Biosystematic Water Monitoring

No bed bugs here, thankfully! The power also returned this morning. Other than my shower being a little cooler than normal and almost flooding my room, it was a good morning. Lindar and our driver, Joseph, met us right on time. On our way to our first collecting site we picked up a man somehow connected with Fabian and helping with this project. We arrived at our first collecting site, located near the Kakamega Conservancy. Having some extra time we toured the up and coming conservancy. We looked at their newest edition, the snakes taken from Kakamega Forest. Their enclosures looked highly dangerous. The enclosure consisted of a deep cement square with some barbed wire around the top. When the guide told us the most deadly snake in Africa was housed there, I really questioned my safety. I think any one of those snakes could escape if they wanted to. This, along with the crocodiles and turtles we saw. We learned about the animals, their habitats, and what they feed on. We then waited for Fabian to return from some planning for a pollination garden he is creating with some locals farmers. Fabian even hired one of the locals to be a field assistant for the day. I would have talked to this girl more and learned about Kakamega from her, but she didn’t speak English very well, and my Swahili isn’t coming along very quickly.

We hiked through the forest for quite some time to get to our first collection area. We walked through some farms, which I thought was strange considering it was another person’s property. We also walked right by some cows tied to trees. Next to our first collection site was a chloride dispenser. An organization had instituted these at water collection sites for people to cleanse their water before drinking with an attempt to kill some bacteria and prevent sickness. The local who was with us told us no one really collected water where we were due to the hill that became slippery with rain. The chloride dispensers had been poorly placed.

Biosystematic Water Monitoring begins by taking a panoramic photo of the area surrounding the collection site. This is to gather information about the surrounding vegetation and physical properties. We then filled a pan with clear water. Another person took a sifter and scooped up a handful of sand and sifted all of the loose dirt out. The remnants were then poured into the pan with water where we used forceps to gather any macro-invertebrates and put them into small vials with alcohol. The alcohol killed the macro-invertebrates almost immediately. We continued doing this until Fabian thought we had collected enough specimens. The camouflage the macro-invertebrates possess is neat. Often times we would have to wait a few minutes for the sediment to settle and see the macro-invertebrates move through the water. Others were large enough to be spotted immediately. These samples will now be taken to the lab for our analysis. Lindar and Fabian have obviously had experience on identification as they were naming and identifying each specimen as it was collected.

Our second collection site took us past a tea farm. I don’t think I have ever seen one before. While near the collection sites, I looked around and took in my surroundings. The vegetation is so lush and untouched. The sounds of nature are simply peaceful. By this point in our sampling my pants were destroyed from the dirt. Good thing my hiking boots were able to keep the water out. Fabian passed the GPS unit to me to do some marking. I fumbled through marking where we were. I think it was pretty obvious I didn’t really know what I was doing, but Fabian didn’t seem to mind. Near our second collection site, a local bee keeper was harvesting honey. We went to check out his small business. He harvests honey from both stingless and stinging bees. Their nests are housed in wooden boxes. Fabian explained to me how honey producing is still an available and easy market to enter because it has not yet become to convoluted with outsiders. As Lindar and Fabian bought some honey I tasted the difference between the two kinds. The stinging bees’ honey was sweeter and didn’t have a sour taste. Lindar and Fabian bought a lot of honey. I’m still confused at what they plan on using all of the honey for.

Our third collection site was near a school. This being said, we had a large number of spectators. The kids flocked to our site, watching us pick out the macro-invertebrates and sifting through the dirt. Speaking minimal, if any, English, the kids kept quiet with an occasional finger point to a moving specimen.

At our forth collection site, a man was washing his motorcycle in the water—a water polluting activity. There was also a swarm of butterflies. I felt as if I was in a butterfly house. This location served as a water source to local cattle farmers as cattle manure littered the banks. With this came biting flies. Luckily, none bit me. Maybe they thought I had suffered enough already with my bed bugs. Water sampling today proved to be a success. Tomorrow we will repeat the process at the same locations as sometimes new or different macro-invertebrates can be found on day two.