Final farewell

It’s difficult to eloquently sum up the experiences one has after spending a year in a place as magical as the Maasai Mara, and it’s even more difficult to put the feelings one has upon leaving into words. I have many memories I could choose from to answer the question “what was your favorite thing about the past year?”. I could choose between seeing a cheetah tackle an impala at full speed 15 feet from our car, knowing I was one of the first humans Ygritte and Margaery ever saw as they wearily emerged from their natal den for the first time in our presence, driving through herds of thousands of wildebeest and being immersed in their weirdly necrotic smell, having a month long stand-off with a hyena adamant on stealing the socks I used to seal the hole in my tent zippers, the smell of mandazi in the early morning coming from the lodges along the Talek river, the list goes on and on. But if I had to choose, I think I would say my favorite memory from this year would be how the Mara said goodbye to me.

            The morning of my last day in the Mara I was on solo obs, sitting with a group of some of my favorite hyenas; Epic, Gothic, Pisces, Tiramisu, and Baked Alaska. I spent about 10 minutes with them as they came up and investigated the car, chewed the mud flaps, aggressed on each other, and gazed at me curiously with their big, brown eyes. They were so close that I could see my reflection in Pisces’s eyes. The lighting was perfect, each hyena was slightly backlit, the edges of their fur seeming to glow in the morning sun. After they had all simultaneously lost interest in me they started to wander into the nearby bushes. I called out to Epic, hoping to get them to turn around one last time so that I could get a photograph of their face. Epic ignored me, as did everyone else. It was almost like I didn’t exist to them. I watched them with a bit of a heavy heart, their tails swishing to ward off flies, as one by one they got further away from me until they all disappeared into the bushes. And just like they there were gone – the last group of hyenas I would see that morning.

            Initially I was really hurt; being blatantly ignored by some of your favorite animals on your last morning isn’t an easy thing to stomach. I wanted to leave them on my own accord, not the other way around. I sat there alone for about a minute, my voice cracking as I recorded their location into my DVR. After I stopped the track I was hit with a totally different feeling, a feeling of thankfulness, appreciation, and deep humility. How lovely is it that in the end, I mean nothing to the animals I’ve come to care about and love so much? How lovely is it that my presence, or lack thereof, has absolutely zero impact on how they conduct their daily lives? These animals, while they are habituated to our presence, are wonderfully wild, and have every right in the world to remain that way – and nothing I do should change that. While we are all supposed to be researchers emotionally removed from the animals we study, I know it’s difficult for all of us to not become emotionally attached and begin to view these animals as a little less than wild as a result. It happens to all of us whether we want to admit it or not. I think we all want to believe that they begin to see us as more than a weird, hairless, ape (if it even goes that far) attached to a loud metal tank that routinely comes to hang out uninvited at their house.

            But the reality of it is, while my leaving the Mara will mean so much to me and be a defining moment of my life, my leaving the Mara will mean absolutely nothing to her or her inhabitants. Life there will go on unchanged. The hyenas will not miss me, and while I’ll remember them for years to come, the chances they’ll even remember me in a month are slim to none. And I wouldn’t want it any other way. I’m so thankful to the Mara for the final lesson she taught me and the way she decided to bid me farewell. Without this project, and the last five years I’ve spent with it, I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to experience that, and for that I’m extremely grateful. I couldn’t have asked to spend my last five years with a more intelligent, wonderful, and determined group of people and wouldn’t be who I am now without everything they've taught me. Saying that leaving the Mara and leaving the project has been a bittersweet emotional roller-coaster would be a dramatic understatement. While I have absolutely zero clue what I’m doing next, whatever ends up happening, I’ll be taking everything I’ve learned in the past five years with me to wherever I end up.

Thank you to everyone, human and hyena alike, for everything.

I love you all.

Atacama, Epic, and Gothic. While Atacama wasn't there my last morning, she's too important to leave out.