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.