Video Slideshow of Cayo

The music is a bit silly for the topic, but it has sentimental value. I heard it in a shop in Old San Juan and bought the CD. It is an early track by Mongo Santamaria called "Afro Blue," which was a precursor to his famous song, "Watermelon Man."

If you can't see this video here for some reason or if the quality is a bit low, you can watch it on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68K8_aKfzrg.

I will try to post an album on Flickr at some point, too. I will post all my good photos of people in there as well.

Much love!

B

Abandoned....

Hello my dear friends and followers:

I am so sorry for abandoning you all at the end of the summer. I have no real excuse except to say that weekend action picked up speed, work action reduced speed, and my end date rushed up upon me much faster than I could've anticipated.

Nevertheless, I do believe that I should actually conclude this blog, and my goal is to do that by responding to any questions still lingering and by sharing my collection of final photos from Cayo with you.

I will do this in two posts. My hope is that after I post this note and my photos, you will all send in your last questions, and I will do one last post before calling this blog "finito."

So: please send me all of your requests and questions so that I may answer them before I start my new blog project. (Duh duh duh-daaaa!)

Also - I know there are some of you out there, who read this, who have kept quiet all this time - the ghost readers, I suppose. I would love it, if some of you made yourselves known.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy the last batch of photos, and in the next post: your final questions, my final notes, and exciting news from Monkey Island! (I'm not kidding.)

Much love,

B

Escape to Old San Juan

Hola!

Once again, I have to apologize for being MIA all the time. I have been having exciting weekends and tedious weeks, and I suppose that the tedium has made me lax about communicating the exciting bits. Nevertheless, I do have some fun stuff to discuss!

Last weekend Julie and Bert, the couple from Montreal, invited me to join their little trip to Old San Juan. It was a very welcome excursion, since Punta is seriously stifling after a while, and after that little taste of home a few weeks ago, I have been craving escapes more and more frequently. There is something about doing the same thing over and over again that bores into your pleasure centers and forces you to covet the freedom of anyone with a car and, thus, the ability to do something out of the ordinary. It is a common psychological affliction here with alarming symptoms, such as frothing at the mouth at the mention of a vehicle and obsessing about going to the supermarket in the next town over. 

Anyway, we headed out early in the morning with Monika and James C. and arrived in the heart of the city by mid-morning. We parked and walked up to a fountain-centered square called La Plaza de Colón (Map of OSJ for reference), where we sat down at a small cafe with white marble floors and an exposed, wood-beam ceiling (and A/C!) and enjoyed some caffeine with frothed milk. It was very European in atmosphere, actually, quite posh. Then we split up, Julie and Bert for a walk down the oceanfront avenue, Paseo de La Princesa, and Monika and I for a little shopping.

The first few shops we saw were unique - an interesting secondhand shop called Bazaar, alive with color and lacking in taste, a local goods shop called Eklektika filled to the brim with knicknacks and tropical hammocks, a clothing warehouse owned by an Indian man, run by a Puerto Rican couple, selling imported Egyptian belly dance costumes and playing Turkish music. After the first few, though, the shops all began to blend together. More keychains and coconut bras, a different color sarong that says "Puerto Rico!" on it, yet another set of shell necklaces. After an hour, the finds were few and far between, so Monika and I split up to finish exploring. I was a little disillusioned. It had all looked to be so unique!

On my own, I explored a few local artists' galleries, wandered into a number of beautiful and historically interesting parks, and meandered down untold back alleys. (Parque de las Palomas was the best find. It is so named for the hundreds of pigeons who call it home and who are hand fed by tourists daily. It is a fun little place, hidden, flower filled, and overlooking the entire San Juan harbor.)  Once away from the usual touristy hullabaloo, Old San Juan became startlingly beautiful and quaint once more. 

And why should it not be? Old San Juan, if you have never been there, is a colorful and architecturally fascinating place. It is essentially a walled city, built within the confines of a fort, which was highly coveted as a strategic entry point to the Caribbean during the 1600-1800s.

 The city walls are well preserved, and you can walk along the outside walls all the way to the harbor entrance, reading placards about the history of the city and ending up at the old fortress (now a museum). In the afternoon, I did just this. I strolled along the waterside, enjoyed a strawberry-lime shaved ice (with the help of an English speaking good samaritan), and counted the stranded kites in the brush on the cliff above me (45+) and the stray cats in the bushes beside me. (There were stray cats everywhere, well fed and clean, but zero stray dogs. Smart city, knows how to cut down on pest control costs...) 

Inside the city walls, I quite surprisingly found myself obsessing over the buildings' wrought iron balconies, doors, and windows, the mosaic tiled stairs, and the lovely old street lamps. I'm usually not terribly interested in the inanimate, but these houses gave the cobblestone streets and greenery its character. I felt often as if I were in period costume, about to go buy lace for a bonnet. I don't know, I'm sure I am overstating this, but my mind wanders to things of this nature when I am left alone for prolonged periods of time. So, with no companions for the afternoon, I packed my camera chock full of vista shots and photos of colorful, climbing back alleys, flowery, sunlit terraces, and miles and miles of fortress wall. 

When I finally met up with Julie, Bert, and Monika once more, we headed to the fort museum to look around, then took a stroll back into the heart of Old San Juan to find a spot for some drinks and appetizers (Shrimp Cocktail with Avocado Salad and Frozen Mango Juice with rum), and then quietly made our way back to the Plaza de Colón for dinner at the Café Berlin (Coconut-Tomato Tofu with Breadfruit Mash and a Piña Colada). Deliciosa! Definitely one of the best meals I've had since being here. Then we walked along the ocean and watched an elderly band perform salsa by the waterfront for a crowd of all ages, which was happily accompanying them with a congo line and limbo game. 

Great day. :)

Anyway, since that weekend, work has been going well. We had a stormy week last week and were unable to go out on Tuesday and unable to work most of Monday. This week has started out much calmer, though. On the other hand, people have begun to leave. Today was Julie's last day on the island, and tomorrow she, Bert, and Tara all ship out for good. In honor of this, Bert and Julie cooked a feast for everyone last night at the Yale house (beef, stuffed chicken, orzo, stewed carrots, deliciousness all around).  I stuffed myself and spent the rest of the evening in the hammock, watching people dance to 80's pop music and play with Kelly's adopted street kitten. It was a great way to say farewell, very appetizing and relaxing. Jeez, can you believe that the next batch of people to leave will include me?! Yipes!

Ok, I have written for too long. I must go grab my laundry now and get back to work. 

Much love!

Becca

“Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana” - Groucho Marx

Hola all!

So before I digress into the minutiae of my everyday life here, I would like to tell you all about a wonderful moment I had today. As we were cruising back across the ocean to the mainland this afternoon, William, the captain, slowed down the boat to a stop and pointed at something off the port side of the boat. About 10 feet away from us, cruising slowly just under the surface of the waves, I glimpsed a giant yellowy green shell. That’s right, folks, a sea turtle! Everyone excitedly peered overboard at the gentle giant and craned their necks for a better look, but soon after we stopped, the turtle dove down and vanished beneath the choppy waves.  I realize this doesn’t sound hugely exciting, but it really is. Sea turtles are endangered, and their habitats and breeding grounds are being degraded at an alarming rate. I, therefore, consider it an immense privilege to have seen one in its natural habitat and healthy. Ah, it’s the little things.

Anyway, life here has been nothing more or less than ordinary, but I find that I have been doing more with “ordinary” than usual. What does this mean? Well, I guess I just find that now people have begun leaving and setting departure dates and now I realize I will only be here for a few more weeks, I have been trying to accomplish things on my mental list of “experiences to have while in Punta.”

So far this has only manifested itself in small ways. For example, two days ago, Monica came by my flat and asked me to walk to La Fav with her. Unlike past trips, however, this time we stopped at the street fruit vendors, which I have been wanting to do since I got here. (Lack of Spanish was my obstacle in the past…) And it was well worth it. Monica bought a fruit I’d never seen before called quenapa. (Click link for picture.) Quenapa look at first glance like little leathery green bouncy balls and are sold still attached to the branch in bunches in little paper bags.

When Monica handed one to me, I had no idea what to do with it. I quite nearly just popped the whole thing in my mouth. Luckily for me, Monica showed me how to eat them by tearing a hole in the skin and popping out the peach colored fruit, which actually looks like a fluffier and gooier lychee. In actuality, it tastes nothing like a lychee. It tastes kind of like a very sour peach. You have to suck on the fruit until the juice is gone and then spit it out because the flesh is attached quite securely to a very hard, round seed. It wasn’t my favorite thing, but it was so interesting that I was delighted. Plus, a big bag of them was only $1.

We then walked down to the other fruit stand, where an old man is eternally chopping open fresh coconuts from an ice filled cooler with a machete. He is quite the expert, and for $1.25, he will chop the top off of a chilled coconut and give you a straw to drink your coco frio, and, when you finish, he will cut it all the way open and carve out the fruit for you. I’m not a fan of coconut as a general rule, but this was delicious, and the coconut milk was ridiculously refreshing. So Monica and I stood on the side of the road with the machete man, by the fruit stand with the thatched palm roof and the assortment of plantains, mangoes, and watermelon, and shared a coconut. I have never felt more Caribbean than in that moment.

Since I’ve been back, work has been pretty fine. No horrible monkey encounters. No new vendettas. I am now down to two conditions, and although they are the two most painful ones to conduct, the end is in sight. I say they are painful because they involve ropes, which are short enough for the monkey to steal without my being able to yank them away. This leads to wild goose (read: monkey) chases into the woods and a very unhappy experimenter (read: moi). Nevertheless, I was able to get some of the photos I’ve been trying to get for you guys. I hope you enjoy them. J

(Above) A pair in consort. The male will sit with, groom, and mate with the female throughout her period of estrus.

(Above) One of the ugliest monkeys on the island, Katie and Brian and I dubbed her Skeletor. She is just so fat and noseless. It's great! 

(Below) The foot of good 'ol X58, Mr. 9-toes. He can use some of the toes on the foot and walks a little funny but is not significantly impaired by it. In fact, he is pretty mid-to-high ranking in his group, F, which is one the largest on the island. There is another picture of him above with his face to the the cage, hoping for a piece of apple. 

OK, I will write more tomorrow. I got some photos of 51A, who is the Alpha male of group V, and an interesting Alpha at that.  I want to use it to explain a little more about the nature of dominance, female coalitions, and alpha-beta male relations in Rhesus macaques. (In anecdotes, of course, to prevent this from becoming too dry.) Hint: it’s not all about being tough.

Hope all is well back stateside!

Much love,

B

Actual Post Tomorrow....

.....featuring: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mamoncillo

Think sour lychees and coco frio.... delicious.

Much love, 

B

I'm Baaaaaaaack!

Hola all!

I have returned from vacation and am back to work. Sort of... I got one day of work in before the weekend vibe set in, and my ability to work went out the window. I finished another condition on Friday, though, so I didn't feel terribly guilty. Only 3 conditions left to finish and then I am (theoretically) finito with this particular experiment! It should only take next week to finish it off, if all goes well (which Murphy's Law says it won't, but still). Encouraging, no?

Anyway, point is I have gotta back into the swing of Punta life. Sadly, my first night back (Wednesday) was Cora's final evening here, so we went to La Nueva Casa del Mofongo down the street and chowed down on pina coladas and pepper pollo (chicken) in her honor. Lucky for her, she is returning to Ohio for a few weeks before heading to Paris for a few weeks of backpacking with friends. I am seriously jealous, and I miss all my Yale girls insanely much. (Adrienne and Amy have left, too.) 

Friday night Alex and new James (yes, we have another new James, a new member of the Yale crew) convinced me to join them for seafood at Daniel's Seafood. It was delicious, but I managed to make a fool of myself by burning my mouth on a coconut shrimp. It just looked so delicious and crispy and shrimpy and mmmmmmmmmmmm...... I lost all self-control and chomped down, which ended with me, a giggling, whimpering mess, as I tried to quell the burning sensation on the roof of my mouth without spewing shrimp pieces everywhere. Elegance incarnate, I am not.

My routine has changed somewhat since my return actually. I have begun GRE prep, so now all my free time is consumed with analogies, vocab exercises, and exponents. I hate this stuff, but I find that conditions down here are pretty much ideal for studying - living alone, no television, no Internet, very few people around, oppressive heat that makes you want to stay by the fan and sit around, etc. I have already made it through a diagnostic test, a few chapters of math review, 18 units of vocabulary review, and have made 100+ flashcards. Huzzah! What this means for all of you? Be prepared for future posts to contain words, such as contumacious, bedizen, and prevaricate, even when other words would do. 

Luckily for me, last night Monica interrupted my fourth hour of straight studying with an offer to join her for a drink at the bar next door. This later morphed into a group drink with at least 8 people, and then a group three drinks, and then an offer of pina coladas and chips at Doreen's house. By the end of the evening, everyone was enjoying rum and cokes  in Doreen's back yard, while playing charades and learning the long-lost art of MASH (graciously taught by yours truly). In fact, by the end of the evening, I had determined that Monica will marry Johnny Depp and live in New Delhi with a pet macaw, 2 kids, and a job as a street sweeper. Meanwhile, Doreen will marry Edward Norton, and Ryan, the new undergrad research assistant to Donna (one of the researchers on the Max Planck team), will end up living in Seattle with Kate Moss and a pet hamster after honeymooning in Oslo. 

Anyway, back to work on the island tomorrow. When I went out on Friday, I had no trouble from 75T, so I'm hoping our vendetta is at an end. Fingers crossed.  And, I just was given two fresh mangoes to cut up, so I'm going to go. YUM!  

I will write again soon. 

Much love!

Becca

ATTACK!

*I apologize for the lack of photos in this post, but I will have plenty in the next one.*

I have neglected you all most atrociously, and for this I sincerely apologize. In my defense, however, it has been quite the week both on Cayo and in the world.

Let’s start with the world.  A few words:

Rest in peace, Michael Jackson (*A HEEEE HOOO* (crotch grab)) and Farrah Fawcett.

Good luck and peace, Iran.

And most of all: have you learned nothing from history and Eliot Spitzer, Gov. Sanford?!

OK, now that is out of the way, on to news of Cayo. Of most interest to most people here is the addition of another male researcher to the Punta ranks. This is a big deal. Before Alex turned up, there were exactly two men down here, who spoke English and were involved in research: James and James. (Yes, you read that right. The only two men among a colony of 15+ female researchers are both named James.) So, the addition of new blood and, more importantly, male blood caused quite a stir among the community.  What does he look like? Have you met him? What lab is he with? What is he doing down here? Where is he living?

Well, actually, Alex is living next door. Literally, next door. His flat and mine even connect with a door inside our apartments, which is unconvincingly boarded up for privacy. (I have told him that we should create a knocking code à la Becky and Sarah Crewe’s system in The Little Princess.) Luckily, he seems to be a pretty chill guy. We bonded over Nacho and our common space. He is a rising senior at Dartmouth, a Neuroscience major, and is observing agonistic interactions among the females of groups KK and HH. (I will explain the group system a little later in this post). With his data and that of the other student researchers working for Platt this summer, the CPRC should be able to create a pretty comprehensive map of the female hierarchies on the island. Interesting stuff.  Anyway, the real gist of this passage should be that Alex is cool and that his arrival caused quite the stir. And let it be noted that women do, indeed, flutter, twitter, and preen. Enough said.

On a more personal note, this week was both amazing and terrifying at the same time.  I shall begin with the good and end with the terrifying and more exciting.

I began the week frustrated by the amount of work still looming ahead of me and the prospect of ending the summer with prolonged, hectic, stressed days of aborted trials and scant successes. By mid-week, however, I was pleased to discover that I was starting to recognize monkeys without needing to see their tattoos first and seemed to be getting into a good kind of rhythm. In addition, after sorting through some of my data, I realized that I was only a few days of work away from completing another 4 of the 10 conditions that I need to run this summer. I calculated exactly how many trials I still needed of each nearly complete condition and set out, content to work toward a concrete goal.

A wrench was thrown in my perfect plan, however. I am currently the object of a monkey vendetta. I have no idea what I did to deserve this hatred, but it is there, raw and spontaneous. Here are the facts.

On Tuesday, June 23^rd, 2009 at approximately 12:39PM, I approached a monkey near the upper corral on Big Cay. The monkey was sitting quietly and was mostly alone. I set up my camera about 20 ft. away as per usual and turned it on, then moved into position about 10 ft. from said monkey and ran my experiment (presented buckets, presented food, etc.). The monkey sat quietly for the entire presentation, and when I stepped back to allow the monkey to choose his reward, he approached briskly and took his apple slice. I removed the other option, placed it back in my fanny pack (yes, I know), and returned to my camera to turn it off. I then slowly walked back towards the monkey to ID him. I recorded his ear notches and began to move to a more opportune position to view his leg tattoo. (On males, the chests are so hairy that the leg tattoo is the only visible tattoo.)  The monkey was not terribly cooperative and kept getting up and walking a few steps, sitting down with his legs knock-kneed, etc. I, being the good little scientist I am, followed parallel to him, about 7 ft away, and patiently waited for his tattoo to reveal itself.

Suddenly and with absolutely no warning,  the monkey took one monstrous bound and a giant leap toward me, latching himself onto my arm and pant-hooting in mid-air. I, being the good little human I am, reacted with a pretty terrific flight response, if I do say so myself, and while the monkey was in mid-air, began to move backwards. This means that when the monkey attached himself to my arm, I already had the momentum going to fling him off me.

I ran a good ways away, ditching my equipment, and surveyed the damage. No broken skin. All limbs in tact. Eyes, ears, other vital bits. Check. Terrific. Wait, not terrific. A monkey just tried to eat me. I call out to Alison, who is on the other side of the top of Big Cay, to come help me ID this monkey. Now I need his ID doubly much. We piece together a 5 from the tattoo, but that’s about it. End scene.

Flash forward to Wednesday, I am thoroughly rattled by my event, but I have had monkeys jump on me before. It is a part of the package deal you accept, when you decide to walk around with a fanny pack full of apples all day. I begin to run trials around the lower corral on Big Cay. Giselle, one of the census takers is nearby with a research assistant. I approach a monkey sitting quietly. I run my trial. Trial goes smoothly. I try to ID the monkey. Monkey begins to walk away as I try to get his ID. I follow along behind, as usual. Suddenly, monkey turns and charges at me full speed. I dash out of the way. He stops. I call to Giselle. Monkey charges again, and I run full speed behind a tree. Giselle runs over and run to stand with her. She is shocked. I tell her about the incident the day before. She tells me his ID. He is 75T. Aha, I have a name for my attacker. A member of group HH, she tells me to try to avoid him. She will report him to the colony manager, and he will be dealt with. It is like the monkey mafia. I collect my things and swiftly exit stage left.

Avoiding group HH is far easier said than done. The monkeys migrate in 6 groups. They are, in order of highest to lowest ranking: F, R, HH & KK (equal), V, and S. F is the largest group; V, the smallest. Each group has an alpha male and an alpha female, favorite eating spots, and special resting areas. The hierarchies are pretty solid, too, so the movement of groups on the island is mostly predictable, since the large groups’ migrations determine the other groups’ locations at any given time.

The problem is that while avoiding a low ranking or high ranking group is relatively simple, avoiding a middle ranking group is way more complicated. HH spreads out tremendously, when not being pushed into the West Woods and can split up into little factions all over the bottom half of Big Cay. HH will also often share space with KK, so it is difficult to recognize when you have entered HH territory, since many of the monkeys will be KK monkeys.  Furthermore, each group has more than 50 monkeys or so in it. I mean, there are 900+ monkeys on the island, so each group is quite large. It is tough stuff to know the groups by heart unless you stay with one focal group day in and day out, which I most certainly do not do. Instead, I have to trek from group to group to get as many varied subjects as possible. I couldn’t learn everyone even if I tried.  As a result, the best I can do is attempt to find one or two monkeys that regularly associate with 75T and use them as markers. Then again, 75T is a pretty average looking male monkey, so even if I learn his markings cold, I might still run him in a study. After all, he tends to sit still for them. He just goes after my vitals soon afterward.

There was another similar chase incident on Friday, and after being chased into the lunch cage, I grabbed one of the large boatmen, Felix, to walk with me to retrieve my equipment in the middle of the lower corral area. I felt, in the moment, that pretending to be in a consort pair with him (i.e. walking with a very large man) might deter any further attacks. I thought this was quite the brilliant bit of thinking on my part. Felix just thought it was funny that I needed him to go with me, and by 12PM all the boatmen knew of my damsel in distress moment and were giving me hell. But, whatever, I’d rather be teased than on a course of $400+ anti-virals and suffering a bite wound to the arm.

Anyway, on an up note, I reached my goal and finished my conditions for the week. Huzzah! Also, 75T has been reported to the staff and colony manager, who will most likely remove him from the island during the next trapping season.

I will put up another post tomorrow. I have more to tell, but this post is getting way too long.  Also, interlude next week, since I will be returning to the States for 4^th of July to visit meine Familie. 

Go dance to Thriller.

Much love,

B