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...

Mammal sightings in the Congo forest

Guess what? The bonobos haven't appear yet. But leaving apes on aside,
this period has also had advantages and one of them is getting to know
better the wildlife that surround us.

Besides the bonobos and the humans, we share the forest with several
other primates. The four most commonly spotted are the Tshuapa red
colobus (/Piliocolobus tholloni/), black mangabeys ( Lophocebus
aterrimus), Wolf's monkeys (/Cercopithecus wolfi/) and Red-tailed monkey
(C. ascanicus). They can be found in many cases foraging together,
though normally they alarm call as soon as they spot us. However, after
so many search days there is a group of red colobus that seems to be
becoming habituated (now they look at you, call a peer and when some of
them decide they don't like you, they escape, but not as quick as
usual).Less commonly, we can also see the Angolan Pied Colobus (Colobus
angolensis), very rarely the golden-bellied mangabey (Cercocebus
chrysogaster) and recently we even saw a Brazza's monkey (Cercophitecus
neglectus) when crossing the river to make a visit to our colleagues in
the savanna. After the sunset it's common to hear the robot-like
vocalizations of the Demidoff's galagos (Galagoides demidoff) that go
out of their family nests jumping few meters from ground like fluffy
ninjas, while fruit and insectivore bats cross the transects sometimes
scarce centimeters from you (wondering how feasible is getting a deadly
illness if a drop of their saliva happens to drop into your eye given
that they come so close...we are not hypochondriac, it's just that we
are convinced that the zombie apocalypses will start here!...never
mind...).


Insectivores and rodents make a big contribution to the mammal
inhabitants of the forest, but in general they are quite skittish. One
of my favourites is the four-toed elephant shrew (Petrodromus
tetradactylus) which, as many other animals in the forest, when you
approach runs a couple of meters and then stay still hoping that you
don't see it. Fairly frequently we see squirrels , but generally too
quick as to determine the species. We are quite familiar though with a
brush-tailed porcupine (Atherurus africanus) that wonders around camp
during the night trying to feed on our bankufu (manioc roots). Iko, is
how we call it, which is the local name for the species. Much less well
looking than its southern counterpart.

Mongooses are famous to flee as soon as we approach, so do the leopards
so far, luckily, and only one researcher has seen the famous golden
cat(/Felis aurata/) which goes by the nice sounding local name of Lowa
undu. In my case, the only carnivore that I have spotted frequently (I
might crossed a leopard, but escaped to fast to confirm) has been the
African civet (Civettictis civetta), one that sometimes wanders around
the latrines and even the lab and that I fondly call Massacre, even if
their diet wouldn't suggest so. And recently I was glad to see a tiny
linsang (Poiana sp.)

Tree pangolins (/Phataginus tricuspis/) and long-tailed pangolins
(Uromanis tetractyla) are seen once every month or so, much more
frequently that the poor Giant pangolin (Smutsi gigantea) which,
according to the local tradition, if spotted, it must be killed and eaten.

Forest elephants are a constant fear, but we haven't cross them for
sure. We have seen their traces, especially in the swamps, and we had
been scared by noises at night that thought were them, but could also
had been red river hogs (Potamochoerus porcus), far more abundant.

During the night we have a water chevrotain (Hyemoschus aquaticus),
Inkuta, almost the camp pet (no body feeds it or anything, but it's
adorable). They look like duikers without preorbicular glads and with
tusks.

Finally, there is no day in the forest without scaring at least one
duiker who, according to Kingdon field guide to African Mammals, have
ones of the most complex brains of all bovids...which doesn't say much
about the family...The most commonly seen is the blue duiker
(Cephalophus monticola), and then, we know that have the Black-fronted
duiker (C.nigrifrons), Peter's duiker (C.callipygus) and Bay duiker
(C.dorsalis) but, generally we can't see them so well as to tell them
appart. Once I found a Yellow-backed duiker (C.silvicultor) in the
middle of the transect when looking for bonobos. It took him a while to
decide if it should run away or not at, after it did, he came back
shortly after just to flee again when notized than I was still
there...bovids...

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.

A morning in the life of Zed

(Yeah, yeah, I know, I should write more often, but I getting very lazy,
my English is getting worse and so do my writing skills…nothing last
long in the jungle, my friend, very high turnover rates. Well, here we go…)

Darkness starts early in the jungle, way before the sunset. Around
16h30-17h there is a sudden switch in noises; the bonobos search for a
place to build their nests while the galagos jump out of their holes and
begin to stretchpreparing themselves to forage under the stars. Below
the canopy the absence of light is almost complete around 17h30, time
when, if we are lucky and the bonobos have decided to go to sleep, we
are heading back to camp.

Such was the situation some days ago, when my boss and I had nested a
small party far south of the home range and 9km separated us from our
bucket shower and our 60% manioc dinner. 2h walking, a couple icy water
cups poured on our bodies and some beans, kwanga and mpondu later, we
were ready to sleep 5h before coming back to the nest site. Oats, powder
milk, bananas, instant coffee and ready to go.

The night before we managed to follow two adult females until they built
they nests, so around 5h, we were ready below them to collect the early
morning urine. In my case, mine made me wait for an hour, before she
finally peed and I could try to catch a fair amount in a Haumania
leaf…which I had to discard because she also shited on it…evil primates…

Then all the individuals started to go out of their nests, and looked
around, apparently without much idea of what to do. While Ben, one of
the adult males, started dragging branches all over the place, I spotted
Zed, a subadult male whom I was gonna focal the whole morning. After
some time resting on the ground, the party started moving towards the
first feeding tree of the day, but Zed had other plans and went to find
his own bopfumo (a tree of the Tiliaceae family with tasty sour red
fruit, a member of the genus Grewia). Nina, an adult female decided to
follow him and had a couple of copulations before started feeding. The
rest of the party didn't take long to join them. While some females gged
(genitor-genital rubbings, version bonoba de la tijera, vamos), Zed
looked for a good spot in which Ben, his brother, let him alone. Uma,
another adult female, after displace him a couple of times, decided to
groom him briefly. So much activity! I thought. For most of the male
bonobos, an average day is pretty solitary, often in the periphery and
with no much social interactions, but of course, depends on the male,
the party among other variables.

After a good breakfast, the bonobos decided to go to a nice clearance
made by a fallen tree and groom for a couple of hours. While Zed and his
mother gromed in the company of the other adults, I enjoyed watching at
intervals how is younger brother and a juvenile female played up and
down the trunk. At some point, the group vocalized and soon after, Rio,
another female of the community joined the party as started promptly to
be groom by Ben.

When the grooming bout was over, it was time to rest and pee, so we were
ready and alert to collect our precious samples. The shift was almost
over when the bonobos moved to another feeding tree and the hand over
came while Zed played with his younger brother close to their mother.
Time for the humans to go grooming, feeding and socialize.

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.

From the heart of darkness

Well, let´s try this out. I´m not sure if it will work but I guess I
will find out too late if it doesn´t. In the end I didn´t have the time
to write about my trip from Lajuma to Cape Town, nor to write about the
(exhausting/crazy/paranoid-bringing) making off of my current
destination but this is how it goes. Anyway, I´m sending this lines from
a remote place in the middle of the jungle of the Democratic Republic of
Congo, through a neat email-radio system (one can be survive without
flushing toilets or current water, but apparently no without emails).

So, after my trip was postponed against my will for visa issues, I
finally took the plane and from the cold winter of Madrid I landed off
in the humid heat Kinshasa with a stop in the snowy Brussels. I´ll save
all the tedious details, but believe me if I say that what I went
through in SA to sort my visa out was a children game in comparison with
what happened here.

The day after the arrival to the capital I took one of these tiny planes
for 4 people to get closer to the campsite (we almost died once, but the
rest was pretty fine and the landscape was amazing). Once there, I spent
a messy and confused night in the closest village, getting used to
listen to French and Lingala and to have bugs bitting you at the minimal
chance.

The next day with, again, different delays, let´s summarize by T.I.A, I
started the long walk to the campsite together with a guy from the
village who only spoke French and Lingala (my French is still amoeba
level, so imagine). 5 hours of savannahs, jungle and river latter I
arrived to which will be my home for the next 9 months; which I would
spent following bonobos and trying not to be killed by any tropical
illness or by the different arthropods that seek my blood as gold.

For the moment everything quite fine; seems that I´m doing pretty well
with the bonobo Id´ing and the conditions are not as terrible as I
expected (probably because I expected an harsh version of hell), but I
will need some time before getting used to be sweaty, smelly and itchy
at all times.

I guess I´ll write from time to time. Wish me luck!

293 bites

Those are the number of bites that I could count two mornings ago when I
woke up around 6. The mosquitos are the lesser problem, the worse are
the tse tse flies, completely insensitive to the repellents, really
itchy and attracted to sweat, something almost omnipresent at all times.
But well, that´s the biggest problem I have faced so far, so it is not
such a big deal, though after the first week it was very difficult to
sleep just because all the skin was extremely itchy. In addition to the
mosquitos and the tse tses, there are some minute insects quite itchy
too, that people on camp call the "invisibles". They look like tiny
minute flying black spots that, as soon as touch your skin makes it
itchy. Not very helpful when you are trying to ID the bonobos (still
getting there).

After discarding the daily use of antihistamines as a cure, and see that
no matter how frequent you use the repellents or how covered by clothes
you are, the arthropods always find a place to suck, I´m dealing with it
by "bathing" myself in tiger balm each nigh, trying to think in anything
else and do my best to keep myself as clean as possible...well everybody
here have told me that it gets better with time and they have been here
for long and even repeat, so they must be right... Patience, that
wonderful gift which I usually lack of....

Not all that bites seeks your blood, though, but they are annoying anyway and
this is the case of the driver ants. Sometimes, in the forest, if you
look at the ground, you can see these massive hordes of ants, all in
line, crawling fast in one direction. If you steep on them, even for a
second, some climb on you and search for a spot of flesh to bite
fiercely. That is why having the shocks above your trousers its a good
idea, despite the ridiculous appearance we can have (the bonobos don´t
care, not prejudices about shabby researches)...as long as you are able
to stop them before they climb too high. I didn´t catch them today so
soon, though, and before I could realize, I had ants all over my head,
quite difficult to remove since I made several braids in my hair in
order to deal with the washing conditions (If they don´t work I will end
up shaving my hair). Notwithstanding, minutes after, I managed to
collect my first decent urine sample from one of the female bonobos, but
half of it was all spread on me, which seemed to calm the ants...

But it is not necessary to bite in order to be a pain in the a$/. From
one week now, our dinning table has become a meeting point for a bunch
of bees. Fortunately, they are not aggressive at all, but you find
yourself doing pirouettes (??) in order to get the food into your mouth
with an extra dose of protein on it. As any other insect here, they
don´t give a shit about repellents or any of our attempts to keep them
away (cleaning the table, almond oil...). They also serve as a
camouflage for the tse tses, that fly within them, making them even less
detectable. Not to talk about the whole community of hymenoptera,
diptera and lepidoptera that you need to get out from the latrine before
using it...(so you can see better the ocean of maggots that crawls on
the bottom...). Lately there are even some crickets wandering around it
at night...

There are too many things going on every day and that I would like to
share, but the time is limited and the battery even more, so I have
decided to write small thematic chunks like this one from time to time
(but I can change my mind at any point, as usual, privileges of being
the author). I´ll try to be more careful with the writing, I saw that I
made several (painful) mistakes in the last entry but well, I can always
blame the Lariam, so convenient...