Today's my last day in Tanzania. Mollie and I had a terrific weekend safari to Ngorongoro and Lake Manyara where we saw thousands of wonderful critters, including the sweetest baby elephant. He was so young, he was having trouble using his trunk and he was very awkward on his feet. Last night it poured and today the cars are slipping all over in the mud. It seems that there are two options -- dust or mud. (Like in Kingston, Ontario where they say there are two seasons: construction and winter). Fred, KCCO's driver, says that we are at the start of the "short rains", not because of some sort of farmer's almanac prediction, but because of the fact that Dr. Paul Courtright and Dr. Susan Lewallen will soon be teaching the Nuffield Course on management, something they do every year at this time. The mountainsides of Kilimanjaro and Meru are lush and green, but en route to Manyara we passed through miles and miles of very parched land. The Maasai with their herds of cattle must find life in the dry season very hard. Most of the rivers and watering holes were bone dry. I kept wishing we could give them a bit of our Vancouver rain. I wish I had time today to join the field teams one more time. But I'll stay in the office and gather photos and write reports. On my return to Canada, I'll put together a film with video footage and stills, to show the work here and post it on YouTube so that you can get a sense of what I've been talking about. Thanks for reading the blog. Please visit Seva Canada's website at www.seva.ca. Assante sana (thank you very much in Swahili), Heather