Monkey s and Oil Men

So I'm in Africa, kinda very hard to believe as I have yet to see any of Africa yet. When I left the states I really had no idea what to expect. "You'll be studying monkeys in Africa" is about the extent of what I left the country with. And now I've progressed to "you'll be studying monkeys in the Caldera, the southern portion of the island." And apparently that is what we are known to do, and why we are called the Monkey s.
I learned this at the airport in Paris where I started talking to two guys on the plane. They were both oil workers coming from Texas. They asked if I was coming to count monkeys. When I said yes they turned to another standing nearby and pointed us out as the new monkey s. And thats what we are.
So I have yet to see any of Africa as we are currently staying in tents on the Mobil Exxon corporation's property. They are a huge sponsor of our project, as are a few other oil companies in the region. Its been very strange as we are being treated as employes of the company. There are very strict guidelines about what we are and are not allowed to do, mostly not allowed to do. The property is very safe and is surrounded by a barbed wire topped fence and patrolled by guards. I think that is a little extreme, but we are very much a resort like island in the middle of a jungle island (and by resort I mean we have air-conditioning and a pool).
So far we have spent our days preparing for the surveys. Packing all our food into dry sacks, learning how to estimate distances in order to record in our notebooks for primate sightings, and learning how to walk 1 km/hr.
I'm really excited to get off MEGI, or the Mobil Equatorial Guinea Inc, compound and see some reall Africa. We head off on Sunday morning to the southern portion of the island by boat, where we will then be backpacking and surveying for the next three weeks. So the next blog will be much more interesting. But now it is time to retire to the tents, for there is much more prep work to do tomorrow.