The past few days have been very productive in terms of my research project. While she is teaching the field school, Eva has had a few days available to go to the forest with me to work on recognizing individual monkeys in my 5 study groups. For her PhD, Eva has worked here for 16 months altogether, so she knows all of the monkeys really well. Actually, ID-ing monkeys is what makes my work so much fun! When you can recognize individuals, watching them becomes way more interesting because you can see differential relationships developing between monkeys as individuals grow, mature, have their own infants which they raise, wean etc. You get to watch families live their lives basically; it get to be there every day to witness their good times and their really bad times! My field work appeals to me a lot because I basically get to watch soap operas all day, every day, for several months… only instead of people I watch monkeys live out their dramas.
So far, my time spent in the forest with Eva has been really helpful. I had been panicking a little bit lately, thinking that I may be in over my head with my project. I started doubting my ability to remember the faces, eye brows, and physical appearance of approximately 120 different monkeys by early June; monkeys that virtually all look the exact same to everyone but some of us U of Calgary researchers. Spending time confirming my monkey ID-ing abilitites with Eva is putting my heart at ease. I can do this! hehe
In addition to the daytime monkey watching, the field school students also get to look for and census a third primate species that lives at BFMS, the nocturnal bush-baby or galago. These guys are tiny bodied, eat mainly insects that they hunt for at night, and have huge eyes that shine in the night when you point a source of light directly at them. Indeed, this is how we find census the bush-babies at BFMS, by walking the trails and shining our headlamp lights towards the trees and bushes. Also, we detect bush-babies when we hear their distinct calls and trills, which Eva thinks sound like a wind-up toy. I have seen them only a few times; they are quite shy and are scared easily by human noise. Eva has been trying to incorporate bush-baby night walks as part of the BFMS eco-tourism experience, which I think is really cool. In addition to viewing the diurnal primates at BFMS (Mona and colobus monkeys) tourists would also pay to see the bush-babies.
However, in order to successfully have night tours, we would have to find a local guide that would actually be willing to walk around the forest at night. This will not be easy as Ghanaian locals are terrified of the dark… I’m not really sure what they think might be lurking in the forest at night, but they should know that they’ve hunted out all of the dangerous predators that might have lived at BFMS. A few tiny wild cats (civets?) that are about the size of domestic felines might still be found in the forest here, but they hide all the time and are incredibly frightened of people. It’s sad but the biodiversity here at BFMS is generally non-existent. At least we still have some endangered primate species, but who knows how long they might be around. Local people here don’t seem to make the connection between preserving the forest and the monkeys’ well-being. For now, the small forest that is left is protected but who knows what might happen in the future if people decide that cutting down trees for farmland may be worth-while. Also, the tourist guides insist on feeding and provisioning the wild monkeys because they may get larger tips from tourists if they can get the monkeys closer to them. The guides don’t understand (or they don’t care) that these are wild animals and that they should be respectful of their habitat and natural way of life.
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
23 on 20
It is May 20th and I have turned 23 years old today. Coincidentally, I have also been in Ghana for one entire month today. It seems like a really long time since I was last in Canada, but it also feels like this month has passed by super fast. I think it is strange how time feels to us sometimes. Time is constant in its passing but it often feels too slow or too fast depending on our emotions, which are always changing, fluctuating, and are never consistent or reliable.
Today, Eva and the field school students went on a field trip and I stayed here at BFMS. I watched monkeys for a large part of the day. Mid-day I started getting antsy and fidgety so I went for a longer than usual run. This antsy state often happens when I start thinking too much, or worrying… It’s like I am situating myself too much in my head and in my thoughts or something. I’m not quite sure how to explain it but it’s like an anxious, panicky feeling I get. This is the best part about running; it completely gets rid of this feeling and makes me feel calm and comfortable. Tonight I anticipate that we are going to eat fufu (!!) made by Bea, a lady who cares for the guest house here. Fufu is the traditional Ghanaian food that people here eat with every meal. It is made of yam, mashed up and pounded with water until it turns into a thick dough-like ball. The taste is similar to mashed potatoes. Fufu is eaten with your hands; you dip pieces in groundnut paste and swallow them directly like you would eat an oyster. I love love love fufu, but it certainly is something that Westerners either adore or totally dislike. Each time I have fufu I eat so much (my record is 4.5 balls) I get a “fufu belly”! lol After dinner we are going to Constance’s spot for some giant Ghana beers. Mmmm… Castle Milk Stout …
Next Day: I realized that I have celebrated my birthday here in Ghana for the past 3 years! This birthday was one of my best ever. We did indeed have fufu and groundnut sauce, made by Bea and Alfred last night. Yummmmmy! I only had 2.5 balls this time, although if there had been any left I would have certainly eaten more. You can’t let fufu go to waste! Also, Bea gets sad if we don’t eat ALL of her food. Whenever people eat her cooking, she always comes by right as we are finishing up and says “Finish all!”. Then she gives a typical Bea cute and hearty chuckle, which makes you want to finish all just so you don’t disappoint her. For us researchers working at BFMS, Bea and her husband Alfred are like our parents away from home. During dinner I also received gifts (camping instant Neapolitan ice cream and choc chip cookie mix, as well as chocolate covered digestive cookies) and a funny card from Teresa and Eva. Since one of my staple foods here is canned beans (I eat a can every day for lunch), they joked about how they also wanted to give me a can of beans for my birthday, but it seems I already bought all of them from the obruni store in Nkoranza because they were all sold out. Hehehe
After dinner we went to Constance’s Spot in the nearby village of Fiema for beers and dancing. The scene at Constance’s is always a bit surreal and awkward at first when we, the obrunis go there. We are usually greeted by at least 50 screaming and excited local children who shake our hands and pet our arms as we walk in. When we sit down to order, tons of Ghanaian locals agglomerate around the windows and doors of the bar to peer inside, stare at us, and giggle at our unusual facial features, clothing, hair styles, and chubby bodies. Constance then turns on the music (a remix of traditional Ghanaian, rap and techno melodies) super loud and we all start dancing. As things heat up, a select few local men and women are allowed to enter the bar to dance with us, while the rest of the people watch from outside. This is how it was on my birthday and it was great. I think the field school students had a good time, and I enjoyed it particularly because I love to dance! Last night I won the most “African-Like Dancer” award … apparently. Lol
Today, Eva and the field school students went on a field trip and I stayed here at BFMS. I watched monkeys for a large part of the day. Mid-day I started getting antsy and fidgety so I went for a longer than usual run. This antsy state often happens when I start thinking too much, or worrying… It’s like I am situating myself too much in my head and in my thoughts or something. I’m not quite sure how to explain it but it’s like an anxious, panicky feeling I get. This is the best part about running; it completely gets rid of this feeling and makes me feel calm and comfortable. Tonight I anticipate that we are going to eat fufu (!!) made by Bea, a lady who cares for the guest house here. Fufu is the traditional Ghanaian food that people here eat with every meal. It is made of yam, mashed up and pounded with water until it turns into a thick dough-like ball. The taste is similar to mashed potatoes. Fufu is eaten with your hands; you dip pieces in groundnut paste and swallow them directly like you would eat an oyster. I love love love fufu, but it certainly is something that Westerners either adore or totally dislike. Each time I have fufu I eat so much (my record is 4.5 balls) I get a “fufu belly”! lol After dinner we are going to Constance’s spot for some giant Ghana beers. Mmmm… Castle Milk Stout …
Next Day: I realized that I have celebrated my birthday here in Ghana for the past 3 years! This birthday was one of my best ever. We did indeed have fufu and groundnut sauce, made by Bea and Alfred last night. Yummmmmy! I only had 2.5 balls this time, although if there had been any left I would have certainly eaten more. You can’t let fufu go to waste! Also, Bea gets sad if we don’t eat ALL of her food. Whenever people eat her cooking, she always comes by right as we are finishing up and says “Finish all!”. Then she gives a typical Bea cute and hearty chuckle, which makes you want to finish all just so you don’t disappoint her. For us researchers working at BFMS, Bea and her husband Alfred are like our parents away from home. During dinner I also received gifts (camping instant Neapolitan ice cream and choc chip cookie mix, as well as chocolate covered digestive cookies) and a funny card from Teresa and Eva. Since one of my staple foods here is canned beans (I eat a can every day for lunch), they joked about how they also wanted to give me a can of beans for my birthday, but it seems I already bought all of them from the obruni store in Nkoranza because they were all sold out. Hehehe
After dinner we went to Constance’s Spot in the nearby village of Fiema for beers and dancing. The scene at Constance’s is always a bit surreal and awkward at first when we, the obrunis go there. We are usually greeted by at least 50 screaming and excited local children who shake our hands and pet our arms as we walk in. When we sit down to order, tons of Ghanaian locals agglomerate around the windows and doors of the bar to peer inside, stare at us, and giggle at our unusual facial features, clothing, hair styles, and chubby bodies. Constance then turns on the music (a remix of traditional Ghanaian, rap and techno melodies) super loud and we all start dancing. As things heat up, a select few local men and women are allowed to enter the bar to dance with us, while the rest of the people watch from outside. This is how it was on my birthday and it was great. I think the field school students had a good time, and I enjoyed it particularly because I love to dance! Last night I won the most “African-Like Dancer” award … apparently. Lol
Copulation, Copulation, Copulation!
I have a gift. Seriously … I think that if primatology were a form of superhero-ism, this would probably my one and only special ability; my “super power”. Somehow, during observations on colobus monkeys, I’m often present during, and I’m frequently able to spot, monkey sex! I know, I know. It is incredible! Before you pin me as some kind of a weird pervert, let me explain a bit. Seeing monkey sex is not as common as one might think; they are usually rare events! Seeing copulations in the ursine colobus at BFMS is quite exciting for any researcher working here. Also, I don’t just see the odd ‘sexual present’ and ‘attempt mount’. I am often a witness to all the exciting stuff. It all started two years ago when I was an undergrad on my field school. I saw several sexual acts in the colobus monkey groups I was watching. Each time I would yell out to everyone excitedly “Copulation, copulation people, copulation!”. Apparently I had done this so many times back then and with so much gusto that even years later the local Ghanaian guides who annually help out with the field school still make fun of me for it (endearingly of course). Lol
A few days ago I was watching groups Wawa and Splinter during an inter-group encounter (that’s when two separate groups meet on the boundary between their two home ranges and contest – sometimes aggressively but often peacefully – over the area). During this time, I saw the mother of all copulations. It was like a massive foursome (or fifthsome (?) depending on which individuals you count in). I saw ET, a young Splinter male, leave the core of his group to approach Haleakala, a young Wawa female. She sexually presented to him, he mounted and her and thrust several times. I even saw the ejaculate when the deed was completed (ET was sort of messy I guess…). Of course that I announced what I was watching to all of the field school students and Ghanaian field guides in the immediate area “Copulation, copulation, copulation!”. Right after this first sexual act, Glassjaw, the alpha male of Wawa, in an attempt to keep ET away from his female, attacked ET and chased him off violently. There were branches breaking and grunts and screams and all. Several minutes later ET went for Haleakala again and the process was more or less repeated. Then, Wolverine, the alpha male of Splinter approached Haleakala, mounted her, and thrust several times. This time, a young juvenile male from Wawa approached the two monkeys doing the deed and proceeded to harass them (i.e. making lots of vocalizations, pulling their tails, and jumping on their heads and backs). After finally clueing in, Glassjaw, who is apparently not the brightest monkey in the jungle, attacked Wolverine and the two fought aggressively, as if they had both been trained in street style boxing or dirty Mafia fighting! After all that, Wolverine didn’t give up, because several minutes later, he went for Haleakala again. They had a short monkey love session, which was interrupted again by Glassjaw, who tried a little harder this time to coerce Haleakala back with the rest of the group. The whole thing was fascinating to watch and incredibly exciting Ad lib data.
A few days ago I was watching groups Wawa and Splinter during an inter-group encounter (that’s when two separate groups meet on the boundary between their two home ranges and contest – sometimes aggressively but often peacefully – over the area). During this time, I saw the mother of all copulations. It was like a massive foursome (or fifthsome (?) depending on which individuals you count in). I saw ET, a young Splinter male, leave the core of his group to approach Haleakala, a young Wawa female. She sexually presented to him, he mounted and her and thrust several times. I even saw the ejaculate when the deed was completed (ET was sort of messy I guess…). Of course that I announced what I was watching to all of the field school students and Ghanaian field guides in the immediate area “Copulation, copulation, copulation!”. Right after this first sexual act, Glassjaw, the alpha male of Wawa, in an attempt to keep ET away from his female, attacked ET and chased him off violently. There were branches breaking and grunts and screams and all. Several minutes later ET went for Haleakala again and the process was more or less repeated. Then, Wolverine, the alpha male of Splinter approached Haleakala, mounted her, and thrust several times. This time, a young juvenile male from Wawa approached the two monkeys doing the deed and proceeded to harass them (i.e. making lots of vocalizations, pulling their tails, and jumping on their heads and backs). After finally clueing in, Glassjaw, who is apparently not the brightest monkey in the jungle, attacked Wolverine and the two fought aggressively, as if they had both been trained in street style boxing or dirty Mafia fighting! After all that, Wolverine didn’t give up, because several minutes later, he went for Haleakala again. They had a short monkey love session, which was interrupted again by Glassjaw, who tried a little harder this time to coerce Haleakala back with the rest of the group. The whole thing was fascinating to watch and incredibly exciting Ad lib data.
Busy Week With The Field School
The guest house has been super lively and fun since the U of C students came to stay. At first I think many of them were a bit apprehensive about the idea of living here for a whole month. Personally, I love the life style and living conditions at BFMS … key word is SIMPLE. However, not everyone feels the same as me from the get-go. As the days progressed and students started getting used to taking bucket showers, constantly having 1000 mosquito bites evenly distributed across their skin, eating lots of starchy foods, and waking up early to spend several hours in the forest watching monkeys, then going to bed early exhausted, they have started seeing BFMS from my perspective: peaceful, relatively worry-free, quirky and – for lack of a better word – simple. I think everyone (even those people that are already convinced that field work is not for them) is genuinely starting to enjoy the “primate” life. I can tell people are having a positive experience here when all they can talk about is monkeys. Meal times are constantly being filled with lively re-tellings of what their monkey study groups did; how cute the Monas were eating human food out of a tin can thrown away by the villagers, how intimidating the colobus alpha males are when they grunt and display above your head, how cute infants are when they are nursing or being allomothered, and how scary it was the time when a colobus infant fell from a tree (but still remained unharmed). Then again, I guess when all you do is collect behavioral data on monkeys, what else is there to talk about at the end of the day? Well actually, after monkey talk, poo is the next most popular topic of conversation, but that is usually initiated by Teresa who is collecting fecal samples for her project … all she ever thinks and talks about these days is feces … “beautiful precious colobus poo”. On the mobile phone one evening, I was telling my best friend about Teresa’s field work here. Simply put, Teresa bought a bicycle so that she could commute to many smaller forest fragments that surround BFMS, in order to collect fecal samples from the colobus monkeys there for DNA analyses. To clarify things, my best friend repeated what I had told him in a much more concise manner: “So basically, just to clarify, Teresa rides her bike for several hours each day, doing strenuous exercise in the infernal African sun and humidity, to get poo?” The answer to that is yes … that is what she does and she’s damn proud of it! Lol
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Field School Arrives
The University of Calgary Primatology Field School 2010 has arrived at BFMS. Personally, I am very excited about spending the next month with these people. There’s something so totally awesome about sharing in the experience of brand new ‘Africa Virgins’ to Ghana. As a Program Assistant and fairly experienced Ghana traveler, I can act as a guiding light, a security net, a safety blanket… I get to reassure them that the scorpions in the grass will not harm them unless they get too close, that the geckos in the students’ rooms are good as they actually act as predators for their other major concern, the bugs, and that although it’s sort of gross that the monkey situated right above their head urinated on their arm, they will likely not get any strange zoonautic disease from it. More importantly though, my role as Program Assistant is to help teach them about the forest and about behavioral data collection (scan sampling, focal animal sampling, etc.). For many of these people, I get to be there for their first monkey watching experience in the wild! Through them I practically get to re-live my own awe inspiring moment when I first watched nonhuman primates roaming freely in their natural habitat. So great!
3 Days Later
The poor monkey body is still stuck in the tree, and at this point, due to the extreme level of putrefaction that can already be seen, the only thing I would be willing to do once it falls is take photos … if necessary. The good thing is that Eva (a PhD student working with my supervisor) is here now at BFMS with the annual field school students. If she really wants the monkey’s DNA for her project, then she will have to get it herself because I’m fairly certain I would pass out if I tried to cut inside it!
Also, the dead monkey is now becoming quite a tourist attraction. The guides have actually incorporated the decomposing body in their daily tours! You can imagine how that goes … “Up ahead you will see a great big strangler fig that is believed to be hundreds of years old. On the left you can see a group of playful Mona monkeys, right next to the monkey cemetery. Finally, next to that big mahogany is the rotting corpse of our dead black-and-white colobus monkey, which is stuck in the Wawa tree. Please notice the swarm of flies and horrible smell of this part of our tour.”
Also, the dead monkey is now becoming quite a tourist attraction. The guides have actually incorporated the decomposing body in their daily tours! You can imagine how that goes … “Up ahead you will see a great big strangler fig that is believed to be hundreds of years old. On the left you can see a group of playful Mona monkeys, right next to the monkey cemetery. Finally, next to that big mahogany is the rotting corpse of our dead black-and-white colobus monkey, which is stuck in the Wawa tree. Please notice the swarm of flies and horrible smell of this part of our tour.”
Another Dead One
Today (May 7, 2010) was a very sad day at BFMS. Brace yourselves for a semi-gruesome story that may not be suitable for those with weaker stomachs.
A female colobus monkey in one of my study groups (Wawa) died an excruciating-looking death, either last night or early this morning. This time the cause of death doesn`t appear to be human related. One of the colobus female`s hind limbs seems to have gotten stuck in the nook of large tree branch in one of the most immense trees in the forest; a Wawa (the type of tree that the dead female`s group is named after because they hang out in them a lot). The manner in which her limp body is still hanging down from the branch approximately 40 meters high indicates that she must have broken her leg trying to jump off the branch while her foot was stuck. She may not have been able enough to brace herself back on top of the branch to free her leg. It looks as though she died upside down, struggling to get free! I can only imagine the terrifying squeals and screams she must have emitted, or the panicked reactions of the other monkeys in her group. When I got there mid morning, group Wawa had moved on and left the female`s hanging corpse to hang there… I bet I will have nightmares about this for weeks. Each time I close my eyes I still see her contorted figure covered in flies and butterflies that are attracted to the juices that drip from her body. Neither Teresa nor I can identify the young female because due to the intense Africa heat and humidity, by mid morning her face and head had already begun decomposing and her facial features were no longer recognizable. The smell was really bad… I spent some time watching Wawa in the afternoon to see if I could figure out which monkey is missing. However, Wawa was in an area of dense vegetation in the `Sacred Grove`. Poor visibility, combined with Wawa`s large group size (more than 30 monkeys) have made it difficult to figure out the ID of the dead monkey until I spend more time with them.
If you can imagine this, the next step for Teresa and I, once the monkey`s body falls to the ground (maybe by tomorrow), is to do a muscle or organ tissue biopsy! Yes, we will take pictures of the body and go in, cut into the flesh where the tissue`s DNA will be least contaminated, and take a thin strip of tissue that we will store in a special solution for genetic testing in the lab. Of course, both Teresa and I will wear something around our mouths and noses, and we will be dressed in clothes that will be burned afterwards. I am also planning to bathe in a tub of vodka or gin.
Once we do this thing, the body will be taken to the monkey cemetery (not by us, thank God!) in the BFMS forest. Since the monkeys here are scared to the local people, custom has it that the young monkey will be given a sacred burial ceremony by Nana, the fetish priest of Boabeng. The monkey cemetery is one of the main attractions for tourists who come to BFMS. The monkeys buried here have make-shift tomb stones with their age-sex class and date of death, so it`s kind of nice actually.
A female colobus monkey in one of my study groups (Wawa) died an excruciating-looking death, either last night or early this morning. This time the cause of death doesn`t appear to be human related. One of the colobus female`s hind limbs seems to have gotten stuck in the nook of large tree branch in one of the most immense trees in the forest; a Wawa (the type of tree that the dead female`s group is named after because they hang out in them a lot). The manner in which her limp body is still hanging down from the branch approximately 40 meters high indicates that she must have broken her leg trying to jump off the branch while her foot was stuck. She may not have been able enough to brace herself back on top of the branch to free her leg. It looks as though she died upside down, struggling to get free! I can only imagine the terrifying squeals and screams she must have emitted, or the panicked reactions of the other monkeys in her group. When I got there mid morning, group Wawa had moved on and left the female`s hanging corpse to hang there… I bet I will have nightmares about this for weeks. Each time I close my eyes I still see her contorted figure covered in flies and butterflies that are attracted to the juices that drip from her body. Neither Teresa nor I can identify the young female because due to the intense Africa heat and humidity, by mid morning her face and head had already begun decomposing and her facial features were no longer recognizable. The smell was really bad… I spent some time watching Wawa in the afternoon to see if I could figure out which monkey is missing. However, Wawa was in an area of dense vegetation in the `Sacred Grove`. Poor visibility, combined with Wawa`s large group size (more than 30 monkeys) have made it difficult to figure out the ID of the dead monkey until I spend more time with them.
If you can imagine this, the next step for Teresa and I, once the monkey`s body falls to the ground (maybe by tomorrow), is to do a muscle or organ tissue biopsy! Yes, we will take pictures of the body and go in, cut into the flesh where the tissue`s DNA will be least contaminated, and take a thin strip of tissue that we will store in a special solution for genetic testing in the lab. Of course, both Teresa and I will wear something around our mouths and noses, and we will be dressed in clothes that will be burned afterwards. I am also planning to bathe in a tub of vodka or gin.
Once we do this thing, the body will be taken to the monkey cemetery (not by us, thank God!) in the BFMS forest. Since the monkeys here are scared to the local people, custom has it that the young monkey will be given a sacred burial ceremony by Nana, the fetish priest of Boabeng. The monkey cemetery is one of the main attractions for tourists who come to BFMS. The monkeys buried here have make-shift tomb stones with their age-sex class and date of death, so it`s kind of nice actually.
When in Rome...
THE REASON THAT THIS BLOG POST IS IN ALL CAPS IS BECAUSE IT WAS WRITTEN ON A PSION, WHICH USES ALL CAPS. A PSION IS HAND-HELD MINI COMPUTER THAT ETHOLOGISTS USE TO COLLECT BEHAVIORAL DATA. I WILL BE USING ONE FOR DATA COLLECTION AND I NEED TO PRACTICE MY TYPING ON IT. IT'S KIND OF FUN ACTUALLY...LIKE A GAME-BOY! I'VE BEEN SENDING E-MAILS TO FRIENDS AND FAMILY BACK IN CANADA THE SAME WAY TOO. SO AGAIN, IT'S JUST THE PSION PEOPLE. I'M NOT ANGRY OR ANYTHING. LOL
TODAY I WENT TO MARKET ALONE. I`M STARTING TO THINK THAT THE LOCAL GOD DWORO HATES ME, BECAUSE ONCE AGAIN IT WAS RAINING WHEN I WOKE UP. HOWEVER, I WAS NOT ABOUT TO MISS A MARKET DAY AND SINCE THE POWER WAS STILL ON, I HEADED OUT TO LOOK FOR A TRO-TRO HEADING TO NKORANZA ANYWAYS. I HAD SOME MAJOR LUCK (*SARCASTIC TONE*) BECAUSE 5 HOURS LATER I MADE IT ... THE WHOLE 25 KILOMETERS FROM BFMS TO NKORANZA. I COULD HAVE TRIED RUNNING AND I WOULD HAVE MADE IT THERE FASTER! EESH. THAT'S GHANA TIME.
SO AFTER 5 HOURS OF TRAVEL I REALLY HAD TO PEE. FOR SOME REASON HOWEVER THE KEY TO THE ONLY INDOOR URINAL I KNEW ABOUT IN THE ENTIRE CITY OF NKORANZA HAD BEEN LOST SOMEHOW, SO I SWITCHED TO PLAN B. "WHEN IN ROME, DO AS THE ROMANS DO." YES, YES ... I PEED IN PUBLIC (AND I WASN'T EVEN DRUNK). IT WASN'T JUST PUBLIC THOUGH. THE BEST PLACE I COULD FIND TO SQUAT WAS BESIDE A BUILDING NEAR A BUSY ROAD. THE FUNNY THING WAS THAT ABSOLUTELY NO ONE LOOKED AT ME. GHANAIANS URINATE (AND EVEN DEFECATE) IN PUBLIC REGULARLY AND I IMAGINE THERE MUST BE SOME UNWRITTEN RULE ABOUT PEEKING. AS AN OBRUNI I THOUGHT SOMEONE MIGHT TRY TO CATCH A GLIMPSE OF MY BARE WHITE ASS BUT THAT DIDN'T HAPPEN! I`M NOT SAYING THAT JUST BECAUSE I`M WHITE PEOPLE WOULD AUTOMATICALLY WANT TO SEE ME NAKED OR ANYTHING, BUT I HAVE NOTICED THAT GHANAIANS (ESPECIALLY CHILDREN) LIKE TO STARE AT CERTAIN OBRUNI BODY PARTS THAT ARE GENERALLY OUT OF VIEW (LIKE FEET)AND COMPARE THEM TO THEIR OWN. WHITE TOURISTS DON`T HABITUALLY WALK AROUND WITHOUT PANTS AND WITH THEIR BEHINDS EXPOSED, SO I THOUGHT THIS WOULD BE ONE OF THOSE TIMES WHEN BODY PART COMPARISONS WOULD BE MADE. ALLAS, I WAS WRONG AND I MANAGED TO URINATE IN PUBLIC WITH MY DIGNITY STILL INTACT. I ACTUALLY FEEL REALLY GOOD ABOUT THIS NEW STEP I HAVE TAKEN TOWARDS WHAT CAN BE DESCRIBED AS A PERSONAL REVOLUTION ... A LEAP TOWARDS GREATER FREEDOM. TODAY I URINATED ON A BUSY STREET, TOMORROW PUBLIC NUDITY! TAKE THAT BIG BROTHER. I AM FREE.
IN OTHER NEWS, I DEVELOPED A STRANGE RASH ON MY LOWER TUMMY TODAY. I HAVE NO IDEA WHERE IT CAME FROM BUT IT MIGHT BE A REACTION TO THE OBAMA DIGESTIVE COOKIES (YES THEY HAVE THOSE HERE AND THEY ARE DELICIOUS) I ATE FOR BREAKFAST, OR IT MIGHT BE THE LAUNDRY SOAP I USE IN COMBINATION WITH IMPROPER RINSING OF MY CLOTHES. OR THE MOST LIKELY SCENARIO IS THAT GOD IS PUNISHING ME FOR URINATING IN A PUBLIC PLACE.
TODAY I WENT TO MARKET ALONE. I`M STARTING TO THINK THAT THE LOCAL GOD DWORO HATES ME, BECAUSE ONCE AGAIN IT WAS RAINING WHEN I WOKE UP. HOWEVER, I WAS NOT ABOUT TO MISS A MARKET DAY AND SINCE THE POWER WAS STILL ON, I HEADED OUT TO LOOK FOR A TRO-TRO HEADING TO NKORANZA ANYWAYS. I HAD SOME MAJOR LUCK (*SARCASTIC TONE*) BECAUSE 5 HOURS LATER I MADE IT ... THE WHOLE 25 KILOMETERS FROM BFMS TO NKORANZA. I COULD HAVE TRIED RUNNING AND I WOULD HAVE MADE IT THERE FASTER! EESH. THAT'S GHANA TIME.
SO AFTER 5 HOURS OF TRAVEL I REALLY HAD TO PEE. FOR SOME REASON HOWEVER THE KEY TO THE ONLY INDOOR URINAL I KNEW ABOUT IN THE ENTIRE CITY OF NKORANZA HAD BEEN LOST SOMEHOW, SO I SWITCHED TO PLAN B. "WHEN IN ROME, DO AS THE ROMANS DO." YES, YES ... I PEED IN PUBLIC (AND I WASN'T EVEN DRUNK). IT WASN'T JUST PUBLIC THOUGH. THE BEST PLACE I COULD FIND TO SQUAT WAS BESIDE A BUILDING NEAR A BUSY ROAD. THE FUNNY THING WAS THAT ABSOLUTELY NO ONE LOOKED AT ME. GHANAIANS URINATE (AND EVEN DEFECATE) IN PUBLIC REGULARLY AND I IMAGINE THERE MUST BE SOME UNWRITTEN RULE ABOUT PEEKING. AS AN OBRUNI I THOUGHT SOMEONE MIGHT TRY TO CATCH A GLIMPSE OF MY BARE WHITE ASS BUT THAT DIDN'T HAPPEN! I`M NOT SAYING THAT JUST BECAUSE I`M WHITE PEOPLE WOULD AUTOMATICALLY WANT TO SEE ME NAKED OR ANYTHING, BUT I HAVE NOTICED THAT GHANAIANS (ESPECIALLY CHILDREN) LIKE TO STARE AT CERTAIN OBRUNI BODY PARTS THAT ARE GENERALLY OUT OF VIEW (LIKE FEET)AND COMPARE THEM TO THEIR OWN. WHITE TOURISTS DON`T HABITUALLY WALK AROUND WITHOUT PANTS AND WITH THEIR BEHINDS EXPOSED, SO I THOUGHT THIS WOULD BE ONE OF THOSE TIMES WHEN BODY PART COMPARISONS WOULD BE MADE. ALLAS, I WAS WRONG AND I MANAGED TO URINATE IN PUBLIC WITH MY DIGNITY STILL INTACT. I ACTUALLY FEEL REALLY GOOD ABOUT THIS NEW STEP I HAVE TAKEN TOWARDS WHAT CAN BE DESCRIBED AS A PERSONAL REVOLUTION ... A LEAP TOWARDS GREATER FREEDOM. TODAY I URINATED ON A BUSY STREET, TOMORROW PUBLIC NUDITY! TAKE THAT BIG BROTHER. I AM FREE.
IN OTHER NEWS, I DEVELOPED A STRANGE RASH ON MY LOWER TUMMY TODAY. I HAVE NO IDEA WHERE IT CAME FROM BUT IT MIGHT BE A REACTION TO THE OBAMA DIGESTIVE COOKIES (YES THEY HAVE THOSE HERE AND THEY ARE DELICIOUS) I ATE FOR BREAKFAST, OR IT MIGHT BE THE LAUNDRY SOAP I USE IN COMBINATION WITH IMPROPER RINSING OF MY CLOTHES. OR THE MOST LIKELY SCENARIO IS THAT GOD IS PUNISHING ME FOR URINATING IN A PUBLIC PLACE.
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
Adjusting
Today I collected some infant data...well, I tried at least. I got 2 really bad 10-min focal animals samples done on Remus and Obama from group B2. During each focal sample, the researcher watches one individual (in my case one infant), and records everything that individual does within 10 minutes. To make things easier to record (behaviours can happen quite quickly, especially when there are a lot of social interactions with other individuals) we make up codes for all behaviours. While behaviours occur we record them, along with the time when they happened. My first 2 focals were stressful and I did a horrible job, but it will get better with practice (I hope!). During the first attempt, I was watching Obama. He was nursing from his mom, Ofilia. I guess I was watching them a bit too intensely because Ofilia got totally freaked out half way through my focal animal sample and she darted in the opposite direction. I don’t blame her! I would be creeped out too if while I was breast feeding my baby, I had some obruni woman with two HUGE circular eyes (binocular lenses) pointing directly at me while her voice droned constantly towards a small metallic weapon (voice recording Dictaphone). Like a good primatologist, I didn’t give up on her. I followed, while also making sure that I wasn’t stressing her out too much. I managed to complete my 10 minute sample, but barely. A pathetic attempt of which I am proud.
Other than monkeys, there isn’t a lot much else going on here. I go running every second or third day, like I do back in Canada, except it’s more difficult here because of the heat and humidity. A group of kids ran with me (the entire 12 km) the other day as they sang some cool marching songs in Twii. This was a bit discouraging for me actually ... the chunky obruni runs like a Ghanaian 8 year old child. I don’t get it! They weren’t even breathing heavily or sweating, while I was doing plenty of both those things! I see why it is good I came here well before the time when I have to really collect data...so that I have a few weeks of conditioning my body to field life. Geez. My Canadian chunkiness is a disability here because it’s so freakin’ hot. I need to transform into a lean, mean, data collection machine! Lol
It’s rained a lot so there hasn’t been electric power on several evenings. When I say rained, I mean huge African thunder storms with burning trees (from being hit by lightning) and lots of flooding. This is rain in Ghana! I’m reading lots. Overall though it’s kind of lonely... I guess listening to Leonard Cohen all the time like I do in Canada has a different effect on me here, but I try to counteract that with plenty of Basshunter (trashy Swedish techno). Most of the time I like it here a lot. The life is simple and all of the stupid things I worry about in Calgary no longer burden me. However, it does get lonely because we’re so isolated from everything I consider my home. I think it will get better though once Katie (my research assistant) gets here and I actually start collecting some decent behavioural data. Hell YA!!
Other than monkeys, there isn’t a lot much else going on here. I go running every second or third day, like I do back in Canada, except it’s more difficult here because of the heat and humidity. A group of kids ran with me (the entire 12 km) the other day as they sang some cool marching songs in Twii. This was a bit discouraging for me actually ... the chunky obruni runs like a Ghanaian 8 year old child. I don’t get it! They weren’t even breathing heavily or sweating, while I was doing plenty of both those things! I see why it is good I came here well before the time when I have to really collect data...so that I have a few weeks of conditioning my body to field life. Geez. My Canadian chunkiness is a disability here because it’s so freakin’ hot. I need to transform into a lean, mean, data collection machine! Lol
It’s rained a lot so there hasn’t been electric power on several evenings. When I say rained, I mean huge African thunder storms with burning trees (from being hit by lightning) and lots of flooding. This is rain in Ghana! I’m reading lots. Overall though it’s kind of lonely... I guess listening to Leonard Cohen all the time like I do in Canada has a different effect on me here, but I try to counteract that with plenty of Basshunter (trashy Swedish techno). Most of the time I like it here a lot. The life is simple and all of the stupid things I worry about in Calgary no longer burden me. However, it does get lonely because we’re so isolated from everything I consider my home. I think it will get better though once Katie (my research assistant) gets here and I actually start collecting some decent behavioural data. Hell YA!!
Harry the Chaser
Today I got chased by Harry, the alpha male of group Wawa...yet again! Harry and I have a history of playing cat and mouse (he’s always the cat and I’m always the scared little mouse). The first time he chased me I was an undergraduate student on the University of Calgary primatology field school 2 years ago. This was one of my first encounters with monkeys. At the time I wasn’t as monkey-wary as I am now and I managed to walk right smack in the middle of Harry’s group. He got angry, started open-mouth and stiff-leg threatening me, and began to come after me. I freaked out, started running, and just like in a bad horror movie, I tripped and fell! At this point Harry had the decency to give me a few moments to try to stumble back up. I wasn’t very good at it though, and even with the help of Janice (another student on the field school and friend) who literally dragged my spastic body away from the fury that was Harry, I was still not capable of getting my proper footing. We escaped unharmed but just barely, and only because Constance, a local Ghanaian woman and field assistant, had the brilliant idea of grabbing a stick that she proceeded to wave around threateningly in Harry’s face.
Since this time, I have played several other chasing games with Harry ... somehow he always manages to pop out of nowhere and get me! I think he enjoys it... honestly I think he does it for laughs or to show off to his girlfriends. Today’s chase was a bit different though. I was actually near him for 2 or 3 hours, peacefully watching the group and trying hard not to appear threatening in any way. He actually didn’t seem to care one bit about my presence as he gorged on leaves the entire time. Once he ate his fill though, without the least bit of warning this time (i.e. no threats or warning grunts or direct glances in my direction) he jumped down from his tree and began galloping towards me. For once, I kept my footing and I did not fall, but I ran into a group of white tourists who were also coming to see group Wawa. At the sight of me running towards them like a crazy woman (yes I was squealing like a little girl) while being chased by a huge colobus male the size of my German Shepherd dog, the tourists and the Ghanaian guide Henry also proceeded to run with me away from Harry, all the while squealing for our lives! Once again, he didn’t actually catch me but I wonder if he ever really tries or if he just enjoys the sight of my behind giggling desperately as I try to get away... Maybe next time I will stop to ask him what his problem is before I run away. Oh Harry...you asshole!
Since this time, I have played several other chasing games with Harry ... somehow he always manages to pop out of nowhere and get me! I think he enjoys it... honestly I think he does it for laughs or to show off to his girlfriends. Today’s chase was a bit different though. I was actually near him for 2 or 3 hours, peacefully watching the group and trying hard not to appear threatening in any way. He actually didn’t seem to care one bit about my presence as he gorged on leaves the entire time. Once he ate his fill though, without the least bit of warning this time (i.e. no threats or warning grunts or direct glances in my direction) he jumped down from his tree and began galloping towards me. For once, I kept my footing and I did not fall, but I ran into a group of white tourists who were also coming to see group Wawa. At the sight of me running towards them like a crazy woman (yes I was squealing like a little girl) while being chased by a huge colobus male the size of my German Shepherd dog, the tourists and the Ghanaian guide Henry also proceeded to run with me away from Harry, all the while squealing for our lives! Once again, he didn’t actually catch me but I wonder if he ever really tries or if he just enjoys the sight of my behind giggling desperately as I try to get away... Maybe next time I will stop to ask him what his problem is before I run away. Oh Harry...you asshole!
Market Days and Infants
While we are here, researchers usually have access to internet once a week. The market day in the local town of Nkoranza is held every Tuesday. On this day, us BFMS researchers take the tro-tro (a small minibus that is meant for 9-10 people but which is usually jammed with 20 people and their luggage) and head down to the market where we buy our groceries for the week, check the post for any mail or ‘care packages’ and use the internet. While we are living here, Tuesday market days quickly become a huge event! I look forward to market days like I anticipate Christmas mornings. So you can imagine how disappointed I was last week, when I woke up on Tuesday morning to find that it was raining heavily and that the electricity was off. This meant that Teresa and I had to wait until the rain stopped before taking a tro-tro to Nkoranza. Getting to town after it’s been raining is much more difficult, as the unpaved roads became like mud pits from the rain. In previous years, I have been in situations where all of the passengers have had to get out in knee-high mud to push the back of the tro-tro, in order to continue our journey! I find stuff like this kind of fun actually so I am describing this more with a sense of pleasure rather than complaint. Last week however, we made it to market without having to get out and push the tro-tro. We got our shopping done and Teresa bought a bicycle that she needs in order to conduct her own research project, but the electricity was still absent (it remained off for several days), which meant that internet and checking e-mail was not possible until next Tuesday market day... Boooo.
As for my actual work, I’m still in the midst of remembering individual monkey Ids and figuring out the infant situation and new group compositions in my potential study groups. I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned this already but ursine colobus monkey infants are born completely white; this is their natal coat. As they age, over approximately 6 months, their natal coat is slowly replaced with various degrees of grey, until they gain their adult pelage (black and white). Like in human children, although there is some individual variation around how quickly infants develop, coat colour changes over time seem to be generally similar among different infants. This is how it’s possible to estimate specific ages of ursine colobus infants. Like 99% of human babies, ursine colobus infants have ‘too-big-for-their-body’ heads (many people describe new infants as resembling aliens) but they’re adorable even when they are in the midst of changing from white to grey. During this transition, the area right around their eyes and their mouth darken first so they look like they have been fist punched in the face right in the eyes and mouth.
In group Dadie there is 1 (or possibly 2) black-and-white infants and 1 grey, group Wawa has 1 grey and 3 older black and white infants, group B2 has 2 brand-spankin’ new white (!!) and 1 older black-and-white infants, groups Red Tail and Splinter only have infants older than 6 months, and according to Teresa, Odum (a group who’s individuals I still have to learn) has 1 white-ish infants. The most important groups of all for me right now are B2 and Odum, because they have new infants and these are the only two groups in which we know for sure that there are immigrant females. This makes it possible for me document allomothering behaviour of females who aren’t related to any of the others, to see if kinship affects maternal tolerance to allomothering and if unrelated infants are less attractive for allomothering. I’m not discouraged by the fact that the majority of groups don’t have new infants. I will be here for 6 months so it is better for my project that the births are spaced out a bit so that I am always collecting data. Also, I’m not too confident in my data collection skills yet, so I will need some more practice before any of my collected data will be good enough to use. I did collect my first bit of data yesterday; an inter-group encounter between Splinter and Bomosua, a group I don’t usually watch. Inter-group encounters occur when two groups meet, usually on the boundary of each other’s range. They will contest over resources or the common space between one another’s ranges. Inter-group encounters can be aggressive, but they are usually more subtle and not outwardly aggressive. Individuals will ‘stiff-leg’ threat and ‘open-mouth’ threat at each other, but there usually isn’t a lot of contact fighting. To see who wins an inter-group encounter you wait and see which of the two groups moves off first, while the winning group remains in the common boundary space. In the inter-group encounter I documented, Splinter moved off first so they lost the “fight”. This makes me sad because Splinter has always been a winner during inter-groups, but with the murder of former alpha male Ed who was the primary participant in most inter-groups, Splinter’s power is diminishing. Or maybe the new male needs some time to establish himself as a confident and powerful leader...in case of actual aggression during an inter-group encounter he might need the support of the Splinter females and sub-adult males. I think that in time he will gain their trust and support.
The new male in Splinter has now been named Wolverine. I came up with the name, but I was keeping Teresa’s specifications for the kind of name we need in mind. Other names I proposed were Diablo, Satan, and Cocky, but Teresa didn’t think any of those fit. You see, Wolverine has some really nice big tufts, making him look like he has massive horns on his head. He also has unusually large testicles. Teresa thinks he is a hot monkey; she’s said this repeatedly and with quite some intensity. Under normal circumstances this would make things a little awkward... it’s kind of weird to get turned on by a male of a different species no matter how big his tufts or testicles are. Here however, the lack of available human males may just be getting to us ... I sometimes find myself describing male colobus as attractive and handsome also. LOL It doesn’t help that alpha males (including Wolverine) are constantly walking around with erections and trying to mount the females in their groups. haha
I also have the privilege of naming the new infants in my study groups! Wahoo. With naming infants, we’ve adopted Jane Goodall’s naming system for the chimps at Gombe. The first letter of the mother’s name will be the first letter of her infants’ names also. This way, the individuals in each colobus matriline will begin with the same letter of the alphabet. This system makes sense since ursine colobus at BFMS are generally female philopatric (females remain within the group in which they were born, while males disperse when they reach sexual maturity). Sometimes females do disperse, but under more special circumstances. I’ve thought about names for the infants in B2 ... they have to start with the letters G, O, and R. I am also including a theme to go along with these letters, to make it easier to figure out which cohort these infants belong to as they mature and grow into juveniles. The theme is spiritual and political leaders, and the infant names I thought of are Obama, Ghandi, and Remus (one of the founders of ancient Rome). I’m not sure if we will keep these names but I like them, especially Obama. Hey, he`s kind of an ok guy. Obama deserves to have one of the BFMS colobus monkeys named after him! hehe
As for my actual work, I’m still in the midst of remembering individual monkey Ids and figuring out the infant situation and new group compositions in my potential study groups. I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned this already but ursine colobus monkey infants are born completely white; this is their natal coat. As they age, over approximately 6 months, their natal coat is slowly replaced with various degrees of grey, until they gain their adult pelage (black and white). Like in human children, although there is some individual variation around how quickly infants develop, coat colour changes over time seem to be generally similar among different infants. This is how it’s possible to estimate specific ages of ursine colobus infants. Like 99% of human babies, ursine colobus infants have ‘too-big-for-their-body’ heads (many people describe new infants as resembling aliens) but they’re adorable even when they are in the midst of changing from white to grey. During this transition, the area right around their eyes and their mouth darken first so they look like they have been fist punched in the face right in the eyes and mouth.
In group Dadie there is 1 (or possibly 2) black-and-white infants and 1 grey, group Wawa has 1 grey and 3 older black and white infants, group B2 has 2 brand-spankin’ new white (!!) and 1 older black-and-white infants, groups Red Tail and Splinter only have infants older than 6 months, and according to Teresa, Odum (a group who’s individuals I still have to learn) has 1 white-ish infants. The most important groups of all for me right now are B2 and Odum, because they have new infants and these are the only two groups in which we know for sure that there are immigrant females. This makes it possible for me document allomothering behaviour of females who aren’t related to any of the others, to see if kinship affects maternal tolerance to allomothering and if unrelated infants are less attractive for allomothering. I’m not discouraged by the fact that the majority of groups don’t have new infants. I will be here for 6 months so it is better for my project that the births are spaced out a bit so that I am always collecting data. Also, I’m not too confident in my data collection skills yet, so I will need some more practice before any of my collected data will be good enough to use. I did collect my first bit of data yesterday; an inter-group encounter between Splinter and Bomosua, a group I don’t usually watch. Inter-group encounters occur when two groups meet, usually on the boundary of each other’s range. They will contest over resources or the common space between one another’s ranges. Inter-group encounters can be aggressive, but they are usually more subtle and not outwardly aggressive. Individuals will ‘stiff-leg’ threat and ‘open-mouth’ threat at each other, but there usually isn’t a lot of contact fighting. To see who wins an inter-group encounter you wait and see which of the two groups moves off first, while the winning group remains in the common boundary space. In the inter-group encounter I documented, Splinter moved off first so they lost the “fight”. This makes me sad because Splinter has always been a winner during inter-groups, but with the murder of former alpha male Ed who was the primary participant in most inter-groups, Splinter’s power is diminishing. Or maybe the new male needs some time to establish himself as a confident and powerful leader...in case of actual aggression during an inter-group encounter he might need the support of the Splinter females and sub-adult males. I think that in time he will gain their trust and support.
The new male in Splinter has now been named Wolverine. I came up with the name, but I was keeping Teresa’s specifications for the kind of name we need in mind. Other names I proposed were Diablo, Satan, and Cocky, but Teresa didn’t think any of those fit. You see, Wolverine has some really nice big tufts, making him look like he has massive horns on his head. He also has unusually large testicles. Teresa thinks he is a hot monkey; she’s said this repeatedly and with quite some intensity. Under normal circumstances this would make things a little awkward... it’s kind of weird to get turned on by a male of a different species no matter how big his tufts or testicles are. Here however, the lack of available human males may just be getting to us ... I sometimes find myself describing male colobus as attractive and handsome also. LOL It doesn’t help that alpha males (including Wolverine) are constantly walking around with erections and trying to mount the females in their groups. haha
I also have the privilege of naming the new infants in my study groups! Wahoo. With naming infants, we’ve adopted Jane Goodall’s naming system for the chimps at Gombe. The first letter of the mother’s name will be the first letter of her infants’ names also. This way, the individuals in each colobus matriline will begin with the same letter of the alphabet. This system makes sense since ursine colobus at BFMS are generally female philopatric (females remain within the group in which they were born, while males disperse when they reach sexual maturity). Sometimes females do disperse, but under more special circumstances. I’ve thought about names for the infants in B2 ... they have to start with the letters G, O, and R. I am also including a theme to go along with these letters, to make it easier to figure out which cohort these infants belong to as they mature and grow into juveniles. The theme is spiritual and political leaders, and the infant names I thought of are Obama, Ghandi, and Remus (one of the founders of ancient Rome). I’m not sure if we will keep these names but I like them, especially Obama. Hey, he`s kind of an ok guy. Obama deserves to have one of the BFMS colobus monkeys named after him! hehe
Ed is Dead!
I’ve been in Ghana now for about a week, after leaving this place a year ago. Teresa (another MA student working under the same supervisor as me) and I both agree that it feels like we never left. It’s great to be back! The first few days were spent in Ghana’s capital Accra, where we had to meet a representative of the Ghana Wildlife Commission so that we may pay a hefty research fine and ask for official permission to conduct research at BFMS. This task had Teresa and me scrambling through various parts of Accra looking for someone (anyone) with the proper equipment to make passport-sized pictures of each of us and to photocopy our passport signature pages. Needless to say, we got all of this done in one day (a miracle when you’re on Ghana time) and we even got the chance to meet some rich Ghanaian people who introduced us to Joe, their pet monkey (mangabey) who was tied up on a rope outside of their large home. Poor Joe did not seem like a happy monkey. He is bound to get even more depressed as he reaches sexual maturity and decides that all he really wants is to be free so that he may find himself a mangabey girlfriend or two (or three).
The cultural differences between our ‘Western’ and Ghanaian societies enable some interesting situations to occur. Wherever we go we are constantly called “obruni” (i.e. white man or stranger). Speaking for myself, I feel shame when I hear myself called this. Obruni seems to sum up the spite that Ghanaians and many other Africans feel towards the white colonialists who came to Africa to ravage the land and people. I feel shame when I hear someone call me obruni because I know that I am white and with the colour of my skin come certain implied wrong-doings (sins maybe?) that I cannot change ... they are in my history. Well, maybe not my personal history since most Romanians were generally the ones being persecuted by various totalitarian regimes rather than doing the persecuting, but you get my drift. Actually Ghana has always reminded me a lot of Bucharest, Romania, around the time when I grew up; right before and after the Ceausescu’s communist crap ended. The country was a mess compared to nowadays. I don’t mean to offend Ghana because I like it here, but I find comfort in some of the familiar comparisons I find with my own childhood.
Other than being called obruni, a white person must get used to being petted (we have considerable more hair on our arms than Ghanaians), getting our hair pulled and/or stroked, and our freckles poked and picked at (I don’t think Ghanaians have freckles generally). A white tourist must also get used to the public urination and defecation, and if you are a woman, constantly being asked if you have a husband. The answer must always be “Yes, and he is big and strong and can beat you!” or you will never escape. Either way you should be prepared to receive several marriage proposals, because any white woman in Ghana must be looking for a man to show her how to be a woman right? Teresa has a list she has actually written down, of the best/worst pickup lines she had ever received from Ghanaian men. She has a lot of them, but my favourite has always been the most shocking: “I want you to be my girlfriend! Do you know why? Because I have a big black penis and it will make you very happy.” LOL
Cell phone service in Ghana is amazing! The country literally bi-passed the entire landline phone system because by the time individuals were ready to get a personal phone, cellular technology was already super. Something that has never happened to me here before which has occurred to me within the past few days, is getting strange phone calls from some Ghanaian who keeps yelling at me “I want you to stop calling my wife. I want you to stop seeing my wife. Do you understand?” The first time this happened it was 1 am and I had no fucking clue what was happening or what continent I was. The next few times he called I told him (at first politely and eventually forcefully) that I was a Canadian woman and he must have the number mixed up. I said I don’t know his wife, I have never called or seen her (i.e. I am not having a secret affair with this woman) and he should stop calling. His reply was confusing, but generally he still believes that I am a Ghanaian man with incredible voice and accent altering abilities, and that I am indeed fooling around with his wife. A woman (his wife maybe) also called me several times this morning. She spoke only Twi and we clearly did not understand one another.
After a few stressful days we finally got the guesthouse at BFMS. This is our home! It is marvellous. Teresa and I (well mostly Teresa because she is quite a bit stronger than me) carried all our kitchen and room stuff out of storage and set things up. Our make-shift kitchen consists of a gas stove and a few shelves, in the open air. The bathrooms have toilets which are flushable by bucket water we get from a manual pump in the garden. Our daily showers are generally also done by bucket water. The water we drink is run through a ceramic filter that we fill via ... yes you guessed it, buckets! Needless to say, in a few weeks I expect to have stronger arms than I ever would have working out at the gym in Canada. Pumping water, in addition to our 10 to 12 hour days following monkeys through the forest, standing on our feet all day with binoculars raised, and going for bi-daily 12 km runs, are bound to get our white flabby asses in shape. Only to get flabby again once the field work is over and we return to Canada, but what can ya do? Our meals are modest yet delicious...or at least Teresa’s are since I can’t cook worth a damn. I would rather open a can of beans for dinner than cook something that other people may actually try to ingest but I can learn...eventually.
At the time when I am writing this, I have only seen monkeys two days. I LOOOOOOVE THEM! I missed watching monkeys so much I didn’t even know it. I have seen some of the main groups that I will include in my study (Wawa, Splinter, B2, Dadie, Red Tail) and things are looking good in term of infants. B2 has 2 young infants! My MA study focuses on finding any potential kin biases in allomothering behaviour in the ursine colobus monkey. That is, are the aunts, grandmothers, sisters, more likely to hold and care for the infant than females who aren’t related? If so, than my findings may provide strong support for the ‘kin selection’ (a theory developed to explain “altruistic” behaviours that are not properly explained by Darwin’s theory of natural selection). It was nice seeing all my old friends (still talking about monkeys), and I was surprised to see how some of the young ones have grown. All of a sudden, young males are more filled in and handsome, and females are larger and look almost adult size. A few horrible things did occur while Teresa and I were gone. Ed, the alpha male of group Splinter was shot by the villagers because he was believed to be dangerous! It’s true he attacked several people, including some poor students on the U of C Primatology Field School last year, as well as a primate researcher friend of ours who had stayed here for several months, but still! The monkeys here are supposed to be protected. At Boabeng-Fiema, it is a cultural taboo here to kill them (monkeys are associated with local gods) and the colobus are nationally protected under Ghanaian law. Furthermore, the tourism industry here has reached a point where the anthropogenic effects of tourism and constant human presence are starting to have negative effects on the natural behaviour of the nonhuman primates. It no surprise that Ed, who’s group ranges in a highly tourist visited area of the forest, had began acting aggressively towards people. I am a bit worried about the current state of Splinter group at the moment. Male-male competition for females and a good quality territory are quite high in the ursine colobus here. When humans interfere in these matters, I can only imagine what poor Splinter group did without their protective alpha male. Several outside males likely came in and fought over access to the females, fighting for top rank as alpha. In the process infanticide could have occurred... The situation with Splinter still needs to be assessed though in the next few days.
In addition to this sad news about Ed we also heard that Marika, a crazy tourist lady had come in while we were gone and began building tree houses throughout the forest! She wanted to make cute little bungalows where tourists could sleep and be ‘one’ with the monkeys. Incidentally, the first tree house she built was in Ed’s range, and we’ve heard that she was attacked by him twice (probably in the midst of her building project)! Poor Ed was probably just taking his family for a nice meal to a favourite tree - the exact one where the tree house was being built - came across Marika, freaked out and lunged at her. Ed’s murder is probably her fault ... I blame Marika. Apparently Marika is also dead; she died in Kumasi (another city in Ghana). Teresa and I think someone got fed up with her crap and stabbed her in the heart. This idea isn’t too far-fetched as she had already been stabbed in the heart once in her youth, but then she had survived. All of this is no joke...people like this exist. Unfortunately they tend to have money; they come to Ghana where they offer their money to naive and poor local farmers so that they can continue being insane. In Europe and North America we call these people mentally deranged and dangerous and we put them in institutions where they can be kept under control. Or we give them drugs to numb their psychotic tendencies. Marika evaded such treatment and escaped to Ghana where she finally met her doom.
The cultural differences between our ‘Western’ and Ghanaian societies enable some interesting situations to occur. Wherever we go we are constantly called “obruni” (i.e. white man or stranger). Speaking for myself, I feel shame when I hear myself called this. Obruni seems to sum up the spite that Ghanaians and many other Africans feel towards the white colonialists who came to Africa to ravage the land and people. I feel shame when I hear someone call me obruni because I know that I am white and with the colour of my skin come certain implied wrong-doings (sins maybe?) that I cannot change ... they are in my history. Well, maybe not my personal history since most Romanians were generally the ones being persecuted by various totalitarian regimes rather than doing the persecuting, but you get my drift. Actually Ghana has always reminded me a lot of Bucharest, Romania, around the time when I grew up; right before and after the Ceausescu’s communist crap ended. The country was a mess compared to nowadays. I don’t mean to offend Ghana because I like it here, but I find comfort in some of the familiar comparisons I find with my own childhood.
Other than being called obruni, a white person must get used to being petted (we have considerable more hair on our arms than Ghanaians), getting our hair pulled and/or stroked, and our freckles poked and picked at (I don’t think Ghanaians have freckles generally). A white tourist must also get used to the public urination and defecation, and if you are a woman, constantly being asked if you have a husband. The answer must always be “Yes, and he is big and strong and can beat you!” or you will never escape. Either way you should be prepared to receive several marriage proposals, because any white woman in Ghana must be looking for a man to show her how to be a woman right? Teresa has a list she has actually written down, of the best/worst pickup lines she had ever received from Ghanaian men. She has a lot of them, but my favourite has always been the most shocking: “I want you to be my girlfriend! Do you know why? Because I have a big black penis and it will make you very happy.” LOL
Cell phone service in Ghana is amazing! The country literally bi-passed the entire landline phone system because by the time individuals were ready to get a personal phone, cellular technology was already super. Something that has never happened to me here before which has occurred to me within the past few days, is getting strange phone calls from some Ghanaian who keeps yelling at me “I want you to stop calling my wife. I want you to stop seeing my wife. Do you understand?” The first time this happened it was 1 am and I had no fucking clue what was happening or what continent I was. The next few times he called I told him (at first politely and eventually forcefully) that I was a Canadian woman and he must have the number mixed up. I said I don’t know his wife, I have never called or seen her (i.e. I am not having a secret affair with this woman) and he should stop calling. His reply was confusing, but generally he still believes that I am a Ghanaian man with incredible voice and accent altering abilities, and that I am indeed fooling around with his wife. A woman (his wife maybe) also called me several times this morning. She spoke only Twi and we clearly did not understand one another.
After a few stressful days we finally got the guesthouse at BFMS. This is our home! It is marvellous. Teresa and I (well mostly Teresa because she is quite a bit stronger than me) carried all our kitchen and room stuff out of storage and set things up. Our make-shift kitchen consists of a gas stove and a few shelves, in the open air. The bathrooms have toilets which are flushable by bucket water we get from a manual pump in the garden. Our daily showers are generally also done by bucket water. The water we drink is run through a ceramic filter that we fill via ... yes you guessed it, buckets! Needless to say, in a few weeks I expect to have stronger arms than I ever would have working out at the gym in Canada. Pumping water, in addition to our 10 to 12 hour days following monkeys through the forest, standing on our feet all day with binoculars raised, and going for bi-daily 12 km runs, are bound to get our white flabby asses in shape. Only to get flabby again once the field work is over and we return to Canada, but what can ya do? Our meals are modest yet delicious...or at least Teresa’s are since I can’t cook worth a damn. I would rather open a can of beans for dinner than cook something that other people may actually try to ingest but I can learn...eventually.
At the time when I am writing this, I have only seen monkeys two days. I LOOOOOOVE THEM! I missed watching monkeys so much I didn’t even know it. I have seen some of the main groups that I will include in my study (Wawa, Splinter, B2, Dadie, Red Tail) and things are looking good in term of infants. B2 has 2 young infants! My MA study focuses on finding any potential kin biases in allomothering behaviour in the ursine colobus monkey. That is, are the aunts, grandmothers, sisters, more likely to hold and care for the infant than females who aren’t related? If so, than my findings may provide strong support for the ‘kin selection’ (a theory developed to explain “altruistic” behaviours that are not properly explained by Darwin’s theory of natural selection). It was nice seeing all my old friends (still talking about monkeys), and I was surprised to see how some of the young ones have grown. All of a sudden, young males are more filled in and handsome, and females are larger and look almost adult size. A few horrible things did occur while Teresa and I were gone. Ed, the alpha male of group Splinter was shot by the villagers because he was believed to be dangerous! It’s true he attacked several people, including some poor students on the U of C Primatology Field School last year, as well as a primate researcher friend of ours who had stayed here for several months, but still! The monkeys here are supposed to be protected. At Boabeng-Fiema, it is a cultural taboo here to kill them (monkeys are associated with local gods) and the colobus are nationally protected under Ghanaian law. Furthermore, the tourism industry here has reached a point where the anthropogenic effects of tourism and constant human presence are starting to have negative effects on the natural behaviour of the nonhuman primates. It no surprise that Ed, who’s group ranges in a highly tourist visited area of the forest, had began acting aggressively towards people. I am a bit worried about the current state of Splinter group at the moment. Male-male competition for females and a good quality territory are quite high in the ursine colobus here. When humans interfere in these matters, I can only imagine what poor Splinter group did without their protective alpha male. Several outside males likely came in and fought over access to the females, fighting for top rank as alpha. In the process infanticide could have occurred... The situation with Splinter still needs to be assessed though in the next few days.
In addition to this sad news about Ed we also heard that Marika, a crazy tourist lady had come in while we were gone and began building tree houses throughout the forest! She wanted to make cute little bungalows where tourists could sleep and be ‘one’ with the monkeys. Incidentally, the first tree house she built was in Ed’s range, and we’ve heard that she was attacked by him twice (probably in the midst of her building project)! Poor Ed was probably just taking his family for a nice meal to a favourite tree - the exact one where the tree house was being built - came across Marika, freaked out and lunged at her. Ed’s murder is probably her fault ... I blame Marika. Apparently Marika is also dead; she died in Kumasi (another city in Ghana). Teresa and I think someone got fed up with her crap and stabbed her in the heart. This idea isn’t too far-fetched as she had already been stabbed in the heart once in her youth, but then she had survived. All of this is no joke...people like this exist. Unfortunately they tend to have money; they come to Ghana where they offer their money to naive and poor local farmers so that they can continue being insane. In Europe and North America we call these people mentally deranged and dangerous and we put them in institutions where they can be kept under control. Or we give them drugs to numb their psychotic tendencies. Marika evaded such treatment and escaped to Ghana where she finally met her doom.
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