Making off: South Africa

I’m still in shock for having left my dear macaques but I’m 3 days away from my next destination. The month passed between vaccines, medical checks, shopping for equipment, two PhD proposals and metaphysics.

 It's not easy. It's not easy to make your own way abroad while the people you know thrive at your homeland and nobody that you know feels the same necessity of running away...not even knowing exactly what you are scare of, you just need to leave. And it's not easy to realize that, after travelling so much you are your only home and friend... the only person that cares about you without despising your dreams...nothing is free, and only very insane (or lucky) people could expect that...dreamers are never ready for reality, but we are ready to deal with harshness.

One month after leaving my home for 5 months, Azrou and my macaques, I'm nearly ready to roll my new destination in the Soutpansberg Mountaints, in Limpopo (South Africa). This time, the country was in my dream-life-plan, but in it, I expected to give some conferences after my 30s. Until the moment I haven't regreted to don't be loyal to my life-plan, so let's see. These are some note of my preparations for my next trip, hopefully could be useful for anybody else.  



Vaccines & Drs

One of the things I couldn't do properly before going to Morocco was the vaccinations and the medical checks. I had 6 days and I could only take the typhus and the first Hepatitis A vaccination. This time, I went to the international centre of vaccination nearly one month before my departure. After waiting for a while in that retro-building, I could pass to see the Dr that tells you what you need. She was a middle age woman with glasses, the same I remembered from the last time...given that she is from the same generation as my mother I expected that she remembered me and she told me "¡Niña! ¿No te puedes estar quietecita un rato?" (Child! Can't you stop for a while?) as my mother had said. But no, she didn’t remember me and I just had the same awkward moment as the first time, when they ask you for your profession...(poker face!) I said research assistant and then I said biologist when she asked me for the studies... She told me that, as soon as I promised her to don't go to Zimbabwe I didn't need anything, but if I wanted to go I needed the Yellow fever vaccine; and that I should but some malaria pills, because I couldn't trust anything abroad...So, after promising that I wouldn’t cross the border of Zimbabwe and that I would took my second vaccine for the Hepatitis A in mi medical centre I went out happily…too quick. Five minutes afterwards she was calling me “Ey…that I have been thinking that, given that you are biologist, you’re gonna need the rabies” Fuck! I thought, but there I went to the first of the 3 vaccines… kind of useless because if you are bitten you are gonna need 2 more, and they only protects you for 2-3 years but…

 Apart from the vaccinations I took a medical check...well, a blood and urine analysis. It was funny to see that it was pretty much the same we made with the Barbary Macaques. For once, I didn't have anemia nor something similar, but I could see that my fears were right, I had some little kidney problems for my first stage in Morocco. Girls and boys, never have O'neil's lieutenant complex. If you are thirsty, drink, and if you need to pee, pee, even if your boss seems a god without human necessities and never has to take some minutes for physiological needs. Fortunately, it wasn't serious, I just have to remember to take care of my self...I'll write me a note on my hand to remember it XD I was also concern about a weird beauty spot. Around five months ago I had a weird dream in which I was really stressed because I was going to miss a flight to South Africa. I was in my parent's home and I just wanted to leave, but my father only told my "you're forgetting the jacket"...two months and a half after I had the new that I had been chosen for a position in South Africa, but I had the feeling that I wouldn't be able to go because of that dream...even if in my dream my parent's home was in USA so it has no sense at all, but...any way, the spot seemed to be harmless...at least for the next decade, so I was free to go.

Yesterday I had the last of the three vaccines of the rabies and I commented to the Dr that my other Dr, in the analysis, had found out that I didn't had immunity to Hepatitis B (Scooooooreeeee!!!!). I had the vaccine several years ago but I lost the immunity and I didn't have time to get the vaccinations, they needs 6 moths to be effective (at least according to some sources, but there are discrepancies...'). It was funny because she said " Pueeeees...preservativo al canto!!” ( "So...condom right away!"). I was tempted to laugh and told her that it was more likely that I got the illness by becoming drug addict and sharing syringes, but given that what she said was nearly a flattery I didn't want to scare her, so I just smile politely telling to my self that I was safe...sigh.  


Equipment

After my 5 months in Morocco, most of my equipment had become useless...well, most was falling into pieces. Fortunately, most of it was the waterproof things that are quite cheap. By the way, the only kind of useful thing against true rain ( that one that last for more than 4 hours) is plastic, no matter how good your coat or boots are supposed to be, you will get wet after a couple of hours of heavy rain. I don't know if I'm ready to face temperatures that apparently go from 0-25ºC or more in the same day, but let's see….  

One thing that I couldn't get was adapters for the plugs; apparently I need one with three rounded pins, something not available here. Hopefully, I'l be able to buy it once there. Any way, I found out a cool website for travelers about this: http://whatplug.info/
There, under "Guide for the traveller with plugs", you choose your country and the one you are going to and it tells you what you need.

In addition to the basics, I have had some care in packing some entertainment, just in case I don't get along with the people; hopefully I won't need most of it but better prevenir que curar. I have a hardrive full of movies, some of them from or about South Africa, to help me to get into the culture ( Tsotsi, Skin, Yesterday, Invictus, White wedding...). And given that my laptop is quite old and maybe it doesn't survive the whole period, I bring some books. Unfortunately I cannot longer deny my age, those days of crazy weekends with blurred nights full of adventures have passed away...(though I hope that some are still waiting for me, please!). So, after accepting that fact, it was time to read someting useful that I have being delaying; phylosophy. Then, apart from a couple of books inherited from my fellows in Morocco, my partners will be the Social Contract of Rousseau, Utopy from Tomas Moro, and maybe something of the old uncle Fred, lets see...It's a pitty that I couldn't get the Second Sex, I really wanted to read it, but shamefully, no book store had it. Sigh. 




Background

Another thing that I regretted to haven't been able to do before going to Morocco was doing some more reading about the country and the macaques, cause I only had time during my flight going and coming back from my first field campaign in Gran Canaria. Now, even if I spent two weeks enclose writing a proposal and preparing an interview, I had some time to read, listen and watching. For example, I could watch the movie Tsotsi about a young gangster in Johannesburg with a sad end ( really good movie), or read some more about Nelson Mandela and his amazing acts. I even had some time to read some article about my new animals:

Leopard (Panthera pardus)

Brown hyena (Hyaena brunnea)

African Civet (Civettictis civetta)

Common Genet (Genetta genetta)

African Crowned Eagle (Stephanoaetus coronatus)

Verreaux's eagle (Aquila verreauxii)

chacma baboon (Papio ursinus)

Vervet monkey (Cercopithecus aethiops)

Samango monkeys (Cercopithecus mitis erythrarchcus)

Thick-tailed bushbabies (Otolemur crassicaudatus)

Southern lesser bushbabies (Galago moholi)

 (Pictures from Wikipedia)

Apart from this little hairy (and feathered) fellas, I will be sharing the field site with some scaly bugs that I hope to don't find too often, like the black mamba! There are antidotes for the others (I think...) but for her, as one of the guide book I read said, "if she bites you, pray all you know and prepare to die as a good adventurer". 

 …Nearly Ready to Go…

The neverending curse of the Master thesis...Arg!!

Bslama...

(If you are one of my old colleagues in Morocco and you want to see if you appear in the post, just go to the acknowledgment section, easy to see, after my long-boring speech…for watching the video of the first part go to : Video October 2011-January 2012 )




As I wrote in Chronicles of the Green Group (II) , I left Morocco and my macaques 10 days ago. Surprisingly, I’m fine…I think mainly because I’m still in shock, I don’t believe that is over…I guess that is the first D of DABDA ( ask St.Google if you don’t know what I mean, man!). I don’t dare to think too much about it or, at least, feel about it…(“only the hard, only the strong…”300)…I’m like a zombie most of the time...or like an enclosed tiger with the classic stereotypy of going from one end to the other of the cell…Sometimes, I feel guilty to have left the Boss with all the work; sometimes jealous to think that all my colleagues are still enjoying the life in the field, and sometimes I just wanna book a ticket and come back…but I already have appointments the next weeks to end up with the rabies vaccines, I couldn’t get them the first time.

I try to keep me busy, walking as much as I can, preparing stuff for the next trip, trying to figure out how to convince any university that I’m a valuable prospective PhD student (“The horror, the horror!” J.Conrad, Hopefully). It took me some days to start to call people to hang out…this is an old world made of ruins that I don’t have any intention to rebuild or pretend that there is any future here for me. Only aftermaths of past mistakes and sad news. No, I had good times in this land, but they will never return; I dried my sip of Madrid, it’s time to run away and never come back… A country where the graduates and masters have to hide their titles in order to get a job is not a place for me! So, I consider this a quite long scale to my next flight; no matter how good is the book you are reading while waiting, the time passes slow, boring and full with anxiety.

Now my forest is mainly of pines instead of cedars, and only rabbits, magpies and pervert cyclists run through it, even if my imagination insists in putting macaque infants on the branches of the trees or adults grooming on the ground.

Anyway, I’m glad of having had the opportunity to spend the last 5 months in Morocco going after Barbary macaques and I think I have learnt a lot, much more than I expected.

To be honest, Morocco never was on my dreamt life-plan; as the Great Portuguese said about Spain, it was too close, but as it was her case, at the end it worked; and I have learn lessons that I expect to don’t ever forget.

First, I proved to myself (and to my master supervisor!) that I’m not only able to do field work, but that I’m good at it and I enjoy it even more than lab work. I’ve also learnt that there are differences between good and bad science, even if they are not the ones that I would have stated a couple of years ago. During my time at the high school and in the first years of the Degree, some professors convinced me that science was made by perfect people that never made a single mistake, people a little bit inhuman; a world in which I felt like an intruder and completely insecure. After this experience and my master thesis, I think that good science is made by careful and hardworking people that do their best, always try to improve, follow the advise of more experience people, colleagues and literature and that are able to solve a mistake and have plans B, C…(…Z)…Among many other things (so, it’s not an easy field, but there is no need to be a superwoman/man).

I’m glad to have been able to see many things that I had to learn by memory reading on books. That it’s something that I really need and that my master advisor couldn’t understand. I knew that there were biases in the samples that I was using in my thesis, bias that I was completely unaware of just because I couldn’t be on the collection of the corpse or watch the animals in their environment. I needed to be part of the game, not just the lab rat playing in her meticulous and unreal world of fake precision. I needed to be witness of the habitat fragmentation and degradation (my poor monkeys live in a little island of cedar forest surrounded by deforested areas!), the phenology of the forest plants, the impact of tourists in macaque behaviour and health, the problems of carrying out conservation measures when local people don’t care about it...

Observing primates (especially the human ones) I have changed my point of view about many things, particularly myself. I won’t get bore you (more) with details so, let summarize it by saying that one can endure more than expected even without any support; that one of my new mottos is “ I don’t care” (for personal life, I pretend to keep being a precision-maniac in science, is useful!) and that “ Smile and the world smiles with you, cry and you cry alone” it’s a big true. Made your funerals an inner march and the out world will give you motives to be happy; self-pity only scares the herd. Also that the people who is around you can change completely your vision of a place, as main change when my fellows did so. Even if I had a lot of fun in the second part of my stay in Morocco, and I could make many trips impossible in the first half; I always missed the minimal world of the first part, pretty much confined in our little niche, without Marjane or anything not too necessary. Probably I hate Western world too much, or just that I agree with that of “The richest person is not the one who has the most, but the one who needs the least”. Now, in the opulent world of supply and demand I only feel emptiness and nothingness, because the most enriching things of life: nature, inner world and relationships, are absent or artificial…

Well…This is not the post I expected to write. I wanted to do this before leaving because I knew that I would become again a kind of emotionless Nexus 6 without talent as soon as I spent some days here…but there was no time and things are not going to improve…but I can always modify the post, privileges of the author.

But, for sure, I miss the monkeys, the forest and that environment. I felt that I had finally a place to call home and I was happy everyday at least for some minutes in the worst days, watching the macaques, the landscape or chatting with my fellows. It was the happiest and more complete time of my life so far. I miss the Hadaf, the people speaking in Arabic (given that most of the people only speak about stupidities is much better when you don’t understand them, now I’m always override with all the silly chats around me), speaking in English, watch the monkeys, laugh with them and simply, “sentir toda la terra rotar”( V.Moraes)…If I cited in Resolutions in the half of a journey the phrase…"[...]A lot of things happen in your life and when they do you say - oh, yes, this memory will remain, for sure...I'll never forget this dawn, this hunting, this passion, and then...shh...disappear…" …I end the quote now “…I hope these memories stay here [in my head]”



And, of course, as the f&%cking sentimental girl I am, this is my acknowledgment section:


• To the PhD student, who gave me this amazing chance of coming to Morocco to go after the barbary macaques and learn behavioural data collection among many other things. Even if you choose me because you were to busy to find somebody else, I will always be grateful for giving me this opportunity which, if hasn't change my life, at least will be one of the best memories ever. Thank you very, very much and all the luck of the world in writing your thesis.

• Thanks a lot to the Boss, who gave me the great opportunity of extend my time in Morocco and to learn new techniques. If it wasn't for you, I wouldn't have been able of leaving with the feeling that I had really learnt something properly. In the last months I realized that I was finally able to recognize the behaviours pretty much automatically and to follow the stories of the monkeys; even to predict what they were going to do! I wouldn’t have left so happy without been able to recognize Helen from 100m far without binoculars or to predict the location of the Green Group! You gave me the chance of coming back to the Green Group and their magic forest, and trusted me to collect their data alone. In addition, you tough me a lot about the world of primatology and science in general and encouraged me a lot in many aspects. I owe you a lot. Thank you very much for everything. I wish you a lot of luck for all the rest of the field work and afterwards. I'm sure you will have a wonderful thesis.

• Thanks to the Barbary Gang: the French, the English and the S.Carolinian. Those were funny times, and I enjoyed a lot to work and travel with you. I hope everything gets solve and you all can spend 9 wonderful months. Keep me up dated! Special thanks to the French for being my friend, I’m no used to be missed, it’s nice!


• Thanks to the Londoner. If it weren’t for you I couldn’t ever come back to the Green Group or trying to be a tracker or a trainer. It was really nice to work with you and I really hope that you find out something interesting during your research…and I hope that my beloved monkeys collaborate!

• Thanks to the Czech; even if we couldn't be friends for our huge communication problems, I appreciate that you tried to teach me the work and that you shared the problems you had at the beginning with it. It helped me a lot to don't feel like a completely idiot and to realize that my difficulties were the same of everybody else in a time when I was the only new.

• Thanks to the German, who was really kind with me even when I should seem a very weird bug in my first weeks (ok, months) in the field. Good luck with your master thesis.


• Thanks to the Ohioan, probably the only frequent reader of the blog, something that encouraged me to keep on writing. It's a pitty that I was so insecure about my English when you were around, probably we could have been good friend. Good luck in Ethiopia, it will be great.

• Thanks to the Californian, the most similar thing to a friend that I had during my stay, at least during the first part of it, and because you woke me up of an apathy state that was f&%cking my life off. You are a classic. And as I said before, C'est la vie. “A chuparla” y “los cabrones son cabrones hasta estando de vacaciones”.

• Thanks to all the others that were around: The Netherlander, The German2 (hope you liked the Ska-P songs), the Legendary Scottish, The French2, The Canadian, The German3 and the Washingtonian.


...SHUKRAN BESEF…




…Y con esto y un bizcocho…next stop Limpopo