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 :)