Quick hello

Hi all! No time to write right now; I´m about to take off for a different field station called Sachavacayoc to do a short project on mosquitos with Kat, a super-awesome friend and fellow researcher from CICRA. Check out Kat´s blog (which is hilarious, insightful, super fun, and much more frequently updated than this one) here for a story of what we´ve been up to most recently:

http://katfountain.wordpress.com/

(I promise that we were actually very, very careful.)

I also promise that I really do plan to write more soon!

Another ant story

A chapter from EO Wilson's new ant novel, which will be coming out soon:
http://www.newyorker.com/fiction/features/2010/01/25/100125fi_fiction_wilson?currentPage=all

Check it out- ant fiction!

Here's Wilson talking about the novel in an interview: http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2010/01/wilson-interview.html

(Thanks to Harvard OEBug for the links.)

A Peruvian Thankgiving

HI FOLKS! Sorry it’s been so long. Despite the hiatus, CICRA and I are still very much alive and well!

So… the strike never happened and we’ve all been working/researching away. Not many exciting things happened to me in the second half of Novermber because after I took the monthly measurements and hacked away the treefall, I spent the next two weeks working on grad school applications and didn’t get outside very much, despite the fact that I live in the rainforest. It was a mild form of torture. On the plus side, I had lots of fun hanging out with Roxana (another ant researcher) and the Sarahs (Sarah C is Jesus’ assistant; I still need to introduce you to her). We also had a Thanksgiving party!

All of us gringos decided to cook Thanksgiving dinner for the Peruvians. When they heard that we’d be cooking, they seemed a bit worried. We noticed that several of them went to Boca Amigos in the afternoon… perhaps for a pre-dinner snack, in case our cooking didn’t live up to Peruvian standards? But we actually did a pretty darn good job, if I do say so myself. On the menu:

Tandoori chicken in spicy yogurt sauce* by Mini
Stuffing by Sarah F and Gideon
Apple-onion-honey chutney by Sarah F
Pineapple-carrot-cabbage-raisin-vinagrette salad by Sarah F and Gideon
Cornbread by Sarah C
Mashed potatoes by Iona
Araza suspiro (an amazingly delicious Limenaen custard-like dessert) by Roxana
Sweet potato pie by yours truly

(*We didn’t have turkey, so we decided to go all-out and be completely non-traditional with the chicken.)

All of the cooks were Indians… which I suppose makes the Peruvians the Pilgrims? We used strips of pink lab tape and macaw feathers to make Indian headdresses. :) I will upload photos eventually, but the internet is so bad here right now that you'll just have to wait with baited breath.

Update: no one else is online and I have the internet all to myself. Mwahahaha photos photos!

On Gold, Strikes, Arson, and Evacuations

I’ll start this post with some background on recent Peruvian news. (Hang in there, you’ll soon see why it’s relevant.)

About a month and a half ago, the Peruvian Minister of the Environment proposed that 80% of the area of Madre de Dios, the region where I live, be closed to mining. This would be a great victory for conservation in the area.
Gold miners damage the environment in so many ways: when they move into an area, they cut down trees and hunt the native animals for food. They dig up the river bed, run the silt through liquid mercury to extract the gold dust, and then dump the remainder back into the river. They burn the mercury off to extract pure gold, releasing it into the air from whence it rains back down over the landscape. Since mercury poisoning progresses very slowly over the course of a lifetime (resulting in cancers) or across generations (resulting in birth defects), doctors have a very hard time convincing miners that mercury is harmful to their health. Many workers handle it with their bare hands. Peggy, a researcher at CICRA, is studying levels of mercury in the birds of prey here. Since raptors are at the top of the food chain, environmental toxins concentrate in their bodies. She has found that the mercury levels of many raptor species in our area are off the charts.

For all of the above reasons, the next time you buy gold, in jewelry or any other form, please please stop to ask where it comes from and whether it was responsibly extracted.

Mining is backbreaking, muddy, wet, dangerous, and lonely work—miners often leave their families and friends in town to live on remote mining rigs in the river which are at least hours’, if not days’, journeys away from home. However, mining is also extremely lucrative and is one of the few ways in which poor workers and families can (sometimes) pull themselves out of poverty. The money is a powerful draw, and over half of all the people who live in the Madre de Dios region depend on mining for their living. Toribio, one of our cooks, works in mining during his monthly 10-day rest period just to make ends meet.

So, folks were rather upset when the government proposed to ban mining in 80% of the region. In response to the proposal, the miners planned to hold a strike in Puerto Maldonado, which is the capital of Madre de Dios. Strikers in Peru don’t mess around. They have been known to block roads with rocks and burning tires. In Puerto Maldonado last year, they burned down a government building; it's still a charred, graffiti-ed skeleton today. During a strike the entire city, including the air port, shuts down. It’s hard to get into or out of the city. The police use tear gas when strikers get out of hand. All of this seems extreme to those of us from the States, England, and other countries where strikes usually go no further than peaceful sign-waving and yelling. But a Peruvian friend explained to me that the Peruvian people often are not given much say in what their government does and do not have adequate legal avenues to express their needs or to effect change. Thus, when they are unhappy, they have to find other ways to make the government listen.

How all of this applies to CICRA: The miners believed that the Ministry of the Environment was using data produced at CICRA as evidence for why mining should be curtailed in Madre de Dios. This is not true, but we all know from experience that a rumor doesn’t have to be true to be powerful. Furthermore, more unfounded rumors began to circulate that ACA (The Amazon Conservation Association, which runs CICRA) was going to buy a large tract of rainforest and kick all the miners off it. The miners decided they wanted to "teach ACA a lesson" by burning down CICRA during the strike.

About 3 weeks ago, ACA learned about the miners’ plans. Not only had our staff been alerted by some of their friends in mining, but a few days before I left for Lima a priest showed up to warn us of the unrest in nearby communities. It was like something out of a movie. He was wearing an ankle-length white robe and had come to "spread the peace" between CICRA and the miners.

A day or two after that, I left for my two-week trip to Lima to take the GREs. We thought the strike was going to occur around November 5th, so I assumed that whatever happened, I would miss it entirely. Before I left the station, I packed all my valuables into one of the station’s Pelican cases (big, powerful, watertight boxes made for abuse). As I walked down the trail in the pre-dawn twilight on November 1st, I took a long look back at the palm-thatched dorms and labs that I’d come to call home, wondering whether they’d still be there in two weeks.

Being in Lima, suddenly separated from the people I’d worked and lived with so closely and continuously for two months, was a bit of a shock. Given the situation with the strike it was especially disturbing not to have constant knowledge of what was going on at the station. I was in touch with Sarah by email and instant messenging, though, and to everyone’s relief things seemed to have calmed down. Nothing happened while I was gone. I returned to Puerto Maldonado on the 10th, planning to spend a couple days in town with Sarah (who had come down for a quick vacation with me) and then return to CICRA on Friday the 13th. However, when I met up with Sarah, she told me she’d just been informed that the strike was now expected to happen on the 17th. The rest of the investigators were being mandatorily evacuated from CICRA and would arrive in Puerto Maldonado on Friday. The staff was allowed to stay if they wished, and the administration was investigating the possibility of hiring guards for the station.

Sarah and I missed the great CICRA exodus, but the staff and the rest of the researchers spent Thursday packing up field and laboratory equipment, research samples, the station’s reference library, and other valuables. When they ran out of space in the station’s huge Pelican cases, they used plastic trash bins, tupperware storage containers, and finally trash bags. They hauled everything down a trail to a small, hidden clearing in the jungle, piled it under a large screen tent, and covered it all with tarps, hoping this would provide sufficient protection against rain and animals (not to mention angry miners). Since I was gone and didn’t even know all this was happening, a few of the staff and researchers packed up my entire laboratory and hauled it out to the woods for me. Now that’s friendship.

It was wonderful to see everyone again when they arrived in town. Most of us investigators stayed at the same hotel and we had a lot of great bonding time. We went out to eat lunches and dinners together in the local restaurants and shopped together in the mercado. We bought lots of cheap, pirated DVDs (which are plentiful in Puerto Maldonado; I don’t even know how to find a genuine DVD there) and planned to stay indoors and watch movies all day if the strike actually happened. Coincidentally, the evacuation meant that we were all in town for the wedding of Peggy (the researcher who studies mercury levels in birds), to her longtime partner, Renee. It was a lovely, small service held at their house.

After the ceremony everyone danced until the wee hours of the morning. I couldn’t figure out why Marco and Yevery (Peggy’s field assistant) kept disappearing and reappearing from the festivities until I decided to call it a night. I left with Mini and Giddeon, and the three of us began what we thought would be a long, dark, dusty hike down an empty road back to our hotel. Suddenly we heard two motorcycles coming up behind us: it was Marco and Yevery coming to ferry us safely home, as they’d been doing all night for the rest of the guests.

Another highlight of the trip, for me at least, was getting to drive a motorcycle myself! They are the primary form of transportation in Puerto Maldonado and I’d mentioned to everyone several times that I wanted to try one. One day I was walking out the door of my hotel planning to go shopping in the mercado with Sarah C. and Roxana—two more researcher/volunteers whom I still need to introduce you to—when Pluma suddenly pulled up on his motorcycle. “¿Adonde van, chicas?” he asked. (“Where are you going, ladies?”) He said he’d come to take me out for a spin, if I wanted. “Oh!” I said. “Pues, entonces, ¡nos vemos luego!” I told Sarah and Roxana. (“Well in that case, see you later!”) Pluma and I found a very wide, very empty dirt road, and I must have driven at least 30 laps up and down it on the motorcycle. I certainly don’t plan to go driving out in traffic any time soon, but it was a lot of fun!

Meanwhile, official talks with the miners and representatives of the local communities were scheduled for the 21st and the miners agreed to postpone the strike at least until after the talks. Still, the ACA administration was reluctant to let us return to CICRA because there had been grumbling amongst the local communities that ACA and CICRA "only serviced gringos." The administration was worried that if angry miners did show up to the station after all and found a bunch of foreigners there, they might decide to kidnap one of us on the spur of the moment and use us as a bargaining chip. (Kidnappings are not unheard of here, though the victims tend to be government officials or other powerful authorities rather than little-known field researchers.)

We ended up staying in town for five days. Everything was quiet and all of us were losing invaluable time on our research projects, so ACA finally allowed us to return to CICRA on the 17th. We were all thrilled to be home and happily reunited with our friends on the staff who’d stayed. We spent most of the day hauling stuff back out of the woods and unpacking (that's Sarah looking for something in the pile of stuff), and then next day it was back to work, trying to catch up on lost time. I discovered that falling branches had knocked down four of my mosquito nets while I was gone, so Emeterio and I had fun hacking away with our machetes to clean up the mess and set things right again.

We didn’t hear anything about the strike for several days, so we assumed that everything had settled down. However, we just learned that the government refused to back down during the talks on the 21st. We’re still waiting to see what that means for us and CICRA, but for now, everyone is just happy to be home.

Lima, Take Two

I had to travel all the way to Lima to take my GREs—it’s the only place in all of Peru where the exams are offered. In order to catch my plane flight on Nov 2nd, I was planning to take the collectivo (public boat) from CICRA to Laberinto, and then a taxi from there to Puerto Maldonado on Nov 1st. But when I told this to the staff they seemed slightly worried. Oct 31st was not only Halloween (which is becoming an increasingly popular holiday here), but also a Peruvian holiday called El Día de la Canción Criolla (Criolla Music Day), which is a celebration of Peruvian music and folklore. The staff told me that last year the collectivo driver had had such a hangover from the festivities that the boat hadn’t shown up at all on November 1st.

With this reassuring knowledge in mind, at 4:45 in the morning on the first I descended our 250 stairs to wait at the dock. The collectivo didn’t appear. But to my surprise, about 30 minutes later Pluma, Marco, Diablo and Leo (one of boat drivers) did. Finding me still standing there, they hustled me into our boat and helped me catch a passing cargo boat on its way to Laberinto. I spent most of that ride pretending to study, but actually napping contentedly on an empty gas barrel. I took a combi (public van) from Laberinto to Puerto. It was more crowded and perhaps slightly more disheveled than the taxis which travel the same route—we loaded about 10 passengers and their luggage inside, stuffing was falling out of some of the seats, and the van had no shocks left to soften the jolts from the dusty dirt road—but hey, it was a bit cheaper, too.

I spent the night in Puerto Maldonado and caught my plane the next morning. After so much time in the field, sitting down in a cushioned, air-conditioned airplane seat felt heavenly and absolutely surreal. In Lima, the hot showers, real mattresses, and laundered, folded and DRY clothing were other luxuries I’d nearly forgotten and which I appreciated more deeply than I can adequately describe. Since I was supposed to be working I didn’t get out of the hostel much (that's the living room in the photo), but I made daily trips to the supermarket just because I was so excited to see one. During my stay, I ate a dozen mangoes and two whole pineapples all by myself. I also learned to cook rice in the hostel’s kitchen. Yes, it was in fact my first time making real (non-instant) rice, ever. I admit, I wrote to Sarah and asked her how to cook it properly. What can I say? I didn’t eat it often before Peru, but now nothing seems like a proper meal to me if it doesn’t include rice. …I am becoming a Peruana.

It was a quiet trip: I spent almost the whole time holed up in the hostel. First I wrote an NSF proposal for graduate school funding, which was due at 5:00 on Nov 6th. It took forever, as proposals always do. It was lucky I happened to be in Lima on 6th because, coincidentally, the internet at CICRA went down on the day. (Murphy’s Law, right?) Sarah was also applying for the grant and had emailed me her proposal the day before, so I submitted both of our applications in time over Lima’s lovely high-speed internet. Go team CICRA! :) Then, for the next three days, I studied for and took two GREs and worked on graduate school applications. Thank goodness Antonio also happened to be staying at the hostel—not only did he keep me sane, he kept me smiling. In the end the proposal and both GREs all seemed to go pretty well—whew.

I did still have time for a couple mini-adventures. One morning I set out to find a DHL office so that I could mail Sarah’s camera, which was broken, to the United States. When I got to the office they told me they didn’t have any packing supplies. The woman behind me in line started speaking rapidly, authoritatively, but benevolently (in Spanish, of course). The gist seemed to be that there was a packing supply stall somewhere close to her apartment, but that it was too far to walk. She said was going take a cab back to her apartment because she’d forgotten something. Then she outlined her schedule for the day, mentioned something about lunch, looked at her watch, and motioned several times that I should come with her. I was a bit confused: did she want me to wait here at the DHL office for her? Did she want me to come to lunch with her, or wait at her apartment while she picked up packing supplies? I didn’t have much time to unravel it: in her brisk, assertive, but friendly way she announced that she’d understand if I didn’t trust her, but if I did I should do what she suggested. And like that, she was off. After a moment of bewildered surprise I sprinted after her, not entirely sure whether I was even supposed to.

I was. Her name was Fannie, and she was a forceful, chatty whirlwind of a woman. She’d moved from Spain to Peru years ago and she had Lima down to an art. She hailed a cab and asked the fare. “Five soles,” the driver said. “Four,” she said, and hopped in. On the trip, she asked me what I was doing in Peru. She, like all the Peruvians I’ve met outside of Puerto Maldonado, was fascinated to learn I was living in the jungle and wanted to hear all about it. Very few Peruvians ever actually see it—a situation I find shocking, having come all the way from the States to work here in one of the world’s most pristine and species-rich rainforests.

We arrived at the packing supply stall and I bought some bubble wrap and a padded envelope. They cost 12 soles, but in three seconds Fannie had bargained them down to 10. Then we returned to the curb and Fannie helped me hail a cab back to the DHL office. A taxi pulled up but she waved it away. “That one’s too small; you’d be crushed like a tin can in an accident,” she explained loudly enough that the driver could hear through his open window. Two more pulled up, but she waved them both away because they were dirty inside. Finally a cab arrived that was up to her standards. She put me in the back seat and asked the driver the fare. “Five soles,” he said. “Four,” she answered. “Five if you drop her off right at the door.” She turned to me: “Five soles, and no more. Good luck!” She waved goodbye with a smile as the cab pulled away. I gave her my email address before we parted ways; I hope I hear from my feisty Limenaen guide again some day.

Mrinalini and Giddeon

Nicknames: Mini and Gid
Ages: 20s

Mini is a PhD student who recently arrived from Washington University in St. Louis. (When she first arrived we got to swap lots of St. Louis stories!) Giddeon is her boyfriend and the second-in-command of her research project. They’ll soon be joined by a small army of five field assistants, and their project should last as long as Sarah and I are here. We’re excited to have so many long-term visitors on the way!

It’s generally agreed that Mini has the coolest research project ever. She is investigating chimerism in saddle-back tamarin monkeys. Saddle-back tamarins have a remarkably high occurrence of twinning: about 85% of pregnancies result in twins. While in the womb, twins often swap stem cells, resulting in chimeric individuals whose skin cells may have a different genetic code than, say, their liver cells. It gets even stranger: sometimes twins swap germ-line cells. In these cases, a twin’s offspring actually belong, genetically speaking, to it’s sibling. Mini and Giddeon are investigating how this genetic mix-up affects the social behavior of tamarin troupes. Their goal is to capture 80 tamarins, take samples (including the hair, blood, and semen), collar them, release them, and observe their social behavior.

I could go on, but Mini and Giddeon have already set up an amazing website about their project. Check it out here: http://www.primatesperu.com/home Be sure to read their blog if you want more frequent updates about CICRA than yours truly sometimes provides. ;)

Random facts:
Mini uses a device which we've fondly termed the “electro-ejaculator” to get sperm samples from her male monkeys. (Imagine trying to explain that one to Peruvian customs officials.) She is also teaching us some traditional Indian dance steps!

Giddeon also likes to dance. At parties, he always ends up leading everyone in new steps he’s invented, such as the “Thousands of Mosquitoes are Biting Me!” and the “I Have No Sense of Balance!” Don’t let the titles of his more inventive numbers fool you, though; he’s actually a great dancer. He may also be responsible for introducing an entire generation of Peruvians to the Electric Slide.

Emeterio

Nickname: Ñahui. (Pronounced “Nyawi.” The Quechua word for “eyes.”) He acquired it because once, when he was drunk, he requested that they play a Quechua song called “Ñahui” over and over again.
Age: 50
(Portrait by Gabe.)

Ñahui is the caretaker of Oso, our Short-Eared Dog. Oso was confiscated as a puppy from a local’s illegal collection of wild animals. Short-eared dogs are a very rare species, so the chance to see and study one at CICRA is an amazing opportunity. Ñahui loves Oso like a four-legged child. At several dinners, I’ve caught him covertly rolling up half of his own portion of meat in a napkin as a treat for Oso.

Emeterio is forever young and he dances until the bitter end of every fiesta he comes to, outlasting many a younger reveler. He is also always willing to help out in any way he can. On various occasions, he has carried gas tanks and suitcases up CICRA’s 250 stairs for me (against my protests), and he recently hiked all the way out to my experimental site to help me clear a treefall with our machetes… a task that certainly was NOT in his job description as a mammal researcher.

When he was younger, Emeterio used to be an illegal logger and he can tell amazing stories about it. Once he and three friends went out into the rainforest for a four-month logging run. They were often very hungry and low on food; they ran across an (empty) encampment of an uncontacted tribe; once they slept on a beach and saw jaguars pace past during the night. At the end of their trip they floated their logs all the way down the river to Puerto Maldonado, but when they arrived, officials confiscated all of their wood because it was illegally harvested. He says larger-scale illegal operations get away with it all the time by bribing the authorities, but he and his friends were poor and therefore lost all of their four-months' work.

Random fact: Emeterio is now playing for the opposite team. Not only is he working to conserve rainforest mammals, but he also travels in his boat to local communities to try and persuade the miners to stop using mercury to extract their gold. (I think he’s paying for that work out of his own pocket.)

Jesus

Nickname: Diablo (“Devil”)
Age: 30s?
(Portrait brought to you by Gabe.)

Jesus is the operations manager of CICRA. He sets the boat schedule, orders the food, and oversees all the other myriad tasks that keep the station running smoothly. He’s also an extremely competitive volleyball player. If you’re on his team and you miss the ball (which I do frequently), he’ll give you a glare that could melt ice… but then he’ll break into a big grin, and no matter how bad a player you are, he still always wants you to come out and play.

Random fact: Diablo’s favorite drink is cachaca (a Brazilian liquor made from fermented sugarcane). Once, on the night before he left for a trip, I was walking back to my cabin and I found him, Marco and Pluma sitting in the dark on the bleachers next to the soccer field. They were throwing Jesus a mini-farewell. They invited me, Sarah and Adrian (who were also passing by) to join them. We shared a bottle of cachaca under the stars.

Pascual

Nickname: Sarah and I call him “Papa.”
Age: 53

Pascal is Sarah’s and my kindly, adoptive Peruvian father. He always has good advice and anecdotes to offer and constantly makes sure we’re eating enough. He’s the head chef and he cooks everyone delicious Peruvian food three times per day. Pascual has worked at the station since long before it was CICRA; he was the cook here when it was still a mining camp. (The skull devouring him in the photo, by the way, once belonged to a black caiman from our river.)

Random fact: Almost every morning after breakfast, Pascual loves to play Huayno—a type of traditional Quechua music from the Andes—on the guitar. On mornings when I get up a bit late, he serenades me while I eat his yummy scrambled eggs or empanadas.

Adrian

Age: 30s

The science director of CICRA. He’s an expert on bats, but he loves (and knows a ton about) everything that breathes or grows, and he is a fabulous nature artist as well. He’s also the science director of Wayquecha, ACA’s field station in the foothills of the Andes.

Random fact: Adrian likes yogurt as much as (possibly even more than) I do, so when he’s here at CICRA many of my breakfasts become a race for the yogurt. ;)

Marco

Nickname: Marco
Real name: Edson
Age: 23

Marco keeps the station up and running. He’s also in charge of turning off the generator (and thus the internet) every night; it’s the only one of his duties that doesn’t make our lives more comfortable. Marco builds and fixes everything from boats to plumbing to solar panels. He’s frequently seen hiking out to the stream to pump more water for us at whatever random, inconvenient hour it runs out—often in the middle of the night. Before coming to CICRA, he was an illegal miner. Before that, he worked on a coffee plantation.

Random fact: Marco plays a mean game of soccer. Not only does he run circles around almost everyone else on the field, but he’s known to pull off his shirt and throw it to get the ball. (We play by jungle rules here.)

Pluma

Nickname: Pluma (“Feather”)
Real name: Jorge
Age: as a friend described it, “38 going on 21”

Pluma worked in a hardware store in Puerto Maldonado before he came to CICRA, but now he’s our grounds-keeper, gardener, and jack-of-all-trades. He knows a lot about medicinal rainforest plants, all of which he learned while working at CICRA. Gabe gave him a harmonica and he’s learning to play it. For some reason he also really likes to sit in the dining room and strum random combinations of strings on our guitar. It’s a sound I can’t describe, and you probably wouldn’t want me to if I could. He and Marco are the loveable scoundrels of CICRA—you can always count on them for an inappropriate joke.

Random fact: Adrian says Pluma learned how to prepare floral baths from a Peruvian shaman who taught some classes at the station. ...We have yet to see him perform any shamanic rites.

Sarah

Nickname: Hechicera (“Enchantress”)
Age: 22

Sarah is my comarade in arms. We make “ice cream” together (read: yogurt frozen in my lab freezer), play with caterpillars together, and keep each other sane. She just graduated from Barnard and will be staying at CICRA as long as I am. She’s conducting research on both bats and butterflies, running the Science Saturday program for the kids of Boca Amigo, and she’s the assistant of our science director, Adrian.

Random fact: Sarah has done field work in Madagascar and did Harvard’s OEB field course in Borneo. I really wanted to take that course—we almost met before CICRA!

Mariposita

Hola a todos! Sorry I’ve been so remiss with the blog recently! To make it up to you, I’ll start with a very, very belated introduction to my CICRA family, complete with pictures and nicknames. Almost everyone who stays here long enough eventually gets a nickname. Mine is Mariposita—“Little Butterfly.” (The photo is after I got caught in a rainstorm.)

A quick hello

Hi everyone! I'm sorry I've been so remiss with blog-writing recently. I've been working on an NSF grant proposal (due on the 6th AHH), and studying for the GRE biology test on the 7th and the GRE general exam on the 9th. So, you may not hear much from me until after that's all done with. But I just wanted to let everyone know that all is well! AND: I will be in town from Nov 1ish to Nov 13ish, so if you want to talk via phone or skype, email me to set up a time! I'd be so so happy to hear from each and every one of you!

And now, a few quick highlights and photos from the last month:

Every two weeks, Sarah and I have been teaching "Sabado Scientifico" (Science Saturday) classes for the kids in Boca Amigo, a tiny mining village across the river. We teach a class every other week, and class location alternates between the village schoolhouse and the field station. It's so much fun to walk through town, gathering a small following of children as we go. Here are Sarah and I in Boca Amigo with our mob of kids (and monkey). (photo stolen from Sarah)






Sarah also captured me and the monkey sharing the exact same facial expression.











The kids love it when we pick them up in our boat and ferry them across the river to CICRA.

So far, we've taught lessons on the interdependence between species ("what would happen if all the frogs went extinct?"), medicinal rainforest plants, plant physiology, and mimicry and defence. We organized a scavenger hunt for the last one-- the kids had to go out and find packs of cookies which we had disguised as walking leaf bugs, turtles, coral snakes, and other critters.




Talking about teeth as a defense mechanism.











Hunting for camouflaged cookies. Can *you* find the frog, the coral snake, and the turtle? (Hint: respectively, they are made of dead leaves, construction paper, and cupcake wrappers plus and a spoon.)














ALSO ALSO: Megan and Antonio came to visit CICRA! It was so wonderful to see them! They spoiled me rotten, bringing highly coveted items like chocolate, honey-scented soap, and fresh mangos! AND a whole duffle bag full of tree-climbing equipment for a study on the effect of ants on the pollination of flowers in the canopy. Best Christmas I ever had. I was so excited I think they were worried I'd lost my marbles. Here are me and Sarah learning the ropes (literally!)

My home was on NPR!

So way back in July when all the VIPs were here, there were two NPR reporters with them. Their report on CICRA recently came out! (By the way, the English name of the station is Los Amigos Biological Station. CICRA stands for Centro de Investigación y Capacitación Rió Los Amigos.)

Protecting Peru's Amazingly Diverse Amazon Region

Super cool, no? I know all the places and almost all the people mentioned in the report!

Return to CICRA

Armed with my map, the next day I set out on foot. I decided not to take any mototaxis so that I could learn my way around the town. This worked admirably, up until the trip home. I was within a block of my hotel when I walked through a group of kids playing. Just as I passed them, I felt something collide rather painfully with my backside. I turned around expecting to see a sheepish child with a knocked-over bicycle, but instead found myself face to face with a nondescript, black dog. Yep. A dog bit me. In the butt. I stared speechlessly at the little monster for a moment, and then, since I couldn’t think of anything better to do, I turned around and walked home. Thankfully, the bite didn’t break the skin so I wasn’t worried about rabies, but the next day’s 5-hour boat ride back to CICRA was, well, slightly less comfortable than usual. Also, you can imagine me trying to explain how I bruised my tush to the staff (who are all Peruvian men). It was pretty hilarious, especially since the only word I knew for that body region translates as “ass.” They really got a kick out of that one. And I got another vocabulary lesson.

My companions on the boat ride upriver were two ant researchers from the University of Wisconsin (they were studying fungus-farming, ground-nesting ant lineages, so their work was actually pretty different from mine), a Stanford undergraduate working on waste management practices at ecotourism lodges, and Graham, a recently retired Australian teacher-turned-photographer. For some reason, he reminded me a little bit of David Attenborough: great accent, great hat, great suspenders. Graham wanted to focus on photographing bats, so the next evening he set up mist nets and got to work catching them. Unfortunately, he was bitten by one of his subjects, and had to take the boat back to town the following morning to get a series of rabies boosters. They gave him a 7-day course of daily injections. It made me very, very grateful that I had no more than a bruise on my behind.

Otherwise, the past three weeks at CICRA have been relatively calm. I’ve been making regular checkups on my 52 mosquito-net-cloaked saplings in the forest, building a reference collection of the herbivores that eat our tree, and I just started a new experiment to test two theoretical models of mutualism. I also got to celebrate my birthday in the rainforest—it was awesome. The party started at 8 PM and lasted until 2 AM, and it only ended then because Sarah and I, the last two women standing, couldn’t dance anymore. (Peruvian dance parties are ridiculously fun because everyone knows how to dance! I’m slowly learning to stumble my way through lambata, regaeton, and a few other types.) I received the most wacky, hilarious, and yet appropriate set of birthday presents to date. It included: random leftover laboratory equipment from the Wisconsin ant team, such as sterile loops for fungal cultures and some water purification filters; a pack of ChocoSodas—a brand of chocolate-covered saltine crackers which are rare and highly coveted at the station; and a curled-up leaf that Claire found, which may (or may not) contain some sort of pupating insect. Everyone at the station has realized I how excited I get about anything that crawls, creeps, slithers, jumps or flies, so they bring me cool things like curled-up leaves, tiny snakes, and most recently, a tarantula. I couldn’t ask for anything better. :)

Megan’s former boss—so, in a way, my academic grandfather—arrived at CICRA on September 9th. Talking with him was fascinating because he’s been studying our ant-plant system for many years. Also fascinating: he hired two indigenous Matsigenka men to work with him as field assistants. They were amazingly skilled botanists; not only were they pros at finding our Cordia tree, but they also brought back natural dyes and medicinal herbs to show us. Claire and Luis both caught some sort of stomach infection while they were here, but the Matsigenkas gave them some leaves to chew and their infections disappeared within a day.

What else? Oh, Leslie and Daniel, guess what! A troupe of army ants marched through our kitchen and dinning room one day—it was pretty impressive. We were all really happy about it, actually, because they ate all the cockroaches and other bugs they could find. Though Pascual, our cook, warned me not to get too close to them in sandals, because 10 or 20 stings from them can give you a fever. Maybe there was a little seed of truth to Lenningham…

A couple nights ago Sarah found a tarantula in her bathroom. It was awesome. I caught it in a tupperware and we named it Fuzzy. Fuzzy lived on our dinner table for a couple days. We set him free today. It just so happens that a Peruvian film crew was here to do a piece on CICRA and the Amazon Conservation Association—they got a kick out of filming two gringa girls setting their pet tarantula free. It also happens that there are no principal investigators at the station right now—all of us are staff, field assistants, or (in Graham’s case) photographers. So I got interviewed about my project. It was a really strange feeling to be talked to as a “scientific expert.” I just hope I didn’t tell them anything incorrect by mistake!

Random cool link of the day

This is cool for everyone, but especially so for those of you who got roped into any part of my thesis. Orthopterans AND poetry AND Josquin des Prez on the same site! Can't beat that.

The NYC Cricket Crawl http://www.discoverlife.org/cricket/

Thoreau's Journal: 20-Aug-1851
“I hear a cricket in the Depot field, walk a rod or two, and find the note proceeds from near a rock. Partly under a rock, between it and the roots of the grass, he lies concealed,—for I pull away the withered grass with my hands,—uttering his night-like creak, with a vibratory motion of his wings, and flattering himself that it is night, because he has shut out the day. He was a black fellow nearly an inch long, with two long, slender feelers. They plainly avoid the light and hide their heads in the grass. At any rate they regard this as the evening of the year. They are remarkably secret and unobserved, considering how much noise they make. Every milkman has heard them all his life; it is the sound that fills his ears as he drives along. But what one has ever got off his cart to go in search of one? I see smaller ones moving stealthily about, whose note I do not know. Whoever distinguished their various notes, which fill the crevices in each other’s song? It would be a curious ear indeed, that distinguished the species of the crickets which it heard, and traced even the earth-song home, each part to its particular performer. I am afraid to be so knowing. They are shy as birds, these little bodies. Those nearest me continually cease their song as I walk, so that the singers are always a rod distant, and I cannot easily detect one. It is difficult, moreover, to judge correctly whence the sound proceeds. Perhaps this wariness is necessary to save them from insectivorous birds, which would otherwise speedily find out so loud a singer. They are somewhat protected by the universalness of the sound, each one’s song being merged and lost in the general concert, as if it were the creaking of earth’s axle."

In which Alison aquires some vocabulary and a map

Well, I’m still about 3 weeks behind in my blog posts, but I’m trying to catch up! My flights from Lima to Puerto Maldonado were uneventful, and after lunch in Puerto with Ysabel (one of Megan and Antonio’s friends), I went to my hotel, sat down on the bed, and noticed how strangely quiet and empty it seemed. I twiddled my thumbs for a bit and tried to find a map of the town so I could navigate the streets by myself, but was unsuccessful. This wasn’t a barrier to getting around; since motorcycle taxis are the main form of transportation in Puerto (see Gabe's photo), all you have to do is flag one down and tell the driver where you want to go. As a small, foreign female, I was rather uneasy with the idea of leaping onto the backs of motorcycles, telling the drivers—who are invariably male—the place I wanted to go, and speeding off with no idea whether we were actually headed there. But for the time being, there was nothing for it but to hail a mototaxi and whiz towards what I hoped was the right destination.

I had some chores to do. First I headed to the mercado (market) to shop for supplies. The mercado is a bit overwhelming the first few times you visit it. What seems like a countless number of stalls crammed with food, toiletries, hardware, dishes, shoes, toys, clothes, DVDs, or what-have-you is all jammed together into a single city block. I wandered the maze for a few hours trying to learn the logic behind the layout ...I made so many circuits that two Peruvians working behind the counter of a hardware stall began to wave and smile at me every time I passed.

I also took advantage of the public phones to call a bunch of you folks and say hi! This may not seem particularly newsworthy, but after living in the rainforest for a while, a telephone call feels like a special and slightly miraculous treat.

One afternoon I wandered into a grocery store, which also felt special and slightly miraculous. Among other things, I was searching for molasses. Why, you ask? Elementary, my dears—to make chocolate chip cookies! The first time I baked them at CICRA, the larder was sadly lacking in brown sugar. The result was still tasty, but I am determined to introduce my Peruvian friends to the deliciousness that is a real, authentic chocolate chip cookie. So, this was a culinary mission. After I’d browsed around for a while, an unsuspecting staffperson came up and asked if I needed assistance. I froze. I had, of course, forgotten the word for molasses. “I’m looking for a sweet [sudden pause… wait, what’s the word for brown???] …uh, a sweet liquid sort of like sugar, which is used in cooking” I said in Spanish. The man gave me a blank stare. “Um…” I continued, “How do you say the color of this?” I asked, pointing at the wooden shelves. “Rojo? Amarillo?” he asked, and began pointing to various sweet red and yellow liquids, including honey and ketchup. “No, no… what’s the color of wood?” I asked. “Amarillo? Rojo?” he repeated as he pulled some marmalade off the shelf and tried to hand it to me. I’ve been told that in Japan, they call the grass blue instead of green. Apparently in Peru, wood is not always brown. After some more pantomiming and circuitous questions, I got him to tell me the word. For the record, it’s “marrón.” “Okay! I’m looking for a sweet, brown liquid similar to sugar.” He led me straight to the molasses. For the record, that’s called “chancaca.”

You know those times when you see someone eating alone in a restaurant, and wonder how they came to such a sorry state? For several meals during my stay in Puerto, I was that person. For the most part, I didn’t mind at all. But when I walked into a restaurant one night and sat down to wait for a menu, I must have looked especially awkward. A man who looked to be in his 40s came over and said in remarkably correct English, “Hi. The waiters are already serving me… if you want, you can move to my table and get your food faster. I’m only going to eat a quick meal, so I won’t be there long.” He smiled and walked away. Now, normally I do not accept dinner invitations from strange men. But something about the way he asked seemed distinctly un-sketchy, so on the spur of the moment, I joined him.

His name was Daniel, and it turns out he was originally from Mexico City. He’d worked as a dive instructor for tourists for many years. (This explained his unusually good English, but per my request we spoke in Spanish.) He’d quit his job to become an artist; in fact, some of his work was hanging in the very restaurant in which we ate. Daniel’s lifelong dream was to eventually buy a small café where he could serve coffee and showcase his art, but he mentioned that work was very slow for him at the moment. I didn’t realize how slow until after the meal, when he went to ask for a discount because he couldn’t pay the full price of his dinner. (The meals there cost about $5.) Daniel was frustrated that so few people appreciate art. He argued that art is meaningful and necessary, and that it makes a greater difference in people’s lives than, for example, a lot of scientific research. I answered that this was precisely my problem; that I was thinking about going to graduate school, but worried that I wouldn’t accomplish anything constructive to improve the lives of others. But he suddenly became very insistent. “No, ¡hazlo! ¡Hazlo!” he urged. No, you must do it! “Do what you love; that’s all that matters. Anyone who follows their heart makes a difference.”

After the meal, Daniel helped me finally find a map of the town. As I stood on the curb, I told him I wanted to come visit his café someday. “Well,” he smiled, “it’s still a long way off.” We wished each other good night and good luck. I flagged down a motorcycle and hopped on. As I zipped down the dark streets with Daniel’s roadmap tucked away in my pocket, I still had no idea whether the driver was taking me where I expected to go. But this time, I felt that wherever we were headed, it was in the right direction.

Lima, “The Big Smoke”

After Cusco, there was one more brief week to tie up loose ends before my surrogate family left me to fend for myself. It was a busy week of tying up mosquito nets, taking measurements on the trees, and in my case, learning to do little maintenance things like how to hook up gas tanks to our (gas-powered) lab refrigerator without blowing up the lab. But, there was still free time for me to bake chocolate chip cookies, see a wild giant anteater on one of my runs (alas, I never run with my camera!), and meet Oso, the short-eared dog.


Oso was confiscated from a local’s illegal collection of wild animals and he’s now being studied at CICRA by Emeterio, the human in the photo. Short-eared dogs are a very rare species, so the chance to see and study one is an amazing opportunity. In October, they plan to fit Oso with a radio collar and video camera and release him.


Also, look at the sweeeeet caterpillar I found! :)
On August 19th, Megan, Antonio and Gabe said their final farewells to CICRA (and I said a temporary one) and we all traveled to Lima. I came along on the trip so that Megan could show me how to file the paperwork for our research permit and so I could visit the Museum of Natural History. That concluded my responsibilities, so Gabe, Ursula, Pedro and I got to meet up and go out for dinner! We ate at one of many restaurants owned by Peru’s most famous chef, Gaston Acurio. Advice: if you ever get a chance to go to one of his restaurants (a few are scheduled to open in the States soon!), GO. It was one of the best meals I’ve ever eaten, ever. On a related note, grilled octopus is yummy.

That night Megan and Gabe caught their planes home, abandoning me and Antonio in Lima. (Antonio has to stay in Peru until his visa is ready.) I had a free day in Lima before my flight back to Puerto, so the next day Antonio and I met up with Frank, a Peruvian ant researcher who is coming to CICRA in a couple weeks (!) and his girlfriend, Erica. They asked me whether I’d be interested in meeting up with a group of their friends and going… somewhere. I didn’t understand the Spanish term. Likewise, neither of them knew the English term. From their description, I thought they were asking me if I wanted to go for a ride on a ferris wheel. Sure, I thought, sounds like a great way to see the city! So I was very confused when we hopped out of the cab in front of a small amusement park, of the type that packs neatly into tractor trailers for easy travel. The main attraction seemed to be “El Tornado,” a ride with a single ring of seats arranged around a very tall metal shaft. As I watched, a cage descended over the riders and the ring of chairs started to spin. That doesn’t look bad, I thought. Then the shaft began to tilt and the ring of chairs rose up into the sky, slanting until the riders were suspended completely upside down high above the amusement park, spinning around in circles all the while. The ride cycled through several revolutions like this before it stopped. “I absolutely refuse to ride that thing,” I declared to Antonio. This was, of course, the only ride which the four of us ended up doing at the park.

I actually enjoyed it. And the view from the top turned out to be pretty good, after all. Lima isn’t exactly known for its scenery; even the locals agree that it’s a sprawling, ugly city that seldom sees blue sky. One of its nicknames is “The Big Smoke,” because due to a trick of the climate, clouds frequently (constantly, it would seem) blot out the sun. When my parents asked me whether Lima had a view of the Andes, I told them that yes, in a way it did… but I only saw it while I was twirling around upside down in midair, grinning happily and hanging on for dear life.

After that, our next stop was El Parque de las Aguas. This was another destination about which my expectations were somewhat hazy. What exactly would I find within a “Park of Water” in the middle of Lima? After El Tornado, I was a little dubious. But this surprise turned out to be a really good one. Its official name is El Parque de la Reserva. Two years ago, the city constructed 13 fountains within the park, and the result is beautiful! The fountains are lit with colored lights and some are synchronized to music. One of my favorites was called The Labyrinth. It had a maze of pathways laid out on the ground, and the maze was constantly changing as spurts of water suddenly sprung up or died down. In the first photo you can see a bunch of kids stuck in the middle of the maze. We got to the park in time to see a really cool show which featured colored lights, lasers, and music synchronized with one of the fountains. Antonio and I both lamented several times that Gabe wasn't there to take awesome pictures.



The next morning, Antonio dropped me off at the airport, and I was truly alone in Peru. The first thing I did on my own (once I got through security) was… buy a pile of chocolate. (Surprised?) I sat at the gate blissfully munching away as I waited for my plane home.