Wednesday, April 1, 2009

Ovens! (and a rare find)

The solar ovens are finished!  We spent all morning working on them (and got a few cuts and sunburns in the process), but we finally got them up and working.  “Jua kali” is an adjective in Swahili which translates literally as “hot sun”; there’s no great translation for its actual meaning in English, but basically it describes something that’s improvised or jerry-rigged and highly sketchy yet functional (often made by people working under the ‘hot sun’).  Our ovens are very jua kali.  From the flimsy tin-foil/duct tape/plywood top to the messily caulked seal on the glass to the numerous bent nails in the base to the poorly fitting input and exhaust pipes, the ovens show a lot of character, but they are done and that is exciting.

IMG_2391

To celebrate our miraculous feat of engineering we went out on an afternoon game drive.  All the normal characters were there (impala, dik-dik, some giraffes, and even a brief glimpse of a hyena) but the really exciting sight we caught on our way back, when Josephine spotted a nest hidden behind a bush about twenty feet from the road.  We jumped out of the car to take a look, and found…  a Grevy’s Zebra egg! 

ZebraEgg

Grevy’s are a rare zebra species found only in the semi-arid savannah environment of the Laikipia plateau.  While platypuses and echidna are thought to have always laid eggs, Grevy’s are the only known example in the mammal order of a species undergoing eutherian regression (occasionally switching from live birth to egg laying).  The switch is usually triggered by extreme environmental conditions (such as the current drought) when resources are so scarce that pregnant mares can’t afford to carry foals to term.  Laying eggs frees the mothers to migrate farther in search of food for themselves and their (soon to be hatched) young.  There’s a really great description (as well as many cute baby zebra pictures) here.  Check it out!

7 comments:

  1. what?! seriously? a zebra EGG?
    please please please say you made a zebra omelette.

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  2. hahaha,
    Sam, I love you.

    I fell just as bad as Denali, my excuse for us both is that it was april 4th by the time we were reading this.

    And I actually clicked on the link, because I was like, wait... I feel like I would have heard of this animal before.
    ~Katie

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  3. oops. you can delete my comment if you want
    kt

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  4. oh man, Sam. I was about to post a comment about how freaking cool that is, and I saw the comments before me. But I thought it would be dishonest to pretend I didn't completely fall for that. You're good!

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  5. Oh man. This is way better than what we did.

    We cleaned Noah's room for April Fool's.

    - ER

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  6. You totally got me and Denali. I followed the link and my first reaction was "oh...I wonder what happened the real link?" and then it slowly dawned on me. Balls! Would have been awesome, huh??

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  7. GET TO SIMBA ROCK! A lot of drunken memories were made there. Also, tell Joseph I said Hey if he's still around. Hakuna matata, mzungu kidogo! This blog rocks (screw you and your spurious zebra eggs..I suspended quite a lot of belief for this one, only to have my heart shattered).

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