Finished

at last, the field research here in india is finished!! there were many times that i didn’t think that i would make it through. thanks to everyone for all of the comments and support and kind words. i couldn’t have done it without you! i’m still holding my breath though until i am on my flight home, then i will have a glass of wine and breathe.

today is my last day here in ponnampet. tomorrow, i leave with the students and my advisor to travel for a week. i have sold all of my furniture and appliances to my field assistants for half of what i bought them for which works out well for them and me. i have tried to pawn off as much equipment as possible to the students so that i can fit all the beautiful fabrics and kurtas that i have acquired in my 2 bags…we’ll see how that goes. hopefully i won’t have to leave anything behind.

we finished up our last research site, # 20, on saturday afternoon. we couldn’t have finished at a better time. for one, my sweat shirt is shot (i'll leave it here, mom, don't worry) but most importantly, the monsoons are rolling in and it is starting to rain here every afternoon. i let the students take the reins for this week and they did pretty well. there were a couple of melt downs and a lot of leaches (luckily none of me) but we all survived.

i took them to one of the sites that we did a month or so ago that had over 100 flying foxes (a type of fruit bat) roosting there. my advisor was mesmerized and said that afterwards that it was one of his top 10 experiences as a wildlife biologist - he has been working for over 30 years all over the world. i guess it is highly uncommon to see so many of that type of bat in one area.

we had a farewell/finished with research party at the farm house. it was a little awkward at first with the field assistants hanging in the hallway and being shy with the students there, but the shyness dissolved once the dance party began : ) one of the field assistants is a dancer that has won dance trophies all over coorg for his bollywood dancing. so he taught us some dance moves and i taught some salsa... it was a lot of fun.


i am definitely leaving with mixed feelings. i am very ready to be home and to close this chapter of my field research here in india. this trip has been physically, mentally, and emotionally challenging. but i have also learned a lot about this research, about a different culture and way of life, about myself and what i am capable of and where i fold - - and along the way met some great people that i will miss. it will be tough to say goodbye knowing that i will probably never see them again. tonight we are all going out for dinner as a thank you to my field team, a farewell for me, and a congratulations for successfully completing the research before the monsoons arrived to carry us all away.

Bats

the first week of field work with the students was…in a word... slow. granted, they are just learning the research and for most of them, it is their first exposure to any type of field work – but the vegetation analysis took over twice the amount of the time that it normally does. then 2 of the girls scream when they see spiders...and we are in the tropics so there are a lot of spiders. hopefully this will be a good learning experience about field work for all them and not scare them off from it.

my hope that they would inject some energy into these last weeks of research and take some of the burden off of me unfortunately did not hold true as i find myself not only leading my field research team and doing the research, but also guiding these students and planning where they eat, their transportation, how they will spend their off days…i don’t know where my reserve energy is coming from, but somehow i keep putting one foot in front of the other! it is fun to have the students around though and share with them what i have been doing all these months. maybe it would have made more sense for them to come at the beginning of the research though rather than the end…

we did 2 sites at once and i spent most of my time at the site with my advisor and students. i missed my field team that was on the other site! they were very and said that it was boring without me over there. although we have definitely had our trials and tribulations, i have been lucky with the people that are on my team. it will be hard to say goodbye to some of them.

one night we did some bat netting and caught 4 bats – 3 false vampires and 1 horseshoe bat. basically, you set up what is called a mist net which is about 3 or 4 meters high and 20 meters in length. the netting in the bat is so fine that the bats are not able to echolocate it and fly into the net. then they have to be detangled to get them loose to take measurements and identify the species. in the one picture it looks like the bat is screaming, but it was just biting the cloth bag. don't worry, they weren't being hurt - but they are probably scared to death. it was really neat to see these little guys up close, but handling them is not something that i would like to attempt myself :)


we also had an interesting conversation with owner of the organic coffee farm which i think was quite eye-opening for the students. he is a younger guy that has married 3 times (“like you people do” says one of my field assistants – meaning they think americans get married and divorced all the time) once was to a german lady. he used to be a lawyer, but moved to his family farm 10 years ago to grow organic coffee. i asked him my series of 10 survey questions about their management practices (pesticides, herbicides, etc), thoughts on coffee certifications, mammal observations, etc. he was a bit belligerent wanting to know exactly why i wanted answers to these questions, what was the purpose of my research and how did these questions actually relate to that. then he started in on the certifications. a lot of the coffee certifications now are starting to incorporate a social consciousness element into their requirements. the laborer’s quarters are required to have access to clean water, they must be paid a certain amount, and they must have access to education among other criteria. “you people come here preaching education, but you have no idea about this society. if the laborers are educated, who will work in the farms? how many farmers do you have left in the united states? everyone cannot have an office job, then who would do the farm work? machines cannot do this work.” these people are basically slaves and oppressed by the society for cheap labor. unfortunately, this is not the first time that i have heard this argument from the farmers. and this farmer’s laborers quarters were appalling. they were outside of the long driveway to his beautiful gated house and almost on top of the oxen stables which smelled horrible. there were 3 little boys that lived there with their parents and worked in the farm. this coffee is sold as certified organic.


on a lighter note, we took the students to the tibetan buddhist temple which was again amazing. it is really a site to see. we happened to go on a day when there was some sort of event, so the temples were full of monks and visitors. we had lunch at the one of the places that serves food on the banana leaves that you have to wash with water. it was hilarious watching one of the students that is a germaphobe trying to figure out how to handle that one : )

well, this week is my last week of field research here! yay!!! i can see the finish line and i am definitely on the home stretch now.

Hmmm food

pizza blueberries raspberries
lattes orange juice hoagies
calzone pad thai veggie burgers lasagna
foccacia baguettes wine peach cobbler
salads fish cheese
croissants dark beer bagels

i haven’t been letting myself think about the foods i miss until recently - now that i can count the remaining weeks on one hand. hmmm…

so this past week was my last week of rest and data entry…i did about 30 hours of data entry and am all caught up for the sites that we have done to date. only 3 more sites to go! one morning the little neighborhoods were waiting outside my window. they call me “acca” (i have no idea how to spell it) which means older sister and is used as a sign of respect. “can you open the door, acca?” then they all came running in, wandering around the apartment, touching everything. i kept my eye the bag that has the dead squirrel in formaldehyde to make sure they didn’t go near that…then i had to usher them out when i was leaving to go to the college to check to make sure all the equipment was ready for this next week of field research.

thursday, i spent 3 hours on the back of a motorcycle. that was rough. we had to go to a town that is about 1.5 hours away to pick up some plastic bags that are needed for the research. we just went there and then turned around and came back. the other option would have been to take a city bus, but we would have had to take 2 buses and it could have taken 3 hours one way – so the bike was the better option. but after i got off, my knee had stiffened up, my hip flexer was sore, my lower back and hands were almost bruised from bouncing up and down over the half paved roads and holding onto the metal for dear life. my research assistant did share his ear phones with me on the way back, so we had a little motorcycle dance party which was fun :)

on friday, i left for bangalore with one of the project drivers to pick up the 4 undergrad students from the airport which is about a 6 hour drive from ponnampet. on the way, we saw a group of langur monkeys right next to the road that cuts through a national park. they were beautiful! that is the type of monkey that i did my behavior study on at the bronx zoo, but i have never seen them in the wild before. unfortunately, i couldn't find my camera in time to take but one picture. can you find the monkey in the bamboo? he’s there, you just can’t really see him. the students were supposed to get in a little after midnight, but the flight was an hour delayed and i think they were the last ones to get off the flight because we didn’t leave the airport until close to 3am. then we had to get up at 8am to get breakfast, run some errands, and drive them to coorg. poor things didn’t know if they were coming or going – but actually stayed awake for the most part, so that was pretty impressive. on the way home, we saw wild elephants - a first for me. it was amazing. it was dark out, so we couldn’t see them in detail, but they were close. we passed about 5 or 6, then stopped by the side of the road to look at another one that was a couple of meters further down the road, it started flapping its ears which is one of the first levels of threats if i remember my animal planet correctly : ) then started walking towards us which i think is the second, so we drove on. then there was another right on the side of the road, our driver warned a motorcyclist who was coming that way because elephants can be very dangerous. it was a great way to welcome to students to the area for sure.

tomorrow my advisor will be out in the field with us to see what i have been doing for the past couple of months. i hope that i have been doing everything right – i’ve been kind of winging it, but i think that’s part of it. we shall see… then tonight one of the students is staying with me at my apartment. she will help get the equipment organized and set up… help me make peanut butter!! it will be nice to have students here to help out for these last 2 weeks of field research. hopefully they won’t be too tired from the jet lag and all the travel…

Lillyputs?

last night, i fell asleep listening to drumming, chanting, and singing. i’m not sure where it was coming from – it could have been the laborers who are taking down the field hockey stands are camping out near the fields while doing the work or the house down the street that is set up right now for some type of pooja. whatever the source, it was soothing, but eerie as the faint sounds broke though the peace of the night.

then after i feel asleep my mosquito net fell on me. i jumped out of bed searching for my flash light and glasses both of which i keep next to my pillow in the dark. my first thought was that a bat had crashed into the net. a couple of weeks ago, i woke up to find myself sitting up, fighting with the mosquito net trying to push it aside. i was dreaming that i was in the field pushing my way through a cobweb as i do most mornings when checking the traps.

this past week completed my 4 weeks of field work in a row. it went pretty smoothly after a rocky start on monday morning. we traveled to the sites each morning from our apartments which meant that we were always late – let me rephrase that – the driver was always late and therefore we were all late. here is a picture of some little kids filling water buckets at the end of my street that i was watching as i waited for the jeep. we had about a 45 minute bumpy drive to the sites each way. mondays are long because we have to figure out how to fit the grids in the sites, measure, then set up the grids with the traps, and then bait all the traps. of course, none of the guys eat breakfast before they leave the house in the morning, so they want to stop for breakfast along the way. it’s a battle that i have completely given up on. the women manage to feed themselves before work, but the men do not. there are things that they could have, but they don’t – so anyway, on top of being late already, we have to stop for breakfast. and then they can’t agree on a place to eat, so they want to stop twice…it was a mess, but we finally made it to the field and got everything set up.

this week there was one site that was native and one that was mixed vegetation both in the same rainfall zone. the farmer at the native site applied a chemical fertilizer to all the coffee trees on monday afternoon (even though we called before to make sure he wasn’t going to do any type of applications that week), so we caught 0 animals at that site – although we did get a picture of a civet cat running through the site. in the mixed site, we only caught 3 rats this week.

tuesdays and wednesdays are really busy long days. we get to the sites in the mornings, check the traps to see if there is anything in there, then do vegetation analysis (basically measuring all the trees in the grids) for the rest of the day with an hour lunch, before baiting the traps again before we leave. we have gotten pretty efficient at all of this, but it is still hard work especially in the hot sun. by thursday afternoon, we are finished with the vegetation, so we have time to relax a bit before baiting the traps. we stopped and got some tea one afternoon. there was a coffee scale where we took turns weighing ourselves. i have lost a couple of pounds with the change in diet, the physical activity, and the constant sweating :) i am looking forward to putting the weight back on when i get home!

one of the research assistants was schooled in an ashram. he learned yoga, mantras, and all religious teachings. when he’s not talking nonsense like telling me there are little people about a foot high called “lillyputs” that live is tiny houses in the arctic or that in the deep oceans there are half human-half fish beings – he is a wealth of information and great to talk to. he explained to me the teachings in his ashram are taken from five major religions – hindu, buddism, islam, jainism, and christianity. hindu represents satya - truth. buddism is dharma – the rules what we follow or moral codes of life. jainism is peace. christianity is prema – love. and islam is ihimsha – non-violence.

jainism is a religion that is not that well known in the west. i know very little about it other than the followers do not cause harm to any living being. they give up all their worldly possessions and walk the earth. they do not walk in the grass in case they could step on an insect, they even carry a feather to sweep the ground in the front of them, they cover their nose and mouths with gauze to not accidently inhale any organisms. they are obviously vegetarians but also do not eat root vegetables (would harm the bugs and earthworms) or yogurt (would kill the bacteria).

my research assistant drew me the symbol that is a combination of each of the 5 individual symbols (like om for hindu, the cross for christianity). the short form of the symbol is the swastika which is the symbol of the universe. this is the symbol that hitler modified slightly for his use which i think most of us in the west now associate with racism and evil – but here in india the swastika is continues to be a sign of peace.

well this is my last week of data entry before my advisor gets here on thursday. i have about 20 hours left to do…i am going to pick up the students from bangalore this friday. this day has been so far away for the past couple of months – i am glad that it’s finally here. i am excited to have some new recruits to help with the last 2 weeks of field research!

Banana leaves

last week was our final week at the coffee board. we planned to stay there this week as well, but one of the farmers did not want us to do the mammal study on his farm without him there. luckily we had another site that could replace it. the site is closer to ponnampet than the coffee board, so we will get to stay at our apartments this week! it feels nice not to have to pack up again today after just arriving yesterday. the only problem is getting everyone to leave on time in the mornings. we’ll see how it goes.

so this week’s field sites were a bit challenging. both of them were arabica plantations rather than the robusta ones that we have been working on. the arabica plants are smaller and more densely planted. for our coffee row height and girth measurements, we usually measure 330 plants per grid. these sites put us up to over 700 plants per grid. on top of that, we were short staffed this week. the field assistants are starting to skip work because the projects are coming to an end. it makes it hard on the ones that are coming and doing their job because they have twice the work and they feel resentful. we had a couple of 12 hour field days this week and are all pretty worn out. additionally, one of the sites had a pretty steep slope that kept getting steeper as you went higher. by the third grid, you were climbing at a 45 degree angle. and it had viper snakes which are poisonous. one of them was actually stuck to the sticky paper in the track plate. (i only saw pictures because i was at the other site.) it had gone in after a rat i guess it got stuck. the two people that found it set it loose with a stick. so on my track plate i have rat prints with snake scales which is kind of neat. the other site had wasps - 3 people in my field team got stung. at that site, we got another picture of a small indian civet with the infrared camera and photos of some rats and squirrels with the flash camera.

a squirrel was found dead in one of the traps, so asha and i had to perform surgery again…injecting it with formaldehyde and cutting its ear for a tissue sample (well, asha did it, i just assisted). this time it went a little smoother than last time. i hope that is it for the dead animal preservation. and apparently, we don’t know where the tissue sample from the last one is…that is going to be a shock for whoever finds the little white container and opens it up…nasty.

one of the sites had laborers picking pepper. they use bamboo poles to climb all the way up the trees and pick the pepper from the vine. the picture is above. i don't know how they do it. i was amazed watching them. one of the women that was pruning the plants brought over the nest (at the top of the page) to show me. i don’t know what type of bird it is, but the eggs are beautiful.

here is a picture of us eating lunch one day. some of the restaurants serve the meals on banana leaves. they give you water that you wash it off with and then they put food on it. it works well for biodegradable plates. i am still not comfortable eating rice with my hands. i can’t seem to get it all in my mouth and probably look like a 2 year old. i do think that my tolerance level for spice has increased though. oh and i found out that dosas are made from soaking rice in water for 4 hours and then grinding the rice into a powder. this is then mixed with water and the batter fried like a pancake. i had dosas for breakfast every morning this week with ghee and sugar and coffee. it was good.

in sad news for this week, the crazy driver ran over a dog. we were all in the jeep and there was a dog in the road. he honked and it didn’t move – it looked a little shocked – and the driver didn’t really slow down, just ran it over. it was horrible. we were all silent. he didn’t even stop. then 4 days later, i was in the front seat and i screamed because i thought were going to hit another dog (i guess we didn’t really come close)…but every one in the car found it quite amusing.

in one of the towns, they are widening the roadway – so all of the homes and shops that were along the road are being demolished. it looks like a war zone. the trees that are probably decades old are also not spared. this picture is one of about 10 huge old trees that we passed within a 2 mile stretch of the road. they said that they will be doing this along all major roads including the town where we are all living right now.

so we are doing 2 sites next week and then finally a week of no field! i need the rest. my advisor and the students will be here soon – they couldn’t get here fast enough – i think we are all running on fumes at this point… it will be good to travel to and from my apartment though this week so i don’t have to carry all the equipment with me and i can cook for myself - although i will miss some of the cook’s dishes at the coffee board. i am thinking of working out a site schedule when my advisor is here so we can stop there for lunch :)

Indian summer

i was trying to do a post week but somehow along the way, i got a week behind so this week i am playing catch-up…last saturday night, the project director called me and asked if i would like to go to a coorgi wedding with him and his mom on sunday morning. this area is called coorg and the people coorgi – i think they are their own caste…i still can’t keep all that straight. so on sunday morning i put on my long kurta and new Indian style pants – which are kind of like clown pants or hammer pants – really baggy in the seat and legs and then cinched at the bottom. they are really light weight cotton and good for the heat here. the weddings are 2 days at least, so i went on the morning of the second day. the bride and groom are separate until the afternoon of the 2nd day. traditionally the coorgis were warriors, so for the weddings, they wear the clothes of the warrior and have swords. the ceremony involves the groom’s men chopping 5 or 6 banana stalks after walking around them 3 times, then they are feed tea and little food from the bride’s family symbolizing that they have made it successfully to meet the bride at her house after their journey. this took place outside for this wedding. the second part took place inside on a stage. it was set up to look like a room in a house and the groom went to the stage and sat down in one of the chairs and then the bride came out and sat down in a chair next to him – this i’m assuming is meant to be the inside of the bride’s house. afterwards a procession of people waited to make their way through the room to congratulate the new couple. i’m really glad that i had a chance to see the wedding. i tried to sneak some quick pictures, but people kept encouraging me to go up in the front and take pictures, meet the groom, take pictures of him…this is a picture of the groom and his best man.

then one of my field assistants is playing in a field hockey tournament that has been taking place here for the last month, so i went to see his game. it was fun, but really hot at 2pm in the indian summer – even under the shade. when i got back to my apartment, my neighbor who doesn’t speak english saw me in my indian clothes and smiled really big and said “super!” it was really sweet.

this week for research we did one native trees and coffee site and one exotic trees and coffee site in the low rainfall zone. it was exhausting as the dry heat seems to drain all the energy and moisture out of your body. the native site is near to the forest and the farmer said elephants come through the farm regularly, but we didn’t see any unfortunately. the exotic site had pigs…50 of them. the farmer said that he keeps them put up during the day, so my advisor said go ahead and use the site since the small mammals are nocturnal – but it was a bad idea. the pigs ran through the grids during the day, eating all the bait, kicking the traps around which shuts the door on them. so by the time we baited in the afternoons, the pigs probably shut a good number of the traps reducing our chances of getting any captures. i’m not sure if i will be able to use that site in the analysis - we shall see. this is a picture of the laborer's daughters who are so cute!

we stayed at the coffee board again this week – but had a different room that had a shower with hot water!!! it was my first shower in months!! i had to share a room with both of the female research assistants who not speaking to each other, so that was a bit of a pain but we survived :) next week, one of them will be gone most of the week, so that should be better.

we did some site seeing during our lunch break 2 days this week. one day we went to a tibetan buddist temple, called golden temple. it was so peaceful. i wish that i had more time to spend there. i heard the monks chanting and playing the instrument that looks like a 2 foot long horn. it was beautiful.

then the other day, we went to a national park where you could ride elephants and see deer and monkeys. here is a picture of a bonnet macaque trying to get water from the water fountain. the elephants were with their trainers and the deer in a fence, but the monkeys were just hanging out wherever – which was kind of cool, but kind of unnerving because i know this type has fangs and can be aggressive. but they were fine.

originally, i had thought that we were going to be able to do 1 site instead of 2 for 2 weeks, but i found out that we can do them at the same time - which shaves a week off of my field research!! that means that i have 3 more weeks left. two more weeks, then a one week break, then we will do the last week with my advisor and the undergraduate students. that will leave 2 weeks for bat netting and showing the students some of the sites, and then i may actually get to travel to see Hampi which i have heard is a must if you are here. so that will be nice to see.

my roommate is leaving tomorrow…i must admit that i am jealous - i am tired and ready to go home too (and craving so many foods!!!). if i can make it through these next 2 weeks, i'll be in the clear :) we clean the traps in the rivers on saturday mornings and yesterday had the help of 4 little ones. they actually thought we were making a movie because i was taking pictures - and one of the field assistants played along with the story telling them which of us were the villians and which were the good guys. finally someone told them the truth - i gave them some chocolates for helping us out - after making them wash their hands with sanitizer of course.

Coffee Board

the first week back in the field after my week of rest actually went pretty well. we stayed at the coffee board of india which is a government agency that is part of the cafnet project. there is a research substation that has guest houses where the employees stay, labs, coffee farms, a temple, and even a nursery school. the women stayed in the main guest house and the guys stayed in a guest house down the road. the women definitely got the better end of the deal on that one. the rooms have beds and there is running water and even hot water! also, there is a cook who makes really good food. indian food 3 times a day though is a little much for me – especially spicy food with chilis at 6:15 in the morning…the cook though takes out a portion of the meal and only adds about 3 chilis for me and then adds probably 20 more for the rest of the meal. breakfast is usually a coconut chutney with red chili and dosas or idly. dosas are kind of like sour dough pan cakes and idly (which i’m probably spelling wrong) are disk shaped balls of rice basically. i eat them with honey and ghee (which is clarified butter) both of which are served in tiny portions though. or else she’ll make a “rice item” as they say which means rice with vegetables and curry. it is a little heavy for me for breakfast. my favorite breakfast that she makes is a potato curry with poori which is kind of like a quickly fried rice tortilla.

i had some interesting conversations with the coffee farmers at the sites where we worked this week. one site was native trees and coffee, next to a native forest and we caught by far the most number of animals to date, as well as wild boars and civet cat in the camera trap. the farmer’s wife is a journalist and asked my opinion about a story she is writing. there is to be a trash cleanup in their village where the community members will walk and collect all the trash and debris along the roads. she wanted to know if it was better that they burn or bury the trash. this is something that i actually studied for my masters so i was able to comment intelligently on it, but there is no answer…neither of them are very good options. if you burn it, you will be burning plastics and releasing toxins into the air – unless you have some sort of air filter or scrubber which even then does not remove all the pollutants. if you bury it, there are a lot of things that are not biodegradable (including plastics) and as the rainwater filters through the soil through the garbage, it picks up pollutants from the trash (the liquid is called leachate) and it seeps into the groundwater and drinking water. it was an interesting conversation that basically concluded with how do we start the process to ban plastics.

i also spoke with the farmer’s wife at the second site about the socioeconomic issues with the government and laborers. the farmers that i am working with are wealthy and the laborers are like slaves almost. the wife was telling me how it used to be that there was a bondage between the “master” and laborer. the master provided the food and clothing and housing and took care of their laborers, but now the government has stepped in and severed that bond, they provided housing and gave them rice and now the men spend all their salaries on alcohol and leave the women and children to fend for themselves. they no longer live on the same property and there is lawlessness in the villages where the laborers live. it was an interesting conversation. it may be true that the laborers are drinking away their money – i don’t know, but they are their own people too. the woman was making it sound like they were children or property. i think using the word "master" made me feel weird.

one of the rats that got trapped tried to escape through the back and died, so it was half out-half in the trap when we got there in the morning. it had to be injected with formaldehyde and then preserved in a jar the formaldehyde solution ...and we had to cut off its ear as a tissue sample and put in alcohol. me, i had to do this. luckily, asha stepped up to the plate and did the medical procedures and just mixed the solutions. the rat was floating though in the jar and we couldn’t get it to go down and then gecko squeaked and we both looked at the jar and thought the rat had come back to life. we couldn’t stop laughing after that. hopefully that will be the last dead animal we have to deal with.

only one of the women was working for the most part this week, so there were no fights which was nice. there were only 4 of us staying at the guest house so we went to see some of the sites in the area after work a couple of nights. we went to abbi falls (a water fall), a hindu temple that had really nice paintings of some of the hindu gods, and rajaseat which is where one of the kings used to sit to watch the sunsets. at rajaseat there was a fountain light and music show where music was blared through speakers and the water in the fountain made to dance to the music with lights shining underneath. it was kind of like a disney world or six flags show. there were tons of tourists at each of these places, but i was the only white person and felt like i was part of the tourist attraction as people pointed and stared. i still haven’t gotten used to that. it was a good week though and gave me a chance to be with some of the field team not in the work environment. i learned that i am the first white female that they have worked with and when i first arrived they thought that i looked pretty, but had a skin disease (which i had to explain was actually freckles)…

Week of Rest

the project jeep dropped me off on the road in front of my apartment on saturday afternoon after a long last week in the scary house. when it pulled away, i was standing there with 2 roll-up beds, my computer, and about 8 bags with equipment, pots and pans, and clothes. i was preparing myself to make lug it all of that up the stairs to my apartment when all the neighborhood kids came out and grabbed bags and carried it up with me. at the top of stairs, my next door neighbor was waiting with open arms to help too. it was really very touching and welcoming. what a relief to be back in ponnampet for the week! here are 2 pictures of the little town in ponnampet. it has a margin free (grocery store), chemist (drug store), bakery, bank, etc. the next town over, gonnikoppal, is larger and about 15 minutes away by rick shaw which costs 60 rupees or about $1.50. the bus is 5 rupees, but i usually treat myself to a rick shaw.


the next picture is of the little girl that lives next to me. she is 2 years old and very sweet. she comes into my apt every now and then, but is pretty shy. her mom draws on her eyebrows every day. i asked my field assistant about this. she said that it is to make the eyebrows grow in thick. her mom didn’t do that for her, that’s why her eyebrows are too thin.


nothing too exciting to report on the research front this past week. i mainly entered my data – which takes hours – and tried to catch up with my emails (and sleep). i also spent a couple of days at the forestry college to check the traps, get equipment ready, and speak to the team and their boss about logistics for the coming weeks. i cut my finger on one of the traps – which is becoming a weekly event. they had no bandaids at the college, so the lady that was cleaning the floors wrapped my bloody finger in a rag/skirt that she had around her waist. it was really very sweet, but also very dirty. i cleaned it thoroughly when i got back to my apartment and it is fine.

sometimes trying to get anything done at the college is like entering in a time warp – you can be there for hours and get nothing done. all the doors to the rooms are locked with pad locks and there seems to be only one key, finding out who has the key and if you have permission to use it alone can take half a day. then the boss’s office is like a bus station. two assistants sit in the office and there is always a queue of students, faculty, and visitors waiting to talk to the boss (or “sir” as they call him). even when you are talking with him, there are people coming in all the time, so it is difficult to have his undivided attention and get anything accomplished. he has a bell on his desk that he rings and people come running at the sound. one evening when i was leaving the college, “sir” was walking to his car with my 2 female research assistants in tow, one carrying his lap top for him and the other his lunch while his arms were empty. it is very much like a paternal relationship that he has with his student and the project team. he will ask me, “how are my boys and girls?” even though all of them are in their mid to late 20s. it is quite interesting. (picture is of a temple with the om symbol which is the sign of god and his three pronged fork - i thougt at first it was the devil's pitch fork)

most of the other people in my field team went to their “native” or their home town during this week off. they are used to taking 6-7 hour night buses on sunday night and then coming into work on monday morning. i don’t know how they do it. the mother of the woman who married out of her caste prepared a special pooja which means worship or prayer for her. she believes that one of the bad gods has been with her for the past couple of years causing her hardships in her life. the pooja involves serving 25 children a meal and then hopefully the god will leave her. these 2 little girls in the picture were walking by one day when we working on the site and i took their picture. the kids like to see their pictures in the digital camera after you take it.


my roommate was gone all this week for field work. she came back only on saturday afternoon, then left again on sunday evening. it was good to see her for a bit though. we had a bbq with some of the european researchers on saturday night. it was really nice. we made homemade veggie burgers, potatoes and onions, and vegetable kabobs on the grill. four of the other researchers have left in the past 2 weeks and my roommate leaves in 3 weeks…that will just leave the 2 french researchers, one who is studying carbon sequestration in the coffee farms and one who is studying the hydrology, and me (who is studying mammals :)

Bait sandwiches

i’m not going to lie, the last week in the murnad house was quite challenging. i am starting to find the edge of patience and tolerance. monday started with us arriving early to the sites to set up the grids and traps. i was on a team with 4 other guys who either didn’t notice or didn’t tell me that my pants ripped in the butt…nice. then that night, there was big fight in which 2 of the field team members screamed in my face. then one of my sandals was mysteriously missing the next morning (a dog got it i am told - which could be true) meaning that the only shoes i had for the week were my hiking boots – but actually it didn’t matter because i didn’t go anywhere at night. so for the rest of the week, 2 of the people were not speaking to one person making the work and house a tense environment. sometimes i feel like i am a camp counselor for a middle school summer camp. it is quite exhausting after working in the field all day. one more month of field work before my advisor and 5 undergrad students join me here. i am hoping that it will be a relief to have them here, but it could just add to the drama – we shall see…

the camera traps are continuing to yield results which is great. i think we got a picture of a jackal – i am working with the mammal specialist here to get a positive id on it. this siting is particularly exciting as jackals are starting beginning to decline rapidly in this area due to habitat loss. we are still getting extremely low trap rates with the small rodents, but are also getting good results with the track plates that basically take the foot prints of the animals as they go into a box to get bait and then come back out.

i am still scared of riding in the jeep, particularly with the driver that is an older man. he really personifies the phrase “bat out of hell” with his driving and i have learned that he has problems with his eyes – great. we usually have 7 people in the jeep – the driver, the 2 women in the front seat, then me and 3 or 4 guys in the back. i feel like being squished in the back seat is safer, but still you hold on for dear life. the young men here are very affectionate with each other – sitting on each other’s laps, holding hands, putting their arms around each other. it just means that they are friends and there isn’t any flirtation involved really which is strange, they are just sitting in the back seat of the jeep holding hands. men and women are not allowed to date or really have much physical contact with each other at all until they are married, so this type of affection does not happen between the men and women at all. it happens a little between the women as well, but very little compared to the guys it seems.

i made a mexican dinner for everyone on thursday night which went over well. we had warm, crappy beer to go with it (or the guys and i did) – the first sip suddenly brought me back to my high school days, umm warm beer :) the meal turned out well, other than the fact that i got rice flour instead of wheat flour for the tortillas – so the women jumped in and made chapatti that we used as tortillas – so it was a mexican/indian dinner actually. the driver does not speak much english, but loved the food. he said “thank you for mexico food. please make it every day, i will help.” it was very cute.

it is difficult for me to figure out what to eat with only a gas burner – no refrigerator or oven. most of the things that i eat require refrigeration, i think. i eat peanut butter and honey sandwiches sometimes. they don’t know peanut butter here other than that i make it for the bait. one day when i was making my sandwich, asha said – eww, that smells just like the bait. i said told her it basically was. so now they think i eat bait sandwiches. i got eggs one day – which i knew from costa rica that if you get them fresh, they do not need refrigeration. i learned last week, that to tell if they are still good – you shake them and if it makes a noise, it has gone bad. i am reading this great book by barbara kingsolver called animal, vegetable, miracle. i have read of all her books which i think are all fiction except for this one. it is about her and her family trying to eat only things that they can buy locally or grow themselves for one year and the challenges and rewards that presents. it is full of interesting information like how most of the vegetables that we get in the us have been bred to survive long distance travel in ice trucks, so they are left with very little taste, first from the way they are bred and then after long journey. it also speaks about how we as americans are used to having any food that we want, no matter what the season. that we don’t even really know which fruits or vegetables are in season any more. i am feeling this here. for example, as some of the things that i cook require limes – humus, salsa, juices – and they are not in season here and they are hard to find - and i find myself getting annoyed about this, but they are not in season, they do not grow year round. i might try to be more conscious of this when i get back to the states.

a hindi movie, 3 idiots, is the new craze here lately. it is about 3 guys going to college in delhi and of course has songs and dancing. we listen to the sound track, which is quite good. i have only seen a couple of scenes from it and they to be translated for me – maybe one will come out with english subtitles. for my field team, i am the expert on america (which yes, i know is kind of scary). i get asked all sorts of questions – america is famous for peanut butter and jelly sandwiches? lincoln was the first black president? what happens in the bermuda triangle? michael jackson sings pop, but dances break? - um, sure, yes…

What special?

so week 2 in the house in murnad was pretty similar to the first week. no running water, power out between 6:30pm and 9:30pm, i did get a thicker bed that was much better for my bones :) i have attached a picture of some shops in the town. this man is wearing something similar to a skirt– it is pretty much like a piece of material wrapped around and then folded (like a sarong). a lot of men in the south of india wear them. they usually have a pressed button down shirt that they tuck into it. i'm not sure of the fashion rules, but the different patterns that are mixed and matched to me is kind of reminiscent of modern british fashion.

also, here is a picture of what reminds me of a prison bathroom in the house…my roommate stayed with us for a couple of days and said she was afraid something was going to eat her in there...

i am still getting stared at a lot – especially in a small town like murnad where foreigners do not pass through. i mean full on staring though, like people will stop a foot away from me and stare at me like they are trying to figure out if i am human or not…i either ignore them or smile. most of the time, they smile back - when they don’t – it’s just awkward.

again, we did 2 sites at once and got great pictures of a civet cat at one of the sites! so far all the pictures of the animals have been from the infrared camera except for one of a rat that was from the flash camera. i think that if an animal happened by the flash camera at night, it would take a great picture, but the animal would definitely not stick around. also, the motion sensors are triggered by leaves moving in the wind, so the flash camera could just be going off all night (and it does, i have many times looked through dozens of pictures of leaves…) and an animal would not approach that area if it is continually flashing. but i will continue to use both camera types and see what we get.

there is a water shortage in murnad, so the field team goes to the river a couple of times a week to wash some clothes, wash the dishes (which i am a little skeptical of), and the guys will bathe (not the women of course). sometimes the water that we do get has a yellow tinge to it and a couple of moths floating around. supposedly if you boil water it purifies it, but what about the moths? i try to figure out what i can use the water for – tea? pasta? rice? will it be boiled long enough? will bacteria seep into the food? in this region, tea and coffee are usually made only with milk. it is ironic that after doing research all day out in the coffee farms, we come back and have instant coffee mixed with milk.
at my apartment, i have water filter, but for my drinking water while out in the field, i buy 2 liters of bottled water a day – causing a buildup of plastic bottles for which there is no recycling and most likely will be burned. at home in the states, i carry a bph free reusable water bottle – it really makes you see how privileged we are to even have such a thing as the green movement. some places in the world do not even have access to clean water and we concern ourselves with the small details. not that we shouldn’t be concerned, i fully believe that we should do everything in our power to trend lightly on this earth and to use natural products without all these added chemicals, but also you have to take a step back and realize that it is only because our basic needs are met that we have the privilege to dive into the details.


after a hard week in the field, it is nice to come back to ponnampet. the neighborhood kids are so cute. they will come out of their houses to wave and say “bye” as i pass – even from the roof tops – it is really very cute. the women ask, “had your lunch? what special?” and want to look in my shopping bags. i am also learning to understand more and more the value of running water – turning on a faucet and water pouring out. i almost completely forgot the fact that at home hot water comes out of the tap. hot water is easy, you just boil it – right now i am just happy with running water.

last saturday, it was “college day” at the college of forestry. the first and second year students performed skits, comedy, songs, mimes, and dances. it was fun. they did some traditional coorgi dances that involved drums and building human pyramids. i don’t understand kannada, so the skits and comedy were lost on me. i took a couple of videos that i wish i could attach, but they are too large. here is a picture of me with asha before the festival began – i think it might be one of the only pictures of me where i am not in my field clothes and all sweaty!

Week 1 - Field House

oh my goodness - it is so nice to be back at my apartment in ponnampet if only for 2 nights! it is so light and airy and i have a bed and running water! this past week, i was in the field from monday to saturday afternoon staying at a house that was basically 4 walls and a roof. it didn’t have running water and the electricity was pretty spotty…there was no refrigerator (i just learned that most of my field assistants actually don’t have refrigerators), we had to bring a stove with gas to cook, and no beds – so we slept on mats on the floor. if i thought that i was roughing it in my apartment here with no hot water, shower, and western toilet, i was very mistaken.

this week was a bit challenging, but good though – all in all. we did 2 sites at once which was a lot of work. we are all pretty worn out. i hope this day of physical and mental relaxation is enough to keep us going for another 2 weeks before our week off from the field which i am anxiously awaiting :)

it is not really acceptable for men and women to stay together if they are not married or family, so the house that we rented is divided into 2 by a wall down the center. i stayed with the 2 female research assistants in the women’s side and the 4 guys stayed in the other. the house was dingy and dark, with very little natural light making its way in - which made getting up at 6am in the dark with no power more difficult…especially after sleeping on the floor on a thin mat where you can feel your bones on the ground.

the other women got up before me around 5:30am. one of them went to the temple in the mornings and got milk, then made coffee for the team. they told me that you can boil the bagged milk twice without refrigeration and it is still good. we left the house at 7am, dropped one team off at the first site which was about 30 minutes from the house and the rest of us continued on to the next site which was about 30 minutes from the first site. the coffee is flowering in this region as well and the farmer was weary of people walking through the farm because if the trees are not pollinated, then coffee berries will not grow next season. so we could not drive the jeep all the way down to the first site and had to take turns being driven by motorcycle or walking 3 km. the walk is pretty, but it is an exhausting way to start out a full day of field work.

after both teams got back from the day of field work around 5:30pm, my female assistants swept and cleaned up the house. we had to fill up the water barrel so that everyone would have water to go to the bathroom (no flush on the toilets) and bathe. not having running water is really tough, plus it is summer here now and therefore some places have a shortage of water, so you have to be careful how you use it. i found washing dishes to be a challenge as well – i could get my dishes clean with the amount of water that i had, but was then left with soapy hands and no water…it is interesting to experience living like some of the people that i worked with for engineers without borders in el salvador – and i didn’t even have to walk to a well to get water, there was a tap right behind the house.

water is quite heavy and you see all these little kids filling up their water buckets and putting it on their shoulder or head. i honestly don’t know how they do it. when we went to the river to wash the traps yesterday, there were people washing clothes and filling up their buckets of water for drinking. i hope they have a filter or boil it at least. here is a picture of a little girl who was about 7 years old washing clothes on a rock with her mother.

in the evenings, i tried to do work and enter in some of the piles of data that i am collecting, but by then it was dark and the power was out again and it is not easy to enter in data by candle light. i cooked some pasta and sauce one night and shared what i had with the group. they generally don’t eat much pasta here and everyone wanted to know how it was cooked. the 2 women prepared dinner for everyone else every night except one when the guys went out to eat and drink in town (the 2 women have never drank alcohol). dinners consisted of rice and some kind of curry with chilies– they always put out curd for me to cut the spiciness when i ate with them. they also made ragi balls (i don’t know how to spell it) which is something from the bangalore region. it is made from a ground grain powder and boiled. it has the consistency of dough and you are supposed to pinch off little bits, rub it around in the curry, and then swallow it whole – like a tablet, they tell me. i can’t do it. it gets stuck in my throat. “it’s good for health”- they say. the amount of white rice that they eat is astounding. when we go out to eat for lunch, i get a half order which is about 2 cups of rice (i'm still trying to figure out how to eat rice with my hands without getting it everywhere). i just can’t eat that much rice in one sitting – my stomach is more adjusted to pasta and breads, i guess.

we didn’t catch many animals this week - 2 at one site and 3 at the other – and these were both native trees and coffee. i did get a picture of a civet cat though from the infrared camera trap and another small animal (not sure what it is yet) from the flash camera trap. so that’s pretty exciting but i don't know what's going on with the low trap rats. sanjay (the mammal expert) said he got really low numbers for coffee farms which makes me feel better, i guess.

well, i’m going to do some data entry, get the equipment ready for round 2 in murnad, and try to do some yoga and watch a movie later – oh and of course make 3 kgs of peanut butter…i have toyed with the idea of dropping this whole phd stuff and opening a homemade peanut butter shop…we’ll see how it all pans out :)