CCPL3, Pythons, Mots mêlés, etc.

8/25/13

I absolutely can’t believe that I’m going back to the States in just 21 days. I guess that’s still a while, that’s longer than the amount of time I was in Germany/Czech Republic for, but it sounds so short because it doesn’t feel as if I’m just visiting here anymore.

This weekend has been as slow as the others with the exception of Saturday (explained below). Mostly hung around my room and Pamela, Marlene and I went to go play pool at CCPL3, the community center in Gamba. We saw Freddy there as well. I was really bad at pool, just like the last time I played. It was funny because since there’s only one pool table and its free, there was a bunch of random people standing around giving advice to whoever was playing.

Yesterday the little kids in the yard behind my room kicked the ball over the fence two times when I was outside and so I gave it back to them. I started suspecting foul play, but either way it was cute and they were really proud to show me that they could speak a little English. Other than that, did some laundry, cleaned my room and pulsed around a bit in my jellyfish ways.

This last Saturday was the CCPL3 visit to the lab, which actually went a lot better than I thought it would. Tobi told me last minute that I could do it in English and he would translate for me, so that made me feel better. And it was also less “stand up in front of everybody and lecture at them” and more “hey look at this cool thing, lets talk about it and why it’s important” and making the discussion applicable.

Tobi showing a small portion of our insect collection to the students.

We gave the 60 some kids a tour of the lab, and then Axel showed them the microscopes and how to use them. After that we walked out to the savanna and forest to look at different things. Along the way one of the little girls, probably 8 or so, decided that she really liked me a lot and started holding my hand, which also made me feel better about the whole thing. Now that I think about it, it’s funny how much I am not around children. Other than when Willie and I were little, and that one time I held one of my cousins’ babies, I’ve never really been around kids. So it was a new experience to hang out with her and her little kid friends and help them over the big logs and mucky spots. She had these gold sparkle flats that were pretty neat so I made sure she didn’t get them too muddy. I never found out her name, but everyone just called her ma petite copine (basically that means “my great friend” or “my best friend”). I’m still not sure who her parents were, but she skipped out on taking the first bus back to hang out with me more. She was also fascinated by my dad’s camera so I showed her how to use it and let her take photos of people. Here she is:

She had a pretty serious face on most the time.

Anyways then I showed them all a bunch of elephant poop, told them how important poop is to science and to seed dispersal and pointed out how you could see the Saccoglottis gabonensis seeds inside of it and how the Saccoglottis only germinates if it has passed through an elephant first which still blows my mind.

Here are a few more photos from that:

A bunch of boys wanting to get a picture with the white American girl. Obviously caught the kid in the front at a bad moment. This photo was taken by ma petite copine.

 

The whole group. Try to find me!

Also today I decided (with my Mom’s encouragement) to go get another shirt made. One of the other girls at the dorms has a shirt that’s a neat style, sort of like a tunic, but the shop was closed so I’m going to go tomorrow. I’m excited because the fabric here is so so pretty and I’m rationalizing it by saying that you can only get a tailor made shirt with awesome fabric for $20 ever so often.

Oh yeah, and on Friday I touched a python that was on the loose at Vembo. These French guys showed up and put it in a bag to let it loose some place else. It was an interesting interaction, because there is so much mortal fear of snakes here. But pythons are protected and after one of the security guards was talking about eating it, Axel mentioned that that’s the same criminal activity as if you ate an elephant. That’s been one of the hardest things to explain to people that I talk to here, why eating bush meat is destructive to ecosystems, especially when it’s an unsavory creature like a python.

Anyways, everyone was like “this is the smallest python I’ve ever seen!” and I was like “this is the only python I’ve ever seen!” And I must say, I had to quell some serious primal instincts to run the opposite direction when they told me that I could touch it. But, in accordance with my “yes” policy, I did anyways and I’m glad that I did because it felt so neat. I don’t know if I’ve explained my “yes” policy, but it’s pretty straightforward. It’s to say “yes” to as much as I can within reason, excluding drugs, sex, or alcohol. I guess I’ve kind of broken the alcohol rule a few times though because I’ve tried local-made whiskey and palm wine, which wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. But at the end of my stay here I’m going to post a list of all of the different things I did simply because I said “yes” when somebody asked me. So now I can add “touching a python!”

Tobi is coming back to work this week (yay!), and I’m going to be interviewing some farmers on their conflicts with elephants, work on the elephant database, and maybe tomorrow go out with Tobi to Ivinga and investigate an elephant skull to see it died of natural causes or not. I have no idea how he will discern that, but it should be interesting. Needless to say, my life is full of elephants these days. Who would have thought?

Mots Mêlés for days.

Also Clayth gets back the 31^st, and then Lisa gets back the 3^rd of September. And then I leave two weeks later! Ahh! Last thing: I’ve been really into Mots Mêlés lately. I honestly can’t remember the English term right now. It’s not a crossword, it’s where you find the words in a bunch of jumbled letters. Word search? Word puzzle? Something like that, you get the idea. Oh, and I watched Les AristoChats (The Aristocats) and it was sort of better in French, except Eva Gabor’s voice is a better Dutchess, and I wanted the songs to be in English so I could sing along. Oh well.

Les Abeilles

This week I went out with Axel and Franck to check the beehives. The Smithsonian is trying to create a pilot project to see if bees are an effective measure of protection against African forest elephants for plantations. As I mentioned in a previous post, plantations have little defense against elephant crop raids. Often times one visit by an elephant can have a large loss of crops and money, even if it doesn't visit frequently. The hope behind the beehives is that elephants will be deterred if beehives line the property of plantations. To test this hypothesis, they've placed beehives near Saccoglottis gabonensis trees, a favorite for elephants. Currently they are seeing how many beehives will colonize, and then the research can begin. The beehives will use camera traps to see how effective they are with deterring elephants.

Franck et Axel regardent les abeilles dans la ruche.

Axel said that this honey comb was super weird looking and he'd never seen anything like it. He took the photo for me because I didn't have any gloves on.

Franck using the smoke to keep the bees away from the hive while Axel checks for honey/honeycomb.

A piece of honey comb that the bees built.

Franck to the left and Axel to the right in front of the Smithsonian truck. Franck is holding a machete and the smoker. The black tube on the truck is a snorkel for when the rains have submerged the "road" and savanna during the wet season.

Au Revoir

So Thom left Sunday, Lena left Monday, and Perez left this morning. Tonight will be the first time all by lonesome, so I’m probably going to take a walk depending on what time I get home, eat, watch one of my last movies (Fantastic Mr. Fox, Amelie, Monsters Inc., or the Aristocats) and then go to sleep.

Just a few things I’ll miss about the people who’ve left:

Perez knocking on the wall between our rooms before sleep to say goodnight.

Staying at the Zoo until 4 AM.

Lena and I eating gateaux and la lait caillé and then watching TV together.

Driving around with Thom.

French lessons after work with Gigi.

Being the loudest table during dinnertime.

Here are a few photos from the long weekend. As expected, I didn’t do too much. Did a little bit of work on biographies and research for a field trip that the Smithsonian will be doing this Saturday with a bunch of kids and adults from Gamba. We’ll be showing them savanna, forest, and ocean ecosystems. I have absolutely no idea how I’m going to do it because it will be 100% French. I am praying that Tobi won’t have me present anything, and that I’ll just be able to hang out in the background and take photos and look at how cute the kids are.

Lena wanted to take a picture of me with my big beer.

Thom finished the new database on Sunday, which is so amazing of him especially in such a short amount of time (thank you thank you thank you Thom!). He explained to me that working with somebody else’s database is ten times harder than creating your own, which makes sense. Unfortunately I haven’t been able to work with it yet because the hard drive is loaded with viruses and the anti-virus software on the computer isn’t working. See Thom, you left us for one day and we’re helpless.

Thom and Liz and I watched Blood Diamond over the weekend, which is a very intense movie if you’ve never seen it before. Recommended! It was also very strange for me since I am also a young white, female American journalist (student) in a West African country. Obviously huge differences, but a lot of fundamental similarities and frustrations. Like I told Ben already, the biggest difference between the bloody history of Sierra Leone and the relatively peaceful past of Gabon is that millions of years ago, the Earth began creating diamonds instead of oil.

Lena!

Sunday was lazy and mostly a packing day for Lena and Perez. In the afternoon Lena, Perez, Freddy and I went to the beach bar again for a little bit, which was nice.

Lately we’ve been having problems with the camera traps because the batteries are so low that the infrared flash isn’t working anymore on them. What’s that you say? Go buy new ones? Splendid idea! I’ll just take a brisk walk down to the local Wal-Mart and buy 60 D batteries, no problem. No just kidding there is no Wal-Mart here and 60 D batteries would be ridiculously expensive. Not sure what we’re going to do yet, but in the mean time most of the camera traps aren’t getting any images during the night. It continuously strikes me how some of the simplest issues in the US are so difficult here, like logistics behind getting small things or technological problems. In the long run it’s a good wake up call to how parts of the rest of the world function. In the short run it just makes me want to pull my teeth out.

Freddy on the left, Perez on the right.

Mangabey Morning

I finally got to see monkeys! Today the Maarseveen's picked me up after they drove around taking photos of Gamba and we went to this spot near Yenzi where they had seen a troupe of mangabeys multiple times. I had yet to see any so I was super excited. One of them was really chill and just stayed on the palm frond so we could take photos of it. The other ones were pretty hidden away from the road.

Two little mangabeys. The one was picking bugs off of the other.

A better shot of the two. It was difficult to get a good shot because they were hidden behind so many branches and it was so windy.

This one was walking along next to the car for some time, obviously not disturbed by human presence. Tina took this picture.

CHILLER. This photo was taken by Tina.

Same mangabey. This photo was taken by Thomas.

Linguistic Lesson of the Day

Another long weekend starts tomorrow, four days off. I’ll probably be writing a lot and taking photos, and I think I’ll do work tomorrow from home. I think I get to Skype with Mama and Papa Smith this weekend! That’ll be nice to see their sweet faces. This is the last weekend that Lena, Perez, and Thom will be here which is a big fat bummer. There are a bunch of new people in the dorms, which is neat, but also intimidating because they all know each other and work with each other and FRENCH FRENCH FRENCH. (PS the photos in this entry are just random ones I’ve taken, nothing to do with the text).

This is the lake by Vembo, where I go to work. This was early in the morning, probably eight or so. The dry season has a lot of fog cover like this that may or may not burn off by the evening. Gamba actually means fog in a local dialect. To the right is a papyrus marsh.

Some people at the dorms including Lena and Perez taught me a bunch of things about the languages/ethnicities of Gabon tonight. I guess you could technically look this all up on Wikipedia, but this is more fun and interesting even if the possibility for factual error is higher.

Selling fish or maybe meat of the day.

Lena, who is Punu, told me about the main ethnicities and where they are predominantly from. Side note, I asked her if you can tell just by looking at somebody which ethnicity they are, and she said primarily no because they’ve all been so mixed for so long. The only indication might be someone’s name. Punu are mostly in the South, where her parents are from, in the Ngounie and Nyonga Provinces. Obamba and Teke are in the Eastern part of Gamba, though she didn’t know exactly what provinces. The last two presidents, Omar Bongo and his son Ali Bongo, are Teke. Lena said that there is some tension between Teke and Fang, which is expressed well in politics of the country because the biggest critics to the current Teke president are Fang. Apparently one of Gabon’s biggest secrets that isn’t really a secret is that Ali Bongo is Nigerian and was adopted into the Bongo family to be Teke. Obviously I have no idea if this is true or not.

Little dog on the plantation.

Myene are in the Western province of Ogooue-Maritime, in cities such as Port-Gentil. She said that they’re often lighter skinned, and that even though it’s totally unconfirmed and could be totally false, the story goes that when Europeans initially came to Gabon for slave trade, the lighter-skinned coastal Myene people helped the Europeans and sold off their neighbors to save themselves. Apparently sometimes Myenes are treated differently because of this and because they try to “act like white people.”

Lastly there are Fang, and they are possibly the largest ethnicity here. They are regionally from the North in Libreville and Oyem (major Gabonese cities) in the Woleu-Ntem and Estuaire Provinces. Perez, who is Fang, told me about bilop which is the Fang word for non-Fang people. Lena said that the very first president was Fang, and that after independence he wanted Fang to be the national language instead of French because then it would be an indigenous language. Evidently the other tribes didn’t agree.

I asked Perez and Lena to write down some words in Fang and Punu, respectively. Keep in mind that this is English translated into Gabonese French translated into a local language, so the phrases and words aren’t exactly literal translations. But it’s interesting nonetheless:

In English: “Where are you going?”

In French: “Ou va tu?”

In Fang: “Wa ke ve?”

In Punu: “A wu ki wendi?”

In English: “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

In French: “On se voit demain.”

In Fang: “Bi yenane okiri.”

In Punu: “Ik muressi.”

In English: “Thank you.”

In French: “Merci.”

In Fang: “Akiba.”

In Punu: “Diboti.”

In English: “I will go to sleep.”

In French: “Je vais dormir.”

In Fang: “Ma ke dzobossi.”

In Punu: “Gni ma kot.”

I just thought it was interesting to visualize the syntax. The way that it was written in my notebook was neat because you can see which words correspond to which. Lena said that different languages in the same region often share vocabulary, and it’s possible to understand each other. But Punu (south) to Fang (north) has nothing in common. Also, if I understand them correctly, Punu has a lot of conjugations similar to English (sort of) but Fang doesn’t have any conjugations so once you know the basics it’s pretty easy to learn. For example saying “I am walking” and “I will go to sleep” both use “Ma ke” for “I am” and “I will.”

Sometimes people see our camera traps and figure out that its a camera. This one had me laughing so hard when I was going through the photos. It actually inspired me to make little informational cards to put on the cameras so that people know what its there for.

It’s crazy how many layers of language I’ve been engulfed in. Hanging out with the Maarseveens (Thom’s family) has me surrounded by rapid Dutch; life is in French on the daily, English in my head and with Lena, and now some indigenous phrases to compliment it all. Oof. But to be fair all I’ve learned of Dutch so far is “ja, hoor,” “goedemorgen,” and “ik ga slappen” which means “yeah, sure,” “good morning” and “I will go to sleep.” As soon as Tina tells me a word in Dutch it falls out of my ears. But I’ll keep trying anyways. It was Thomas’ birthday on Monday and so they put up this banner that said Happy Birthday in Dutch but it looked like some variation of “gefilte fish” to me.

Anyways there is your linguistic lesson for the day, now you can tell everyone that you will go to sleep in five different languages. At the moment there is something in my bed eating me alive each night and I have 18 big red bug bites primarily on my right leg. If I wake up with 19 I am bombing my room with insecticide and then moving to the Maarseveen’s house. Bonne nuit, mbemba allou, goedenacht and goodnight from Gamba!

Thom and I checking the camera trap at the golf course.

Field Work on Monday

Yesterday I went out into the field with Mireille Johnson, the elephant specialist, and Martin Ombenontori Eréré and Guy-Roger Mihindou (pronounced Gee-roj-ay) who are local guides. They're all very sweet people and I like them a lot. Lots of rapid French that goes over my head unless they speak directly to me, but that's cool. Learning experience. Anyways here's a miniature photo essay of the day. I also took some videos but I'm not even going to get into that because this internet already drives me up the wall trying to upload things.

Anyways they have set up camera traps around six different plantations in the area in order to start identifying them and incorporating them into the database that only has the Yenzi elephants at the moment. The images will complement the genetic work that Mireille is doing with collecting dung around the plantations. So yesterday we were checking the camera traps and talking with the plantation owners. Elephant raids are a big problem here because even if they don't raid the area frequently, their size just demolishes the crops and there isn't a lot to do about it because they can't kill or deter them. At the plantation pictured below there were a few empty oil barrels turned on their side with the ends hacked off, which the plantation workers bang with a big stick to scare the elephants away. Other than that the only real method was to tie a thick metal cable around some trees at about neck level where they know the elephants come out of the forest and into the plantation. Clearly not fool-proof methods, but not a lot of options.

This is the first plantation we visited. The two flags are Shell and Gabon. We had to step over an oil pipeline between the road and the plantation. SYMBOLISM. There was one guy who was hanging out in the building to the right for the entirety that we were there. I don't know what he was doing/waiting for but it looked a lot like when I pulse around in my room.

THIS little chiller was SO CUTE. He followed us for almost the entire two hour hike from the camera trap and back, across logs and through creeks and forest and undergrowth. At first he hung back and kept yowling and Martin kept yowling back at him and so I think that encouraged him. Anyways usually we're walking at a brisk pace but every now and then we would wait for him to catch up. Cats are just so cool. Then when we were about ten minutes out from the car one of his friends came out to meet us and they wen't off together. The plantation owner asked where he was because he didn't come back with us. I don't know what he said but his brow was furrowed so I think he was concerned about it getting eaten by a python. I would be worried too. Cats and dogs here are not the same as in the US. I haven't seen too many examples of pet ownership here, most of the dogs and cats are pretty feral.

 Guy-Roger at the first plantation. All the plantations grew sugar cane, cassava, bananas, manioc, pineapple, and eggplants.

Martin on the left, Guy-Roger hanging out with the cat on the right. Taking a break while Mireille and I checked the camera trap.

The little guy taking a break next to a pineapple plant.

Mireille taking a break on a vine at the third plantation.

This was a little fruit that was growing on the last plantation. It was edible but you just suck on it like a mint, you don't actually ingest it. It wasn't exactly sweet but it was sort of like a nice flavor. I had to many though and my stomach started hurting. I wish I could remember the name but sometimes when the guides tell me a lot of names in one trip they all just fall out of my head and onto the ground.

Guy-Roger with the tree that grows the fruit shown in detail above. The fruit grows in clusters of five and looks just like plumeria flowers or something. So so pretty.

Three Day Weekend

8/10/2013

It’s incredible that many others and myself had never heard of Gabon before I got this internship. This led me to think about my impressions about Gabon, and I think that, although this might be obvious, anyone reading this blog should remember that these are solely my experiences and thoughts on Gabon.

If I was in France or Spain or someplace where I know a lot of people I know have been to, I wouldn’t be so concerned about this. But sometimes I feel ill at ease because I know that if I say something on this blog, it stands alone in the representation of Gabon in people’s minds. Not to take responsibility off of myself and the way that I write about my time here, but just a reminder to people that I can’t represent or portray Gabon to the fullest extent on here, as I have not experienced Gabon to the fullest extent. In all honesty, trying to write about my experiences here is like trying to explain the color orange to a person who has never seen red before.

I hope I'm not the only one to find this interesting.

This weekend has been a three-day weekend because of the end of Ramadan on Friday. In the US I’d be ecstatic about but in Gamba it’s sort of like, “Okay well now what do I do?” So I ended up taking tons of photos and writing this really long post. The photos from the weekend are going to be mixed in with the writing to make it less boring.

Friday was a sleepy day. I woke up at 7:30, ate breakfast and then got back into bed to do nothing/watch movies until lunch. It’s funny how much time I have on my hands here. Like in the US I’ll forget to trim my nails for like, weeks sometimes because I never have the time to just sit and do nothing. I probably have the most well manicured nails I’ve ever had during my time here because when there isn’t much to do (you can only go on so many walks, and I’m having to ration my movies because I’ve watched almost all of them) I do little things like that. I ran out of books ages ago because I only brought a few, and I have yet to visit the library in Yenzi because it’s only open Monday or Friday for a few hours.

Friday night I went out to the Zoo with Gigi, Perez, Lena, and some of Gigi’s colleagues. The Zoo (I don’t know if it’s actually called that, or if that’s just what we call it) is one of two nightclubs that we go to here. The Zoo is set back from the main road of Gamba in le couloir, or the corridor, named as such because it’s a big haphazard cluster of bars and loud music. There aren’t really sidewalks, just room between buildings made up of sand and broken chunks of concrete. Anyways the Zoo is a small place that the local younger people go to. It doesn’t usually start getting busy unto 1:00 or 2:00 in the morning. It’s approximately the size of the living room, middle room, and kitchen in my apartment in Eugene combined, give or take. It’s always completely dark except for the dance lights. I have never seen another white person there.

Wedding car parade. The yelling and honking was deafening.

I loooove the fabric here. So intricate and unique.

The wall by the dance floor is a mirror, and when I first got here I thought it was really funny because people would just dance in front of the mirror. Now I’m used to it, and I’m also used to the difference in attitude toward dancing here. It’s SO enthusiastic here, and it seems like there’s no self-consciousness. Every one is just doing their thing, even if that’s dancing by themselves in an empty dance floor in front of a mirror. Even when we’re just hanging out at the dorms and playing music and drinking, it’s super common for somebody to just break out these intense dance moves by themselves. I like it.

The second one is bigger, and I don’t like it as much because there are always a lot of lights on and the dance floor is in the middle of the room, and everyone can see you really well, which makes me feel self-conscious. Ex-pats go there, as well as others from Yenzi. It’s an older crowd and the few times I’ve been there I haven’t liked the music as much as the Zoo. But, that being said, it’s more put together and they probably have mixed drinks, which is sort of fancy.

Goats in their goat palace.

One time when we went to the Cameroonian Lady’s Bar, Clayth was like “I’m going to get a gin and tonic.” And I was like “ooh I’d like one as well!” and then she brought out two bottles labeled “Booster” gin and tonic flavor. Euughh. The beer here that I drink is generally Régab, which is a lighter Gabonese beer that is apparently popular with the ex-pats, and Castel. Without fail Gigi and Perez always get Guinness, and Clayth and Lena get whiskey with Coke.

Gateaux

Saturday was sleepy as well (surprise!) and Lena wasn’t feeling well so we sat around Gigi’s room watching TV and being low-key. Later in the afternoon Lena and I got gateaux and la lait caillé. The banana gateaux weren’t ready yet so the lady let us sit with her while she finished making them. Lena asked if she could give the recipes to me, but after she explained it there isn’t really a recipe, it’s all from memory and personal measurements (like a packet of this specific kind of sugar, or a small bowl of this) so I don’t know if I’ll be able to replicate it when I get back. She let me take photos of her making the banana gateaux. She has a nice smile.

Saturday night I went to Belair again (last time was with Thom and his family, I can’t remember if I wrote about that on here though) with Lena and Gigi and Perez for dinner and it was super good, just like last time. Everyone was tired so we just went back to the dorms for movies/sleep. I watched Blues Brothers 2000. So good.

One of the speakers. I don't think he was exactly the pastor because he was mostly singing and was the first guy.

Sunday I went to church with Sylvana and Beatrice, two women who I met randomly on the street. I’m still not clear what kind of church it was exactly. Nobody spoke English so it was all pretty lost on me except for the vibe of the place, which was explosive. All the women had to cover their hair, which I didn’t know about beforehand, so Sylvana let me use her shawl. They pulled out their bibles once and the rest of the time was singing and prayer and dancing. During the singing and preaching it was fine for people to speak out loud to themselves, or start yelling, or do Xena warrior cries. At one point there was a congo line.

After the service ended the pastors and the men lined up in a row and we (the women) and children shook hands with them. I don't know what everybody was saying to each other but I just said "bonjour" over and over again. 

The church wasn’t finished being built yet so the back is just wooden boards and some sheets. There were a bunch of holes in the walls, so lizards scuttled in and out during the service, which I thought was cute. Women sat together on the right side by the choir, and the men sat on the left side. Children sat in the back.

Beatrice on the left and Sylvana on the right. These are the two who invited me to the service.

As you can see in the photos, Gabonese “Sunday best” is so much cooler than American’s. The fabrics were so colorful and vibrant. Three people went into this state of shock, I don’t really know what you would call it, but they fell on the floor and on the people around them. One woman went stiff as a board and looked like she had a bitter taste in her mouth. Another one was shaking her head back and forth so fast that her earring was flung into the row behind her. Another one was sort of dancing and rolling. Three women in matching dresses took care of them when this happened and stayed with them until they were finished. One of the women didn’t snap out of it so they took her to the front on her knees and the preacher put his palm on her forehead and kept pushing her head back and forth, shouting things in French, while the women in the matching dresses held her up. Afterwards they put her back in her chair, but she was still limp.

Women had to cover their hair (I don't know specifically why, maybe this is a common thing that I just don't know about) and I didn't know so Sylvana let me use her shawl and fixed me up. The guy on the right is Beatrice's son.

Today is Gigi’s last day, so he’s been getting packed up. Weekends make me feel like a jellyfish. I say jellyfish because during the weekends my main activity seems to be “being.” We’re not saying or doing anything specifically exciting; it’s like the ultimate form of chilling. I just sort of sit or talk or look on as my heartbeat pulses. I pulse in my room for a little, then I pulse on over to Gigi’s room and pulse on his bed while he does something, then I pulse outside with Perez and Gigi as he hangs up his wet laundry, etc. etc.

Au revoir Gigi, I will miss you tons and tons. À prochaine. 

Summary of the Week!

8/8/2013

So pretty much at work I’ve been focusing on improving the database. I’ve also been trying to work on outreach to people in the community so they know more about what we’re doing with the elephants. Specifically lately.

 Cleaning up the old records, because some of them have been misidentified or mislabeled, or they are just bad images.

-       

    Creating a set of protocols because currently it’s sort of a free for all. I’m hoping this set of protocols that I’m writing up will give those after me basic rules and help them figure out the system faster and help add uniformity to identification. Currently I think it’s safe to say that I am the person who has spent the most time looking at the images of elephants and sites and working on the database. I feel pretty cool when I’m looking through new records and am like “Oh there’s Yenzi and her three babies with Iguela and and Sounga and oh! There’s Malolou tagging along a few minutes later with Ngowe. Interesting.”

-       I’ve reached out to the Yenzi community (where the management of Shell lives) because that’s where our camera traps are. I’m really trying to get more information out there about what we’re doing, because currently not a lot of people know about the elephant project. So I signed up for the Yenzi email list and asked people with quality photos of elephants to email them in to help me out and I can email them back with info on the elephant if we’ve already identified it. So far it’s been a lot of the same elephant, Vembo, who is super old and sassy. Today though a fellow named Dave Chippendale came in and he had actually set up his own camera traps and gave me some of those images, which was really nice of him. Some good shots of Totou, Simba, Malolou, Vembo and some unidentified babies.

-       Currently I’m making a slideshow of images from the camera traps so that during our tours of the lab we can show people how we identify the elephants. It’s nice to be able to show people things instead of just talking their ear off. And people always like looking at elephants; they always have their own stories, which is cool because it gets them involved.

-       Writing up little placards to attach to the camera traps in English and French. A lot of the times I get photos on the cameras of people looking at them all confused or posing for them, so I thought it would be neat to laminate a little info card that they can read so they at least know what they are for. Also some contact info so if they want to know more they can get in touch.

-       Other than that it’s all been data entry or Thom and I trying to rework the database so that it’s simpler and more manageable. Basically Thom is like a hero around here because he’s so tech savvy and we are so not. It’s difficult because as far as I know, nothing has really been made before like this database. Of course there have been similar ones, but it’s not like we can just copy somebody else. Which makes it exciting but also difficult.

All that stuff is probably really boring to everyone, but maybe someone will think it’s interesting, or maybe when I look back on this later I’ll be like cool, glad I wrote that down. Then I’ve also been working on biographies of people working with Smithsonian, as well as getting stuff together for an Environmental Day in November that I won’t actually be here for.

Other than that, Michel, my colleague at work, had to leave a week early because of an emergency. So now it’s just Axel, Thom, and myself. Two interns and a volunteer! We’re holding it down though. I think Axel and I have given four tours of the lab so far, and we’re cleaning it up/organizing it a little more on the daily.

Thom! We took a detour while checking camera traps.

Thom invited me to dinner with his family when he got back on Monday. IT WAS SO DELICIOUS. It was at Belair, I guess it’s the restaurant in Gamba that most of the ex-pats go to. Anyways I got to meet Thom’s family (or rather his mom and sister, I had already met his dad Thomas) and they’re very lovely and Dutch. And they all spoke English for me, which was sweet of them. I had chicken kebabs, rice, and fries, which is pretty standard here but it was very well done, especially the chicken. Thom brought me back instant coffee, a keychain of a ceramic clog from HollanAlso, Thom took me to the Economat here, which is like the grocery store for people living in Yenzi. I got fresh fruit for the first time here aside from the one time I got bananas with Michel. Pear, peach, apricot. And I also got this really good chocolate that I will cherish until the last crumble.

Lastly, today I got my tailored shirt! Here are some not-great photos of the tailor shop that Lena and I went to. I want to go back and take more. Lena got a fancier shirt that had three quarter sleeves and a ruffle around the waist, I opted for simplicity because I had never done this before and had no idea what I wanted. This was 10,000 F CFA which Lena said is expensive for this type of shirt (hers was the same amount even though it had more material and more difficult sewing job, also a previous shop said they would be 7,000 F CFA but I didn’t like their fabric) but I thought about it and I was like, $20 for a tailored shirt, whatever style I want, with whatever kind of fabric I want? That’s cool with me. I figured this’ll be the one thing I buy for myself as a keepsake from Gamba, so it’s worth it. Perez made this little squeal when I told him how much it was but then he conceded that it was a good souvenir.

The tailor shop.

Then after we got our shirts, we saw Gigi on the street and we went to the stand to get gateaux and la lait caillé. I told Lena that I’m really going to miss la lait caillé when I get back to the US and she said next time we could ask the lady that we always buy from for a recipe so that I can try to make it when I get back. Which would be great because it isn’t as sweet or heavy as ice cream, but it’s richer then frozen yogurt.

Typical store in downtown Gamba.

Tomorrow is a day off because it’s the end of Ramadan, so I’m probably going to go to the store and get some things, do laundry, and maybe do some work. I’m always a little cautious about going to stores because they never have prices marked on things, and I have no idea how much things cost here. For example I wanted to get a couple more button up shirts for work, so I went to this store and I paid 4,000 F CFA for two shirts, which is like three or four dollars per shirt, and Gigi was like “ANNA YOU WERE ROBBED!”

It makes me think of that scene from the Blues Brothers (which I watched in my room on Monday) where Elwood and Jake are stuck at the gas station before the show, and the pretty girl pulls up and mistakes Elwood for the gas attendant and so he fills up her car and is like “Okay uh, that’ll be $94.00.” and without batting an eyelash she hands him $95.00 and tells him to keep the change. That’s like exactly what would happen to me here if I were to buy a sponge here and they would charge me 1,500 F CFA.

Anyways, this is one of the last weekend that Gigi and Lena and Perez will be here, and I’m going to miss them tons, especially Lena because it’s been so especially nice to have a girl friend. Hopefully I get to see them again sometime, whether it is in France, Gabon, or the US. Gigi already said that after I graduate I could come visit him in France if he’s still there. I’m seriously considering that, especially because Thom said that he’ll be coming back here next summer and said I could stay with them and their place in Yenzi if I wanted to visit again. Of course this is all just “what if” right now because lord knows where I’ll be at when I graduate, but I’m dreaming about bopping over to France, saying hey, and then continuing on to Gabon, staying for little, and then on to the next.

Last photo, this made Lena and I laugh because Perez’s nickname is Rick Ross (for multiple reasons), and it was too perfect. I actually really want it but I can’t really justify buying it. My favorite is the last line of the small print, “Both songs are good tracks but that’s only expected from the Miami Boss, Rick Ross”