by Mike Loomis
Page 1 : Preparing for the Field
9 Nov 05
Departed Asheboro for Yaounde via Greensboro, Atlanta and Paris.
10 Nov 05
I arrived in Yaounde at 7:30 PM after an uneventful flight. I cleared immigrations and customs easily. Desire Olembe and Zac Nzooh met me at the airport. Desire helped me get through customs. Martin Tchamba was at a wake for his sister who had recently died. He invited me to come to see him at the wake. It was good to see Martin, even under these circumstances. The last time I saw Martin, he was in the Meskine Hospital in Maroua recovering from surgery after his attack by the elephant. He has recently returned from Belgium where he had an additional surgery. He looks really great and has almost full function of his back muscles. I got to bed late.
11 Nov 05
Today is a national holiday (National Census Day). I went to the WWF offices and met with Zac to finalize the schedule and work on a paper we are preparing to publish on our elephant work in the forest. I went back to the hotel and rested in the afternoon.
12 Nov 05
Zac and I left Yaounde for Yokadouma. We got a bit of a late start. We had hoped to leave at 0700, but we did not leave until 0830. We arrived in Yokadouma at about 8:00 PM. The roads were fairly bad. We stopped in Bertoua, about half the way to Yokadouma, for lunch.
13 Nov 05
Today is Sunday. Today was scheduled for rest. I met several WWF friends for dinner.
14 Nov 05
I spent most of the day arranging and checking field gear for tomorrow’s trip to Mambele.
15 Nov 05
We were supposed to leave for Mambele today, but the vehicle we are taking is being repaired and will not be ready until tomorrow. Zac and I took advantage of this unexpected delay to work on our elephant paper. The paper is almost finished.
16 Nov 05
Our vehicle will not be ready until this afternoon. I went to the market with Fouda, the WWF park advisor for Lobeke National Park, to purchase some supplies for our field operation. We finally left for Mambele at about 2:30 PM. We arrived late and spent the night at Camp Kombo.
Next Page : First Elephants in Djembe
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