I've been at Semliki for nearly a week. It's fantastic. The camp is on the border of the wooded grassland (basically a savannah) and the riverine forest where the chimps spend most of their time. The chimps follow the food and at the moment there are these orange sized juicy fruits in the forest called Saba florida that the chimps are eating. They look kind of like giant passion fruit and dont taste too bad.
The forest itself is great, you learn just how many shades of green there really are. Before I enter the forest I douse myself in a protective coat of DEET to repel bugs but as Im the only person here who does this I think its just paranoia. The biting bugs arent too bad. Tsetse fly follow you around sometimes but Ive yet to be bitten by one. However, on my first day in the forest I did manage the smart move of standing in the path of a safari ant hunting party. I was pulling them off for about 5 minutes whenever I felt a pair of mandibles snap shut somewhere on my legs. There are a lot of incredible insects, and birds, they are all reminiscent of species back at home except twice the size and with intensely bright colours. For example the sparrows have turquise chests and red spots by their eyes.
Although the chimps are often hard to find, Ive seen them quite a few times already. The rangers track them by looking for foot and knuckle prints on the ground and listening for chimp movements and calls in the trees. The most common call is the pant-hoot, often given when a chimp moves to a food and nearly always when chimps meet each other. The pant-hoots start quietly and get gradually louder, with the hoots being connected by audable inhilations of breath. After spending hours wandering around getting demoralised from failing to see any chimps its exciting to suddenly hear them calling, often very nearby. The chimps have been getting more used to being followed by people over the last few months. So now we can often get quite close, only metres away when they are in the safety of the trees. I thought I'd identified a new female, with siamese features, only to discover when I got back to camp that people already knew her, but Im still hopefull.
At the campsite we are laying gravel paths to stop the rainy season weather that now approaches from turning the place into a mudbath. A common house gecko has started coming to my tent at night to hang out on the wall and eat the bugs that always fly in. I've named him Mr Tokyo and expect to be devestated when he doesnt appear one evening, eaten by some larger animal. Speaking of which there is supposed to be a leopard that sleeps under the tent platforms in the rainy season. Hopefully I'll get to see it.
I should be back on the internet in 2 weeks to do another update. By then I hope to have made progress on two main projects, getting decent photos of the chimps for an ID booklet and collecting some chimp dung from identified individuals in testubes for DNA analysis later so that we can figure out who is related to who and construct a family tree.
Hope everyone is well!
Cagan
Wednesday, 29 July 2009
Tuesday, 21 July 2009
Busy Schedule
Tomorrow I'm catching a bus to Fort Portal, the gateway town in Western Uganda that leads to Semliki and many other chimpanzee field sites. To get to Fort Portal with time to get a taxi to the field site I should leave Kampala by around 11:30am at the latest. In the four hours between waking and getting on the bus I'll be playing a sort of 'treasure hunt' in Kampala in order to have everything sorted before I leave.
First on the list is getting to the UWA (Ugandan Wildlife Authority) in order to pay for a permit so that I can be a legitimate volunteer for two months.
Second is picking up some zip-lock bags from a super-market. I won't go into too much detail as to what these are for, just think chimp droppings, and analysis.
Third is packing up my room, i've managed to spread things out of my carefully packed ( obviously not by me) bag in what looks like a controlled explosion. It'll all have to implode back to how it was, with the addition of more supplies, through some kind of magic.
Ok, the tasks seem more manageable and less long now I've listed them. Not quite the labours of Hercules. The key factor will be what time I wake up. My achilles heel. Fortunately, the breakfasts here are amazing and start at 6:00am (not that I'll be up then). You get an entire pot of fresh Ugandan Coffee, it tastes exactly the same as the stuff you get in sainsbury's, but you get to feel smugger drinking it here.
Excitement about reaching the field site is increasing. Two days ago some of the chimps 'nested', meaning they built nests in the trees to sleep in by folding branches, a kind of functional tree origami, only 200 metres from camp. The number of hours it's possible to stay with the chimps during the day is also increasing, so soon it may be possible to do 'nest to nest' follows. That's the holy grail of chimp habituation (getting chimps comfortable with being watched by nerds like me), it's when you can follow the chimps from the moment they wake up in the morning until when they settle down at night. I can't wait to see some chimps in the wild, I'm expecting and hoping to be filled with a sense of awe that will justify my questionable decision to leave friends and family for 2 months in order to hang out with animals that will find my company an inconvenience at best. A sentiment perhaps shared by many who know me.
If I get lucky and manage to identify any new chimps (unlikely considering my inexperience and limited time here) it's possible I might get to name them. No doubt Steve would call this a blatant but subversive act of neo-colonial domination of the developing world and/or nature. He's probably right. I think Foucault has something interesting to say on the subject. Regardless, if anyone has any good ideas of chimp names I'd be happy to hear them and humour you with the idea I might actually use the name should I get lucky.
once again: text me on 25607826557900 or 2560784047060 (i have a spare phone now should one not like working in the field. Paranoid or prepared? It's a fine line. I'll be checking both intermittently.)
Cagan
First on the list is getting to the UWA (Ugandan Wildlife Authority) in order to pay for a permit so that I can be a legitimate volunteer for two months.
Second is picking up some zip-lock bags from a super-market. I won't go into too much detail as to what these are for, just think chimp droppings, and analysis.
Third is packing up my room, i've managed to spread things out of my carefully packed ( obviously not by me) bag in what looks like a controlled explosion. It'll all have to implode back to how it was, with the addition of more supplies, through some kind of magic.
Ok, the tasks seem more manageable and less long now I've listed them. Not quite the labours of Hercules. The key factor will be what time I wake up. My achilles heel. Fortunately, the breakfasts here are amazing and start at 6:00am (not that I'll be up then). You get an entire pot of fresh Ugandan Coffee, it tastes exactly the same as the stuff you get in sainsbury's, but you get to feel smugger drinking it here.
Excitement about reaching the field site is increasing. Two days ago some of the chimps 'nested', meaning they built nests in the trees to sleep in by folding branches, a kind of functional tree origami, only 200 metres from camp. The number of hours it's possible to stay with the chimps during the day is also increasing, so soon it may be possible to do 'nest to nest' follows. That's the holy grail of chimp habituation (getting chimps comfortable with being watched by nerds like me), it's when you can follow the chimps from the moment they wake up in the morning until when they settle down at night. I can't wait to see some chimps in the wild, I'm expecting and hoping to be filled with a sense of awe that will justify my questionable decision to leave friends and family for 2 months in order to hang out with animals that will find my company an inconvenience at best. A sentiment perhaps shared by many who know me.
If I get lucky and manage to identify any new chimps (unlikely considering my inexperience and limited time here) it's possible I might get to name them. No doubt Steve would call this a blatant but subversive act of neo-colonial domination of the developing world and/or nature. He's probably right. I think Foucault has something interesting to say on the subject. Regardless, if anyone has any good ideas of chimp names I'd be happy to hear them and humour you with the idea I might actually use the name should I get lucky.
once again: text me on 25607826557900 or 2560784047060 (i have a spare phone now should one not like working in the field. Paranoid or prepared? It's a fine line. I'll be checking both intermittently.)
Cagan
Monday, 20 July 2009
Arrival
I've made it into Kampala. The Entebbe airport where we fly in right by Lake Victoria, so the view was pretty spectacular for landing. The old Ugandan airport, the site of the hijacking of Air France flight 139 in 1976, is right next to the current one. Now it seems to be used by the UN, the place is full of UN tents, planes and jeeps.
I'll only be in Kampala for one more day, so won't have time to get to know the place very well. It's not as hectic as Nairobi nor as hilly as Rwanda. A completely useless and subjective description but there you go. Looking out my window I'd make the observation that at night Kampala looks just like any other capital city, full of white and yellow lights in all directions. During the day, when you can see occasional large empty patches of land, usually covered in red dust, and large caribou storks flying from tree to tree, it's clearly that it's an African city.
Tomorrow I'll be meeting Kevin, the man who runs the site I'll be working at in Semliki. I'll also be visiting the Ugandan Wildlife Authorities to pay a 'nominal' fee to be allowed to work in a national park area. The fact that the fee is variable depending on the mood of the officer that day and the charm skills of the applicant, combined with my track record or reverse bartering, a unique skill in which I end up paying more for an item than is even asked, things don't bode well. Hopefully it'll be around $25. I'll let you know how that goes.
I'm looking forward to getting to the site and getting to know everyone there. I'll soon find out how I deal with living in the field. The apparent 5:30 am wake-up, as my flat-mates will know, is not my idea of a good morning. On the bright side, I can lie in on Sundays. Switched on traveller that I am I bought some 'cutting-edge' clothing for trekking in the savanna. 2 of them are blue. I have just learned that the 1-inch biting tsetse fly is attracted to blue as it mistakes it for shade, which apparently is tinted-blue due to dispersed UV rays. Watch this space, I may include a tsetse fly bite counter in future blog posts.
Ok, that's probably enough innane thoughts for now. I find it impossible to write a 'blog' without feeling even more pretentious than usual. I won't have much internet contact from wednesday, as I'll be in camp. I should get to use the internet in the local town, Fort Portal every fortnight or so. I'll have a phone, so can have text communication if anyone wants to contact me. I'm sure I'll appreciate any messages. Hope everyone is well and enjoying their summers!
Cagan
I'll only be in Kampala for one more day, so won't have time to get to know the place very well. It's not as hectic as Nairobi nor as hilly as Rwanda. A completely useless and subjective description but there you go. Looking out my window I'd make the observation that at night Kampala looks just like any other capital city, full of white and yellow lights in all directions. During the day, when you can see occasional large empty patches of land, usually covered in red dust, and large caribou storks flying from tree to tree, it's clearly that it's an African city.
Tomorrow I'll be meeting Kevin, the man who runs the site I'll be working at in Semliki. I'll also be visiting the Ugandan Wildlife Authorities to pay a 'nominal' fee to be allowed to work in a national park area. The fact that the fee is variable depending on the mood of the officer that day and the charm skills of the applicant, combined with my track record or reverse bartering, a unique skill in which I end up paying more for an item than is even asked, things don't bode well. Hopefully it'll be around $25. I'll let you know how that goes.
I'm looking forward to getting to the site and getting to know everyone there. I'll soon find out how I deal with living in the field. The apparent 5:30 am wake-up, as my flat-mates will know, is not my idea of a good morning. On the bright side, I can lie in on Sundays. Switched on traveller that I am I bought some 'cutting-edge' clothing for trekking in the savanna. 2 of them are blue. I have just learned that the 1-inch biting tsetse fly is attracted to blue as it mistakes it for shade, which apparently is tinted-blue due to dispersed UV rays. Watch this space, I may include a tsetse fly bite counter in future blog posts.
Ok, that's probably enough innane thoughts for now. I find it impossible to write a 'blog' without feeling even more pretentious than usual. I won't have much internet contact from wednesday, as I'll be in camp. I should get to use the internet in the local town, Fort Portal every fortnight or so. I'll have a phone, so can have text communication if anyone wants to contact me. I'm sure I'll appreciate any messages. Hope everyone is well and enjoying their summers!
Cagan
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