Orange tents...

Jan 25, 2009

I've passed the physical test. I hiked more in the last two weeks than I have in my life and it was amazing. I have gained the nickname 'Frog Girl'. I have had my hiking boots stolen. Thats just the overview.

So to set the scene: there are about 8 volunteers, 7 students, 3 grad students, 4 professors, and approximately 55 porters. Our job was to hike the southern portion of the island of Bioko, EG, to conduct census of the 7 primate species of the island and analyze the affect of the supposed law against bushmeat hunting. Bushmeat is the capture and selling of wild animals for food and has been the reason for the great decrease in primate populations in the past decade (for more info just google bushmeat). The government finally set up a law in response to pressure from our program (BBPP) but enforcement of the law is anything but. So we spent two weeks counting primates and any other animal we set our eyes on. What did I learn? That census is a lot of work!

Except I didn’t really do many censuses. I studied frogs. A lot of frogs. And the last two days I’ve been working on the preliminary report of all the frogs I collected and photographed. My goal is to maybe have found a new species, but we’ll see. There are a lot of species here though. I have about 50 collected specimens that we will be sending to a herpetologist in CA to identify, then we’ll find out.

Since I don’t have time to tell everything, I would recommend checking out the program website at www.bioko.org and it will tell you almost everything we did, minus the personal little stories, which will trickle out over time…

Tonight we are enjoying out last meal at the MEGI compound and will be moving to our student out tonight. I’m super excited because we will finally get to leave the barbed wire fences and patrol guards for the reality of Africa. It feels really like I haven’t really been here yet. Tomorrow is our first official day of classes and we get to actually spend a 5 nights in a bed! This is super exciting because ever since the day we got here we’ve been sleeping in a tent. Its really funny though because the program has like 10+ matching bright orange tents that we take everywhere with us, its like a herd of big orange pods marching towards some unknown goal. Kinda creepy.

Yesterday we did get to leave the compound for a morning and we went to the market to check out the bushmeat section. Wow. It really makes me appreciate the work we spent in the Caldera with the primates. They actually break the legs of the animals so they can’t go anywhere but so the meat stays fresh since there are definitely no refrigerators. Then the animals just lie there until someone buys them, then they are sliced to pieces on a piece of cardboard on the ground. And there are animals everywhere, all types of animals. And most of them are collected illegally, however I think its pretty clear now that it is absolutely not enforced. It was a good first experience of Africa and I am really excited to get more starting tomorrow.

Anyways, Friday we leave for the Moka Wildlife center and will be spending the next two weeks back again with our best friends, the bright orange tents. And I did finally figure out, about half of my 3 months here will be spent in a tent…I am really appreciating my sleeping pad now! Then we go back for a few more weeks of normal school in classrooms, then finals week and we’re gone. Its very hodgepodge, but such a unique experience and unique program that I just have to realize I’m lucky to be a part of it. Oh, and every single weekend we go on a trip somewhere in the island (and yes, we stay in our orange tents wherever we go). I think in a few weeks we get flown to the mainland Bata by one of the oil companies for a party and presentation of our projects. So I’ll get to give a speech about my frogs :D

Anyways, there is about a million little things I want to tell you guys but I just can’t type fast enough to get it all out. I can tell you one thing though, my scheduled day for internet is Thursday. We are 9 hours ahead of CA time, so just make sure to have your skype account signed in all the time and hopefully we can talk. I already got to test it today and it seems to work pretty good. Most likely I will be on about noon CA time.

I love to hear from you guys, please email me about life in the USA and you will make my day. I can’t wait to be able to tell you guys about the real Africa…soon to come!