Greetings from Gabon.

About a month has passed since my arrival in Gabon and, like Sarah, I have been horribly remiss about posting on this blog. As such, I shall dive right in.

After arriving in country I spent a few days in the capital city Libreville, enjoying the BEAUTIFUL Gabonese coast and getting to know some of the WCS personnel. On day three I jumped on a train, a surprisingly comfortable train with timely departures, functioning air conditioning and plush seats, and headed east, way east, to a city called Franceville, far inland and close to the Congo border. Along the way we passed through stunning forests and over picturesque rivers. All I could think during the trip was, 'Dorothy, you're not in Mali anymore.'

Once in Franceville I met some more WCS personnel and prepared for my departure out 'en brousse' to Kessala Village, the site I am living and working in. It is there that I have been for the past two weeks, and there that I shall return to in a few days. It is very quaint as far as rural living goes, nestled in the rainforest, and I have a sturdy wooden house with dirt floors, some sparse furniture and electricity for a handful of hours each day. I bathe in a local stream and lug water to and fro for drinking. Cooking is done on a small camping stove and consists of mostly canned goods provided by WCS. I eat village food every now and again, but generally like to prepare my own meals. Above is a photo of my house.

My daily routine consists of trips out into the forest to look for elephants, taking GPS coordinates of the surrounding areas (Fabio would be so proud!), and discussing with villagers means by which to improve the success of ecotourism in the region. It is the dry season here and the elephants are hard to find, but signs of them are all around. Each day I cross fresh tracks and skirt even fresher piles of elephant poop. Soon I shall see them, I just know it! I have seen others animals thus far, though, including monkeys of an indeterminate species, forest buffalo, bats, birds and snakes galore! The landscape in Gabon is really breathtaking and I feel lucky to be here. This Friday I return to my village with a WCS research team to resume observations and am scheduled to spend some days out in the field at a platform that the WCS has constructed for elephant viewing endeavors, and which I've posted a photo of. It makes for some pretty stellar observations, and I imagine my time there will be highly productive. I very much look forward to it.

Lastly, I've included a photo of a felled tree I came upon with a villager. Logging is legal in Gabon, but very tightly regulated. Nonetheless, the scene makes one sad. Some of the trees here are enormous and fetch a pretty penny at market. Luckily, 80% of Gabon is still covered in rainforest and an extremely low population density (5th lowest on the continent I think) means that Gabon's forest have a fairly bright future. Hooray!

Alright friends, that is all for now. I hope the summer finds you well and in the midst of exciting things! À la prochaine!