Wildlife

This week has been a good week for wildlife watching. One of the best spots on campus has proven to be the "precipice" on the fourth floor. This week two hornbills have been hanging out in the ficus tree outside the dorm. They are beautiful birds! I also saw an enormous white vulture fly right overhead the other day, and in the evening a giant owl roosted in a nearby tree. So cool! Please excuse my abuse of the words awesome, huge, beautiful, etc. but all of these birds really are something else.
We were playing euker on the precipice and saw a baboon pick up a discarded one liter water bottle and tip it up to drink out of it!
Yesterday I went to Mikani beach with some friends. It is one of the south beaches, at a private campground that was really nice. Lots of trees and hammocks, no vendors allowed (at the free beach they come down on you in swarms). Yesterday was the muslim holiday Eid, the end of the Ramadan fast. On the ferry ride to Mikani via Kigamboni I was able to have a conversation in Swahili with a very cheery Muslim man. The bartender at the beach was also impressed that we spoke Swahili, especially when asking where the "msalani" was (it's the polite way to say "bathrooms"). He was so thrilled. "Msalani!! The white people never say msalani!"
The shells this time were the best yet! Speaking of shells, Elizabeth this story is for you:
Last time we went to the beach, my friend Linnea brought back several nice shells and left them on her desk to dry. The next morning, one of the shells was missing, and there was a thin trail of sand leading from the shell pile to the edge of the desk. She brought back a shell that had a hermit crab living in it! So we kept him as a pet for a week, and brought him back to the beach yesterday to return him to the wild. Later in the afternoon Mat found this amazing shell - I have never seen one so beautiful before! Turns out there was a hermit crab living in that one too! When we got back to campus we pulled it out with tweezers.