One Body

One of the other neat things about being in Port Elizabeth is that Campus Crusade (now known as Cru) at UC Davis has a strategic partnership with NMMU. That means they send a number of their students here for short term summer missions projects and for one to two year longer projects (STINTs). One of my friends from Davis, Nick Stewart, is currently here on STINT. Last Sunday (June 24) he took me to church with him. I often am busy doing research on Sundays when I am in Africa and do not have the opportunity to visit an African church so it was really neat to see the people around me worshipping God and to be reminded that even though they are far away from the church I am part of in Gainesville and even though they have different accents than I do, we are still all part of one body in Christ.

Addo

A lot has happened since I landed in Port Elizabeth and made my last two posts. I’ll give several posts summarizing some of what I’ve been up to.

The reason I came to Port Elizabeth rather than just going to Botswana was to meet with officials from South African National Parks (SANParks) and researchers from Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University (NMMU) to discuss starting a new project based in Addo Elephant National Park, about an hour outside of Port Elizabeth. Greg Kiker, a professor from UF who does modeling of park management issues has facilitated an opportunity for myself and Jessica Steele, another PhD student in my department, to look at elephant movement patterns and the vegetation change that results from elephant impacts. Jessica is most interested in using satellite remote sensing to assess changes in vegetation over space and time while I will use GPS collar data from the Addo elephants do look at how their movements relate to the patterns of vegetation change that she finds.

The meetings have been very productive. There has been general excitement about the projects we are proposing and their usefulness to enhance park management. One thing that has been a little bit tricky is ensuring that our research does not conflict with projects already planned by the NMMU crew. This mainly relates to my work as they do not have any modelers or remote sensors but do have some plans to work with the GPS collar data. I think it will work out fine, however, as long as I confine my analyses to relating to the remote sensing work Jessica is doing.

One of my favorite things about setting this new project in motion is the opportunity to explore a new park. Addo is fairly small compared to Chobe National Park in Botswana, where I do most of my research; if you were determined you could probably make it from the north gate to the south gate in a little over an hour. The nice thing about that is that even though we’ve only visited the park three times, we have driven pretty much all of the generally accessible roads and gotten to see a substantial part of the park.

Addo is beautiful! The Eastern Cape has a Mediterranean climate, much like that of southern California and so the bush is very different from that in Botswana. Instead of a savanna dominated by trees and grass, Addo is dominated by thicket comprised of a number of succulents (plants like aloes and cactus). It has a tremendous amount of plant biodiversity, which is why there are concerns about the negative impacts elephants might be having. There are also a good variety of animals in the park, including all of the Big 5. Some of the highlights we’ve seen include a jackal hunting for mice, male kudu sparring with their horns, and a caracal, an elusive cat that I’ve never seen before!

Thanks to the many helpful people we’ve met from NMMU and SANParks, our meetings are over and we have a wealth of GIS, remote sensing, and GPS collar data to analyze. I look forward to seeing where this project will take me!

Count Your Blessings

I was talking with my father a few days before I left, telling him about all the craziness of getting ready and of other things that were going on, and he reminded me that in the midst of all that there were really a lot of blessings that God was also providing for this trip and that I should not lose sight of those. So in order for me not to forget them and to give Him the praise He is due, I want to list those blessings out here. I’m sure there are many more that I didn’t even realize, but here is a partial list of how God has provided:

He brought together the grant money to get me to Africa and to enable me to do my research

He has opened the door for an exciting new project with South African National Park

We had an amazing and fun place to stay in the weeks leading up to me leaving and were able to share the time with family and friends

I forgot to get a prescription for malaria medicine until a few days before I left but an opening at the student health center let me get it the very same day I realized I needed it

Publix took my insurance, which was unexpected, so my malaria medicine only cost a $20 copay

My truck broke down the day before I was supposed to leave but I got it fixed and the shop didn't charge anything for it

Many volunteers stepped forward so that all my deacon responsibilities are covered at church (this finally came together two days before I left)

I was able to fit all my gear in one checked bag (since Delta recently started charging for a second bag on international flights) and it was just under the weight limit

I got an extra half day with Chelsea (and didn’t miss anything too serious by having a delayed flight)

I didn’t have to pay Delta anything to change my flight

There was an empty seat next to me on the long flight, making things much more comfortable

My bag showed up safe and secure right where and when I needed it to be

I didn’t have to buy a new ticket for South African Airways

We have a great contact here, a professor from UF, who is really facilitating our plans and activities and who came to the airport a second time to pick me up after my schedule changed

I’m sure there are many more I could list and I’ll probably think of more after I post this but for now I want to thank the Lord and all of you who helped make these things possible!

Stop and Go

I am in South Africa! Many of you have probably heard this already but getting here did not go quite as smoothly as I had hoped. I was scheduled to fly out Sunday afternoon. Chels dropped me off at the Gainesville airport about 45 minutes early. Gainesville is a really small airport so we figured that would be plenty of time. It turns out it wasn’t. It took them a while to check me in because the computer said there was an issue with my ticket, but when the agent checked he couldn’t find anything. That got done and I got into the security line. There were two flights leaving about the same time (which is about all the capacity the airport can sustain) and only one scanner so the line took a while. Unfortunately when I got to the front of the line I realized I had forgotten to empty my Nalgene. I asked if there was somewhere I could dump the water out but the lady said no so I had to leave the line and go dump it in a trash can.

I got in line again and thankfully it went faster. I had just walked through the scanner when I heard them calling my name. I could see the lady at the Delta counter so I waved my hand and said, “That’s me!” She said I had one minute, which I figured was fine, I was done with security…then I heard the TSA agent proclaim “we need a bag check.” With a feeling of doom I realized it was my bag. I had left my netbook in my backpack because a sign in the line clearly stated that computers smaller than 12x14 didn’t need to be taken out. Apparently that is only partially true. They said I had too many electronics in my bag and proceeded to basically empty my backpack, searching every compartment and individually wiping down and scanning all my electronics. This took about 10 minutes, add to that the 2 minutes it took for the person to walk over to do the bag check and to joke around with the other TSA folk before opening my bag and I was about 11 minutes past my one minute limit. I kept looking over at the Delta lady and trying to be patient with the TSA people, but it was too late. By the time they gave me back my stuff my flight had left.

I went and talked to the Delta lady and she was very nice. She said the next flight was completely full but that she’d put me on standby and if anyone was even a little bit late she’d give me their seat. If I missed that one, though, it would be too late; I wouldn’t reach Atlanta until after my flight to Africa left. There wasn’t much else I could do so I thanked her and sat down. I waited there for about an hour and a half when an announcement was made that the incoming Delta flight was delayed due to mechanical difficulties. The new arrival time would probably still give me enough time to run and make my connection, so I prayed and waited. I tried to trust that God had some kind of plan and was going to work things out; I was too close and delayed too much outside of “normal” for it just to be coincidence. Nonetheless I’ll admit it was stressful.

About twenty minutes later they came on again and said there were still maintenance issues and that the flight was further delayed. Now my overlap would only be about 20 minutes. Atlanta is a big airport and I wasn’t sure I could make it. I left the waiting area and went to talk to a Delta representative (this was itself an ordeal, the exits were locked and I had to call for someone to come let me out). It turns out a number of people were inconvenienced by the delayed flight so there were big lines at the Delta counter. I stood in line about 25 minutes then finally got to talk to someone. She said that there was a very slight chance that I would make my connection but that I could try if I wanted. I decided I really didn’t want to risk spending a night in Atlanta when I could be spending it with Chels in Gainesville so I agreed to take the next day’s flight (There’s only one flight a day from Atlanta to Johannesburg).

I waited in line some more to talk to another agent who rebooked me for the next day and then called Chels to come pick me up. It was definitely nice to get to spend more time with my wife, but part of me still wished I had made my plane. I also had to rebook the South African Airways portion of my flight, which cost a changing fee, but wasn’t too bad.

The next day Chelsea dropped me off to try again. This time I was an hour and 15 minutes early and of course it was a typical Gainesville airport day and I had to wait until 30 minutes before my flight before they even opened the security checkpoint. This time I made it on without incident and the flight to Atlanta went fine. My time in Atlanta went well also. I was apprehensive about my seating assignment on the Joberg (Johannesburg) flight because I had originally booked a window but when I got bumped I was moved to an inside aisle. The Lord totally worked that out, however, because the girl who was supposed to be sitting next to me requested at the airport to move over one to the other aisle so we ended up having an open seat in between us, which made sleeping and stretching out much easier on a 14 hour flight! The girl was nice (I call her a girl but she was probably older than I am). She was headed to Joberg for three months to do research for a pro bono law company she works for. It was a fairly pleasant flight; the food wasn’t bad and the movie selection was good. Eventually we landed in Joberg, where the next challenge awaited.

Even though I had missed my flight the day before, my bag hadn't. I'd already checked it in and it was loaded long before they found out I wasn't on the plane. My teammate Jessica said she would try to grab it once she got to Port Elizabeth (we were supposed to be travelling together) but I didn't know if she had been able to or not. When I got to Joberg I got worried because they said our bags had to come out and go through customs, even if they were supposed to be checked through to our final destination. That made me nervous because I hadn't been there to do it the day before and because it meant Jessica probably couldn't have gotten my bag in Port Elizabeth (PE). I went and talked to a man at the Delta counter and he looked at my bag ticket and said my bag should arrive the next day. I was very confused about why it would leave one day before me and arrive one day after. I'm still not totally sure of the reasoning. He said they could set it up to ship it to me in PE but that first I should check the conveyer belt just in case it showed up. I walked over, not expecting to see it, but praise the Lord, there it was! I have no idea how it got out there on the same flight I did or at the same time, but it was there so I grabbed my bag.

 

I went to check in for my South African Airways flight from Joberg to PE and hit my next problem. They couldn’t find my name on the flight list. The travel agent said he had rebooked the flight, but for some reason it wasn’t showing up. They sent me to the main ticket counter but they couldn’t find it either and sent me to the ticket booking counter. I really didn’t want to have to pay for a new ticket, especially since I’d already paid a fee to change the original ticket. I also really didn’t want to get stuck in Joberg for the night as I didn’t have a way to get in touch with my ride in PE. I started praying that somehow it would work out. I got to the counter and the lady there couldn’t find my ticket either. I asked her to call the travel agent in Florida but she said she couldn’t. I told her I knew I had booked the new flight, I knew what flight and day and time it was and that it had been taken care of. She said she couldn’t see it then paused for a few minutes, hit some keys on her keyboard, and wrote down a new e-ticket number and told me I was fine to go. Again, I’m not really sure how it worked out all of the sudden, but I am very grateful that it did.

After that the rest was straightforward. I rechecked my bag, went through security, waited around for an hour, and then got on my flight. Two hours later I was in Port Elizabeth. I was very tired, but I had made it and I had all my gear. Praise the Lord!