Sunday, July 9

Yesterday we spent the day at our field site, the Arab ruins and the forest around them. We met our monkey study subjects .... 10 adult female monkeys. We identify them by their tails and nipples. It took a while, but by the end of the day most of us had the hang of recognizing Nora and Nyuma (bent tail, right nipple longer than the left), and all the rest. I ran through a wasp's nest and got a little stung, but nothing terrible. The food back at our field station have been really great!

Today was our first day in the field. Our mission, identify a female monkey and record her behavior every minute as long as you can. Our monkey, Nyuma was very cooperative at first, munching on leaves and fruits, grooming a friend. Then she took off through the forest. We followed heartily, my partner and I - through a nest of army ants. But we stuck with her even as we jumped around pulling ants from our pants. We followe her through the forest right back to the wasp's nest I hit yesterday. My partner got 3 wasp stings! This gave us justification for a break and some lovely mango juice.

On returning to the forest, our guide found us a much more sedate monkey who mostly sat and munched on berries from the forest floor.

Our afternoon was more satisfying - we followed one monkey until she got into the trees too far away - the next one we found is name "Angle" for the angle of her tail. We saw her get agitated, and then saw her join a big monkey fight with a nearby troupe! Our Angle was bold and did a lot of chirping, chasing and running after the other troupe. There was a lot of yelling and screaming - by the monkeys as well as our group cheering them on. In the end, our group won - probably because of their fine cheering squad!

The guides are two young women who are really great fun and very helpful. They're both grad students and have been great in teaching us and being there to help with stings and other bumps!