Gamba Life

Some little photos of my life in Gamba:

My room! I put up some Smithsonian posters of the insects and amphibians here. My growing collection of shells is to the left on my mini-fridge.

My little collection of things from home in the corner, plus a little cup that I got here.

My room is just to the left. I hang out with these two the most: Gildas, on the right, teaches me French and I teach him English every day after work. I call him Gigi. Clayth is on the left. They're both Gabonese and interning with Shell. 

This is the gateaux that I mentioned in a previous post. The little white bags are called lait caillé, a frozen sweet milk. It's pretty close to ice cream. You tear a hole in the corner with your teeth and then squeeze it all out like an Otter Pop. I think this was all 500 CFA, which is about $1.00. They're perfect for a snack between lunch and dinner.

Gigi in the front and Perez in the back. This was at a local soccer competition between five or so teams in the community. It was held at a community center in Gamba, which was pretty big and nice. The games were played on a basketball court though, so it was really small for soccer.

Our team from the dorm! In the back from the left, Dede, Dmitri, Hervé, and Mamadou. In the front from the left is Sylvester, Gigi, Perez, and Armand. They lost the first game and won the second.

Gigi just being his happy self.

A day trip that I took last week into the fôret with a small team to look for elephant dung for genetic sampling. We actually walked right into an elephant, but I didn't see it because I was the third person in the line. We turned right around and walked back a ways rather hurriedly, and then kept going. We also think we were quite close to a gorilla because we found fresh gorilla dung and heard it nearby. It's funny how quickly you feel unprotected and meek when you're thinking you're about to face a gorilla. Really puts the whole "survival of the fittest" thing into perspective.

A pretty typical forest shot. This was from an expedition that I went on with Mireille, the elephant specialist here at the Smithsonian, Lisa, the director here, and two guides to collect fresh elephant dung. Mireille is beginning a project of collecting elephant dung to get DNA samples so that we can start getting genetic information on the elephant population in the area, as well as the elephants who are raiding plantations.

Mireille, in the blue, sampling elephant dung, and Martin on the right getting GPS coordinates.

A break in the forest, and also where elephant ticks like to hang out. A lot of this hike was into the fôret marécageuse which is basically really swampy areas with trees and water.

Also, here is a link to an article that Lisa sent me about the partnership going on between Gabon and the University of Oregon.