feed you about 1-2 hours after take-off (lunch/dinner), then they tell you that they will feed you breakfast 2 hours before landing. That’s about 10-12 hours in the middle that you don’t eat. They expect you to “sleep” to prepare you for being in South African time, and believe me, I was exhausted because I only got an hour nap the night before heading to JFK, but I have a terrible time trying to sleep on planes. I was prepared though… I took 2 melatonin supplements, a Xanax, and drank two brewskis (Castle Lager and a Castle Light). With these powers combined and my natural level of exhaustion, I’d say I managed about 6 hours of sleep. However, I woke about every hour and the quality of sleep was not great. I had prepared for the “hungry time” in those middle hours by buying a sandwich at JKF that I stowed in my backpack. Unfortunately, the sandwich was disgusting. I didn’t even eat half before throwing the rest away. Good thing I also had trail mix which held me over just fine. All in all, the flight was alright. I got up frequently and drank lots of water. The international terminal in Joburg makes me want to spend a lot of money… but I didn’t. They have so much cool African stuff! I walked around a lot of the shops and scoped out some items I might think about buying on the return trip. Even though my layover was over 4-5 hours, the time passed quickly enough. Then, it was off to Namibia! That flight is only 2 hours, but they feed you again. It was a chicken curry, rice and veg with a pasta salad on the side and chocolate mousse for dessert. Yum! I had a window seat this time to check out the landscape, and I guess I forgot from last time how boring it is to fly over the Kalahari desert. You are too high to see any animals, and it just looks like a flat stretch of dirt and bush. Unfortunately, having switched to a window seat meant being towards the back of the plane, which meant being towards the end of the line for customs. I waited almost an hour in that line and wanted to faint. I was overdressed and hot, and my backpack was very heavy. I was also worried that my ride (who was picking me up at the airport) would leave without me, because by the time I got through and got my baggage (no lost luggage, yay!) I was an hour later than planned. When I first walked out and saw all the people with their signs (for this safari or that one or the other one), I did not see the guy who was supposed to be holding my name. Luckily, when I was about to panic, I saw this ghetto scribble that said Ashley Franklin, way towards the back. Relief. This guy was really nice too. Not like some of the creeper taxi drivers I remember from last time. Now I know why CCF continues to use this guy.

We picked up another new intern in Windhoek at his guesthouse and then we took off for CCF. The drive is about 4 hours, so by the time we arrived it was already about 8pm (local time). Luckily, they saved a dinner plate for us (yes, just one we had to share, but better than starving!). To my relief also, I was put into a dorm room, which means I have access to hot showers. J The bad news is that out of the 5 adapter plugs I have, none of them are the right one for the one in the dorms, which means I have to go all the way to the “main building” to charge anything. Also, there is no WiFi in the dorm. Bummer. But again, the main building has WiFi, so all is not lost. 

Meeting the People

I did not buy beer on my way here for fear of arriving and having people think I was some kind of alcoholic, but when I arrived, the other interns/staff were getting tipsy. Apparently there was some kind of celebration going on. There was cake too, but I have no idea what it said. All I wanted to do was get into my bed, but I was invited to join their party, which was moving out to the site I believe is called “Lightfoot”, which is the student camp we stayed in last time I was at CCF with the wolfpack. I didn’t want to say no and look like an anti-social, and I figured it would give me a chance to get to know some people, so semi-reluctantly I hiked out there with them. We built a bonfire (because it was friggin’ cold out!) and people proceeded to drink A LOT. Holy crap…. and I was worried I would look like an alcoholic. Well, I had one beer and a caramel vodka shot, but only because I was too sober to be around people that drunk, lol. Everyone is super nice though and we had a lot of fun. There have been improvements to the site since I was last there. They put in a solar panel, so the “shacks” now have electricity! The showers out there still require the lighting of a fire under the water tank though… again, happy I got a dorm room. I think I finally got to bed around 1am. Considering I got up at 7 this morning, it is no surprise I am tired, but no worries: I will be in bed early tonight and nothing (except something involving real cheetahs) will keep me from it!

Day 1

My first day has been great. I got up early (like I mentioned) to head over to the genetics lab to get my reagents into the freezer. Kaz (a staff member) brought me over there so I wouldn’t be a random intruder to others that I haven’t met yet. When we came back to the main building, guess who we ran into? Laurie Marker herself. She came and introduced herself to me, at which point I had to remind her that we’ve met three times before and she knows who I am… hopefully after these two months I won’t have to remind her anymore! Then, she invited me to join her for a bit. We went and had some coffee with some special guests and then we watched a scat detection dog demonstration (being put on for the guests). I might actually get to work with one of these dogs because some of the “enclosures” at CCF are actually quite large (as well as maybe some work in the field), and I have a lot of poo to collect in the next two months. After that, I was passed off to another staff member who gave me and the other new intern, Julian, a vet student from France, a tour of the place (though I didn’t see much more than I hadn’t already seen, but this is Julian’s first time at CCF). Then it was brunch. After brunch, we got to tag along to see a cheetah feeding (of the cats in the main pens around the building). This is something we will get to assist with in the future, but today we were like tourists. After the feeding, I met with Laurie again, this time with Anne (the supervisor of the genetics lab) and we actually talked about my project and what needs to happen with that. There is another student here that has to do a bunch of PCR in the next two weeks before she leaves, and then there is a new staff member (someone who will be working in the genetics lab also) who needs orienteering, so Anne actually doesn’t want me in the lab the next two weeks. She thinks it will be too crazy (plus, I guess there is only one thermal cycler, so that would create conflicts). Instead, she wants to start me out collecting some of my poo samples and doing other fun intern things (husbandry, etc) for the first two weeks. Postponing my PCR/sequecing/lab work to work more with the actual cheetahs? I am TOTALLY ok with this! So it was been a good first day.