So here are a few more pictures of Africa... and yes, that is me in 2 of the pictures, so stop complaining that I never post pictures of myself :).

Dar is still hot, but I am now living with one of the women that works for LEAT in her small apartment... and how luxurious it is! We have electricity, and a TV, and a refrigerator, and even a double burner hotplate to cook on! No more cooking on fire, and we can shop for more than 1 day worth of food at a time! Plus, of course, cold water, which is amazing. She's overcharging me a bit for staying there, but I'm alright with it.

I'm actually currently sitting in the board room at the LEAT office, which is an old house, and they have given me a wire to connect to the internet! Which means that my "productivity" level has dramatically dipped in the past half hour, as I figured that this update is equally as important as coming up with a 20 page paper on something in the next 3 weeks. I have focused my study here on a current issue in the country, the Usangu Plains issue (google Usangu and a bunch of stuff will pop up). Basically, the area is a water cachement, and the river that flows out of it has been progressively drying up for long periods of time. This has been attributed to many reasons, the reason most scientifically-sound attributing the lack of water to poor irrigation practices of rice farmers in the area, in addition to poor management at the two hydroelectric dams on the river. However, the common media opinion (echoed in many of those same google articles) is that the pastoralists are causing the entire problem, through overgrazing and large herds etc. So, since May 2006 the pastoralists are being forceably relocated to far away areas, and are losing many of their cattle on the trip to this new location. Next week we go to visit the area to talk to the main stakeholders on the land, and then I get to come back and write a 20 page paper. In addition to a 10 page paper on the Serengeti ecosystem that I'm supposed to be working on... (No internet next week most likely)

So thats where I stand... let me know whats up with you! Emails are appreciated, as are the continuing comments on the blog!