Orientations and Introductions

Hola all!

I have officially begun my adventures, so in order to acquaint you with everything here, this post will be pretty lengthy and at times laundry-list-esque.

I arrived yesterday in San Jaun, PR with Katie and Brian, the other researchers from our lab at Harvard. Brian is a post-doc and was the person I worked for in the lab this past semester in class. He was doing research on third-party punishment. Katie is a Ph. D student, and I believe her research is mainly on risk aversion stuff, while she is down here. When I first met her in the lab, she was doing research about fairness in children. I think she is continuing that, when she returns to Cambridge around the 12^th of June.

We took a cab from the airport to Punta Santiago, which is the little town on the mainland across from Cayo Santiago (Monkey Island). The town is about 10 minutes outside of Humacao, which is a larger city/town and serves as our main landmark when speaking with taxi drivers. When we arrived, we were taken to the CPRC (Caribbean Primate Research Center) Office to get the keys to our little flat as well as to arrange our orientation meetings the next day.  The office is in a little orange stucco building at the end of a main strip of road called the Calle Marina. 

We were introduced to a few of the CPRC staff and then headed over to the local seafood restaurant, but after some discussion figured out where we were going and that the faucet in the bathroom was broken and would be fixed the next day. Luckily, the sink in the kitchen was fine, so no biggie.

Our flat is pretty cozy. It is basically a big square green box. From the front porch area, you can see the beach and Cayo, but the house is not on the beach. It lies behind a few fenced in lots of overgrown grass. It isn’t on the main road, Calle Marina, either. Instead, it lies in the back of a big concrete lot behind another identical green flat, which is propped up on one-story high stilts.  The apt had furniture already, beds, pillows, etc. We had to get a bin filled with pots and pans from storage, and we also had to pick up food, towels, and so forth from Walmart today.  All in all, the place is pretty cozy, despite the lack of air conditioning. We have found that leaving the windows open, the fans on, and allowing the breeze from the sea and the post-rain air to come inside helps tremendously. Still, we were wise not to bring down any quilts or comforters. The sheets on the bed right now are quite enough.

There are stray cats and dogs (as well as pet chickens and roosters) running around everywhere. In fact, there is a little young cat that looks just like Bingley, but has no tail! It looks as if it lost it somehow… L All of them are very skinny and bedraggled looking. Small, too. (I'm sure there is a Darwinian explanation for this somewhere...) The dogs are generally friendly and try to approach you for food or attention. Sadly, we have been told that any of the dogs or cats around will return again and again, if encouraged,which means you must either adopt them when you leave or essentially kill them. There are iguanas and geckos all over the place, who are a happier and freer presence, though, and as Mom would say, “I welcome anything that eats bugs.”

After we moved in, we walked up the street to a little bakery, which has some grocery items and, most importantly, a grill. The lady, who owns the shop, speaks some English and cooked us up some shredded chicken sandwiches. They were deeeeelicious. (I think I've found my saving grace!)  Apparently this is the little place where everybody comes post-Cayo to refuel, if they haven’t eaten lunch on the island. Good thing too. I could eat there everyday, no problem.  The trip proved to be somewhat amusing actually - Katie insisted on a trying a random drink she saw in the fridge. It was a malted beer of some sort. It tasted like runny molasses, and neither of us enjoyed it very much. Brian refused to indulge us, since he had already been through this once before with other researchers. Katie insisted on finishing it anyway. Heh. 

We then trekked down to the supermarket, which is a ways away. In order to get there you have to walk up to the main "highway" (which isn't really a highway, but sort of counts as one, I suppose). Once there, we stocked up on some food for the night and other necessities, located the ATM, etc. Unfortunately, we didn’t stock up on very much fruit, and now we have to trek back this evening, in order to prep for our experiments tomorrow. Phooey. We relaxed a bit afterwards. I was exhausted and practically keeled over on the couch and passed out, quite a feat given my inability to nap. When I finally woke up, we made some dinner (chicken and onion fajitas), watched an episode of Dexter, and watched Sky High, and then crashed for the evening.

This morning, we got up around 9AM (which will be considered sleeping in after a few days of a Cayo schedule), ate some breakfast, dressed, and headed over to the Office. We met James, who is the safety officer here and a researcher. We had to fill out a ton of waivers and submit TB tests, etc. Katie, unfortunately, tested positive for TB a while back and due to a bunch of red tape was told she needed a recent chest x-ray to prove that she is TB free before she can start work on the island. So, we planned a trip into Humacao for the afternoon, and then sat down for the “Scare the Crap Out of the Researchers” lecture about Herpes B virus. It is actually some pretty scary sh*t - 80% mortality rate, you can catch it from merely getting urine in your eye, if you don’t die, you could end up mentally impaired forever, etc. and so forth. Basically, the gist was: don’t be stupid and if something happens, deal with it ASAP, and all will be well. **Note: This sounds more perilous than it seems to truly be, since no one has ever contracted Herpes B from Cayo, so I feel like I’d have to be a real idiot to be the first. (Now that I’ve written this and published it for all the world to see, I’m certain I will have to eat these words. FML)**

Anyway, after all of this, we headed into town, courtesy of James and his vehicle, and Brian and I racked up a pretty basket full of food and supplies at Walmart, while Katie and James dealt with the x-ray stuff.  We are going to just take it easy for the rest of the day, I think, in preparation for Cayo tomorrow. We have to be at the dock to leave at 6:50 AM. Should be interesting and fun. Yipes! At least I’m not the only new face down here, though. Over the course of the past two days, I’ve already met two other girls, who are research assistants and have never been here. One named Allison and another named Sasha, a recent grad of St. John’s College and Philosophy major. There are also a bunch of older researchers around for the whole summer, and the group from Yale is turning up tomorrow, or so I was told.

So that’s the run down so far.

I have overwhelmed you and probably overshared, but this is the first real post from down here, so I thought I’d give you the complete, unabridged version. I promise to cut back in the future.

Much love, and don’t forget to comment and ask questions!!

B