11h with House

After managing to go out from bed at 5 (not without the corresponding struggle,sure ) and getting ready for a long day following the samango monkeys through their thorny and spiky home range; I was waiting for 40 minutes to the Crossliner to come. As it was getting late and I didn't want to loose the monkeys if they had slept at the trees that surround the Owner's house (that’s why it’s called the House Troop), I left him a note at the Barn and walked toward the place I expected to find the monkeys. Fortunately, there they were, all spread throughout the garden.

Some scans passed with them feeding on the trees and I trying to don't be completely slobbered by Gunter, by giving him distinct sticks to play with and by climbing to the highest rocks I could find...(It didn't work pretty well, my poor smelly fleece can testify so...). As soon as I could see some of the monkeys out of the garden, I ran away there to escape from the massive dog, who was barking to me for a while, looking at me sad from the other side of the fence.

Soon, some of the monkeys travelled inside the forest, leaving short after the vicinity of the Bushbuck trail, which means that I had to spend the majority the day jumping different kind of bushes, walking on my haunches to avoid others and removing thorns from my clothes and skin. At least, I hope to end up this experience with strong legs and healing capacity…inshallah

Around 10, there was enough coverage for the mobile phone so I could receive half text of the Cardiffian telling me that the Crossliner had gone to town to solve some visa stuff and that she could accompany me if I texted her to *part of text is missing*. Well; I was already expecting to be alone with the monkeys all the day and, actually, I was enjoying pretty much the experience, I needed to get rid of human primates for a while, just a little bit. It was pretty discouraging for me to see the Crossliner lying around with the Sudoku booklet while listening to the radio between scans, so not having that example I could look at the monkeys and enjoy their behaviour more freely without feeling like a weirdo. That is how I could see some things that I couldn’t see before; such as how the juveniles become crazy when the male ( I call him Greg, because of Greg House) copulates with one of the females; and the juvenile spins around the couple making funny faces.Yeah, as here the winter is coming I'm gonna be again following monkeys in their mating season ( so jealous).  Or a baby suckling from its mother and being groomed. Additionally, as I’m pretty quiet, some other animals came to visit while I was following the monkeys like a female bushbuck:

A red duiker….

A warthog with her babies…

And the always present Guinean fowl!

Of course, I could also enjoy the side effects of the behavioural data collection, which is when your mind starts to flow around random thoughts such as your discouraging future. After all, I’m still able to see me being an overqualified McDonals or Burguer King employee...My PhD applications haven't been too succesful...well, one was, but if don't find a scholarship I'll have to withdraw it...I'm gonna applied for more if the work and the intrinsic laziness of the research assistant allow me, but I'm not having good expectations about next year...and, of course, a recurrent not so random thought, thanks to the constantly remind of the Cardiffian is the scarcity of men....Such a waste of youth, f&%ck!(well, that's precisely the problem ¬¬').... It's not something that I would normally say but, given that one of the purposes of the blog was to give some insight of the real world of the career in biology to the newcomers, I would. Scarcity of males it's getting a rule on field world...and you are gonna be isolated for a huge amount of time in the middle of nowhere...it's something to consider. So, boys, if you wanna increase your possibilities in having any kind of relationship with girls, study biology! If you don't get anything, you may have to re-think your sexuality, in which case, you are in the right place! As far as I know, a great proportion of guys in biology are gay so...girls, maybe a trip to Lesbos is not such a bad idea...yeah, the 15 minutes between scans let you think more than you would like to, and I also have time to miss Morocco, the macaques and my fellows...and that some behaviours previously attributed to the unequal sex ratio, after a kind of experimental replication, came to be seen in a different way since in the second case the outcome is pretty much the opposite than the one of the former. As I said, random thoughts.

It was getting dark when I finally reach the last scan, which made extremely complicated to see if the monkeys had nipples or not, so I could tell adult females and subadults apart. I stayed a little bit more, so I could take the GPS coordinates of the sleeping site and when I did it I realized that my head torch didn't gave light more than a metre away...then is when you stop to care about snakes and start to be concern about leopards! Fortunately the monkeys were kind enough to don't go to sleep too far from a little path which I could follow and led me to a known trial, so I could find the Barn in not too much time. And luckily, I was so tired that I went to sleep just a couple of hours afterwards...I leave you with some seconds of my new monkeys...

Notes on the first days at Soutpansberg Mountains

I did it, I survived one week and a half! I was scare of just arriving and being bitten by any snake on the field or by one of the spiders that watch over my bed , but no, I only count with some scratches on my arms, proof of my dedication in trying to follow the samangos and doing ecological plots and some unidentified bites... Here are some “short” (me enrrollo más que las persianas, ese desconocido más allá de Pirineos) episodes and descriptions of my first week “working” in S.Africa.

The Barn: human primates sleeping site

The Barn is a sort of reconverted, as you can expect, barn; with rubber floor and tin roof. At the entrance you find the living-dinning-office-room; with some sofas, and a couple of tables, one where all the chargers for the different stuffs are. At the back, you’ve got 4 fridges and on the right of those, the kitchen, with a sink (of course, two taps, English style…¬¬)  and a gas cooker. Everything here, amazingly, works with gas…well, not, I’m lying, some of the electricity comes from a little hydroelectric stuff we have on a little waterfall; but the fridges work with gas! (I’m a city child, what can I say, I’m fixing it!).

Just at the right of the entrance door, there is a sink and, near to this, a little cupboard where all the toothpastes and other stuff of the volunteers lie (same place where a couple of nights ago I found a happy cockroach having a walk on my glasses box…).

The toilets and showers are on the other side of the sink, and there are 5 rooms inside and a small cabin outside.  

It is, as any tourist pamphlet would say, rustic; which means that we have an extensive diversity of spiders over our heads and the feeling that a snake could be hidden in the sofa; but it cosy, anyway.  Having spiders is not so bad after all; they eat mosquitoes and sometimes you’ve a shower with entertainment; with some of the spiders trying to catch a moth while you are trying to clean all the new scratches of the day.

But not all the visitors are annoying or not friendly-looking. My first day, a lonely male samango, after having a walk in front of the PhD student (obviously, not the same of Morocco) and the Post-Doc cabin, tried to go inside our toilets. People here call all the male samangos “Shitbag”, but I personally call this one George, after the greatest Barbary macaque of all. We had also a toad on one of the showers, but we had to take it outside because, apparently, after the toads, the snakes come. During the night, sometimes, you can hear steps on the roof; bushbabies, the people say; which scream loudly some nights (fluffy cute little f&%kers!).

There are some weird details in the Barn, such as a Mexican flag, a wall clock (that of course doesn’t work, they never do), a well-done drawing of meerkats, and a lot of stuff here and there that I hope to get to know sooner or later.

We are currently 8 girls living in the Barn, apart from a cat called Bonny. I like to think that she had this name after the great pirate Anne Bonny, I guess is not the case, but some times little lies make the life sweeter.

The safety talk

The first thing I had to do the morning after my arrival was to go and see The Owner of the research centre, so he could gave me a short talk about the place and some safety issues.

Following the indications of my fellows, I walked towards there looking compulsively to the ground in case there was any snake around…(the Cologner (adjective for a person from Cologne, Germany?) had just told me that a couple of days ago she had a creepy encounter with a black mamba and I didn’t want to go through the same, at least for a while).

I arrived to the fence and came into enclosure where the house and the pretty garden of the Owner were. Then, when I was trying to reach the door I had the bad luck of meeting Gunter.

Gunter is a massive and smelly san Bernard, nearly as tall as me (yeah, maybe it’s only massive from my point of view), who likes to jump on you and cover you with his slobber; especially if you are clean. Fortunately for me, before I got completely wet with the stinky slobber, the wife of the Owner came to rescue me. She said his name and he became absolutely frozen.

Then she told me where to find her husband and so I did. I found the old man in his kind of office, surrounded by thousands of biology books stacking everywhere as any good academic. And, as any old Afrikaner, he wore shorts and sandals.

We were going through his power point presentation about the place and then we reach the point of the safety.

First, try to don’t kill yourself by falling while walking through the field site; and he told me a scary story of a student who had to be rescue by helicopter because he got his femur broken.

Second, all the happy deadly and nearly deadly animals. With leopards, the advise was pretty much use your common sense and don’t go after them if they were trying to escape…no comments about what happen if it’s you who is trying to escape…

Then the spiders; violin, black widows and another one which, apparently, don’t kill you, as long as you notice and you can be treated. And finally the snakes: puff adder, spitting cobra and the deadly mamba. Basically, try to don’t step on one, and if you are bitten, put a bandage, but in the case of mamba in which a tourniquet could be the most appropriate (better loose your leg than your life). The most funny things were his comments such as…”Well, you should wear boots and long trousers…I’m not a good example, but I prefer dying from a snake bite than from heat” or “ Try to don’t go on your own too far, if you are bitten by a mamba you have one hour and a half before passing out” (I guess that with my size is probably less).

The best thing is that we work alone quite often and in relatively far areas, with no radio nor mobile phone coverage, so…I always carry a pencil, a scarf and the instructions of how to do a tourniquet, just in case…

Any way, apart from trying to do the few things the man told me to do; I try to check my clothes, boots and sleeping bag before using them as well as to close the drawers of my closet, so I don’t find any unexpected guess. And I made my room mates, 5 well-feed spiders, to sign a non-aggression agreement; I don’t remove their webs, but they should stay away from my mattress…It’s working for now…

A jungle of buckets

One of my nearly daily tasks for the next month and a half is helping a master student with her project. It’s not something that I expected, but well, she has a supervisor not very in touch with reality and I know how that is, so I can be supportive.

She is working in giving up densities and landscapes of fear in samangos; which sounds pretty cool but, as usual, in the practice is much less glamorous. It basically means that we have to go every morning to the forest to hang some buckets with peanuts and sawdust in several trees at different heights and then, in the afternoon, take them down and count the peanuts left.

The good thing is that the forest is a pretty place, full of dense vegetation and lianas and the master student, the Scottish, is nice. I was a little bit afraid at first of not getting along with her because she was extremely motivated by her project (My body react badly to too enthusiastic people, my conscience it’s like an extremely sarcastic Daria, that character of a series (http://youtu.be/xf01tSJ41VQ) that so few people know, apparently)  and she was speaking all the time, repeating how kind I was for helping ( I don’t like too polite people either…what kind of bas&%rds do I like?...sigh) . But after she defined her self as not a “girly” girl, and that I hear her using frequently expressions such as “f&%ck off”, “bloody hell”, and, the one which won my hearth, “that’s watchable shit!”, I realized that we were of a similar kind, so thing can work out fine.

In addition, trying to follow the Scottish to the jungle is a quite good exercise; even if right now she seems the world champion of 1000m lianas and I’m closer to a drugged baby Bambi.

Sometimes, Bonny comes with us and she is climbing here and there and smelling stuff everywhere but we have to be careful so she follows us all the way. The poor cat is not smart enough to find the way home by herself!

Counting leaves

Another task is plant phenology; defined as “the study of periodic plant life cycle events and how these are influenced by seasonal and interannual variations in climate” (wikipedia, this is just a blog, not a f%&cking paper! ); which is interesting to contrast with monkeys movements and to see if they are affected by the former.

Translation on a daily basis: go to the field on your own with a PDA and a GPS; try to find your 50-something trees (more interesting given that the GPS are extremely inaccurate and I don’t know yet the field) and then, when you have the tree; try to find the branch tapped. Once you got it, climb to a rock, tree or whatever if necessary to see it well and count the leaves on it; see if there is any fruit, flower or seed and proceed to the next one.

The first day it was a show to watch me, looking all the time to the ground to see if there was any snake, while insulting the GPS in Spanish because it didn’t help me to find the trees, and Bonny the cat after me, meowing, rubbing my legs and climbing everywhere, while a troop of baboons was around with the consequently noise.  I did my first steeps in climbing in a couple of rocks, helping me with some lianas (only trust the thick ones, and not always!)… but I retreated this time from climbing a tree; the one I had to go up had a thick, huge spider web that didn’t give me good feelings.

Nonetheless, the other day, a little bit less concerned (but always with the impression that I could die each 5 minutes), I climbed some trees (well, ok, less than 1’5m from ground, but is something!), and rocks, and nearly step on a baby red duiker! I saw, as well, a preying mantis that resembled lichen…and almost got lost as it was getting dark and I was far from the way. I decided to leave the trail and cross the forest since, according to the GPS, was the shortest way to “civilization”. It worked, fortunately; 20 minutes more and I would have had to find my way in the night (I had the head-torch with me, but I’m not ready yet for that).

Introducing the Vervets and the Samangos

In theory, my first months here I would be working with predators, but the Leader changed her mind and I’ll be doing so in a couple of months, helping with the trapping of some to radio-collar them (promises to be…exciting, at least). Until then, I’ll be helping with the samango data collection and some with vervets.

 That’s why last week I went with the Crossliner ( I think he said that was his town in California, but I don’t find it! Anyway) to check the couple of traps he had set up on the vervet’s homerange to capture one and radio-collar it, so it is easier to find them and re-habituate them. After a 40 minutes walk we reach the place and check the traps, which are not armed yet, they are there only to habituate the monkeys to them. We checked the camera traps, but only red duikers had come along. After baiting them again, we were patrolling the area for a while, to see if we were able to find them and follow them for a while, but the only think we saw was Guinean fowl.

The day after, once I finished with the buckets at the forest, he came to pick me up at the Barn and we went to the place he had left the House troop of samangos…but obviously they weren’t there any more. Using our ears we could, somehow, found them again within the extremely dense and bl%$dy thorny vegetation. Then he showed me to do the scans, which is the only data collection they do and that are quite simple in comparison with the ones I did in Morocco…especially because nobody is able to identify the different individuals, so the only thing we can do is try to know the sex and the age-class…but that is difficult too!

The adult male (one per troop), is relatively easy, because is bigger than any female and has balls; but to know if you are watching a female or a subadult, you have to look for nipples; which make you feel like a kind of pervert and monkeys don’t like it too much either. Juveniles are nearly a matter of chance, they had “like a younger face” but this is quite subjective; and the infants are just the smallest, but they are now nearly one year old and you can only be sure if you see them being carried by their mother, which is not too often.

We were sitting close to the male, having lunch because here they don’t consider necessary to move out of sight of the monkeys to do so…but of course it is, as shown the fact that once the Crossliner moved to do a scan leaving his backpack behind, the male quickly stole the leftovers of and apple he had. Then the male move away and we realized that the whole troop had moved away while we were there with the male and we lost them. The Crossliner said that that day was only a warming up, so it didn’t worth it to try to find them again and we came back to the  Barn.

Yesterday it was the first full following day of the troop, so the Crossliner came to the Barn to collect me at 6. He left me scanning a troop, that he was suspicious that probably was the Barn troop instead of the House troop that we were supposed to follow. Right, he came afterwards because he had found House troop at Owner’s garden.

There we went, trying to escape from Gunter, so we ended up standing on a rock so the dog couldn’t scatter his slobber all around us. Then, when Gunter finally got bored of us and we could climb down the rock, the Crossliner had his second breakfast.

The monkeys took a while before moving from the garden, which was very appreciated because afterwards we found ourselves trying to make our way within the thorny vegetation once again and for a while we lost them all, but, after a while, we were able to find a female and a subadult and an hour latter, she rejoined with the rest of the troop.

Around lunch time, they gave us a (long) rest, in which they were feeding on Acacia without moving too much…which gave time to the Crossliner to do several Sudokus…and when he got bored he started to make a spear with a stick and a razor…(WTF man? ¬¬’). I didn’t dare to ask him if he pretended to hunt the dinner or to play the Vlad Tepes with me.

Nothing really interesting happened, a part from the sighting of a red duiker and a bushbuck, and the antipredatory behaviour of the monkeys when they saw and eagle.

We followed them until nearly 18, when it was getting dark and they, finally chose a sleeping tree.

It was much less funnier than to follow my dear Barbary macaques. First, because when you don’t even know the exact number of the troop, everything is much less personal and entertaining. Second, the vegetation is so dense that sometimes a monkey can be 5m away from you and you can’t see it. And third, the only thing that these monkeys did was eating. I just saw 2 groomings and, given that their hierarchy is inherited (as long as I’ve been told), they aggress each other very infrequently. So, I was a little bit disappointed, but I’ll get use to it and I can spend the 15 minutes between scans trying to manage the unmanageable task of identifying them.

Louis Tritchardt and S.African manners

We visit the town on Mondays, at least if we are not supposed to follow the monkeys.

So, this Monday was my first time in Louis Trichardt if we don’t count my quick visit to the bus station and the supermarket the day I arrived.

Honestly, I couldn’t see too much. As it was my first day, I stayed with the other volunteers to see what was their routine in there…and pretty much can be summarizing by eating and shopping.

We had breakfast in a kind of posh-café that I guess that not too long ago had a cartel on the door saying “whites only”, given the kind of customers that were there. I did expected other habits from my new fellows.

Then, we accompanied the Netherlander to get her visa. The building had a slight urine smell, and the officials were protected behind bars. Weird. We met there an American which spoke apparently fluent Venda with the officials and who, apparently, also spoke Zulu.

Afterwards, some shopping,  lunch and back to the Pick’n’Pay for buying groceries.

The few I could see from the city was that, in general, everything is quite organized (ÑE!) , but there is some room for unexpected stuff; such as an advertisement I saw that said “Abortions. Discounts for students”. 

About manners and habits I have only got that people here say “hello, how are you?” all the time, even if it’s obvious by their faces that they don’t care about the answer; even though I try to smile and say “ fine, and you?” (yeah, I’m trying hard to look like a social person, just to see if I can do it).

Another thing that I’m discovering is that I like S.African English, because is kind of latin-thinking. For example, the plural of man is not men, but mens; and they say persons instead of people! Cool!

The only S.African habit I have been able to participate so far is a Braai. This is a barbeque and it seems that the volunteers and all the people associated usually do one each week; all sitting around the fire, waiting for the meat and potatoes to cook, while drinking some wine and beers. That’s the kind of tradition I like.

My own point of view

Well, I must say that, for now, I’m a little bit disappointed about some stuff, such as the laughable safety measures, that people eat in front of the monkeys (though maybe is kind of understandable given that most of the days people work alone with them and if you go out of sight you probably loose them…that again brings us to the laughable safety measures…I’ll try to do the right thing, though), the fact that the training of everything don’t last even a day so you are not really sure of being doing anything right and sometimes I’ve got the feeling that I’m doing random stuff without any purpose. Hopefully, I’ll change my mind in a few weeks; I always tend to see the cons automatically, while I take a long time to see the pros.

Fortunately, many of the problems I had during my first weeks in Morocco have gone. My stress level is zero (I mean, regarding to the work, regarding to the poisonous bugs is much higher), and my worries about fitting or not are pretty much at the same level, which actually makes much easier to fit, life is that unfair. So, in general, I feel good (rather lonely, but that is like saying that you are wet after the rain ¬¬) and I have adapted to the dynamics of the people and the work pretty much instantly…

I’ve got the impression that whatever I learn here is gonna depend to a really large extend in my own interest, because nobody is going to check what I’m doing or to correct me if I’m doing something wrong. Anyway, I guess that only the experience of following monkeys in much harder conditions and trying to walk quickly in the jungle jumping lianas while trying to don’t twist an ankle is fair enough…

But well, as I said, I have been an extremely negative person for a really long time so, even if I have change in many aspects, some bad habits are still there. Quite probably my idea about everything will be much better in not too much time..for now, even here, I miss Morocco. 

Chronicles of the Green Group (II)

(I'll be updating this post during the following days with the new stories, I guess. For previous episodes: Back to the Green Group, Encounter in the Amphitheatre, Chronicles of the Green Group )



Day 9: Monday 19 March 2012

We had new arrivals during the last days; 3 new masters students and a research assistant of one of them. That is why the Londoner and I didn’t go to the Green group on Thursday nor Sunday; days that I spent with the Tourists group.

I’m sorry for the monkeys of the Tourists group but, even after 2 months with them, I’m not so fond of them as I’m of the Green group macaques. Maybe it’s because of the amazing home range they have; maybe because the Tourists’ group site only reminds me the ability of humans to sodomize nature and all the valuable things in the world, or maybe because the Greens were my first macaques. Whatever the reason, when I have to go with the Green group I don’t consider it work.

Today the Green group site was, once again, full of researches. Apart from the Londoner and me, the French came to start to get to know the monkeys before I leave, as well as the German3 and her assistant, the Washingtonian (?) who started on the field.

The German3 and the Washingtonian began the search in the valleys, while the Londoner sought in UK and the French and me in Texas. Due to the shortage of radios and that the ones we had were toy-like; the French and I couldn’t split too much and luckily. It seems that the French orientation sense is less acute than Londoner’s and, when I realized, instead of going on a straight line, she made a kind of U, ending up going on the completely opposite direction! Fortunately, the Londoner contacted us through the toy-radio not much after to tell us that she had found the monkeys in UK.

She has improved a lot on her tracking skills in this couple of weeks because the monkeys were quite hidden on the trees! And they didn’t start to climb down till 9 or so…

Then the French started the identification and I with the faecal sample collection. In less than 1hour we got Danni, Lewis, Helen and Joan. Good one. And in not much more, the French had already learnt to recognize pretty well the monkeys and soon after, Danni became her favourite.

After lunch, the monkeys had continued on the trees, following their current routine of grooming and rest; ideal time to try to collect urine…or to be showered with it as Helen did with me. At least that was better than Artemis, that also dropped to me some faecal samples…(Thanks man ’).

Short after, the monkeys climbed down from the trees and started to travel to Parallel while the French tried to do some photogrammetry and I continued with the faecal collection. Together we were able to collect Oz and Noddy, so was a pretty good day in that sense.

Travelling and travelling, the reached the fence and, what better to welcome the new researchers than a quick walk through Vertical Valley?

We had to leave them there so, probably tomorrow we will need some time to find them.

It’s good to see again so many people working with the Green group; but I certainly enjoyed the peaceful days alone with the Londoner. I guess that things seem more special the less people has access to them, but so is life.

Well; today was 5 months since I arrived to Morocco to go after the Barbary Macaques, and I've only got one week left. Tough, quite tough and, in such situations, the f&%cking sentimental girls like me do things like this:





Day 10: Tuesday 20 March 2012

After walking through the road which goes to the Quarry, the German3 and her assistant went to check the Amphitheatre, letting the tough task of climbing to the top of the hill to the Londondoner, the French and me.

When we finally arrived to the top, we walked towards the Quarry and, once more, I mistook Vertical Valley for Gash (If I don't see the Gash I don't know if its the Gash valley or not, sigh). After correcting my mistake, we continued going towards there sligthly splitted. Then the French started to cough several times. "What are you doing?" I asked her, cause our toy-like radios didn't work and she was in the other side of the slope that we were supposed to check. She had found the monkeys just at the edge of the forest, between the Gash and the Quarry.


This time they started to travel sooner than the day before; just after we found them. Soon, they reached the back of the Quarry, giving us the chance of enjoy the amazing view. After a couple of pictures, George appeared. After looking at us, he walked toward the edge of the Quarry "No, George, no!" The Londoner and I exclaimed lowly (We are agree in that he is the best). And he stopped just a couple of cm of the edge and chewed some grass while staring at us. We breathed calm, but just for some seconds, before he walked into the Quarry out of sight...but, after a while, he jumped again out of the Quarry, looking at us like saying "Were you worried? What did you expect?"

As expected, they travelled to the Amphitheatre and, of course, I had to do the hourly scan when they were still travelling. In doing so, two eagles flew through the sky and the monkeys made a vocalization that I don't remember to have heard before. It wasn't an alarm call, sounded more like a weird grunt and they were all looking at the sky.

Soon after, I could collect Artemis faecal sample when he had a small scream fight against Oz and Simon.

After some time doing photogrammetry, the French approached me and confessed that she still had some problems to recognize some of the females " I don't know if I'm glad or disapointed" I told her, and went with her to check some IDs.

Then, I came back to watch George, who was sleeping on a tree not to high, perfect location for sample collection. Finally I received my prize (as well as some drops on the face, but that is routine, as well as he peed just before a scan).

It was grooming and resting time on the trees, and I was waiting between some trees to collect whatever any monkey wanted to eject. As usual, I cannot avoid to watch a little bit what the little juveniles and infants are doing around and I found a comic scene. While feeding, Danni's infant (Daphne? Daikiri?...let's see) saw something that scared her and jumped doing a tumble on the air. Her sister, Dakota, was around and went to examine whatever the infant has seen, while this one lagged behind holding her hands. Apparently, Dakota decided that there wasn't any thing wrong and resumed her feeding, so did her little sister.

Suddenly, I saw Simon and Kerry chasing Rebecca and I had to run towards them to collect the sample, while them interrupted the lunch of the German3 and the Washingtonian.


Only Kerry was kind enough to deliver another sample; Anna and George only make us following them unsuccessfully.

Around 15:30, the French and I had to left. The Boss was going to meet us at the car park at 16 for having time to prepare stuff for a 3 days trip to Maerzouga. I will be great...but I wouldn't mind to be all the rest of the week working with the Green group, especially now in the Amphitheatre...I'm gonna miss them and their forest so much...

We arrived on time and, when driving towards the Tourists site to collect the boys, I asked the boss if the Green Group could come with us to the desert, but she wasn't very pleasent with the idea of driving with Artemis sitting on her knees...not even if I only invite George, Anna and Rebbeca, sigh. When reaching the end of Texas, we could see one of the neighbour groups of the Green group; Big Lewosky one, who sit and stared at us with cockiness.




Day 11: Sunday 25 March 2012

After a couple of days going around Erg Chebbi by camel with the Barbary Gang, I worked on Saturday with the Tourists group. Then we could experience the side effects of holydays, with Bart stealing the English’s lunch after clapping his ass (Bart also tried to clap the French’s bottom, but she is quicker), some forgetting the radio, or some others collecting a faecal sample from Smarties (Elliot) thinking that is Galack.

Today, I had a mixed day, working with both groups. First, we struggled a little to find the Tourists group under the rain, which has came back to say me goodbye and remembering me my first weeks here. I finally found them hidden in the Bushy area; I hoped that their weird location indicated that there was a new born, but no. A funny morning trying to collect urine in the rain…I could get Chocobon’s in a break of rain and, soon after, I found myself surrounded by a teacher and his 50 students asking me questions and me trying to answer with my amoeba-like French, before sending an SOS to the French and the English. I could also see how about 30 teenagers suffering the consequences of harassing Tabasco (Tequila’s (Leila’s) infant); being aggressed by Tequila, Cinnamon (Osiris) and Pepito. The tourists then tried to run away, some of them fell and some other nearly steep on them.

After my lunch, I did my last scan on the Tourists group; starting with my beloved Tequila and ending with my old friend of extremely long focals, Lychee ( Fidji).
I looked at them sadly and said “ I’ll come back tomorrow and I’ll say you goodbye properly”

Then, the French and I, accompanied by a noisy storm, drove towards the Green Group site. The Boss had let me to try to find them during the afternoon to don’t spend all my last day looking for them unsuccessfully. I owe her a lot.

We checked UK. The rain stopped and no monkey was found, but we saw some fresh faeces…really fresh. We checked the outer part of Parallel and then, we started with Texas. The sun had come back and the temperature was increasing.

When we were on the half of the area, I heard a well known scream and I saw something purchasing something behind some shrubs. Happy like a vampire in a blood bank, I went that way and found them. The French had also seen them and was moving toward the place. “Oooh…si es que sois todos más monos. Os abrazaba a todos, c_ñ_!” I said.

No much could happen in the hour and a half that we could stay with them; no samples, a couple of pictures for the photogrammetry…Just the lack of Artemis. Well, when waiting to see if Anna stopped to groom with Simon, to try to collect a faecal sample from her, while waiting to see if Joan and Kerry delivered some urine while they were grooming Joan’s infant; I saw these three looking behind me. I looked too and I saw George around 30m far, chewing something, while sitting on a low branch and looking at me. The next time I looked he had disappeared as suddenly as he appeared.

We had to leave at 16:30; to don’t be late to a dinner with Ben, part of my last-things-to do list (It was a long list, I’ve needed three weeks to do stuff and I’ve got some more for tomorrow, let’s see…). The French, the South Carolinian and me bought some pastries at the Hadaf and food at the mythic Chicken Place before going to Ben’s place. There we had dinner, with a good amount of tea among others, and the presence of Katrina, a little cat that has been around since New Years Eve. Ben was remembering the Californian and the Czech and speaking a little bit about everything with the French, while the S. Carolinian and I tried to get some of the conversation (I have to learn French urgently!).

And then, tomorrow it’s my last day…It’s finally here…C’est a vie…




Day 12: Monday 26 March 2012 (last day in the field) & Tuesday 27 March 2012, the departure



As usual, the alarm of the French’s mobile sounded, just 3 minutes before mine, even if both were supposed to ring at 6. I recovered the conscience after the short rest, getting ready for another day in the field…and then I felt a kind of kick on the stomach and opened the eyes; I realized it was the last day.

According to my new philosophy, I tried to get those sad thoughts away from my mind and so, I put loud music on my mp3 as every morning.

After leaving the boys at the Tourists site, the Boss dropped us at the Green Group site, where the Londoner, the German3 and the Washingtonian were waiting for us... as well as George, who looked at us from the side of the road that leads to Texas.

“Oh, George!!! You have come for me, haven’t you? You are so cool…” I thought. And we went to meet them all in Texas.

“Ok guys, I wanna a perfect day today, I need 11 samples, so everybody shitting!” I said to the macaques, who were too busy chewing grass to pay me attention.

Nonetheless, the first two samples came shortly after; thanks to a small scream fight with Artemis against Oz supported by…the juveniles and the infants! It was funny to see Mac lunging and open mouthing to Artemis.

Then I spent an hour watching Noddy, Kerry, Rebecca and Anna who were resting on a couple of trees, in a perfect position for urine collection…but they didn’t deliver anything…until I came back from the scan and I found a fresh warm shit under Noddy, which I collected with the correspondent comment.

Soon, the monkeys started to move and I could collect a faecal sample from Rebecca. While I was processing it, the French appeared with a stone on her hand with and enormous mountain of shit on it. What is wrong with you, Joan?

When I ended up of processing both samples, my colleagues weren’t around since most of the monkeys have already crossed to Parallel. Near the road, I could collect Kerry’s sample. And, when I was preparing it, George appeared again, looked at me and defecated in the middle of the road…and urinated on it…so I couldn’t collect any of them. I know that you only wanted to help, buddy, what does a macaque know about sample contamination?…sigh.


The following hours passed following the monkeys trough Parallel until the fence and then, going up Gash Valley. The group was scattered and I could spend some time alone with Anna, with Dakota around making funny things and slapping other juveniles (Yeah, is true, she is the best juvenile).

Around 13h, the French and I went to have lunch near the Gash, out of the sight of the monkeys, when the German3 called me. When we reach them, she asked me for the keys of the house; she and her assistant were going to come back home to try to fix the computer they have. Technology…

Then, the macaques were having their sleeping-grooming session at the beginning of Portugal. The last couple of hours were spent with the Londoner doing her focals, the French in front of Artemis trying to take the last picture she needed (she didn’t and now she hates him and his dummy face…hehe); and me waiting for urine.

At 15h, I made my last hourly scan…nearly perfect, but for the lack of Simon and George. Half an hour later, it was time to leave. The Boss had given me an extra hour off to be able to prepare all my stuff. So, I asked to the French and the Londoner to meet me at the fence; I needed to spend a while alone with my monkeys. I gave the French the Green Group urine collector, a symbol that now the Green group master is she…well, I don’t know what the opinion of the Boss is, but for me the French will end up being the next Green Group master, as soon as she has time to spend with them and love them as much as I do. Well, she already has her favourite, Danni, the funky monkey, according to her.

When I saw that both girls had departed, I stood for a while, watching the juveniles playing, and Rebecca going down a tree and starting to feed on grass. Simon appeared too. Then, I did something that I couldn’t do since my first couple of weeks: sit and observe without neither waiting for anything nor to have to note anything. I just watched Anna and Joan grooming and sandwiching with Joan’s infant. It was cool…but short, I had already spent more than 10 minutes and it was time to leave. I started to walk down the valley and I turned around to looked sadly and to say “Bslama…adiós”…and ran down Portugal.

I liked that they did pretty much the same way that they did on my first day, but I was a little bit disappointed that George didn’t appear to say goodbye but, as the Londoner said, then it wouldn’t be George.

It’s weird for me now to think that “my babies” are surrounded by nearly strangers; I guess it’s a similar feeling that parents have when their teenagers sons start to spend most of their time with their friends instead of at home…

We meet the Boss at the parking, with the guys already at the car. I had to sit on the French to make room for the Londoner who, given the early departure of the German3 and the Washingtonian, had to come with us at the car.No time to say goodbye to the Tourist group; they had travelled inside the Paradise area, far, far away. Fortunatetely, the previous day I could say goodbye to some of them, sigh.

At the Hadaf, I could print my flight tickets and buy some stuff for my parents. At home, I entered the last data and accomplish the amazing task of making my luggage to weight 15kg (Ryanair always makes you to be zen and toss most of your stuff…)

The last dinner was in the fancy restaurant at the Medina (no couscous this time!); with the Barbary Gang, the Londoner and the German3. The Boss made me to give a brief speech (my first choice, which was a simple open mouth with ground slap didn’t convince her) and so she did. I'm also very happy of having been able to work with you Boss! You taught me even more than the Great Portuguese.

Once at home, I shared some tequila and homemade fig ice cream with my fellows of the Barbary Gang, before going to sleep for the last time in Morocco (at least for now...).

The morning came, and so the time to say goodbye to everybody before they went to the field. Sad…but as the S.Carolinian reminded us “Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened”

The car left with the Barbary Gang inside while the tigress reminded on land. Some time after, the Boss came back and drove me to Fez airport. As I told her, who had told me when I first arrived to that airport that I would be leaving 5 months latter and accompanied by a different PhD student. Life is weird, fortunately.

She was helping me with the check-in and stuff and then, she, sadly, left.

I went into the embarquement area and wait. While doing it, I saw a Morocco tourist advertisement on the wall that said “see you soon”. “It’s hard to say… I surely hope so” I thought. I couldn’t see my face, but I had the feeling that probably was the same that I saw in the Californian the day he left, something pretty much like this :-( . The flight was delayed for an hour, of course and I started to feel hungry, so I opened the box of pastries that the Londoner had given to me and I found a short gratitude note. Thank you very much! The f&%cking sentimental girls like me love this kind of details! It was a pleasure to help you, I hope it was enough...and sorry for making you to walk through all the home range so fast the first day; I was so excited to be there again that I didn't realized that maybe it was too much.

When I was finally on the queue to go to the plane, the guy who checked the tickets asked me “ Porque tu triste” (Why you sad?)…”Porque me voy de casa…” (Because I’m leaving home)” I said. And then finally, I cried while walking up to the plane…


PD: Congratulations to Anna of the Green Group, who became the first mum this year...just one day after my departure...machiavellian monkeys...so lovely



“ Ain’t got no home, Ain’t got no money, Ain’t got no friends…I’ve got life” Nina Simone

Some pictures of the macaques

Joan grooming Mack


Athena





Pepito





Ben grooming Danni

First times: Macaques and Morocco

Tomorrow it’s my first day as research assistant for the barbary macaque project and I’m a little bit… scared?…frightened??…terrified??? Well, yeah, a little bit. After 6 weeks training, one would expect to be a master with the pocket pc, the codes and identifying the monkeys. However, being honest, it’s not enough; specially when there are two different groups of macaques, the PhD student who is supposed to teach you is so busy that she would need one of those hour-glass necklaces as the one Hermione had one the Prisioner of Azkaban (What did you expect? My generation grew up with those characters!), and the half of the days the rain sent the monkeys up on the trees, where they are much harder to identify even if you don’t consider the fact that you have drops falling into your eyes… But well; I’ll do it fine, I guess… I was one of those repellent girls that went out of the exam quite worried because they were going to fail and then they got a good mark; so I expect that this hasn’t changed.

So yeah, 6 weeks… 7 weeks ago I would have said that 6 weeks it’s a long time, but here the days pass so quickly that I still feel as if I have just arrived, even when most of the people are already preparing to leave…sigh.

I arrived in October, after expending less than a week in my hometown. The preceding month I’d had time for finishing my master, participating on my first field campaign and going to a dissection workshop in Texel, where I gave my first “formal” presentation in English (formal because it was about my own research, but It was a F&%$ing disaster!). So, I didn’t have much time for preparing stuff nor studying the protocols the PhD student whom I was going to assist had sent to me.

After taking a plane to Alicante and waiting for a long time in a mixed queue of flip-flops tourist, adventurers and Morroccan people coming back home; I found myself nearly praying (difficult task when you have no god!) for that toy-like plane to don’t fall in the middle of the flight (Have you guess the company? Yeah, it’s cheap but, f&%k!). Meanwhile, I also had another look to the notes I expected to know perfectly by the time I arrive to Morrocco but…

We landed safe and sound (!!!!) at Fez airport and, after another queue for passport issues and another one to change money, I went out with my luggage to meet the PhD student who, surprisingly, was as short as me and seemed to have the same sort of problems when speaking English as well as a very strong French accent which I could cope with since my best friend during the Erasmus was French.
The first thing she did was to drive me to the supermarket (Marjane); which reminded me to the Carrefour or any other European one!! So my first surprise was to see that the differences weren’t as huge as I had been told!!

After buying some basic stuff, we took the car and after one hour and a half we arrived to Azrou…which wasn’t exactly the “nice little town of green roofs” that my guide book said, but a messy middle-size city full of contrasts and with the typical nightmare traffic. The image I had the first time I put a foot on the city was like to be in a surrealistic performance; everything seemed to me like a puzzle made up with pieces of different boxes; a kind of platypus. Some streets were perfectly paved whereas others not only lacked from sidewalk but were of sand. The cars shared the road with the donkeys and the people that crossed everywhere as if they weren’t risking their life each time they wanted to go to the other side of the street, and the women with djellaba and veil walked together with the ones with tight jeans, heels and purses. The same happened with the shops; you could find one perfectly tidy up and well stocked near another one without painting walls and with only few gadgets on the shelves.
After a few days I became used to that miscelaneous world and that weird impression that you only have the first moments vanished with the time.

But, continuing with the action, the PhD student drove me to the flat which she and her two assistants shared. It’s a first floor, separated from the street (one of those without pavement and a horde of cats) by a metallic door which leads to a big room with a plastic white table and a pair of matching chairs, one of them broken, and a big amount of scientific stuff haphazardly piled in a corner. This big room leads to all the others: the restroom, which has one of those typical african waters without bowl that is also the shower; the kitchen, too small for four people and which stinks to cat faeces thanks to our fifth flatmate; the bedroom of the PhD student, the only one, apart from the restroom, with door; and the research assistants bedroom; separated from the big room by a courtain.

I don’t really remember much more of that day. I don’t know how I met the other assistant girl (I’ll call them by nationalities/cities for privacy issues…and because an international team is a kind of cool…), the Czech. I remember that I saw the assistant boy, the Californian, when I was outside smoking a cigarette and he came from running for a while. Afterwards, the two assistants invited me to go upstairs to “hang out”; expression that I didn’t know so far. There I met the other American, the Ohioan and the German (though I think I met her before in the bakery, where we went before going home). They were asking me a couple of things, if I’m not wrong, chit chat to get to know each other. However, I had to go downstairs to make me some diner; the schedule was completely different from mine and they had already had diner at 18h.

After having one of those typical Mr.Bean moments that one has when is in a new place (or when there is a lot of people looking; Mr.Bean is inherent to Murphy); the two assistants came back and we went to bed at 22 since, next morning, we would have to get up at 5.

I don’t remember what happened before arriving to the field ( I’m not a morning person, my hypocampus starts to work at 10 a.m …and stops at 22h), but I remember, more like a dream than like a real fact, the first time I saw the macaques. We were in a part of their territory that the team calls Texas. The monkeys started to climb down the trees and with them, a crowd of infants and juveniles, jumping, screaming and running everywhere I looked at. I couldn’t believed that I was actually there and I felt like an hybrid between Heidi in a poppy field and a Teletubby with and overdose of sugar ( happiness is usually ridiculous; fortunately is scarce). I took many pictures and I tried to memorize the faces of the macaques while we followed them through Parallel, Big Valley and so on. Probably that was the day that I have seen them travelling more, but I wasn’t tired and enjoyed the tourist tour, thought it was little bit exhausting trying to find out who was who… If I had known then that it would take me four weeks to do it right from a far distance (not including tall trees and nightfall) and I’m still expecting to be able to do it with the juveniles…

Well, I know it’s an abrupt ending for the entrance, but I should study a little bit before tomorrow; the girls worked today and said that the monkeys were most of the time up on the trees, so it seems I will have an awkward first day as assistant. I will try to write some more entrances soon, with brief funny stories about the macaques.