Week One

Many of you are probably already aware of this, but I’ve arrived safely at the field site. I’ve been here since Sunday night, but I haven’t had much time to update this blog, as we’ve been following every day. Normally I’ll be out on Fridays, too, but I’m not feeling super well today (jet-lag and airplane germs had to catch up with me eventually) so I stayed in. I thought I would sleep a lot, but I think my internal clock is already set to not sleeping in past seven-ish. Oh well. Currently sitting on my bed with the cat, George. He’s lovely. This morning he greeted me at the door with a few feathers sticking out of his mouth, and then once I finally let him in proceeded to lick my hand incessantly. In all seriousness, though, I’m not sure I could make it ten months without a pet around.

Anyway, I should get to what I’ve been up to the past week. I’ve been going out into the field every day with another research assistant, Nicola, and a master’s student, Nathan. They’re teaching me how to recognize individual vervets – about 110 monkeys, split into three different troops. It’s been quite challenging so far. At first, besides the fairly obvious differences between males and females, they all looked about the same. After all, it’s not like they have vastly different hair, eye, or skin colors, the way humans do. Then Nicola and Nathan started pointing out ones with clear traits, like a stubbed tail or large scar. Those have been easy to learn, but for most of them you have to rely on more subtle differences, like a particularly curvy tail, a white dot under one eye, or a large forehead. Each person that follows them can rely on different traits (Nicola said she can generally pick out one female because she “walks like a lioness on the prowl”); all that really matters is that we can reliably agree on who is who. Right now I’m getting so many wrong that it’s a little overwhelming, but every time I start to recognize a new individual I get really excited. It’s like a puzzle that I’m very slowly putting together (generally it takes people about 3 months to learn all the monkeys and be fully trained in data collection protocol, so I might not actually be taking data until August). Knowing even just the few monkeys that I do makes following much more interesting, as it’s possible to pick up on patterns of how they interact with each other. 

Schmear and Bernie sunbathing.

Give me a couple months and maybe I’ll be able to say who this is…

Even now, without knowing all the individuals, they’re still pretty entertaining. The infant vervets are especially funny to watch; they will look super serious one second and then clumsily leap into the air after a butterfly the next. The infants are also very curious about us and human objects; one just reached out and stole my pen, and another snuck up behind me while I wasn’t paying attention and casually touched my ankle. I think that’s the first time any wild animal has touched me. Hopefully next time I’ll be a bit more aware and will be able to move away (not that I’m threatened by tiny babies, just because physical contact with your research subjects is a bit of a no-no).

Eh, I guess this tiny baby monkey is decently cute.

We live in a house on Asante Sana, which is a property near Samara, where we do our fieldwork. The field site is about a forty minute drive away, so with a ten hour work day, we’re gone for nearly twelve hours, five days a week. Evenings pretty much consist of a quick shower, checking email, dinner, and bed. In the summer months, the schedule will change so that we’ll work longer days but have Wednesdays off. People seem to be generally more enthusiastic about that schedule, so I’m looking forward to it.

I should mention that the whole area is really beautiful. We’re in a sort of valley surrounded by fairly impressive mountains. Sunsets are particularly amazing. While driving, we’ve encountered various types of antelope, giraffe, elephants, buffalo, and rhinos (fortunately, we haven’t yet encountered any dangerous wildlife while on foot). Sadly, a rhino was just poached on a property between our house and field site. I believe this is the first time, at least in recent history, that there has been a major poaching incident in the area. Hopefully it won’t happen again.

Today, two of our supervisors are arriving, and they’ll be here for a couple of weeks, while a vet puts thermoregulation sensors into some of the monkeys. Tomorrow, we’re going into town (Graaff-Reinet) for a grocery trip. I’ve never shopped for two weeks before, so I plan to make a pretty detailed list of what I’ll need. We’re also having the weekly braai, and there was some talk of horseback riding. It should be nice to have a bit of a break after so much traveling and then jumping right into following. It also came at a pretty good time for me, as I should hopefully be feeling better by Monday. 

So, I think that’s all for now. I’m missing home a bit, but I’m adjusting. Everyone I’ve met has been really welcoming, and so far things seem to be going fairly smoothly.