Bye Lajuma...

I'll write something whenever I've the time.... Right now, I'm just trying to pack, hard because I came with a suitcase and a backpack and now I can only take one of them because of the flight company; plus my travel around the country is not completely solved yet and I found out this morning that I didn't get the job I applied for, so when I come back to Spain I will be one of that 50% of young unemployed with great qualifications but no hope. Great day, yeah. Keep on standing, anyway...

Inter-Group Encounter: Barn VS House troop

Last week, I was following House troop and we were getting close to the Barn, when half of my monkeys ran towards me. I was kind of excited 'An inter-group encounter?Finally?' The only inter-group encounter

I had seen so far were when I wasn't following or when they found each other in the sleeping sites, but not a full one from the beginning.


Soon, I saw 3 monkeys coming, open-mouthing to mines. I radioed the Belgian to confirm, and she told me that she was with most of the monkeys of Barn troop at 150-200 m. But I knew that it was that, these evil monkeys are always extremely spread.

Few minutes later the little battle started, after my troop decided to stop ignoring the other (see video). However, while most of the visible members of Barn troop were, at least, paying attention to the battle, most of mine were some meters behind feeding. 'F^@ck, guys! What are you doing? We are more, let kick their as{^s!' But they didn't give a sh@t! Then I saw Babootie, who was been groomed by 3 adult females 'WTF, girls? He is useless, stop that and go to support your fellows' But, once again, ignored me.

20 minutes after, the fighters got tired of agonistic displays and went to their corners to get involved in an orgy of grooming, just to restart some minutes later.

The baboons came over. I guess that the e evolutionary roots of disease are deep, but at least the baboons instead of coming running and screaming 'fight, fight' are far more elegant and pretended that they just came to feed...but I saw you looking, guys!

When we thought that the issue would last forever, a peace-mediator came: Gunter. He appeared running crazily, slobberying all on his way and making the two parties to split and run away to their sides.

Daily life at Lajuma

Now that I'm almost leaving I wanted to share some of those things that I don't normally write about that are the daily stuff that happens when you are not following monkeys, doing phenology, checking camera-traps and so on.




Visits of the Neighbors

When you live in the middle of the field site, is common that your subjects of study decide some times to hang out at the entrance of your house.


Barn and House troops of samangos had always being regular visitors, jumping on the roof, messing in the pile of ashes of the braai and Babootie, the adult male of House troop, pretending to be Bonnie the cat to enter into the Barn and grab some food. Additionally, this place is part of what we call they grey area, where both troops territories overlap and, therefore, we were able to enjoy some inter-group encounters in the afternoon.

Less often, but also in a regular basis, the baboons come over to enjoy the grass and the sun of the place, even when the samangos are about.

Additionally, a family of greater bushbabies sleeps just behind the Barn, which is good because normally they move away to forage during the night...but is true that sometimes they decide to have a concert on the roof in the middle of the night. They are cute animals, but their vocalizations are f^Œking ugly! But we cannot complain. At Bush camp, they not only suffered the concerts almost daily, but for months had a bushbaby getting into the kitchen and stealing food.

Certainly, Bush camp is a much better place to get acquaintance with the local fauna. Since I arrived they have been the only ones on having scale guests, such a bush snake in one of the assistants room or a twig snake close to the fire place. Spiders are also more common and diverse there, we only had a couple of relatively tiny rain spiders so far.

However, we do have some dassies behind the Barn, who sometimes climb to the trees giving the fake impression of being samangos and, when the place is quiet, even some bushbucks dare to graze about.

Domestic animals, such as the feared Gunter and the horses visit us sometimes and now, daily Ozi, the cat of the PhD student. This cat comes mainly to eats Bonnie's food and flirt with her (I know this kind of guys...) in a kind of aggressive way.





Gas and Water issues

Our living conditions are really comfy, indeed, even in the middle of the bush but, of course not everything works always.

One night I was outside when one of the Germans was having a shower when, suddenly, one of the pipes outside exploded, flooding all the entrance of the Barn. Quickly, I closed the gas bottle (it was starting to smell already) and looked for the key of water, but I couldn't find it, nor the PhD student when he came to the rescue. He went to call the Handyman while, fortunately I finally saw the key and couple stop the water of flowing.

The fridges work with gas too, and they have the problem that, when the bottle is coming to the end, they don't burn all the and the Barn becomes a gas chamber, no matter how many windows you open. This is how I ended up camping with the Germans outside some days ago.

The water supply comes from the streams that cross the property and it's quite reliable. That's why we are lucky enough to have a 'washing' machine...that you have to empty by had and that, no matter how many times you rinse the water is always orange or black. At least it removes the smell to sweat...though in some occasions it replaces it by latrine one!



Braais
Braais, the SA word for barbecue, occur at least once a week and are the wildcard for any occasion, no matter if it's a birthday, a farewell or just Friday, a fire is always convenient, specially because the smoke covers quite effectively any bad smell that the 'washing' machine left on our clothes...



Town days

As a general rule, we go to town on Mondays to buy food, pick up new people, etc. Most of the people here hate town days and try to avoid them giving their shopping list to anyone else but for me it was the only little window to SA culture that we had and also my opportunity to have a nearly complete day off.

The journey takes 1h and a half, mainly because of the 7 bumpy km that separate us from the bottom of the mountain. Then breakfast at Café Rosa, a kind of very corny place but with cheat good food and portions big enough so you don't have to eat any more the rest of the day.

After that, it comes the shopping and those things. Maybe a visit to the Robot Electrical, an all-in-one shop, to buy some beads and make jewelry in the few time off or Mister Price for cheap. Any of these if you are not in the difficult situation of getting a visa.

If that's your case, you will have to visit Home Affairs. There, after going along the corridor, always full of people waiting, you go inside the international affairs office, where the workers are behind some bars, like a prison (we don't know if is to protect them from the frustrated people that they attend or for protecting those of them). Then you ask to one of the nice ladies there who, with a mixture of boredom and disgust will probably say something like 'It's not possible' 'I don't know' or 'It's not my problem'.

I remember the first time I went to check if my visa was ready. I asked and the lady checked on the computer and then went to the closet from where she took the stick of the visa. 'This is not going to be that easy' I thought. Of course not. As soon as I looked at it I saw that the visa expired 10 days before I had to take my plane, even if I gave them a ticket of the booking when I applied for the visa and that I had counted scrupulously the days before purchasing the flight. They had extended my visa from the moment they received my application instead from the day the one was going to expire. I explained to the lady, who quickly told me that she couldn't do anything. Next week, I came back. I knew that could be fixed, the Scottish and the Post-doc had had that problem before.

Fortunately for me, that time there was a different lady. At first, she tried to persuade me that it was too difficult to fix it, but I counter-attacked with Bambi-eyes and saying that I had no money to buy another plane ticket. After having a look to my dirty 2-sizes-bigger trousers, she sighed and told me 'ok, but don't blame me if you don't get it'. Fair enough. I still had some more than 2 months and a half, so I wasn't too worried. 3 weeks later, finally, I got a new (and right) visa.

But apart from this theme park of the African bureaucracy, it's true that there is not much to do in town. There is a market with stalls, where no white SA has ever been seen and where most of the people sell tomatoes, avocados and some more veggies. I have no idea if all of them manage to sell something having other 100 people around with the same products.

In general, when you get bore of messing inside the shops, you throw yourself to drink. Well, just one or two ciders, don't think too badly. Then is when we end up at Mike's, close to the PickNPay, where we buy the groceries, or to the Grasdack, my favorite. Savannahs don't taste better any where else.

Naming The Monkeys

Some weeks ago, as I said, a different research group came to trap samangos to take genetic samples and to see how isolated this population is to all the other ones around. As a part of their job, they tagged on the ears all the monkeys already caught. As a result, now I've got in my troops some individuals that I can recognize individually for certain (Finally!). So, what better than starting to give them names. As the tags are two colors on the ears, we have named them on the data collection as the initials of those, so we have BB (blue-blue), RR (Red-Red) and so on...but I though that would be funny to give them real names. So, I started, even though I only got a couple of days left and I only have 3 names!

Babootie (BB)

The samango with the honey badger aptitude

Babootie was the male that I used to call Greg, name that I didn’t really like but that made sense given that was the male of House troop. But with the BB tag I thought that Babootie, a typical SA dish, was much funnier and appropriate! Babootie is like that famous honey badger of youtube, a pretty bad dumbass. He doesn’t give a sh&t about humans, and sometimes, if we are distracted, he comes inside the Barn and steals food. When most people try to scare him away, he open-mouths them (but not me, I open mouth him first and he just looks around and pretend to be a good monkey munching grass…guess that my macaque style is kind of gansta). The other day I surprised him looking on the containers of the workers; he ended up with a huge piece of bread on the top of a tree eating for one hour and a half. We are trying to fix the situation, but it’s hard to make everybody to be careful all time with the food in their own houses.
But he is not only a nightmare for humans. Some days ago the Belgian was quite upset because Babootie had attacked one of the females of her troop and the poor monkey was bleeding from an arm! And two weeks ago, I was following the troop, that was around a road, which is great, cause you see them really well, not too frequent, and then some baboons appear. They were feeding around and all seem to be peaceful between the two species, as usual…until some came too close to Babootie and he, of curse, lunged and open-mouthed them, made the baboons to run away.

Roibos (RB)

 Juvenile male

 

Pap (PP)

An Adult Female

Ready for the next 1/4 of century

Cory's Shearwater chick.

I passed my last birthday in Gran Canaria, one of the islands of the Archipelago of Canary Islands. By the time the clock marked 0:00, I was in a car going up a mountain with two people that I hardly knew 24h before. It was the first night of the annual field campaign to anneal Cory's shearwater chicks, and my first time in a field campaign out of the practices of the university. It was the best birthday present I had so far.

The work was hard, not only because we had to find the nests of the shearwaters hidden among the rocks of a steep cliff that left to the sea and the ground was sandy and instable but also because we had to do it at night. This was because is the time when the adults come back from the sea to feed the chicks and, the PhD student that came with us needed to see their parasites.

Larus ridibundus in Texel

If this wasn't enough, obviously we had to use head torches and, given that it was the beginning of the autumn and the island was almost tropical, you can imagine that we had a nice sample of the 6-legged wildlife flying just onto our faces.

 Additionally, some nests were situated together inside caves, and we had to crawl inside then on that dusty ground covered by feathers, feaces and fleas. Needless to say that I loved the experience. During the day, after sleeping some hours, I went to the cyber café (if you could call it like that...) to see if I had any news of my prospective boss, the PhD student of Morocco.

George & Infant

After the field campaign, I spent one day at the house of the Great Portuguese before flying to the Neatherlands and cross them to reach Texel, the small island where the Catalan and I went to represent our research group in an international seabirds' dissection workshop. Then run to Barcelona again, just enough time to pack and hit Madrid to quickly prepare everything to start the best period of my life so far, going after macaques in Morocco. 5 months later, I had a break in Spain preparing PhD applications and proposals and arranging everything to get here. After others 5 months, I’m getting everything ready for my first lonely travel in Africa while waiting to know if I get an amazing job I applied for or not. Guess this has being a really amazing year; but I have the feeling that the next quarter of century is going to be unbelievable

The kodamas-like forest and the 'mimic-your-favorite-animal' day

Another misty and cloudy day in the kingdom of samangos and, I don't know if is because of this or because of the fact that in that last 4 days I had been working around 40h on the field, plus several hours of computer work and around 15-20h of sleep, but the thicket looked like a magical forest.

The wind and the fog make all sounds coming from further than some tens of metres to disappear and the samangos seem more relaxed...apart from more likely to vanish on the mist when this turns too dense, fortunately, not too often.

If one of the most shocking things of the first misty day was the almost absence of inter-specific encounters, last day was marked by them.

First were the baboons, who slept close to the troop and were around for a couple of hours (congratulations new chacma mums, your babies are extremely cute). After they left, my samangos seemed to think that the baboons had a point on being on the ground and spent a great amount of time with Papio-complex, feeding on grass, herbs and leaf litter.

When was I attacked by a terrestrial lamprey?

Then we had a pair of guests trying hardly to fit on the troop, feeding among it (even nearly touching the samangos), following us for hours, grooming each other and even letting me be as close as 5m from them! It was a couple of bushbucks!!!

Additionally, as I said in previous posts, new season usually is synonym of changes on ranging patterns, so they frequent areas that they used very rarely in the months before. This day they took me to the furthest side of the Bushbuck trail where I have ever been with them.

Bushbucks trying to be adopted by the troop

Along our way, and after some hours immersed in the acacia forest, we dived in a very (x5) thick thicket where, as one of the baboon people told me the other day, the prickles have prickles! In the heart of the mess I found the ruins and leftovers of a lost civilization, one more technologically developed than the Bush man...the former owners of the property. Well, ok, is not as interesting as finding a Mayan pyramid, but after hours of vines and thorns is kind of exciting!

Mysterious ruins

With less than two hours left before dusk, I was expecting that the samangos, finally, showed me their secret sleeping site of the Bushbuck trail…instead, they preferred to run away and go all the way back to the area of the settlements, traveling 500m in 30 minutes (they normally walk less than 1km per day!!). When I finished the last scan, I started to prepare the equipment for the sleeping site data collection…but they were gone. I couldn’t see nor hear any monkey and the mist was thicker than ever. I ran around all the sleeping sites nearby, only managing to get lost in the forest when it was already dark and the fog didn’t let the light of my torch to reach beyond a couple of meters.

By the time I arrived to the Barn, I saw that the stuff of the Belgian weren’t there. I called through the radio (We finally have!) but she didn’t replay, so I ran to Bush Camp, imaging her in the middle of the evergreen forest trying to make her way home… But no, she was in the kitchen chatting with the Germans and the Vendas. At least, as a compensation for my heart stroke, I had a nice piece of apple cake. Fair enough.

Trailer of the wet season

Dry season is supposed to end between October and November. However, we are getting some advances on how wet is like with the arrival of spring.

After a really misty day, which I spent doing phenology (The evergreen forest acquires a disturbing look with the fog, even more if you are listening to the BSO of The Princess Mononoke), came a night of heavy rain and lightnings which showed us that our roof not only amplifies the sound in a way that makes you feel as the Apocalypses has just started, but also that it has sieve-complex. My room is rather fine, only one leak...just above the closet where I usually keep my laptop. Miraculously, it's still working.

Fortunately, 20 minutes before I had to go with the monkeys , the rain stopped, leaving behind a humid and misty day in which the monkeys traveled slowly and vigilant, even if we had no inter-specific encounters that day.

Spring here is, like in Europe, a little bit schizophrenic and, after a couple of days drowned in mist and cold came a extremely hot day that quickly evaporated the moisture on the soil, charging the atmosphere in water so you sweat even when doing computer work.

The end of the dry season brings some food scarcity, with all the seedpods that my samangos used to feed on, lying empty on the ground. Fortunately, there are still some leaves on the sweet thorns (Acacia karoo) which the monkeys chew joyfully, as well as herbs, grass and the delicatessen of Red sacred coral tree (Erythrina lysistemon) flowers. Guess that, as long as you are committed to eat whatever living been around that you can catch, you never starve.

Bonnie, my occasional field assistant

Other change along with the season is the ranging pattern. House troop, finally, took me to one of their, until now, less frequent sleeping site. This one is about 1km away from the settlements, near the road that goes to an impressive waterfall and some meters away from a stream. The only problem was coming back from there, because the vegetation was a maze, and of course, be there on time next morning. Somehow, I made it...though I loose them for an hour after the second scan. Nothing like going up and down climbing rocks and avoiding thorns at 6 in the morning, after having worked 12h the day before and slept 6 hours...if I can still do this might be than I'm not that old after all... I'm turning 1/4 century soon and I'm scared and paranoid.

Last but not least, warmth and rain are accompanied by spiders and snakes. A spider with the abdomen of the size of R2 (2 rands) insisted in taking a shower with me. It came back quiet sad to its hole when I rejected the offer. I don’t need more weird bites, I already have some since the second week that are still there ( I guess I should be worry, but if they are going to kill me at least it seems they will take their time. Fair enough). Nonetheless, I haven't found a snake yet in the forest, but I think that I will survive if I leave without that…

T.I.S.A: The Daily Sun

Well, here is the second episode of T.I.S.A, some crazy articles of one of the most selled newspapers in the country, the Daily Sun. Hope you enjoy it.

Now we now the true drama...

ah...that's why we never have them around here

Amen

Back with the monkeys

My month on the predator side of the project expired, even if the plan when I got here was 3 months of each, but it couldn't be, c'est la vie.

Bye, bye to the walks under the sun, sleeping until passed the sunrise, social life and free time. Back to 12-14h of thorns and cute evil monkeys running away at the scan time. And now that the dry season is ending and the temperatures are increasing, the spiders start to set their webs on the forest (the veil in your face) and the likelihood of encountering a snake is much greater. Actually, some of the Germans saw a Spitting cobra last week when following my troop (great!).

After sleeping 5 hours, because an application for a job kept me awake until late, I had my monkey breakfast, which consist in porridge (people laugh at me, but one appreciates to don't need to chew to fill the stomach at 4-5 a.m) and coffee, this time mixed with chicory which, apparently is typical, and also much cheaper (best choice for a future pizza-maker).



Then I walked to the sleeping site close to the Owner's garden where the monkeys were already jumping from one branch to the other in the mist, pretending that they hadn’t missed me, ha.

Not much later, they went close to the Barn, giving me the chance of picking my camera up and take some pictures of them on the PhD student's roof or messing in the pile of ash of the braai.

Soon, I started to see the monkeys with the tags that a different research group put them last week. Now the Germans call Greg Jack because of Jack Sparrow...I don't think he gives a s^@t, so he has 2 or even 3 different names.

During the day we had several encounters with the local fauna, including dassies, bushbucks (daily) and tree funny warthogs a little bit unsure about if they should escape from me or not. The best was a lonely ibis that was on the ground doing the call they make at dusk and dawn, while the monkeys, chewing flowers looked at it like saying 'are you nuts, man?'


The sleeping time was crazy; first with Guinea fowl that came to sleep around and then I heard many of the monkeys vocalizing, booms, pyows and branches shaking. Trying to enter all the data, I managed to walk to the place without getting my legs broken (is a f&%cking stony place). The Belgian was there with Barn troop...and an eagle too! With so many emotions, it doesn't shock that the monkeys took nearly one hour after the sunset before to sleep.

Back at the Barn, the Israelian had prepared a sushi night which also served as farewell dinner for the last Frenchs, it's a pity that the long day transformed me into a grumpy zombie (It's not healthy to work the double of hours that you sleep).


Next 'morning', the Belgian and I went back to the sleeping site and dived to collect the data of each of our troops. Mines woke up early and started to walk towards the road within the mist. There we found one of the German students that was supposed to be following Barn troop. I told her that the troop around was House and she told me that she expected it, because Barn troop never went there. Never is a huge word when you have only been following the monkeys for 2 weeks, I don’t dare to say it after 4 months, but I guess that that explains everything.

After she went to asked the Belgian about the other troop, the monkeys and me had a peaceful cloudy-misty day without any bad encounter (now I’m all the time expecting a snake), while thinking in the meeting with the director of the project.




Around 15h, they left the acacia forest and went to the Owner’s garden to feed on a huge Broom-cluster fig. They were all perfect on the ground chewing figs when, suddenly, they started with their squeals and I felt something slobbery on my neck; Gunter, of course, the smelliest dog ever.

Close to the sleeping time, I stopped to watch some of the monkeys that, again, were feeding on figs; this time in the forest. It was pretty funny to watch them fighting with each other for the fruits, even if there were more than enough for everybody. Guess selfishness comes from far in our phylogeny.


Next day I only had sleeping sites, but on Friday I had to follow them again and it was a really weird day. It was raining all the night until 20 minutes before I left, and then the mist came, giving a kind of dream-like landscape, where the monkeys walked quietly and vigilant.

Culture: The origin of the Venda People

We found a book about African folklore in the Barn, one day that we were crazy looking for the charger for the spotlight that we use in leopard trapping. Here is the fragment in which the origin of Venda people, according to their tradition is explained. By the way, the Vendas are the dominant group around here (apart from the immigrants from Zimbabwe), that is why:

<<Kale, kale –long, long ago- before there were Venda people in the world, there was a large snake called Tharu (Python) living on the mountain slopes pf the present land of the Vedas. That which came about happened during a year of prolonged drought, It was then that Tharu divided humself into two parts- Thoho, the Head, and Tshamutshila, the Tail. When Tharu had so divided himself, each part became a snake. They lived on, until one day Thoho said to Tshamutshila: “The drough has brought great famine everywhere. I fear that we shall die of hunger unless we do something to avoid starvation. Therefore, let us separate. You go westward in search of food, and I shall search in the east.”

Then Tshamutshila went westward searching, into the land that is now the country of the Vendas. When he arrived in that place he became a human being. He gathered herds of cattle, he married many wives (Let me just say that religions and traditions seem to be in agreement that women have a different origin than men…¬¬’ anda que…) bore Tshamutshila numerous children. These numerous children married and begot more children, and in time all these people became a tribe. Tshamutshila became their chief, and he was called by the name Ramabulana. He built Musanda, meaning Great Place, and from there he ruled.

The land of the Venda people was fertile and full of rivers and springs, and rain was plentiful. The people grew maize, millet, squash, pumpkins, peanuts, sweet potatoes, cassava, beans, sweet cane and many other kinds of crops. They had cattle, sheep, goats, fowls, dogs and cats. Food was plentiful and the people were prosperous. Tshamutshila, or Ramabulana as he was known, became a chief whose name was in far-off lands.

Now, Thoho went east to a place in what is now Mozambique, and there he founded the Ronga people. In time he also turned human, and he came to be known by the name Nyamusoro. But the lands he rued were lands of drought and famine. The soil was not fertile, there were not many rivers and little rain fell. In order to procure food for himself, Nyamusoro became a wandering singer and entertainer. He travelled from one village to another, from one country to another and from one Great Place (dweling of a chief) to another. He sang and danced in return for food to eat and beer to drink. And he arrived one day at the Great Place of Ramabulana, he who founded rhe Venda nation. He danced and sang at the outer gate of the Great Place, and the people gathered until there was a great crowd. His dancing stirred up a cloud of dust that rose into the sky and hung there over the town.

Many people went to Ramabulana to urge him to come and see the dancing, but he refused. Knowing thet he and Nyamusoro were parts of Tharu, The Python, he feared that the two parts would again be joined. So he would not listen to those who urged him to come to the town gate. But Ramabulana’s wives implored him even more strongly than others. They sang:

“Go out of your house, O Vhamusanda,

For Nyamusoro’s singing and dancingm O Vhamusanda.

It is a spectacle too great to be missed by any living person,

A sight never before seem or heard,

Come out and go to the gate, O Vhamusanda!”

Importuned this way, at last Ramabulana could not resist. He agreed to go to the gate to hear Nyamusoro sing and see him dance, He arose. He went to the gate where the great crowd was watching, and where the dust was still rising from the groud into the air. He went forward, till he and Nyamusoro saw each other. And instantly they came together, the two parts of Tharu, and they joined and became Tharu the Phyton again. And even as the Venda people watched, Tharu coiled and uncoiled and then made his way out of the town into the forest.

Thus Great Place of Ramabulana was a Great Place without a chief. Ramabulana`s sons grew up, they married and had children; but they quarrelled among themselves and could not agree on anything. So they parted, each of the sons taking his family and his followers. Each chose a different direction. Werever one of the, settled with his people he became a chief. Thus Venda people spread across the country, all of the progeny of Ramabulana, who began as a part of Tharu, and who returned to Tharu.

(From “A Treasury of African Folklore- Harold Courlander”)

A wedding on the bush

Finally, the event announced since I arrived came, the wedding of the leader & the co-leader.

Two days before, we even had a 'hen party' (The perversion of language never will end up of surprising me...). The typical games of toilet paper bride dresses among others reminded me once again that marriage is not for me (I remit you again to the  Nina Simone's song) and that the Western (well, probably worldwide) idea of what is feminine needs an urgent review. Sigh. Anyway, people seemed to enjoy it, specially the bride and that's the important point, plus everyone should do whatever makes her/him happy (or thinks that would), being the limits other people's freedom (the most simple theories seem to be the hardest to become true), so don't let my analytical habits to ruin you the party.

The Doomsday arrived (name that the French-Spaniard used to use to joke with the groom). The couple and its family and friends went to town to see if Home Affairs decided to marry or not (still burocratic nightmares are to Africa what H to water).

In the mountain, however, we had other business. After a morning drowned in the database of the monkeys, I went to meet the Belgian at Wilderness; the main course of the wedding dinner had arrived, a warthog.

The Owner and his son started to prepare the corpse inside the 'roasting machine', while the Belgian and I tried to make coals. Once everything was ready, our task was watching the machine so it didn't stop rotating the hog and, each half an hour, change the coals if necessary and poor some alcoholic mix on the meat so it didn't get dry. Given that it takes 6h to cook, choosing the people that can spend 12h watching monkeys seemed a logical resolution.

Around 15h, people had come back from town and we were preparing things for the dinner. After, I went to get dress (I always feel like a travestite when I have to wear skirts and related) leaving the warthog on the Belgian's hands until I came back  to replace her. Later she came back and I could go for a while to the reception.

There I could taste, finally, the mopane worms. With coating they are fine, no much flavor and slightly crunchy...without, they don't look very yummy and is kind of difficult to chew the legs and hairs. I could eat them on an emergency, but they are not my cup of tea.

After sunset and accompanied by a big orange moon, we headed back to Wilderness in procession lighting our way with oil lamps.

The dinner was amazing, a kind of buffet of South African specialties: pap with tomato sauce, pumpkin balls, gems with butter and sugar, babootie, and, of course, the warthog (though, unfortunately, was a little bit dry, even if we followed all the instructions). The cake was rather original.

And finally, dance and chat around the fire, drinking Amarula and chewing some biltong on of the cliffs.

Trapping Nights

With the trapping of samangos, we took advantage and convinced the vets to stay and help in the leopard trapping.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t be involved in the samango trapping due to my current duties as assistant in the predator side and my unsuccessful race to prepare all the samango’s data before the meeting with the director. Nonetheless, the Belgian kept me up to date whenever she wasn’t carrying cases up and down or watching them to avoid the baboons to get caught. Apparently, the first naïve monkeys in being caught were the both males of House and Barn troop, that couldn’t resist the temptation of picking the oranges that rested at the end of the cases. Other 12 more monkeys were caught, tagged, their teeth inspected and several samples taken. The researches weren’t very please with the number of monkeys trapped but, to be honest, I was disappointed with my samangos for being so naïve!

Speaking about more spotted mammals; I recently spent two nights in a row with leopard trapping; in addition to one day at the beginning of last week in which we were setting up and pre-baiting everything.

The first night I was spotter and the Leader was driver. Everything was going fine until we wanted to check the second trap and we found ourselves trapped on the sand. After unsuccessful trials of getting rid of our imprisonment, we had finally to call for external help. When the co-leader arrived he found out the problem in a matter of seconds…just let’s say that I hope to never forget again how the wheels look like when they are in 4x4 mode… We spent the night on a tent close to the traps, sleeping while the bush babies screamed outside.  Up before 6h and check again, no leopards this night; but the few hours of sleep let me had if I had a great hangover.

That afternoon, the French-Spanish and I went to open the traps for that night. We used the quark bike and the French-Spanish was teaching me how to drive it; apparently I do it pretty well…and I enjoy it, F&%ck! That night, we came back, now with the car, to do the first check. Nothing, but some frights due to the huge size of the cow foetus used like bait, specially because now they are swollen and look quite scary.

Another night on the tent later and we woke up to check the trap which, again, showed no signs of leopards.

Now we are stopping for some days because the vet had to go to sort out some things and we appreciated because we are in a kind of party-days because of today’s wedding. I will have a busy day learning to cook a warthog! Write you soon given a food critic about the Mopane worms!

Calm after the storm…though clouds are approaching from the skyline

I’ve got some less of 2 months left in South Africa, something that at the beginning of this African year sounded a lot and now I know is not even a blink. Only 6 more weeks on the project and hopefully 2 weeks crossing the country. After, who knows. I’ve just withdrawn my application for a PhD in which I was going to work with chimpanzees because I couldn’t find a scholarship and I have nothing prepared yet for next year. My country is falling into pieces and, if it was difficult to find a job before the crisis now seems a miracle. No that I wanted to stay there anyway, but I’m pretty lost right now. But well…if something I’ve learn too is that even if 2 months are short, a single day can change everything, so let’s keep hope. So, while trapping, tagging and following monkeys, I’ll be working on CVs and application to see if I can continue my biological adventures and I don’t end up as many others. Hope, keep on standing,

Interspecific mohawks

As I said before, this month I am helping with camera-trapping; nice task that consists on walking several kilometres a day collecting the cards of the camera traps, changing batteries and then coming back to the Barn to tag the pictures and ID the leopards; helping to construct the home ranges of these last and to assess the biodiversity of the area and its activity patterns, among others.

While tagging I could not stop noticing a marked trend among the animals, unrelated to the species...there are many punks around the mountain! Just see it by yourself

Common Warthog (Phacochoerus africanus)

Crested Guineafowl (Guttera pucherani)

Brown hyena ( Hyaena brunnea)

African civet (Civettictis civetta)

And the kings by excellences of mohawks, the porcupines (Hystrix africaeaustralis)