Tikala malamu

Well...This has been probably the most intense experience of my life in
almost any possible way. As such, there was not much time to write.
Maybe back home I'll find sometime to summarize some anecdotes of these
9 months. Right now, after spending the morning with the bonobos, I have
to bake a cake in the fire & pack, getting ready to leave the jungle...

Pas de bonobos, pas de trace

Now it's official, I have spent more time wandering around the jungle
looking for bonobos than running after them. The dry season, presumibly,
made them stay away from our study area most of the time between June
and now and we have hardly see them during these months...maybe the
Haumania looks greener on the otherside of the river, who knows.

Following bonobos is, as any advertisement for a position would say,
very physically and psychologically demanding, and drives you to levels
of stress that I had not known before. However it is not comparable with
the lack of them, the constant axiety of searching and being unable to
make plans because of the uncertainty of when they will show up...which
is normally in the most inappropiate moment and just long enough to
drive us crazy but not to collect much data before disapearing again
beyond the boundaries of the study area. Join this with constant minor
problems of supplies, energy and communication in a Babel tower camp
with random people forced to spend more time together than expected and
you will have interesting results. Stressful but enriching, somehow.I
feel like going through an intensive course on human nature and
behaviour, plus the walks alone in the forest brought about many inner
conversations long delayed that are poping up topics that needed to be
fixed for long but never had the chance of stopping and go through
them...well, blame the lariam and the nicotine withdraw, but I wouldn't
be the first of having revelations under a tree...

Anyway, the rainy season is pushing to take its place. The days are
hotter and drier, the storms more frequent, the Annonidium falls ripe
and the bees are again buzzing around the dinning table from sun to sun
so, hopefully, the bonobos will appear soon...

Bonobos bazali wapi?

/(Bonobos bazali wapi='where are the bonobos' in Lingala)
/
What happens if you go to DRC to study bonobos and your apes decide to
take a month and a half of dry season holidays in the other side of the
river, where you are not allowed to follow them? Well, there are answers
to satisfy everyone, possibly, but given that I´m writing this while
operating the pactor to send and receive emails and seems to be a good
connection day, I´ll be brief.

Well, the first thing is that amateur writers like me suffer blockages
and in between there is no more nicotine, because the western tobacco is
over and the tobacco local doesn´t work that well. But, one tries to
spend the time learning (or at least studying with certain effort)
French and Lingala, , baking on open fire or some guitar, now that the
third musketeer is back in Europe and left his instrument behind. Also
learn about local plants, mammals and even giving a try to birding.
There has been even some time to "travel", and visit another camp
situated in a savannah. It was awesome to see the horizon after months
of close forest as it has been to have some break of the physically (and
mentally) demanding feat of following the bonobos but, on average, we
are just looking forward to crawl under /Haumania/ oceans trying to
collect data on our skittish apes.

Malembe,malembe…

No, dear reader(s), I wasn't dead, even if the last entry was almost 3
months ago and one could be wondering if the bite number 294 finally
killed me. But, the ones who know me, or at less think to do so,
probably knew that few hordes of blood-thirsty arthropods, some tropical
illnesses and a tangled swampy forest are not rival for this travel-size
girl. At first, I was just too busy, and then, our means to communicate
with the 'real world' (sensu New Jerseyian) stopped working. Now the
time came to restart, but the Congolese timing has already settle on me
and my newly acquired equatorial circadian rhythms will make things slow
(an excuse as any other). Therefore, 'malembe, malembe', slowly, slowly
in lingala.

One could think that the fact of living isolated in a small camp
surrounded by jungle and with the closest village within 5h walk would
make things to be quite steady, but not so. Five planes have come since
my last post and each of them took people in and out changing completely
the settings (those voluble social networks that I'm trying to
understand…). The first took my boss back to Europe, leaving me quite
confuse after training for only 1 month and with too much uncertainties
(again that old  feeling of the bicycle without the little wheels),
but I survived and improved, while the camp was crowed of old and new
fellows. Then we felt slightly the harshness of scarcity of resources
and feeding competition, though to some extent minimize by the presence
of the director of the project, which improved the quality of the food,
even when we were so many to share. So, it was a good introduction to
what would later overcome.
Suddenly, most of the people left, at the same time in which the bonobos
decided to cross to a forest in which we are not allowed to go, so we
were functioning as a small family which clumps together when the
adversity hits. Those were good times to get to know better my fellows
of the west side (there are 2 bonobo communities we are working with,
and I'm studying the one ranging on the west side of the forest) the New
Jerseyian and the German Musician, both guys, a black swan in the female
dominated field work. I'm quite happy with the click and sometimes I
think about the 3 of us as the Musketeers. Those days were also useful
to get to know better the only other girl in camp, the Canadian who, as
a matter of chance, was a fellow of the Ohian (Macaques & Morocco) in
Ethiopia.
But the calmed days of few researches and missing bonobos didn't last
long. Quite abruptly, the camp was flooded by people working in very
diverse projects and even a tv crew trying to film our bonobos who, of
course, decided to play the game of crossing the river and disappearing
for days. And, then, suddenly, half of the people were gone, including
the camp manager, which has been leading to uncomfortable and chaotic
situations about camp organization, minimized by the noticeable talent
of the new habituation assistant, the Australian, to deal with all the
necessary tasks. Finally, my second boss and one of the PhD students
that was here when I arrived came, full of energy to start working but
with no sugar, milk, onions and many other resources that we were
expecting to get with their plane. So, times are complicated (and guess
what, the bonobos crossed the border of the forest again!), but it seems
that we all want to collaborate to make things as easy as possible,
trying to minimize our consumption of scarce resources and tolerate
everyone's bad days and obsessions. So far we seem to be a good team.

In general, I've been quite happy during this period, though, of course,
there are some mood indigo days, mainly caused by my body trying to
cycle normally without the resources to do so (yeah, life in camp is
like a little socioecological model) and sometimes you just would like to
have a real friend around, one to talk to without having the impression
that you are playing with a half charged gun, but, this is how it is.
Some days you feel in heaven (well, except for the tsetses) and wake up
happily at 2h30 am to walk 8km to watch the bonobos leaving the nests,
walk 9km back after 10h of work and still you got some energy to laugh
and hang out with your fellows and other days you would like to lock
yourself inside your tent with earplugs and forget that you should hurry
up to the dinner table before there are no bananas left for the breakfast.

I'm so glad to have the opportunity of being in this place, studying the
least known ape and sharing the daily life with such an interesting and
intelligent group of people, even if sometimes is overwhelming. So many
discussions on interesting and relevant topics, none in which I know a
good deal about can quickly undermine your self-esteem (is it the Lariam
talking?) Specially when your English is still not as fluent as it
should, you have to deal with 5 different accents of native English
speakers, and your faith and motivation in sciences have being decaying
lately. During the last few years I have seen so many misuses of the
scientific method and examples of how-things-shouldn't-be-done that my
curiosity, my willingness to question things and my belief that science
can bring trustworthy answers had been going through a long decadence
and now is almost dead. Hopefully my enthusiastic colleagues will
insufflate some revitalizing air to it…Meanwhile, let´s follow some apes.

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.

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

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.

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,

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

Behind the scenes: Resolutions in the half of a journey

(I just needed to write, it isn’t interesting, wait till the next post, there are no macaques in this one)



It seems that I cannot sleep tonight (I’ll surely regret it tomorrow…well, in 3 hours…I’m gonna dieeee!…). Since my old fellows in Morocco left I’ve been attacked by nostalgia and I’ve been remembering all those people that, at some point, meant something to me.

When I was a child I spent a lot of hours dreaming while going through the pages of the atlas of my house or reading about Livingstone at the school library. I saw myself as a biologist in Kenya, waking up in my tent in the middle of the Serengeti, tying my boots and going into the savannah with my notebook to search for my lions ( I was a kid, man, I had a very romantic idea about biology and no worries about safety!). Since then I have always had a voice inside me (well, better call it intuition, I'm not schizophrenic! It was just for lyrical purposes...) which tells me things that I should do in order to reach that aim. One of those things was to never get tight bonds with anybody around me, since I knew, even then, that it was the shortest way to a sedentary life and I wanted to be a nomad. Especially, if you are a f&%cking sentimental girl who becomes fond of people too easily. Maybe that is why I have always been bad getting to know people, maybe I didn't really want to do so because of the fear that it could end up preventing me to follow my dreams. Nevertheless, one cannot avoid to cross paths with some people that somehow enrich your life at the high prize of a life-lasting yearning ( quería decir "añorarlos toda la vida", pero no sé yo...) and the emptiness of the lost of the emotions and the oblivion.

At the end, everything seems to vanish, and only a blurred memory of those times and feelings remain, more like a footnote than a sensation, like that phrase that Michael Douglas says to Val Kilmer in one of my favourite movies "The Ghost and the Darkness": "[...] 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… […]” (Sorry, it’s the translation from the Spanish script…)

These days, remembering all those people that once were something in my life made me realize that most of them... mean nothing nowadays! It sounds tragic to me that all that energy, time and feelings are, at the end, just something that you were doing while waiting for something else…but tonight, while Marsellus Wallace (the downstairs cat, that looks cute but when you don't watch out he gets medieval on your ass) was looking at me through the smoke of my cigarette, I thought that maybe it's just one of those things that you have to accept. You can fight against many things, but you will certainly be defeated by nature, especially human nature.

One must live in the present, even if it was the past which made us. Maybe all those experiences were useful somehow; at least were good times (hedonism is a new acquisition of my philosophy and getting stronger, probably is the only thing that makes sense), and when they weren't, they made us stronger (I can't forget my dear Friedrich, even though). I'm not a Samburu, I'll always look behind, but I hope to don't do it so sadly and with regret; to accept the things as they are, particularly when the decisions are out of my hands or when everything has changed so much that bringing people of the past to the present could collapse the universe! Summarizing, I should add some Stoicism to my list too.

However, I would like to dedicate these nightly thoughts to all those people that have been going round and round in my head these days:

To the Philippine, friend of mine in my first camp, when I was 7 years old.

To my friends of the Boy Scouts, because of those nights around the fire, eaten by bugs, watching the starts from the sleeping bag and digging for shitting were unforgettable experiences of my childhood.

To my friends of Las Acacias, which were pretty much the same people of the high school, El San Juan de la Cruz (El tuto 3, tronkas!!), specially to the Physicist, who was my best friend during many, many years before some things happened; also to my Niñas Yks, my crazy gang during those blurred years of adolescence (hehe). Also to the Dominican, who made me have an idea of how a heart stroke must be. And to the Musician, the first teacher that taught me more than a subject (don't think bad, perverted people! She only showed us to fight for our rights!!).

To the girls of APDL, failed attempt of rap group, but was funny anyway. To El Nota, even if you deserve to die (joking, just a kick on the face); To Mr.Flow, you know.

To the Sevillan boy, because so many good times and so (so, so) many tears. To the Sevillan girl, for those long talks and good moments in Dublin, Sevilla and Madrid.

To my friends of the UAM, with whom I fully experienced the Madrid night (and that of Valencia, Oropesa, Monastir, Barcelona...), in addition to many other surrealistic experiences and good times. Among them, special thanks to Gammawoman, Carnival (sorry, girl, is for the song you like) for the crazy nights also in Dublin, Galway, Edinburgh, London and Paris, as well as for being my good friends during the degree; and to the 西班牙人 (hopefully means "Spanish"), because of the same and because you were there when I needed someone to talk to.

To three of the people of the workcamp in Husavik; the Catalan, the Valencian and the Slovak, because you helped me more than you think (probably you don't even remember me). To my friend of the workcamp in Gargantilla, the Polish, I'm glad that you are doing fine now. To my best friend during the Erasmus, the French, because we had great times at the pubs and at Stonehenge. I hope you finally find your way. I really miss you, girl. To my friends of the workcamp in Sipplingen, the Kyrgyzs, whom I remember with lots of affection.

To the people of the UB. Portuguese, I hope your thesis is a big success and that many field campaigns in lost tiny islands are waiting for you. Chilean artist, you added some surrealism to my life and I always appreciate that. Valencian, thanks for helping me out dealing with our advisor and the seabirds; good luck with the thesis.

To Corso, for such an extremely huge list of things... sorry I couldn't keep my word.

To you, because you triggered all this and possibly you will be part of this list one day...or maybe not, let the time decides so.

For all of you, good luck, wherever you are, whatever you are doing. I let you go, ghosts of the past; we may meet each other once or twice in the limbo before leaving, but we won't ever share some of our lives again, right?...Unfortunately, I'm a silly dreamer and I hardly ever follow my own advice... :

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

Scary night, long day

It’s 13:29 (Moroccan time) of the 23 December, and I’m in the Casablanca airport since, at least 10h. The last time I woke up was 5:40 (aprox.) of 22 December…I don’t even know how I can still write in English…or write at all…or breath! It’s been a long journey, as I was advancing on my anterior post, and I still have around 4 more hours before arriving to Spain…I’m a cute zombie in the middle of the corridor of the airport, with bad hand-washed clothes (I should learn to wash them properly!), with such a huge eyecups that I must look like a raccoon; and I feel like drunk.

After leaving the house at 2:00 (a.m), as I was about to do when I posted the last entry, I grabbed all my stuff and went out of the house, that was completely in silence, as well as the outside. Lights were tenuous and only my steeps accompanied me. Silly me, when I was a street far from home, I still expected to see one or both of my fellows appearing to accompany me to take the coach. I turned around and looked toward the direction of the house, but no one was there. I don’t know why I expected something like that, given that nobody went to the station with the Czech when she left or to Fez when the Ohioan travelled to Paris. As I said, I’m f&%$ing silly. Well, as no one was coming I just said “¡¡¿Serán cabrones?!!”, and continued my way; with my face completely covered by a hat, a hood and a neck gaiter; only my eyes were exposed…though my breath fogged up my glasses; so I looked like a little jawa (Star Wars, man!) with too much luggage (I didn’t have too much, but, even though, it was bigger than me, which is not difficult).

(Madrid, 24th December 20:51, Spanish time)

The first minutes everything was fine, though I looked behind me frequently just in case, and tried to avoid going near places where someone could come out. I arrived at the main street and soon after the frights started. Firstly, while I was walking through the sidewalk I saw something that looked like a bar resting against the wall, but when I went closer, the bar stand up and resulted to be a man that waited for me in the middle of the way. Somewhat nervous I just change the direction and started to walk through the road. I arrived near the butchery and then I thought if I should wait seated on a bench or if it would be better idea to be somewhat hidden to don’t be disturbed. A cough from the shadows gave me the answer. The dark places where, in fact, full with people; as the frequent noises revealed. So, I thought that maybe was better to be in a well illuminated place than going to one of those areas and risk me to find someone not very recommendable. I took a seat on a stone bench near a shoe store, with my bags surrounding me and with the face well covered, trying to look scary. It worked for a while; the men, which frequently passed nearby, speeded their steps in front of me.
I was there like 45 minutes; trembling and wondering when something would happen to me. Hordes of dog crawled through the street feeding on leftovers that they found on the garbage, sometimes fighting among them. I really hoped that there was enough rubbish to keep them happy and they didn’t realize of my presence, even when one looked at me while it was trying to sleep.

I realized that, even though I hadn’t seen them, there where two men at my left not too far, so I decided to move to the benches on the “square” so I can see them coming if they did it. Not much after, a man with a backpack passed nearby and said “Bonjour”. “F&%ck, he knows I’m not from here” I thought, and I answered with the deepest voice I could, so he believed that I was a guy. He went to the other side of the road and talked with a man; then they came back to my side of the road, each one on one direction. I thought that they were going to surround me; but fortunately wasn’t the case. One of the men left and the other, the one who talked to me before, sat down on the bench just behind mine (F&%ck).

I couldn’t stop smoking one cigarette after another and looking to my clock over and over again while the time seemed to have stopped. Then, the man behind me came and started to talk to me. At first I didn’t answer, wondering if it was a good idea to leave him clear that I was an outsider and worse, a girl. As he insisted, I finally said that I didn’t understand him in French. He told me to remove the hood so he could see me, but I only raised my head a little bit, so I could see him from my blurred glasses. Then, he asked me for a rolling paper. As I haven’t, he only said “merci” and went to have a seat behind me again. Afterwards, some more men came and sat with the other. They started talking so I had to check all the time to make sure that none of them approached. I took my mobile and hold it into my hand with the number of the PhD student prepared in case I had to call her asking for help (She didn’t come with me but, at least she told me that she would have the mobile on all the night in case I had an emergency).

One of the men came and stand just alongside me. Fortunately, my stuff occupied the entire bench so he could not sit with me. He stayed there staring at me and doing weird noises, thought I didn’t detected any hand movement…anyway it reminded me some awkward moment of my adolescence when I used to go to Plaza España with my friends and those kind of things happened.

Ten minutes latter, finally, the coach stopped in front of the “square”. I took my stuff and asked the driver “¿Casablanca?” And he said “oui”, so I got in and looked for a seat. I put again my stuff around me, grabbed it and tried to sleep.

(Madrid, 25th December 20:26, Spanish time)

However, my head was drowned in caffeine and I was still nervous; so I couldn’t sleep; or at least no more than little naps of 5 minutes. I was pretty tired and I could only thought about an awful thing that I had to do when I arrived to Spain and what I wanted to do next; while I listened a miscellaneous mix of Atmosphere, Ska-p, Non Servium, Gorillaz and different Spanish mc’s among others.

It took us one hour to went out from Azrou; after the stop in which I got in, we stopped at a petrol station at the end of the town, then at the bus station and latter, again, at the petrol station. When we finally went out I was already wondering about the resistance of the human bladder. There were some short stops, but mostly in the middle of nowhere and, given that I couldn’t ask the driver how long the stops were and that the passenger were mostly males (a.k.a campo de nabos), it didn’t look too good idea to get down; so I achieve a (painful) personal record.

Around 7h, the blackness outside the windows started to lead to tree shaped dark bluish shadows. I saw the sunrise on the road at the rhythm of “ …y lucharemos por defender la independencia de la bandera mostoleña…”…Who had said to me when I first listened that song on my adolescence that I would listen it again several years later on my way to Casablanca? Life is weird…it’s the best part of it.
We went through some very green areas full of small lakes clumped with egrets before entering in Rabat and continue another hour to Casablanca.

Once there I ran to the nearest smelly toilet and, afterwards, I smoke a cigarette while trying to clear my mind, which was completely messy after such a long night without rest and people began to look at me weirder than usual.

I look for a taxi and I could arrange a price to the airport that wasn’t too much high from the expected; so I got in, surprisingly alone. I didn’t know how far the airport where from the city, but I started to worry when I saw that it was suppose to be at 4km but we were driving for 10 minutes…But it was fine, It’s only that the Moroccan km are similar to the Renfe minutes (joke for Spaniards).

I got to the airport around 10h; passed the controls and went to have a coffee. I was trembling a little bit and I shouldn’t look well at all since people stayed a couple of meter away from me when possible. I was so tired that when I started to look at the floor I saw for as in the “magic eye”.

After nearly five hours of don’t-know-what-to-do, I could get into the plane, which was so full that many people had to check their luggage in before we could take off.
We did it and sadly, I thought “see you soon”.

One hour and some minutes latter the captain said that we were going to land, “to land? what the hell? Where is the city?” I thought, and suddenly I could glimpse the 4 evil tower standing up in a brown and dense cloud of pollution. “F&%k!!” I thought again, and pretty much, that comment summarizes all that came later… “ No es donde naces ni donde te crías, tu hogar es donde tu quieres estar…y ahora estoy muy, muy lejos de casa”

“…Yo no hice el viaje, el viaje me hizo a mi…”

The title is the name of a song of a Spanish music group, Combo Linga. It means “I didn’t make the trip, the trip made me”

I have already visited around 15-20 countries, and I have travelled all around my own (yeah, I’m a very lucky person, even if I don’t feel it most of the times…silly me) and I can say that this title is, in many aspects, right. When I was young I thought that all my problems came from being in Spain, especially in Madrid. I felt as if I were in a jail, doomed to repeat the same routine over and over again, with that awful feeling every morning that the bed sheets retain you and you don’t have any reason to put a foot out of the bed. Then, I grew up a little and started to travel on my own. That was quite useful to discover what was really caused by the environment and what was an inherent feature of the system (a.k.a. me). During my travels I learnt that half of those feelings were, certainly, caused by my situation…however, the other half always travelled with me. I learnt that my worst enemy was me. Fortunately, the new perspective that being far away from “home” gives enabled me to isolate my problems and, even though I’m f&%$ing slow solving them, at least I know them, that it’s more than most can say. Kilometres have made the enemy inside me weaker, and this last destination (Morocco) has, definitely, given it a deadly kick (I hope!!).

As I said before, coming here was a dream become true for me. Coming to an African country to study animals, even if it’s more northwards than I had rather, was my main fantasy about future when I was a child that turned stones on the garden to see what invertebrates were underneath and studied the capital of African countries in her free time ( I told you, I was a repellent girl!). Of course, I’m not exactly the person I wanted to be: my English is still clumsy, my French is pretty much non-existent, I haven’t learnt more than a couple of words and grammar rules of Swahili, my martial arts knowledge is poor and I’m weaker and fearful than I expected…However, given that most of the people I know are enclosed in lives that are pretty much the opposite of what they wanted I should be happy (and I am!!...at least for the next month, let’s see what happens next…sigh).

I cannot tell that Morocco is a beautiful place (Sorry!!). I know that there are a lot of people that are completely in love with this country, actually, some of my friends. Maybe it’s because I haven’t visited the most tourist places that are, presumably, more beautiful, and I’m only living a “regular” (i.e. non-holydays) life a couple of thousands kilometres away from where I was born. Nonetheless, what I can say is that is a very attractive place. In my opinion, being attractive is better than being beautiful, at least when talking about places and people. When something is beautiful it’s kind of boring, it doesn’t require any effort to see the good side, and I’m a girl used to challenges. And this time the challenge was hard (sorry Azrou, it took me a long time to see your weird beauty)!

As I said in the post “Firsts times: “, Azrou is pretty messy and dirty, so the first couple of days I couldn’t find anything beautiful on it (but of course the forest and the monkeys!). Nevertheless, one day coming back from the field I could see something that opened my eyes; the dusk over the Atlas mountains. Since then, one of my favourite moments in the day is when we are going down from the field and I see the coloured mountains on the horizon. Depending on the hour you can find a paint of bluish and greenish hills, different tones of orange or only shadows; but always amazing. Sometimes, I escape on the weekends in the afternoon just to go to the observation deck (?? Non even English-speakers know to tell me how to call it) that is near the main Mosque to see the sunset…

Through the mountains the light came to me. The light here is different, though I wasn’t able to see it at the beginning. It has corps, it’s dense, not like in Europe, where is transparent; you can see it blurring and staining the horizon, embracing you... I guess words are not enough…and less when this is not my mother tongue! Let’s summarize saying that, when I started to feel the light I finally felt at home. The mess became an interesting non-routine where everyday, even if the schedule is the same, you know that none day will be like the day before…and now it seems sad to come back to the grey and cold environment of Madrid; as I’m expected to do as soon as I’m able to cross half Morocco from here to Casablanca in a coach that is supposed to leave at 3:30 in the night (morning?)…argh…and I have to wait a couple of hours more here in silence, trying to don’t disturb the PhD student and the Californian…though I think I’m too much noisy anyway...poor guys.

So, let’s go to the point, ‘cause I’m hanging on the branches more than my dear macaques (I don’t think that this is an expression in English, but in Spanish someone that goes through the branches is someone that doesn’t go to the point). The topic was how travelling make you grow as a person and how this one in particular is changing me.

Well, first, I proud to say that I have proved my master advisor to be wrong. He told me that I wasn’t going to fit into the field work; but I have been here two months and, even if it’s true that I’m slower in learning this than in the lab, I haven’t had big problems nor fears, unlike others that came before me. Even when I was pretty scared when I arrived, because all the stories that people tell, I overcame it fairly soon (though this night is an exception). If you have read “The Innocent Anthropologist” by Nigel Barley; you know that when he goes to Cameroon to study the Dowayos tribe, everybody tells him awful stories and ask him to be careful with everything…exactly the same that the chief of the tribe tells him when the author has to come back to Europe! Fear to others is a common place, and of course, in many cases you need to be cautious, especially because when you are an outsider, many people try to take advantage of you if not worse; but as a general rule, never is as bad as people say (…I really hope it for tonight!!!..f&%$ck!).

So, one of the two most important things that I’ve learnt from me for now is that I wasn’t mistaken; I like field work, I like to be in Africa and, at least for now, I can cope with it fairly well (Let’s see when I had to face tropical diseases…).

The second most important thing is that I’m not dead inside and I still have a chance (maybe a couple) of being happy, not only with the “professional life”, but personal (the “” are because the definition of professional is being paid for something and…) . I don’t know exactly why, but being here I’ve realized that I have spent to much time doing what I thought that I had to do and excluding so much the things that I really wanted to do that, at the end, I thought that I not longer wanted them. I was in a jail of fear and now I’m about to break the bars and see what is on the other side…I’m scared, sure…but whatever happens cannot be worse than the night that I’m gonna have!! (again, f&ck!). So, thanks to this experience I feel brave enough to fight for me, once again, and recover those aspects of my life that I had abandoned long ago and, the most important of all, being honest to myself; I owe me that, don’t cheat on me again and follow my guts…Let’s see…

Well, th-th-th-that's all folks! I still have to wait another damned hour to get out of the house and wait for an hour or more on the street to, if lucky, take the coach ( if I’m lucky I’ll have a seat and don't be rapped, killed, kicked or whatever other awful thing) and in other 6 hours I’ll be in Casablanca…where I will have to find my way to the airport…Sorry for this mess and because it has little to do with biology… though probably it has lot to do with a field biologist way of life, I guess. Wish me luck, I’m gonna need it…