A la foret!

Hi everyone!

I am writing to you today from the middle of the forest – literally! Our internet café here is on the buttress of one of the really big trees; I’m perched on a root watching a very long, burgundy millipede walk past. He has neon orange feet.

So I made it to the rainforest on Thursday night, late, after a long day of driving from  Abidjan. Though our plan was to take significantly longer in our drive and get there in two days, Bertin decided to drive all the way through (we were also bringing two 10-year-olds from Abidjan, and the mother of one of the other field assistants). So we got in late Thursday night and ate a lot of spaghetti with a tuna sauce. I stayed up talking with my friend Noah, who has been here for a month. On Friday, I stayed in camp to do some setting up and arranging of things, but it worked out great because while I was relaxing on the hammock (reading Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy), I heard something rustling in the tree next to my house. When I looked over, there was a solitary, youngish adult male lesser spot-nosed guenon.

He may be the same guy who hung out around the house last time I was here – though I would have hoped it wouldn’t take him a full year to find a new group of females and raise a happy family of lesser spot-nosed guenons. Then I was imagining that perhaps he is just a misanthropic (misguenonthropic?), disaffected youth who thinks everyone else is a phony and so he’s spending all his time alone, mocking everyone else. I’ve decided to call him Holden. (I promise not to anthropomorphize all the monkeys …)

This morning, Noah and I went out with Ferdinand to follow one of the groups of Diana monkeys I’ll be following. Noah is collecting some data on how they use their forelimbs to complement the data I collected last year on mangabeys in order to publish something cool about foraging and forelimbs, and maybe follow it up with some dissections when we get back to the US! I started working on identifying foods and females in that group, but we only went out for a half day. However, during that half day, I collected TWO FECAL SAMPLEs and TWO FRUITS!!!! The first data of my dissertation!

Tomorrow, we’ll try and spend all day with the group and finish up with that data collection. One of the veterinary students leaves soon, so there will be a fete tomorrow night. Monday, the plan is to get everything cleaned up and organized around camp. I will probably try to come out to the internet again on Monday as well and report anything exciting…

Holden the Lesser Spot-nosed guenon!

Hi everyone!

I am writing to you today from the middle of the forest – literally! Our internet café here is on the buttress of one of the really big trees; I’m perched on a root watching a very long, burgundy millipede walk past. He has neon orange feet.

So I made it to the rainforest on Thursday night, late, after a long day of driving from  Abidjan. Though our plan was to take significantly longer in our drive and get there in two days, Bertin decided to drive all the way through (we were also bringing two 10-year-olds from Abidjan, and the mother of one of the other field assistants). So we got in late Thursday night and ate a lot of spaghetti with a tuna sauce. I stayed up talking with my friend Noah, who has been here for a month. On Friday, I stayed in camp to do some setting up and arranging of things, but it worked out great because while I was relaxing on the hammock (reading Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy), I heard something rustling in the tree next to my house. When I looked over, there was a solitary, youngish adult male lesser spot-nosed guenon.

He may be the same guy who hung out around the house last time I was here – though I would have hoped it wouldn’t take him a full year to find a new group of females and raise a happy family of lesser spot-nosed guenons. Then I was imagining that perhaps he is just a misanthropic (misguenonthropic?), disaffected youth who thinks everyone else is a phony and so he’s spending all his time alone, mocking everyone else. I’ve decided to call him Holden. (I promise not to anthropomorphize all the monkeys …)

This morning, Noah and I went out with Ferdinand to follow one of the groups of Diana monkeys I’ll be following. Noah is collecting some data on how they use their forelimbs to complement the data I collected last year on mangabeys in order to publish something cool about foraging and forelimbs, and maybe follow it up with some dissections when we get back to the US! I started working on identifying foods and females in that group, but we only went out for a half day. However, during that half day, I collected TWO FECAL SAMPLEs and TWO FRUITS!!!! The first data of my dissertation!

Tomorrow, we’ll try and spend all day with the group and finish up with that data collection. One of the veterinary students leaves soon, so there will be a fete tomorrow night. Monday, the plan is to get everything cleaned up and organized around camp. I will probably try to come out to the internet again on Monday as well and report anything exciting…

The First Snake!

Here in Abidjan, I am staying at the Centre Suisse de Recherches Scientifiques, a scientific organization that helps us with logistics here and also maintains a nice hostel for researchers in their compound in Yopougon. We're right on one of the lagoons (and can hear the Chinese dredgers working to take sand from the lagoon floor all day). Back in the 60s and 70s, the center was totally forested, and there were groups of Campbell's monkeys in the grounds. In fact, one of the first studies of Campbell's monkeys, which was published in the 70s, was carried out here. Unfortunately, the monkeys are long gone, and so is most of the forest cover (a combination, I think, of hunting and building expansion). There are lots of neat birds in the area, though, and we hear bush babies (galagos) and rock hyraxes all night. There are lizards and geckos all over the place - I am currently watching a tiny gecko, maybe three inches long, hut for spiders on the patio ceiling! There are also squirrels.

So yesterday, I was sitting on a patio overlooking the lagoon, when a squirrel started running around. I looked a little closer - and saw a long snake slithering up the tree. The squirrel started jabbing at the snake, chittering at it and trying to chase it away from a big hollow in the tree. The snake was having none of this, and struck the squirrel at least once while the squirrel ran around and around the trunk. He actually knocked the snake off the tree to the ground! This went on for maybe 20 minutes, and then things calmed down and the snake disappeared.

About an hour later, the snake showed up again (I assume it was the same one, anyway) and slithered up the tree trunk, this time without the squirrel noticing. He went all the way into the hollow, stayed there for a while, and then came back out and relaxed on an adjacent branch for a while. The squirrel showed up a little while later, and chased him away again. And just now as I am writing this blog, I'm sitting on the same patio and the snake is slithering up towards the hollow. I haven't seen the squirrel yet - I hope he didn't get eaten! I'm guessing the snake may be a green mamba - he's green, with a yellow underbelly, and a reddish tinge to his tail. He's probably about 4 feet long, with a rounded head (not diamong shaped like a viper). He's pretty, but I'll watch him from the patio with my binoculars and keep my fingers crossed for the squirrel.

Today is my last day in Abidjan - I'll leave for the forest tomorrow. The roads are bad enough that we expect it to take two days between here and Tai, so I should be surrounded by monkeys sometime Friday afternoon! I'm waiting for Anderson to come back from the bank, and then would like to load up the truck with supplies so that we can get an early start tomorrow. Hopefully, next time I write, I'll be at the internet café in the forest!

Akwaba Cote d'Ivoire!

I arrived in Abidjan Sunday night after a lot of airplanes and many airplane meals. Rather than waste precious new books on an airplane (I've spent the past year building up my kindle's library), I slept and chatted on the first plane, and watched Mulan, Les Miserables, and The Perks of Being a Wallflower on the second. My plane was only two hours late, and - unlike last year - all my luggage arrived! For my year in Abidjan, I've got a camping bag full of clothes, a duffel bag filled mostly with Ziploc baggies for collecting monkey poop and food, and a nice new pair of rubber boots.

I'm currently on the patio of my room at the Centre Suisse de Recherches Scientifique in Abidjan listening to the call to prayer echo across the lake from the city. Abidjan would like to be a tropical rainforest again, if it had its way, but instead it gets to be a giant, crowded, humid city. It is the rainy season now. Last night and this morning the rain was really impressive. It's since cleared, but I'm glad I got an extra dry bag to keep my camera in!

I spent Monday getting logistical things taken care of in advance of heading for the forest. We'll leave on Wednesday rather than today because we've got a few more things to finish up here. Monday afternoon, we went to change some money and get groceries at a very fancy grocery store downtown. Not only is this grocery well stocked, but you can pay with a credit card! As well as some staples like rice, sardines, and lentils, I got some extravagances (in particular, Nutella, but the French kind without palm oil in it).  I also got a *lot* of tea because I like drinking it in the mornings, and I like having tea for people when they come up to camp. I am also now the proud owner of an Ivorian cell phone, and the magical little doohickey which will give me internet access in the forest. And, most importantly, I got my research permit which will allow me entrance to the forest!

So I'll spend the rest of today finishing up some loose ends from school - I'm trying to finish a manuscript draft to give to my advisor when he heads back to Ohio tonight (he's been in the forest for the past few weeks), and I am working on coauthoring a paper with my friend Noah based on some data we've been collecting on forelimb use in several species of monkeys in Tai, so I need to finish up my section of it before he leaves Cote d'Ivoire in late July. But then I'll leave bright and early tomorrow morning for the place that really knows it's a rainforest!

And they're off...

This evening, I leave the US for Cote d'Ivoire! An overnight plane from Boston to Paris, followed by an afternoon plane from Paris to Abidjan, will deposit me back in the tropics where I can sit overlooking the lagoons in Abidjan and watching lizards sun themselves. 

I plan to spend Monday taking care of logistics: groceries, changing money, buying a cellphone, buying a usb-connector for the internet. There's a fancy grocery store in Abidjan we go to where I can purchase a year's supply of rice, tuna, tea, powdered milk, candles, and so on - and, importantly, use a credit card! I'll also meet up with my advisor in Abidjan. He has just completing a few weeks checking up on our field station.

If all of that goes as planned and I get all my stuff taken care of on Monday, I'll leave on Tuesday morning for a long drive all the way across the country. From Abidjan, which is the de facto capital of Cote d'Ivoire (home to the ports, most government offices, embassies, etc.), we'll drive up north to Yamoussoukro, which is the official capital of Cote d'Ivoire. Apparently President Houphouet-Boigny, who ran the country during the 90s and early 2000s, was born in Yamoussoukro, and wanted to honor his hometown by making it CAPITAL. The other ridiculous thing he did there was build the world's largest Basilica. It is quite large, and we'll drive right in front of it on our way through the city. From there, we make an arc down to the southwest, through Duekoue, Guiglo, Daloa, and eventually the town of Tai! That takes between 6-10 hours depending on traffic and the state of the roads.

We'll likely spend the night in Tai on Tuesday. Tai is a small town with probably about 5,000 residents. It's only electrified part of the time because sometimes the big generator breaks down - they're off of the main grid in Cote d'Ivoire. Last year, I slept in the convent in Tai on my way into the forest because the hotels were all full (there are only a couple). Tai is where I get all my produce and groceries during the time that I'm in the field. I'll need to say hi to the mayor of Tai and other government officials, and show my permits to Eaux et Forets, the agency that deals with the parks and wildlife. Wednesday morning, we'll drive to the villages to pick up the field assistants, and then - between Gouliako and Pouliyula - pick up the road heading into Tai National Park where I'll be back in my forest home!

I'm not sure how frequently I'll be able to get to the internet; the place where we can pick up a signal is about a half hour walk from camp. I anticipate once or twice every week or two. I'll do my best to keep in touch as frequently as possible over the next year (!!) that I'm in the rainforest! 

My house in the research station

The kitchen at the research station, with food, coolers, and dishes

The cooking setup. In the evenings, a group of monkeys hangs out in the trees behind the kitchen and watches me cook.

A tailless whip scorpion who lived in my house (they're not dangerous, just impressive looking)

Four of the employees of the Tai Monkey Project and me!

A Diana monkey - the guys I'll be studying!