Some old videos

After two days doing focals of 9 and 8h long (I'm proud of myself) I'm a little bit tired to be ingenious or do anything (even if I have spent all my day off trying to finish a nightmare of application for a PhD program!! &%$%$!!!) ; so I was looking on my laptop and I found a folder with some videos of my first weeks here in Morocco. Here are some of them:

Artemis



Too naive to be worried


Simon & Kerry



Thrilling conversations of the research assistants



Well, I would have liked to post the one of the great intergroup encounter between the Green group and the Humpback group, but this is extremely slow, the video is long and I have less than 6 hours letf to sleep before getting up to meet the people of the BBC to see how they film my beloved macaques on the snow, so...


..."y solo se me ocurren versos para cobardes sin guía"(Syla)...

REVIVAL: The curse of the master thesis. Episode I

I inaugurate this new series of post about past experiences in the field of biology, meaning all that things that happened before I started the blog or, in the future, things that I couldn’t write in a reasonable time when happened.

So, this is the story of my second research project, which has nothing to do with the first one (even if I haven’t told you anything about it, I don’t think I’m gonna write anything about it and you have no f&%cking idea of what I’m talking about). I changed university, city, topic and instead of struggling alone trying to design an experiment and make it work I entered into the dark world of research groups…let’s see if I can do a good summary of this stressful though enriching experience. I hope you enjoy it, I struggled, but I was feeling like Guybrush Threepwood most of the time.

I had already spent a couple of weeks in Barcelona when I decided that was time to look for a research project, given that, finally, I had a roof under which sleep. I had a look at the research opportunities and I found out that I didn’t really like any. Silly me, I had chosen that master because it was in the best university I could afford, instead of looking if they had any research group interesting. As many people said to my friend Corso: valiente, imbécil, pero valiente (brave, stupid, but brave). So, I tried to find something that, at least, made me learn as much as possible and that didn’t give me too many reasons to tear out my eyes with a spoon after a couple of months.

My first trial was with a group dedicated to tarantulas, but the head of the group told me that their approach was pretty much genetical and it wasn’t what I was looking for. Fortunately, he was quite nice and gave me the name of some professors that may have something interesting for me. So, I wrote to some of them and I managed to make and appointment with 3.

It’s funny because I’m a pretty no self-confident person in many aspects (trying to change that) but, after my final year of degree in which I managed to be hated by most of my classmates because of my scores, I felt confident in the interviews and, actually, I was interviewing them instead of them to me. I wanted to see what they could offer to me, not begging for a place. My first appointment was with a very kind professor that offered me a research about the turnover rate of stable isotopes of N and C in various tissues of cetaceans ( I had not f&cking idea of what isotopes had to do with biology in that moment) and she assured me a publication, though I wouldn’t be the first author. It sounded pretty good and I was really tempted to choose it only because she was very nice. However, the time of research was short and I wanted to sweat (yeah, I’m masochist, each one has her hobbies!). In contrast, my next appointment was with a professor that seemed to hate me before knowing me, apparently because my expedient was good or because I wasn’t Catalan, I wouldn’t know what to choose. She offered me a project about Hg pollution in gull’s eggs, which I would carry out, pretty much in a well-known laboratory. I know that she offered me more, but the idea of having to talk with her at least once a month given the face with which she looked at me gave me chills. So, finally, I went to meet another one. I was waiting at the entrance of the department when he finally came to bring me to his office. The first impression was bad cause, instead of greeting me with a handshake he did with two kisses (in Spain is pretty normal, but mainly in more informal occasions, with friends, etc). Along that year I would learn that seriousness and politeness was something weird among scientists, and that I had completely wrong idea of how things worked.
This professor offered me several options, but none with field work, what was mainly what I was looking for. Given that no one offered, I asked a little bit about the several options he offered. The one which rang the bell was a project about trophic ecology of Mediterranean seabirds using stale isotopes of N and C and fatty acid profiles. It wasn’t because it sounded pretty interesting, but because the fatty acid analysis implied a month of stay in another city and, after all, I’m a traveller.

I was asking some questions, as if it could end up in a publication and so, just to compare with the others in a rational and cold manner…but the stupid kid inside me only screamed “trip, trip, trip”, “Ok, ok, you win!” I said her, and after some days pretending to myself that I was considering the other options and that this one was the best one (at last probably was, but I didn’t really have good rational reasons to choose it, just my guts), I agree to meet him again.

He seemed happy under his glasses and quickly typed on his computer to tell one of his PhD students to come. I was pretty surprised that anyone was still there, because it was Friday, I think, and 20h. Then, some minutes after a tiny skinny girl appeared, with black long hair, glasses and face of what-the-f&ck-you-want-now-b&st#rd-?. She was the great Portuguese. He started to tell her that I was a master student who was going to work with them and explained her the idea of the project that he had while she took notes. In that moment I didn’t really know why she would be interested in that information. I was so naïve thinking that your supervisor actually supervises you…After a while they opened an enormous excel sheet in which the details of the corpses of around 700 marine birds, la “Matriu Cadavers”, which would be my everyday companion during that year. He started to look at it and saying which species I would have to analyze… I didn’t know any of them; on that time, the only seabirds that I knew were seagulls and I didn’t have an idea of the different species existent. At the end, I had to analyse 10 individuals of 13 species…or at least try, if there were enough exemplars. And of course, install Dropbox, the best invention of the century as far as we know I don’t remember much more of that day, but a headache and a voice on my head saying “what have you done, assh%le??”.

The day after I went to meet a guy that had worked before with my supervisor and who was going to show me the freezers with the corpses of the seabirds. After some confusion, I finally found him and together we went to the last floor of the building, which was messy, creepy and solitary and that was close to become part of my daily routine. With some difficulties, he managed to open the door of that disturbing room full of freezers of the different research groups. Two of them were our (well, in fact there were also two “jokers” that ended up pretty much full with our stuff, apart from a poor frozen cat without any label). He started to take out birds from the freezer and I felt like in a dream seeing all that animals perfectly labelled in their plastic bags. Then we tried to go to the library, to see if he could teach me a little how to use the Matriu Cadavers, but the informatics room was full. We went out to look for another one but then we met the Valencian, the girl who was partially responsible of my decision, cause she had the same Supervisor and she told me that she was happy with him…I told the guy that I thought that I could handle the matrix and he told me that he hadn’t show me yet the Freezer Chamber, but that probably I wouldn’t need it (ha, ha, ha…), and he left. After speaking a little bit with the Valencian, I went to the department to meet the Portuguese and she explained me what I should do then. Her teaching skills were, even then, pretty laudable. At the end, she gave me the keys of the department and the lab upstairs. I came out of there unable to believe that in a couple of days in that university I had managed more than in 4 years in my other university. Those keys were a treasure for me…though I confess that my first thought was how they were so confident of giving the keys to someone pretty much stranger.

The following days I was working on the matrix trying to find the individuals that accomplished the criteria that my supervisor had asked for. When I finally though that I had it, I sent to him by e-mail and, very naively, waited for an answer.

The days passed and one morning, the Portuguese sent me an email to go right then to the Uni so she could teach me how to weight the samples and the patrons for the isotopes analysis. In that time of the year I still hadn’t much to do in the uni, so I spent the morning in my flat till my lectures on the afternoon; so I had to run to the underground and have a half hour journey that separated my cheap house from the university.

Once there I followed the indications of the Portuguese and I ended up in front of the Serveis Cientificotechniques, other place that was about to became a second home. I made a miss call to the Portuguese and some minutes afterwards she went out of the building with her labcoat, a ponytail and opening the door with her elbow so her gloves didn’t touch anything. I followed her through that white maze till we arrived to the chromatography of gas unit, where the valued and accurate balance that we had to use was, surrounded by the Galician, the Belgian (both students of my supervisor) and the technician of the unit, that looked at us very upset and telling the Portuguese to tell our supervisor to not sent so many people there at the same time. It was, actually, a pretty small cubiculum. Then, the Belgian started to practice the measurement, which was a tricky stuff. As tools we had two different tweezers, a small spoon, scissors and a plaque with three tiny holes. As material, a pot full of minute tin pots and the vessels with the standard substances (That the technician repeated over and over again that were very expensive and better that we were careful). With this stressful voice on his ears, the Belgian trembled while trying to put one of the small pots on the balance to tare it and then put it in the plaque to fill it with the patron. Afterwards was my turn…I am very lucky of never having the dream of being a surgeon, because my pulse is like the one of an old man with Parkinson with a caffeine overdose. The technician said that I should give up coffee as she did ( liar!! I saw you drinking it!!), because if not it would be impossible (“What the f%$ck you, b&%tch?” A life without coffee is not my life! Kind of kidding, of course, but still…) At the end I managed to do a fairly nice tin tinny cube with the patron inside. While I was doing it I was having my typical moment of laughing about everything that I usually have when I do something related to biology that I haven’t done before ( I think some people call it happiness). The Portuguese then start talking to me and we were measuring each other about knowledge in a very elegant way (ha!) and probably we found out that we were two f%&cking rigorous and workalcoholic girls (she more than me, for sure) in a chaotic world. So, she told me to have lunch with her and so I did. I don’t really remember what we talked about, but I remember that I was nervous because I was starting to realize that she was my actual boss and I was starting to admire her and I cannot disappoint a person whom I admire.

The day after the Portuguese sent us an email giving us the dates when we had to come back to start to measure our standard substances and advising us to go on Monday early in the morning to book more hours, because everybody needed that balance and each person could use it only 2h per day (FIGHT!). Two days after, I was there with my labcoat (very professional, but for the tag on the backside…), my permanent marker, the lab notebook and the pot with the tin vessels and, of course, gloves. I think I achieved to measure like 4…things that happens when one attempts to have the exact micrograms ( ’).

A couple of days latter and as said by my advisor, I contacted with another professor so he could teach me a technique I needed, the lipid extraction, and I agree to meet him the next week in the morning. Of course, when I went there, he wasn’t on his office and I has to waste the time doing who-knows-what till he appeared. Then we took the elevator and went up to the mysterious 6th floor which I had never visited before but which would also a part of my new routine. After passing in front of the Ecology department, we went into a big room which was a dismantled lab, with all kind of material in every corner (I called it the Jack the Ripper’s lair). At the end of the room there was a close door from which a loud electronic music came out. The professor opened the door and we found a short blond girl working on the fume hood. She turn the music down and then the professor introduce us and said “well, teach her how to do the lipid extraction” and he left. So, this girl, another master student who has learnt the technique two days ago, showed me how to do the extraction. I was in a hurry because of the delay of the professor and a kind of distracting looking around me and thinking how can anyone could do a serious job in such a messy place, so I couldn’t pay much attention, but I agree to meet her the day after and she was going to mail me the protocol.

So, the next day I went up with the Portuguese who also wanted to learn the technique, but nobody was there. We were talking a little while waiting till another PhD student, the Italian, appeared. She was surprise that the other girl hadn’t appeared but, anyway, she explained us the technique and respond to our queries. I didn’t have any, because in that moment I was so lost that I had no idea of what to ask. Fortunately, the Portuguese was there. I will always be your Padawan (yeah, I’m a freak, what’s the problem?)

Well, I wanted to end the Episode I with the Christmas holydays, but I see that I had a pretty long November last year so I gonna leave it here for now…Who would have told me that the same month one year after I would be running after macaques in Morocco?

…Y la nave aún no zarpa, aunque en la otra costa lo haya hecho ya…sigh

Every end is a new beginning…hopefully

Finally, the PhD student left and I moved with my new team and started to work with them. I feel like a child whose byke has just been removed the small wheels on the sides.

We didn’t come back to the green group site; the rest of the week was dedicated to finish the data collection on the tourist site. I really prefer the other one; that forest is a kind of magical place, even if you still can see a lot of human traces, usually is peaceful and quiet. I really enjoyed feel the pass of the weeks on the turnover of the fungi species during the autumn, and the silence during the solitary lunch minutes…

Well, let’s go to the point. The two following days nothing really special happens, though my skills as research assistant had a great improvement. My new fellows and the PhD student II travelled around training on identification and data collection, and the PhD student and me kept going with our business.

On Thursday, however, we tried a final modification in the cooperation experiment that we were carrying out. This experiment consisted mainly in two separated boxes with a tray inside in which we put food. To reach the tray, two macaques had to pull at the same time of a rope joined to the tray. So, in this final step we put a screen between the boxes in order to see if they had understood that they needed another monkey to reach the food. However, we didn’t see any of them looking at the other side of the screen to see if there was a potential collaborator; instead, we found out that the screen avoided them to aggress each other. So, we had very weird partners like Galack, a young adult male with Luca, a weird juvenile that, under any other circumstance had been open mouthed promptly. It was a good day for him, I guess.

Then, the last working day the macaques ran away from the tourist area and went into the forest, which is not as pretty as the green group one but, nonetheless is better than that humanized patch full of rubbish (F%$cking humans!). I had my best day as research assistant and I collected a great amount of data and even discovered weird tendencies in the monkeys, like the fondness of Twix, an adult male, for the subadults females like Mortichia (aka Washabi). At the end of the day, the PhD student went alone to farewell her macaques, something that I imagine must be pretty tough.

The weekend was wasted in packing, cleaning and handing out with my new fellows. It’s weird how company can change the perception of a place. My old group was, at least for me, pretty eclectic. Each one seemed to have a hidden world inside and any interaction was, let’s said, special. Now, on the other hand, is like being in Europe again and that dream sensation is gone. Maybe is just because I miss the African toilet downstairs or because I have finally become (too much) used to this; or maybe is just that first times are always especial. I don’t know, but a little bit of what made this place “magical” disappeared with the departure of each of my old fellows.

Finally, the PhD student left on Monday morning and, as part of this magical realism end, the weather changed. It’s weird but, just when I left to spend the Christmas in my hometown the temperature dropped; when the Californian left the opposite happened and, in this occasion, the snow began…though not bad till today!

So, my first day with the Barbary gang, name that the Boss (PhD student II) has given to our team, was a completely new thing, even when the monkeys and the place were the same. Instead of collect behavioural data, this time I had to collect faecal samples! (well, train for it). This is a very funny task in which you spend hours and hours looking at the macaques ass to see if something comes out, which is not very common. So, after six hours I saw Twix sandwhiching with another male and running away with the infant when suddenly there it was! A f&%cking piece of monkey shit!! I radioed the Boss and she came with the French to teach me how to handle the sample. So, with a couple of sticks I had to remove the stones, leaves and stuff and the smash it and make a ball ( Not many people apart from biologist and related academics can play with shit and make it sounds serious and useful, ha). When I finally got the ball, the Boss told me to discard it because it was just a trial…F&%ck!
No more faeces during the rest of the day and we had to leave soon because it started to snow heavily.


Actually, today we could only be at the field for less than an hour because everything was already covered with about 6cm of snow and it kept snowing. However, was nice to see the place in white, and the macaques look yellowish on the snow, and kind of creepy. Their eyes, which normally are sweet and green-brown olive looked blueish and without pupil, and this was particularly disturbing in Donut, one of the biggest males that looked at us with his hard-monkey face from the top of an oak.

Let’s see what happens the next days. I’m glad to stay and see my macaques on the snow, I really was looking forward it, and I’m pretty happy of being able to work with the Boss, that has some possibilities of being on my heros pantheon together with the Portuguese (I’ll write a revival post about my Master thesis one of these days so everybody can admire her feats). However, I miss the feeling of living in an impossible world…I have never got along with reality.

…When hope is unfounded, call it masochism…sigh...

Last and first times: The beginning of an end

In my last post I was complaining about my near come back to Madrid. Fortunately is not going to be the case. After begging a little bit to the PhD Student II (from next week, the Boss), she offered me a place in her team! (I'm so F&%cking grateful!!!!) So I will be around for the next months, retarding the inevitable duty of having to find out what to do next. Life is all about wasting time, so better if you do it doing something that you enjoy, right? Of course, Murphy’s laws are always there, and as soon as I compromised myself to stay I saw 5 or 6 interesting positions starting next month. But well, I don’t regret it, this way I don’t have to come back to Spain in a couple of months, and the new team looks good and we will have new arrivals in one month. So, from the next week I’ll be pursuing macaques with the Boss, the French, the S.Carolinian and the English (He could have chosen between the Californian2, the Brazilian or the English and picked this last one, as we say “para gustos los colores, macho”).

Then, this is a weird week of transitions, getting to know my new fellows and finishing the work with the PhD student.

Today, in doing that, we two went to the Green Group site to get a couple of controls missing. Being two is not so easy to find the monkeys quickly, and less if they don’t seem to be at the normal sites. So, the PhD student sent me to a 3h tourist tour all around the area behind the fence (Vertical, Big, Gash, Portugal, Riviera, Alps…), which is f&%cking steep and made me think again that I should give up smoking…Nonetheless, it was nice, specially because I hadn’t been before in most of those places and it was nice to be alone in the forest even when is one of those things that one shouldn’t do ( that are normally the best ones). Then, when I was at the end of Portugal I found a group of macaques. I think it was a big one, because I heard screams all around me, but I only could see a couple of males and juveniles.

Thus, when I was writing down the encounter ,the PhD student told me through the radio that she had found the group in Texas and UK, near the road. “Cagüen tus muertos, tia! I thought but “sarna con gusto no pica” so I went down Portugal to the road enjoying the landscape and the last remains of snow, and met her. Of course, when I arrived and I could check the humidity (the other weather station was lost in Berber Valley most of the day) it was too low; so we were wasting the time taking ad libitum data and scans while the macaques travelled slowly to the parking. Then, around 14h, when the juveniles were fighting each other for the access to the water in one of the trunks, the boyfriend of the PhD student came with the weather station and she sent me to the tourist site. There, my new fellows were starting their training trying to identify the monkeys. I couldn’t do much work, some scans and a couple of tests, the monkeys were relatively spread, but a least I felt somehow useful (finally), when helping the PhD student II to identify some of the monkeys. My new fellows are quite lucky of having their training together; I was feeling like a stupid pain in the ass for two months seeing all my colleagues working and I struggling to do each tiny thing. F&%ck it!

At last, the PhD student came. She had got the controls and then I realized that it had been my last day in the Green Group with her and that I’m not going to see those monkeys in a month! Maybe I go for a long walk in a day off… I hate to be so f&%cking sentimental, so useless in this gaseous -relationships world…
Afterwards, we went back to Azrou and found Ben (could be anyone, so why to bother thinking…) who came with us home to take the cat we had with him. This cat, named Cedro by the Fossils guys (the ones who cheat the tourists on the idem site), was found by us some days ago on the field site and we took it home before he was killed by the feral dogs or by the macaques; cause it looked quite cute and innocent… As it usually happens, it was only the appearance, the pussy cat has scratched all my hands, bit me and my clock, broke the macaque skull that I found in the forest and he climbed up on me as if I were a f&%cking tree…but I will miss him anyway…I really have a problem…mm.

Well, finally the day ended with the new tradition of having dinner upstairs with my new fellows, but some things don’t change and, at the end, everybody is with the laptop, sigh. Yesterday it was my turn in the kitchen and, as the only presentable thing that I have learnt to cook here is Spanish omelette is what I prepared. For me it was a kind of moving on ritual, cooking the same thing in the same kitchen for different people. So I played the Moroccan classics on the laptop while cooking and, afterwards, some of my poor reggae, which seems to be the favourite music of one of my new fellows.
Let’s see if something interesting happens these last few days before my new stage in Morocco becomes true and my current stage finishes.

Más tonta que un bocao en la p…, carajo

Funny short tales about macaques (Finally)

Even if I am not on the right mood, I’ll force my self to write this post before I come back to “jail” (meaning Madrid, I’m not that kind of person…I never get caught!! Joking, of course…). I’m pretty sure that any of my old fellows would do it better and if I hadn’t be so lazy I would have written this post with their help and the stories would be funnier but…sometimes shit just happens.
During my training I was too nervous to pay attention to everything that happened around me and I have few stories. It’s right now when I’m starting to relax and really begin to know each monkey as an individual with personality and especial features and to see their behaviour easily. Nevertheless, let’s try (and if any of my old fellows reads this and wants to contribute with their own stories they will be more than welcome).


The fright of Joan

This happen during my first month in Morocco, when I was starting to train the focals and I followed the same monkey that any of my colleagues so I could ask if I had queries about any behaviour or whatever. I was with the PhD student following Joan, one of the females of the green group and we were in the Gorge. We were talking about stuff while Joan, with her typical face of where-am-I , turned stones looking for food. Suddenly, she turned one and opened completely her eyes while ( I promise) she jumped pretty scared. Then she ran away screaming. Then, we went to see what she had seen and we found a little snake trying to escape. For me the funniest thing is that Joan was so scared of that tiny reptile given the ability she has to handle scorpions and eat them!





Bart, the naughty


Bart is a juvenile male of the tourist group, very skilful in stealing every food that you have on your pockets or backpack in addition to tourists’ bags of peanuts or whatever.
My first experience with this was one of the first days that I finally started to collect real data and the PhD student asked me if I had wheat to make the food tests. Silly me, I said yes, while taking out the bag with it from my backpack and holding it into my hand. Of course, one second latter, Bart jumped like a ninja-spiderman, grabbing my bag and spreading the wheat all around.

A couple of days ago, while the PhD student and me were sitting around the boxes we use for a cooperation experiment, I was immersed in my own world and so was the PhD student. And, as it usually occurs, whenever you are not ready is when things happen. So, Bart came silently and grabbed the bag with peanuts that I had on my pocket and ran away with it up to a tree. I swear he was laughing of me while he tore the bag to get the peanuts…

The PhD student has also been victim of this tricky macaque. A couple of weeks ago, for example, he stole the notebook she uses to write down the controls and stuff that we have to do. He ran away with it to a tree and tried to eat it. As he saw that it wasn’t edible, instead of just leave it, he started to tear the pages while the PhD student looked at them blaming him. Fortunately, the important pages remained untouched.

But with difference, the most stupid thing this monkey has done, as far as I know, occurred three days ago, when the PhD student took out a tissue from her pocket to blow her nose and Bart jumped and grabbed it!




Accepted as a new member of the green group

I think this happened the “last day” of the girls (The two Germans and the Ohioan) in the field. We were in UK, close to the parking, each one doing our business when Noddy, one of the males, started carrying an infant and came trotting to me while he was teeth chattering. He was inviting me to do a sandwich! Unfortunately, I had to reject it (a matter of scientist ethic) and a meter or so from me he sadly changed the direction of his steps. Even though I couldn’t accept his invitation I felt really proud of such an honor.



Just because it’s not food it doesn’t mean they won’t grab it!

As I told before when speaking about Bart, young macaques not only enjoy stealing us food, but any other stuff. Then, for example, Dakota, one of the juvenile females of the green group stole a glove of the PhD student and was playing with it with the other juveniles for a long time before one of them let it fall to the ground and I could recover it (yeah, as a good assistant it was my commitment to do it…yeah, one of that moments that you think “so, Have I studied a degree and a master for this?").

There was a time that the macaques in the tourist group were specially playful ( meaning “toca huevos de pelotas”) and were trying to steal everything we had. So, I don’t know how, but Saana, a one year old female stole my radio, which is pretty much her size! She went up to a tree and start to bite it while looking at me (smiling, I swear). After a while, she was fed up with it and dropped it: Fortunately it was still working…

But the best story about this happened with Luca, a juvenile macaque from the tourist group which is pretty weird and that doesn’t see very well. We were on the boxes of the experiment and the Californian was preparing some food for them, cutting it with a knife. He put the knife on the top of the box to take anything else and then Luca jumped, grabbed it and started to run with it while we looked at him with faces similar to the one on the famous Munch painting “the Scream”. Nonetheless, after few meters Luca dropped the knife and no macaque nor tourist got hurt (Ufff...).

A pretty bad combination


Leila is a low ranking female of the tourist group that spends most of her time alone with her infant or with other low ranking macaques like Osiris or Chocobon.
She is one of my favourites, not only because I usually feel like a low ranking primate, but because she is very aggressive when someone is too close to her infant. The problem is that her infant loves to jump on us and be around so, sometimes, without even pretending it, you end up with a little macaque jumping on you and a very angry mother “open mouthing” and screaming to you if she doesn’t try to slap you too!






And this is pretty much what I remember right now. I will write another post if I remember more or if any of my old colleagues wants to collaborate I would post it too.

And now, I dedicate this last paragraph to the Briget Jones’ diary issues (I’ll call it Ms.Imara diary part), meaning what happens behind the scenes or what happens out of the field. So, I want to give a warm official welcome to my new colleagues, the French ( they are now three out of five here) and the South Carolinian (from now on only S.Carolinian), and also to the one coming tonight (no name yet, I’m not sure about his provenance). Also to send a warm greeting to all my old fellows, cause now that I see other people occupying their places on the bench of the flat upstairs and I see their pictures on the wall I miss them, even if we didn’t know each other too much and I was so quiet at the begining ( I was a little bit less at the end, god damn it!). And welcome home to the Californian that arrives today to his hometown after a long odyssey.

And that’s it. Till the next post, dear reader!

Siempre nos quedará Chefchaouen.

Some messy stuff (Moroccan style sticking on me)

After an awkward and harsh week in my hometown, dealing with many personal issues, I ran away again to my current adoptive home, Azrou, before expected, arriving the 29th. This time, I chose to have a shorter and calmer (though more expensive, of course) trip back; and I took two planes. Now, after five weird days and one of the oddest new years of my life (though I cannot complain, at least this time I could sleep in a warm place!); my room is empty of people and full of memories. All the people that were here when I started (but the PhD student, of course) have already left...however, there are new arrivals. Yesterday, a new Ph D student came to start her thesis on the interaction between tourism and macaques (sounds pretty interesting) and today one of her three assistants landed on Azrou (He has no name yet, I didn’t understand from which state he came, but he is American, they are everywhere!). I have to beg the PhD Student II for a little position, just in case. My time in Azrou is coming to the end sooner than expected and I don’t feel ready to leave…

But well, this was supposed to be a blog about biology and the life of a new biologist, not Bridget Jones' diary (even though as I’m the author I can write whatever I want! F&%ck!... But I will force myself to speak more about bugs and non-human living organisms). So, I promised some funny stories about macaques and it’s time to do so, but I’m not feeling like doing it and I should go to sleep to work tomorrow (so “Why the hell are you writing then?” You probably wonder…) but I can post a couple of videos of the juveniles of the tourist site that, even if they are not of a very good quality, I think they are fairly funny (“menos da una piedra”, that we say in Spanish). I will try to put a couple more of post before leaving (ñe!), hopefully!.




In this video we can see one of the juvenile females (Neptune, if I'm not wrong...) carryng an infant in a quite untraditional manner, accompanied for a while by Windy, another juvenile female, one year older, and, at the end, the dominant female of the group, Luna.




In this other video, probably too short, we can see one of the favourites hobbies of Luna's infant (again, if I'm not wrong; I still have some problems to recognize the juveniles, but the infants are, again another level). This infants likes to mess around with the boxes that we use in the cooperation and intelligence experiment.

That's all for today, sorry. Hope to have more soon.


PD: Today the Californian left, so I wish him a good trip back home. Hope to see you again ( Hoping is free!). Good luck, man. Thanks for having been here.