Getting My Feet Wet

As I begin my fourth week here in Da Nang, the pace of things has definitely mellowed as I’ve settled in. The bureaucracies of getting the donated equipment shipped here has been a lot of hurry-up-and-wait, and the case load at the hospital has been relatively low recently, so I’ve reached out in a few new directions to help where I can outside the hospital. There is a great organization here called East Meets West that works in a variety of sectors, including health, education and community development, and I am going to be helping them translate a medical catalogue they are distributing. Through one of the members at EMW, we also managed to set up another English class in the evenings for people who can’t attend the one at the hospital. And lastly, I’m helping a friend of a friend find online in-roads into western markets for his tourism business. The first thing I told him was to change the title of their historical tour package on sexuality in religion from “Sex Training Tour” to something slightly less misleading.

And though things have been a bit mellower over all, this past week has still certainly had its exciting moments, usually involving something breaking. For instance we had our first power outage the other day. Though, admittedly, dinner by candle light was relatively benign. Less so, however, was breaking through the sidewalk when I was running the other day. I was jogging down the sidewalk at a good clip and chose the wrong slab of concrete to place my weight on because it literally cracked in half beneath me breaking into the sewer. I can’t say exactly when, but some time ago, around when I was learning to walk and developing the concept of object permanence, I just started taking the ground for granted. No longer…  (And, yes, I’m fine. Thanks for asking.)

What really takes the cake though has got to be when my water heater broke, sprayed boiling water all over my balcony, and then slowly proceeded to flood my room—around 1 am, no less. This meant spending a few hours on Tuesday relocating all my stuff to the adjacent room, and placing everything that was on the floor out to dry. The silver lining was that my new room had a queen bed and was closer to the internet room. However, as a very wise man once said, every silver lining has a touch of grey, mine in this case being the water slowly seeping through the wall and/or out of my new bathroom’s plumbing causing me to change rooms again. My guess is that the new leak had something to do with the “repairs” they did that tore up three walls, left me showerless for three days and resulted in the new water heater visibly leaking.

It’s hardly been all bad though. When I was driving across town the other night I found myself driving past a field scattered with rows of hanging fluorescent lights. It was incredibly beautiful in an eerie, but still pleasant kind of way, and I’ve seen more on the edges of town as I’ve driven around since. I learned that these are actually fields of paperwhite flowers, grown for the Tet Holiday, i.e. the Vietnamese New Year. The lights are used to influence the lifecycles of the flowers to try to get them to bloom on exactly the right night of the holiday.

I also made it to the beach this week. On the one day it was really sunny this week I bought myself some sunscreen and a 70¢ beach towel, and went bodysurfing in some of the more wonderfully temperate waters I’ve swam in in quite some time.  This week I also broke my record for the most impressive thing I’ve seen hauled on a motorbike (in person anyway). The record was previously held by a Peruvian family of seven, but the new title goes to a guy I saw carrying a 5’ refrigerator strapped vertically to the passenger seat of his bike.

For those of you interested in international politics, I also picked up this cute Vietnamese phrase, “Russia says everything, but does nothing. America speaks, and it is so. China says nothing, but does everything.”

My favorite moment, though, has got to be translating the YouTube sensation, “Charlie Bit Me”, for my English class. I don’t think anything says globalization quite like using someone’s smart phone to bust out one of the world’s most celebrated YouTube videos as a lesson aid for an English class halfway around the world. (If you haven’t seen it, it’s a hilarious video documenting a young boy’s personal struggle with operant conditioning. I would highly recommend watching it—immediately: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OBlgSz8sSM.)
                Finally, I am quite pleased to say that I managed to find a real Thanksgiving dinner to partake in. Bread of Life, the restaurant staffed by the deaf I mentioned earlier, had a great set menu for the holiday so I decided to bring a handful of people from my English class. We had talked about Thanksgiving that day in class, but that was virtually their only exposure to the holiday, and everyone was excited to try the food. They had never heard of any of the dishes before, but liked most of them, though the size and density of the meal was far beyond the normal Vietnamese diet. 
                We also wound up eating with a modest looking, but deceptively interesting, granite exporter, who was there by himself. He was of Vietnamese descent, but was in fact born in Paris, raised everywhere from Nigeria to Singapore, and attended college at UC Davis. Speaking fluent Vietnamese, English and French, he was a great person to talk to about languages, though he also said such a vagrant childhood left him with few permanent friends. I definitely hope I'll get the chance to see him again. 

More Firsts

These past several days have held yet more milestones for my trip. On Tuesday I got to observe my first surgeries, which was quite an experience. I scrubbed in with Dr. Huan, and watched as he prepared the anesthetics for two patients. Each operating room (OR) has two beds, and it’s standard for there to be two operations occurring simultaneously. The first was a woman who was having two large staples removed from her ankle. The second was a young boy, probably about 9, who was having two pins removed from his elbow. Both of them seemed like relatively simple and benign operations compared to what I’ve seen since.

The most intense surgery I’ve seen so far has been the removal of an approximately 16 inch rod from a man’s femur. They had to open his left hip using a cauterizing electric knife (which created a less than pleasant smell in the OR), and then literally use a mallet and chisel to get access to the top of the rod and pull it out. All the while, the man only has a spinal block and partial sedation, so he is aware of the hammering and shaking of his body, even if he can’t feel or see the operation. It’s pretty crazy to watch.

Watching my first nerve block, where anesthetic is injected around a major nerve to numb an extremity, definitely rekindled my old aversion to needles, but as I saw more, they quickly got easier to watch. The surgeries themselves though didn’t bother me at all. Between surgeries, Dr. Huan would explain to me more about the OR and the procedures, and I would help him learn the English medical terms for things by drawing and writing on the operating table covers. Despite the serious nature of the work, the doctors still manage to keep a warm sense of humor amidst the professional environment, telling jokes between procedures and helping put the patients at ease. I think my favorite part of their OR, however, has got to be the music. During all the surgeries so far, they’ve been playing one of Dr. Huan’s CDs that is basically full of the equivalent of Vietnamese Barry Manilow. I almost laughed out loud when they first started playing it, and it definitely gives a rather farcical character to the whole situation.

 On a somewhat related note, Dr. Huan also invited me to my first evening of karaoke this week. It was for his friend’s birthday, and so I got to meet several more locals, a couple of which even started attending my English class at the hospital. We spent the evening in the small acoustic prison of our modest karaoke room singing, eating cake, and bonding over our shared audacity to butcher such great classics as “Tiny Dancer” and even “We are the World”. It was fantastic. And considering the total fee was less than $2, I’d challenge anyone to find a more economic way to entertain eight people for three hours.

That said, we did give ourselves a run for our money today when we spent the day picnicking in the park. They’ve got a great park here surrounding a lake with the coolest playgrounds for kids I’ve ever seen, but which would never fly in the states out of liability concerns. (For instance, they have a not-quite-horizontal wheel about 8 ft. in diameter elevated a few feet off the ground, which seemed to have the express purpose of having kids spin it by running around on it until it was going fast enough that they would fall off. What could go wrong?) Anyway, several members of our karaoke group spent the day there hanging out, which definitely gave me some more perspective into Vietnamese culture. Some things, like a few of us taking shots at playing guitar, and Dr. Huan getting his palm read, could have been just like anywhere else. But then there were things I would never have expected to see, like our group of early to late twenty-somethings being enthralled by hangman for a good hour and a half, or learning how to Cha Cha and Tango lakeside to the downloaded ringtones on one of the guy’s cell phones. We also played (for lack of better title) pick-a-random-dare-out-of-a-hat. The dares—which were all found universally hilarious—consisted of such provocative commands as “pinch the person next to you”, “sing a song”, and, the one I chose, “put a leaf on your head”. The most baffling to me though had to be, “say what a bee would say when it comes home from work.” No, it was not a translation error; I inquired earnestly. Rather, it was more or less a challenge to come up with the best pun you could involving bees, work and a stereotypical domestic lifestyle. “Honey, I’m home,” was of course the obvious cop out response.  I couldn’t make this stuff up if I tried. We had a great time though, and I sincerely doubt this is the last you’ll be hearing of these guys.

Don’t Eat the “Ox Muscle”

            My first week here has absolutely flown by, and I am happy to report that on the whole things have been going extremely well, though there was a bit of a hiccup when my reservation for a bed on the overnight train from Hanoi to Da Nang fell through. As a result I wound up in a crowded “soft-seat” compartment for the 15 hr, overnight journey. Fortunately, however, with the amply reclining seats, I still managed to sleep through the vast majority of the trip, but still awoke in time to see the impressive surf along the shoreline from the night’s storm as we pulled into Da Nang.

            On arrival at the hospital, I was quite impressed by the guestroom they are renting me for a very affordable $5 per night. It’s well furnished, has high ceilings, a refrigerator, AC, cable TV (which is universally free in Vietnam, and a good bit of which is in English), and even an extra bed, which is currently occupied by my guitar, but which could easily accommodate any of you who are interested in visiting between now and February. An ether net cable and a washing machine are just down the hall, and I even have my own small balcony. My only real complaints are a slightly leaking roof (likely from the typhoon that hit a couple months ago), and a slightly temperamental toilet, which has been easy enough to fix however.

            My gustatory adventures started my very first night here, and before I go into the story, now would be a good time for me to suggest saving this tale for a time when you can afford to lose your appetite. That said, there is a makeshift cafeteria for the staff below me in this building, and as I was digging into my dinner of pho bo, I was invited to join a group of guys sitting nearby by one of the orthopedic technicians who spoke English. The technician, Nguyen (“Wyn”), explained to me that the man in the wheelchair to my right, Binh, who looked rather like a Vietnamese Steve Buschemi, was getting braces for his legs the next day so he could finally walk again, and was treating everyone to drinks and hors d'oeuvres to celebrate. We started with a round of Tiger beer, the local cheap brew of choice, followed by some rice wine served out of old soda bottles. The cloudy liquid could no doubt be used to sterilize the hospital’s surgical equipment in a pinch, and in accordance with the old adage, my chest has become notably hairier since. I offered to buy a round for everyone, but Nguyen told me that Binh insisted that this was his treat, and that “as I long as I kept drinking, he could keep pouring.”
            It was about this time when they brought out the first appetizers, and Nguyen asked me if I had ever tried “ox muscle”. I had not, and so Nguyen picked up one of the fleshy coils on the platter and dipped it into a mild looking sauce before setting it on my plate. Not wanting to appear rude, closed-minded or weak-stomached, I popped the morsel into my mouth despite its unappealing appearance, and immediately regretted the decision. Before I could even appreciate the texture of the “muscle” which fell somewhere between stale calamari and cartilage, my nostrils and taste buds were assailed by the devastatingly pungent sauce, which in retrospect was probably equal parts salt, concentrated fish extract and ammonium carbonate (the active ingredient in smelling salts used to revive the unconscious). Through sheer force of will, I smiled/grimaced to indicate how much I was enjoying it, as I did my best to not audibly gag. The real kicker though was about a minute into chewing it when I noticed that the other pieces still had bits of black stubble sticking out of them where they hadn’t been totally shaved. Remember kids, it’s ok to say “no”, even if everyone else is doing it—which is exactly what I did the following night when I was offered the chance to try a partially developed, hardboiled duck egg. This delicacy is what you get when you give a fertilized egg a few weeks head start on becoming a duckling before cracking it open. It’s pretty grim—I’ll just leave it at that.

            Most of the food, however, has been more than palatable, and you can eat for about a dollar a meal if you want to. There are lots of great restaurants around here with very nice chicken, noodle and rice dishes. Vietnamese seafood is also supposed to be fantastic, but I’m still trying to get a handle on what is safe before I eat too much of it. Banh Mi, a customizable sandwich on a small baguette, is a popular meal here that is quickly becoming a staple of mine. And if I get desperate, there are even a few ex-pat friendly eateries that serve pizza, burgers and the like. One of which called Bread of Life is particularly cool because it is staffed exclusively by deaf Vietnamese citizens to help them find employment. There is also a shopping center here, called Big C, that has just about everything you could ever need—think Safeway meets Target—which has been really convenient for getting snacks and little things for my room like bath mats and power strips. It’s also nice because they have fixed prices, and so far it seems like I get charged about twice as much as the locals for most things that don’t have a price tag. They are incredibly uptight about their security though. Any backpacks or bags you bring into the store are literally put into heat sealed plastic bags so you can’t hide anything in them, and even the employees are frisked by security when they leave the main store area to go to the bathroom.

            I definitely stick out stick out on the street being blond and about 8 inches taller than most people. As a result I get a lot of curious looks from the locals, and I can’t find shoes less than three sizes too small. A lot of the plastic patio furniture used by local restaurants is also what we would consider kids’ size in the US, and so I always wind up laughing at myself when I awkwardly sit down to eat. Most people can’t speak English, but they are still usually very friendly and helpful. Kids, adolescents, and sometimes even adults will say “hello” to me on the street, and they usually get quite a kick out of it when I say hello back. One girl at Big C was even bold enough to shout “I love you!” up the escalator to me triggering a chorus of giggling from her friends.

            I also have my own motorcycle for getting around town—ok fine, it’s more of a motor scooter that probably tops out at about 40 mph (the speedometer is broken)—but it’s still a lot of fun to get around on. In Vietnam it seems like these are how virtually everyone gets around, and when you combine that with the fact that only about every fifth intersection has a stop light you can get quite a rush just cruising around town. I’ve also been very lucky to have been put in touch with Uyen, the local guide who rented me my motorbike. He is a very likeable and honest father of four, who has already been extremely helpful in familiarizing me with the city and helping me get essential supplies for my stay here. If any of you consider coming to Da Nang, I would wholeheartedly recommend getting in touch with him.

            So far I’m still getting to know the ins and outs of the hospital, and meeting new doctors and physical therapists (PTs). Up to this point I’ve spent the most time with Dr. Huan, a short, upbeat anesthesiologist, and Dr. Vu, a more relaxed orthopedic surgeon who shares my appreciation for a certain videogame I used to play a lot in high school. Many of the staff speak English well enough to have a conversation with, and most of them are very glad to have a chance to learn from a native speaker so we set up a daily English class that anyone in the hospital can attend. So far there are about eight people attending regularly, and it will likely grow as the word gets out. It’s been really interesting speaking so much with people who only know the basics of the language. It makes you realize how much you can simplify your speech and still convey the same essential meaning, but also how much we take the subtleties of English for granted, things like the differences between “family” versus “relatives”, “to like to fish” versus “to like going fishing”, and “to be no longer working” versus “being retired”. Despite the virtually identical technical meanings, each of these words and phrases still conjures a rather different idea in your mind, and it has been interesting to see both how that subtlety gets lost and trying to teach it in our class. The other day I was trying to explain all the ways you can use “cute” for instance, which made me realize just how much we take the versatility of the word for granted. Another time I was trying to teach the meaning of “literal”, but I think I only had limited success. 

            There is another volunteer staying here as well named Durga. She is a PT taking a couple weeks away from her family in Atlanta to work in the hospital’s rehabilitation clinic and to teach the latest physical therapy techniques. This weekend the two of us took a short ride down the coast to see Marble Mountain, a grouping of giant marble monoliths overlooking the coastline. The natural beauty of the mountains is something to behold on its own, but what is really spectacular about the place are the ornate pagodas and ancient statues hidden throughout the caves, which have eroded into the marble over time. The incense burned throughout the caves catches the light that beams through the natural openings in ceilings, and combined with the droplets of water dripping throughout the caves, it creates an ambiance that is just spectacular. At the base of the mountain are dozens of stone carving workshops that create some truly impressive sculptures and jewelry out of the local marble. Unfortunately, the views from the mountaintop reveal the hardships of the local communities. Despite the beautiful ocean vistas, the surrounding developing areas create a juxtaposition of great cultural wealth and economic poverty that seems regrettably common in the area. 

Peru Vol. 4

8/22/09 10:30pm:

            So we’ve gotten back into a bit of a groove after changing our plans around. Unfortunately that groove includes waking up 5 am to do our bio-inventories—but hey, what’s good science if not mundane, repetitive tasks at uncomfortable hours? At least that’s the one time of day it’s cool out. When it was bad a few days ago I was still sweating, at rest, until about midnight.

            Our time in Puerto has also given a chance to get more of the local color. For instance we wound up being coerced into sharing several beers with a nice, but very aggressive, Peruvian woman, who then proceeded to show us rather racy pictures of her daughter, an adolescent professional dancer (who was present at the time) on her cell phone. Alex had mentioned the warnings he’d gotten in the past about the girls here latching on to guys as a ticket out of Puerto Maldonado, which is the Peruvian equivalent of a small, agricultural city in the US, but this was the first time I’d seen it in action. Alex says I just haven’t been in the right bars on a Saturday yet.

8/26/09 6:13pm: Obelisco

            This afternoon we went to the Obelisco, a cool observation tower in the center of town and arguably Puerto’s biggest tourist destination. It’s about 70 ft tall, which as far as observation towers go isn’t remarkable, but it is easily the tallest building in Puerto by 30 ft. At the top of the obelisk you get an interesting perspective of how limited the town is. At street level the town feels like more or less like any other in the developing world, but from the tower you realize the entire developed area fits neatly into a square a few kilometers in diameter with well defined edges that abruptly transition into dense rainforest. You also don’t think of it from the ground, but the Amazon basin appears incredibly flat once you’re far enough above the canopy, almost to an unnatural degree. Joel accurately commented it seemed a lot like we were inside a game of Sim City.  We got there just at sunset too, and the clouds were incredibly diverse along the sky line, creating an incredibly beautiful and dynamic scene as the colors shifted with time.

            While we were up there we also saw a local marathon, or at least some sort of street race. It was confusing at first though because they hadn’t blocked off the streets. Our only initial hint was a motorcycle policeman with his lights and siren going, but only driving about 10 km/hr. At first we thought it was Peru’s slowest car chase, but then we saw the runners behind him. The whole time we were up there though, about 30 min, we probably only saw a maximum of 20 runners, which made us wonder why they did it at all. But then again, despite the police escorts, traffic just weaved between the runners the whole time, so I guess it really wasn’t much of a burden on the public. The guy in had last place had to feel a little embarrassed though considering the race had created enough congestion to stack up a couple dozen cars and moto-taxis behind him.

            It also turns out we may have missed the chance to get to know an up and coming Peruvian star. Before we went to the Obelisco, we cruised through the market to pick up some maracuyás and platanitos, and while we were there we casually cruised through the DVD section. As we were about to leave, I took one last look at one of the booths, and to my astonishment, found a Peruvian dance movie with none other than the racy picture of the girl we met at the bar on the cover.

            Tomorrow we head out to the Sachavacayoc Center for a few days to meet up with the other Stanford students and the Fauna Forever team working there. I haven’t been there yet, but I’ve heard good things about it and I’m looking forward to going.

8/29/09 6:45pm: Sachavacayoc

            Our time here at Sacha has been absolutely fantastic, and it’s hard to believe it’s over already. Compared with the other lodges it’s a lot simpler. There aren’t any tourists so we have the whole station to ourselves and our relationship with the staff is much less strained because of it. The food is good, the beds are comfortable and the company is good. Alex’s brother Ian and his friend Kelsey are here studying dung beetles (which I’ll simply say involves some rather unsavory practices to bait the traps), and the most of the Herpetology team is still here. There’s even a guitar here, and I’ve managed to relearn the first half of “Green Sleeves”, which I had learned just before I left.

            The wildlife here has also apparently been great with people seeing tapirs, herds of peccary and the Herp team even catching a rainbow boa. We haven’t had much time to get out, but on the walks I’ve been on we’ve seen some great tarantulas and wolf spiders almost the size of your hand, white caiman, a coral snake and a tamandua, which is basically a really cute, small anteater that whistles and climbs around in trees. There are also these small beetles that have glowing, neon green spots behind their heads, which glow bright orange when they fly, and when you hold them, they snap themselves as a defense mechanism that makes it feel like you’re being shocked.

            Yesterday we also got to take an overnight trip to Lake Sachavacayoc. It was about a 5 km hike to the lake where they have a thatched, open-air platform on with pads to sleep on and ropes to hang mosquito nets from. Joel and I got there at just before sunset, and we took one of the old, wooden canoes out from the dock to meet up with the other group members who were already on the lake watching the sunset. Needless to say, the sunset was gorgeous, and in total our group probably took a couple hundred photos of it.

This was in large part because of Joel’s recent discovery of a photography technique called High Dynamic Range (HDR), where you take three pictures of something at various exposures. Then you apply software that takes out the underexposed portions of the properly exposed picture—say the dark, backlit trees in the sunset—and replaces them with the corresponding portions from overexposed picture–in this case, the adequately lit trees from the overexposed sunset picture. The result is a more vibrant picture that much better captures what it was like to actually be there. This is because a camera can’t capture in a single photograph the same range of color and contrast as the human eye. You can also take things even further by tweaking the software to make the pictures have an absolutely stunning, surreal quality to them. Unfortunately when applied to people, however, it just highlights all your flaws and basically predicts what you would look like in 20 years if you dedicated yourself to a career sweeping chimneys around Chernobyl.  Definitely a technique worth looking into though, if you’re into photography.

We stayed out on the lake well after sunset and enjoyed the stars and the moonlight on the lake. Our expectations weren’t very high, but Joel tried taking some long exposure shots, as in 5-30 seconds, with the camera resting on the boat, while I tried as hard as I could to lie perfectly still. Surprisingly, they actually turned out remarkably well and in one of the 30 second exposures I’m virtually completely illuminated by the moon. It was also surprising how much red you could still pick up in the sky when you left the shutter open so long—or at least so Joel told me. Since the boat was slightly rocking, the picture also has a cool a contrast between me who was in focus rocking with the camera, and the sky which became slightly blurred. It was incredible how still the lake was though since it had virtually no flow in or out. This is actually fairly common though for oxbow lakes, which are old sections of river, named for their shape, that have broken off as the river has slowly changed course.

            The next morning we woke up at 5 am so we could eat our breakfast of crackers, bread, marmalade and manjar (i.e. caramel made from condensed milk) as we watched the sunrise. For those of you who have tried to wake me up in the morning, it will be no surprise to you that I was the last one down to the docks, and that I pointed out repeatedly that we had at least another half hour before you could actually see the sun above the tree line. It, in fact, took about 50 min. Never the less, it was quite beautiful, and afterwards we took the two canoes around the lake before napping again and then walking back to Sacha.

            Once we were back, the group decided to take a swim in the quebrada, which, unlike the lake, was relatively caiman-free. It had been higher before we came, and people had been jumping in off the bridge, a drop of about 25 ft.  It was much too low when we got there though, but we still had a great time crawling up the rapids, tossing around the frisbee and sharing a couple beers as we tried (with only moderate success) to avoid dashing ourselves on the jagged rocks hidden below the exceptionally murky water.

9/1/09 10:35pm:

We’ve just said goodbye to Joel and Jane who left today. To send them off last night we took one last stroll through the plaza near our hostel. There is a really cool landscape painter who works in the plaza at night, and what’s really impressive is that he only uses spray paint. He has a myriad of different techniques using sponges, newspaper, cardboard and a razor, and it is truly remarkable how precisely he can fade, smudge and blot the paint around the canvas. And just to make it even more of a show, he routinely lights his paints and canvas on fire to dry the paint faster.

Shortly after watching the painter we were looking at a couple comedians, one of who was in drag, who had gathered quite a crowd around them lip-syncing. Within a minute one of them sees Alex and Joel wearing their somewhat conspicuous Peruvian soccer jerseys and drags first Alex, and then also Joel, into the circle. My Spanish wasn’t good enough to follow exactly what he was saying, but Jane translated for us as best she could. The performers weren’t particularly clever, and most of the humor was simply derived from a couple gringos being put on the spot, with a dash of lewd humor to keep Alex and Joel uncomfortable. All things considered Alex and Joel handled it very well, and escaped relatively unscathed, though Alex now gives the crowds a comfortable berth when we walk through the plaza.

Alex’s mom, Pat, is also here now and we’ve been hanging out in her room at Cabana Quinta as much as we can since it has AC. She’s also a pathologist so naturally we got around to talking about all the diseases we can get here and we’ve come to the conclusion we almost definitely have giardia. The symptoms have been very mild for me and only lasted a couple days a while back, so I may have already cleared it, but I could just be asymptomatic. Alex has had it worse, and one of the members of the Herp team was also diagnosed with it though so it’s pretty likely we all got it somewhere. We looked up the recommended treatments on the CDC website and then visited a pharmacy here to see if we could find anything. We actually got really lucky and they had our top choice, Nitazoxanide, since it didn’t have any mentioned side effects and it was really cheap too. We also met a guy who had been bitten a bat at one of the research stations and now had to get the rabies vaccine series, which is apparently brutal and takes a week, so we definitely felt like we got off easy. However, we did discover our meds did, in fact, have the side effect of turning your urine an alarmingly dark, neon yellow.

9/5/09 5:38 pm

            And thus our great trip is coming to a close. We’ve just gotten back from TRC where we saw those of the team that were still here and got one last hurrah in the jungle. The boat ride up was absolutely spectacular. While it was still light we saw an entire family of half a dozen Capybara, but we had gotten a late start and so later we wound up driving straight into another particularly beautiful sunset on the river. And as if this weren’t enough, as the light from the sunset faded, the almost full moon was rising in the sky to our left as an enormous lightning storm started flashing behind us. It was far enough away that we couldn’t hear the thunder, but it must have been several miles wide, and the strikes were absolutely incessant, brilliantly lighting up the hazy thunderheads every second or two. Eventually another storm cropped up in front us, and our boat was surrounded on all four sides by the moon glinting off the river, the dimming glow of the sunset and the luminous bursts from the storms.

            Once we got off the boat, however, we had the herculean task of hauling 12 people’s backpacks and equipment the mile or so to the lodge (which was built so far back to avoid the sand flies near the river which carry leishmaniasis, a flesh eating parasite that is exceptionally difficult to treat) with a single cart. The result was (in retrospect) a rather comical scene of us strapped with bags on every limb trying to keep the equipment from falling off the cart as we hauled it was best we could through the jungle.

            Fortunately the food this time around at TRC was far better than last time. Perhaps they were better prepared for us this time, or now they simply weren’t running out of food, but it made things much more pleasant. Plus they let us eat in the dining area with the tourists, and even made cakes for Dennis’s and then Alex’s consecutive birthdays. My present to Alex was a Spanish pocket guide to diseases of the digestive track.

            It was sad to leave the rest of the team at TRC. By now it’s happened quite a few times in my life, but it still gives me quite a peculiar feeling to realize I’ll likely never see these people I’ve become friends with again. I’m glad to be going home though. There are certain things I’ve simply been away from for too long: hot showers, dry air, meals that don’t get half their caloric value from white rice. The trip has certainly been spectacular though, and I certainly hope to come back one day. 

Peru Vol. 3

8/6/09 6:33 pm: Comunidad Cosquenos

            Tonight marks our second night here at our new home stay in the Comunidad Cosquenos. It’s a small community consisting mostly of recent immigrants from Cusco that have come to try their hand at farming. Like before, our accommodations consist of an empty shack on a family farm, though this time the roof is thatched and the livestock of choice here is pigs instead of sheep, which are fortunately much less noisy at night. Unfortunately though the nearby quebrata isn’t nearly as deep as it was before making bathing much more of a hassle—though it still contains fish large enough to nibble at one’s toes, as I found out this afternoon. Larry did a nice job building us a makeshift bathing platform though, as well as some shade structures out of palm fronds, which helps a lot with the recent heat. We also still have Delicia’s delicious cuisine and the generator, which gives us luxuries such as watching Never Back Down last night, which, for those of you who haven’t seen it, is basically a cross between Fight Club and High School Musical.

            Today we cut our initial transects into the various forested areas near us. Our proficiency with machetes is steadily rising, though it still takes about two hours to cut a 700 m transect. I’ve decided I’d prefer never to permanently live somewhere with such a high density of life. In some capacity, I find almost all forms of live beautiful and possessing some intrinsic worth—like the dwarf caiman we saw this evening—but when everything, the vegetation, the bugs, etc., is this dense, I see the competition for space and the need to constantly address all the various forms of life around you in one way or another to be more taxing than the additional beauty is worth. There’s the humidity that lends itself to mold, the myriad of wasps encroaching on your food at every meal, and the smorgasbord of blood, intestinal and epidermal parasites that have to constantly be avoided. However, I am quite pleased I get to visit for as long as I do.

8/8/09 4:29 pm: Rain

            It rained for a while this afternoon, and we were pleased to find the roof didn’t leak. We’re ahead of schedule so we had the afternoon off and could all just sit inside, read and listen to an audio book of The Snows of Kilimanjaro by Hemmingway. I’ve been a big Hemmingway fan since I read A Farewell to Arms in high school, which is still a favorite of mine, but I’ve never read his short stories, and this one is particularly incredible. Joel says it’s probably his favorite short story—and certainly the one that’s made him think the most. I also finished Raymond Carver’s collection of short stories, Cathedral, today. He’s another great writer with a style similar to Hemmingway, but with a more everyday flavor. The story “Cathedral” itself has been a favorite of mine since I read it for a creative fiction class, and I would certainly say it’s one of better ways a person could spend half an hour.

            Once the sun came back out everything looked particularly beautiful still wet from the rain—except from the pigs, which more or less look just as bad, and smell substantially worse. I took some pictures, though I doubt my point-and-shoot will do it justice. You get spoiled hanging out with friends who all have nice SLRs.

            The interviews have had some obstacles lately. Caritas, the local NGO we worked with to help set up our current set of interviews hasn’t introduced us and set up our meetings as planned, and now there is a rumor going around that Alex is just the latest gringo trying to come in and buy up, or tax them out of their land. Alex has also said that once the farmers know in advance that they’re getting paid, they see the interview much more as a chore, and treat him more like some bigwig from a wealthy NGO, which is then reflected in the data we get from them. In contrast, the farmers Alex previously flagged down on the side of the road, interviewed over a coke and some plantains, and then paid at the end, have been much friendlier and given much better responses for the study. The bio-inventorying has been going fairly well though. The humidity is inescapable, but it’s so much cooler in the forest it’s hardly any more draining cutting transects and doing gentry plots than just lounging around our shed. When we were out today, I saw some people actually actively clearing trees for the first time on the trip. It was impressive watching the trees fall, but it was also sad seeing the recently cleared land, and it certainly added a sense of urgency to the project.

8/10/09 5:57 pm:

            The last couple of days have definitely been some of the most beautiful. Last night the sunset was gorgeous. The sun here sets in the northwest—which still throws off my internal compass—and last night the cloud cover hung perfectly to reflect the fiery glow of the sunset down on us. It reminded me a lot of how everything looked during the Topanga fire when I was about 7, but this time I had a lot more time to enjoy it since I wasn’t being evacuated. It cast the entire setting in some of the richest warm tones I have ever seen, while yet also making the lush trees and clear sky even more vivid by comparison. By now some of you may have realized this might not mean much coming from someone who is colorblind, but I promise everyone else found it equally beautiful.

            Now, before I go on, I want you to try to imagine how a pineapple grows. Many of you may know already, but I didn’t until this trip, which also made me realize I had never even wondered. If someone had asked me, I would have guessed it was a hanging fruit, but in fact it grows much like an artichoke on the central stalk of an agave like cactus (which, like aloe, Alex has pointed out to me, is not in fact a cactus). Today I also learned that the young pineapple plants, before they are mature enough to fruit, begin with an initial, vibrant coloring of light orange, fading to yellow, and finally a hint of lime green, almost in a psychedelic way. Today we walked through an entire field of these younger plants, and it was was quite stunning.

            We’ve also taken to snacking on sugar cane over the last couple days. Larry cut a few large stalks for us and showed us how to peel it with a machete. It tastes sweet, more or less how you would imagine, but it does have a more refreshing quality than you would expect from something so sweet. Larry is also making Joel, Alex and I hammocks. He makes them professionally and can crank one out it about 2-3 days. We’ve been using one of his throughout our trip, and it’s quite nice. Plus, he’s going to stitch each of our names into our respective hammocks. Fortunately we diagramed it out with him though because he was originally going to spell my name “Netd,” –though perhaps it would have made for a better story that way.

8/18/09 4:49 pm:

            Well, we’ve been back in Puerto for about a week, but there hasn’t been a whole lot happening. We were scheduled for another home stay through the NGO we were working with, Caritas, but after the difficulties we experienced with them we’ve decided to change our plans. We also discovered our data was being distorted by the fact that they were only showing us (and may only be supporting for religious reasons) the wealthiest farmers in the area. So right now we’re doing more menial things like budgeting and data entry while we’re trying to rework our last few weeks to be as productive as possible despite probably staying chiefly in Puerto Maldonado.

            While we’ve been here though, I have gotten the chance to meet a lot of the other non-Stanford volunteers working with Fauna Forever. The herpetology team comprised of three guys from England and South Africa have been particularly fun to hang out with. We’re about to have a BBQ tonight as a send off for one of them. We’ve also been hanging out with Iona again, the Yale PhD student, who is back for a few days. Last night we also blended our own drinks made from Maracuyá (passionfruit), Cachaça, a local liquor made from sugar cane that’s hard to describe, but something like tequila, sugar, and with an egg white thrown in for a frothy texture. It was pretty good for a first try, though your last sip was always full of seed fragments. We’ll have to find a strainer. 

Peru Vol. 2

7/25/09 6:10 pm: Friaje Continues

            Things stayed pretty cold today and all we’ve seen so far is some bats and a family of spider monkeys, which for one of the most highly regarded ecotourism lodges in the world is definitely subpar. One of the long time locals here predicts it should break in a day or two though. I feel bad for the tourists paying several hundred dollars to come here for a few days who might not get to see virtually anything.

            Due to the lack of fauna, we instead played volleyball for a couple hours this afternoon with the staff. With the wet weather the court was something more akin to a clay slip-n-slide than a sand volleyball court, which combined with some of our members’ complete lack of experience made for a comically abysmal spectacle. We did have the support of one of the staff member’s daughters though who would shout “Vamos Stamnfourd!”, and flagrantly cheat in our favor while keeping score—and we’d still lose. After a few rounds though we got our chops up and had some pretty good games at the end.

            The plan now is to head back out after dinner and see if night brings any better luck with sighting animals. We’re keeping our fingers crossed for a jaguar. 

7/27/09 5:00 pm:

            Unfortunately things have only started warming up just now, and tomorrow is our last day before we leave early on the 29^th. We did see a razor billed curassow though, which is a quite rare, large, black, ground dwelling bird with a vibrant red bill. There is also a great vista overlooking the nearby Madre de Dios River where we saw several beautiful macaws. There have also been some sightings of a few species of monkeys and frogs, as well as peccaries and tapir, but all in all it’s been on the lackluster side for such a highly regarded area.  When it gets warm enough though you can hear the howler monkeys which are quite spectacular. They sound a bit like when a strong wind blows through a cave, and they’re loud enough that you can hear them over a kilometer away.

            Life here has been pretty steady: lots of volleyball and walks. Meals are kind of like a game where you spread your food as thinly as you can over your rice to maximize your caloric intake while still keeping everything palatable. Despite the food though, the lodge itself is very nice. The whole lodge is stilted about four feet off the ground and has a very high thatched roof which, combined with the almost entirely open air design and bamboo walls, creates an atmosphere of breezy grandeur. At night the whole lodge is lit by kerosene lanterns, which gives the whole place a lovely warm glow.   

           

7/29/09 7:25 pm:

            We had planned on leaving today, but some of the tourists changed their plans and since they pay an order of magnitude more than we do they get the spots on the boat. Our extra day here has actually been pretty nice though. Since it’s warmed up we saw several squirrel monkeys, howler monkeys and capuchins on our walk today, and now that it gets above 60 degrees taking a cold shower is much less daunting. We are, however, certainly not going to miss the food. The steady diet of boiled chicken backs and white rice definitely wears on you after a while, especially when you’re waking up to it for breakfast. Also the fact that the macaws eat better than we do by stealing the tourists’ food just adds insult to injury. I saw one drop half a bagel the other morning at breakfast and nearly dove over the balcony to salvage it.

            Alex gave a talk to the tourists last night about the research we’re doing. It was well received, though one tourist, a corporate lawyer from New Zealand, admitted to be working in direct opposition to what our project is striving for, and that he was just here to see the rainforest before it disappeared. It was rather disheartening, but we’re considering covering his backpack in colonizing spiders to make ourselves feel better.

7/31/09 2:56 pm: Back in Puerto

            The trip back from TRC yesterday was lovely, not to mention about a third of the travel time compared to the trip up due to the current and some lucky timing with our taxi. On the way down the water level was about five feet lower, which made for quite an impressive scene. Both shores were of course covered in lush rainforest, but after the steep drop down to the water, the river itself had a completely different character. Sticking out of the water, the dark remains of waterlogged trees would jut out at odd angles, and get lodged against the flat, shattered expanses of pockmarked rock that would create large charcoal grey islands within the river. It was absolutely striking to get to cruise through it all. We also saw a tree on the bank crash into the river which was quite a sight, and Alex informed me that due to the extremely shallow root structures of trees in tropical forests, tree fall is fairly common, and is arguably the greatest hazard to people visiting the forest.

            Back here in Puerto things have been quite nice. I finally got to meet the rest of the Stanford crew who were working in different locations from us until now, and it was great to get to catch up with them over a couple Cusqueñas, the local (and virtually only) beer here in Peru. Unfortunately, however, the hostel we’re in is under construction, and this morning I was awakened by what sounded like someone trying to simultaneously break through my wall with a reciprocating saw and a large wooden mallet. I later learned that that is, in fact, almost exactly what they’re doing in the room two doors down. I’m really hoping my earplugs are still stashed somewhere in my backpack.

8/2/09 6:24 pm:

            The weekend here has been a lot of fun. Andrea, a Canadian researcher who has become a good friend of the Stanford group and who accompanied us to TRC, introduced us to her friend Iona, a PhD candidate from Yale, and the handful of us still here in Puerto went out the last couple nights for dinner and to check out the night scene around here. Even though several of the people in our group speak Spanish quite well, ordering drinks was still a bit of a challenge. We had to haggle for about 20 minutes over an overpriced bottle of Peruvian wine, and accidentally sent our bartender across town to buy limes, but we did get to see a pretty decent Peruvian rock-cover band and hang out in some off-duty moto-taxis, which are basically colorful motorcycle rickshaws that are everywhere around here.

            Today we had somewhat of a culinary tour de force. We started with breakfast at our favorite heladeria where we got tropical fruit salads topped with coconut ice cream, followed by a great lunch of aji de gallina, a shredded chicken curry dish; authentic, Peruvian cerviche; causa, a tamale-like conglomeration of potato, onion, tomato and chicken; and of course fried platano. The real highlight though was the skewers of grilled grubs we got from a street vendor near the market. Despite them getting heavily talked up to us, they wound up tasting incredibly like olives, which are the one food I cannot stand, so combined with the rather repulsive appearance and texture, they may have just made it to the top of my least favorite foods list. 

8/4/09 9:28pm: Last Night in Puerto

            So we just saw Andrea off yesterday morning. She’s now back in Toronto finishing up her Master’s thesis on carbon markets due in October. We celebrated with a great night of festivities, but it was certainly sad to lose the best friend we had made outside the program. Our team is heading back to the field tomorrow though too. After the Ppacca Farm, I’m curious to see what our next accommodations are going to look like.

            Our time in Puerto has been fairly productive though. Alex managed to arrange a good number of interviews, and even recruited another local to help conduct interviews on the other side of the river. However, a couple of the farmers were quite confrontational, apparently due to previous bad interactions with corrupt NGOs and oil prospectors, and refuse to answer our questions because nothing we could offer would stop them from slash-and-burning all their land. Fortunately this seems to be the exception though.

            Unfortunately, we were also recently blindsided by a rather scathing letter from the head researcher at TRC reprimanding our “gross misconduct” during our stay. Apparently we were guilty of many such egregious acts as talking after 10 pm, using the lounge area when tourists were present, not turning in our sheets when we left, and half a dozen others, all of which no one had informed us of during our five days there, despite the offended party living within arm’s reach of us and treating us quite amicably our entire stay.  Our hypothesis is that the true source of the conflict came more from an ongoing tension between visiting researchers and the staff, and was exacerbated by a vegetarian member of party often having to confront the chefs to receive more than plain rice for her meals. And even so, her meals often consisted of something like a small plate of shredded carrots. Once she was even just handed a tomato when she inquired about a vegetarian option for dinner. The whole experience also seems to be representative of a passive-aggressive streak that seems to run in Peruvian culture, which we have also seen at times in other settings, such as between our translator and our guide. We’re hoping a measured apology and explanation will smooth things over, and, looking at the silver lining, these life lessons in grace and communication are likely to be just as valuable as our research in the long run. 

Peru Vol. 1

7/17/09 4:45 pm: Arrival in Lima

            I just got to the hostel after a long day and night of flying. The only really interesting thing so far has been the drive from the airport. You could say the traffic laws here are more like guidelines, but that would be generous. Our taxi went wherever there was room on the road, even if that meant squeezing between a motorcycle and a semi while straddling the dividing line. We made several right hand turns from the left hand lane, ran almost every stop sign, entered intersections on red lights and came within a foot of hitting pedestrians on three separate occasions. One time I’m almost certain the taxi driver intentionally swerved towards two girls in a crosswalk, who knows why…I figure if I can survive the ride back to the airport tomorrow it’ll all be downhill from here.

7/18/09 6:40 pm: Ppacca family farm, outside Puerto Maldonado

            After an early wake up and my flight to Puerto, Alex picked me up around 12:30pm. The view as we flew over the snow-capped Andes was spectacular, as was the view of the Amazon broken up by rivers and checkered tracks of deforestation along the roads. Seeing both the Rockies and Andes for the first time in my life rather recently, I think it is very interesting how each range has such a unique character despite the similar forces that act on them.

            For those of you who don’t know exactly what we’re working on here. Alex is the US director for a NGO called Fauna Forever Tambopata that, among other things, is working to establish a series of corridors across the new Inter-Oceanica highway that is being built through Puerto Maldonado, and traversing the entire Amazon basin, fragmenting the surrounding rainforest. This highway will effectively bisect two enormous conservation areas making each less biodiverse by disrupting gene flow, creating negative edge effects along the road, and serving as a vector for disease. Additionally large tracks of land 20-30km deep are being sold along the road causing immense deforestation and introducing invasive plant species. Our aim is to identify tracks of land that can be preserved or reforested that will connect the two preserves, and then establish a payment system based on the value of the ecosystems being preserved so that the land owners will have adequate financial incentives to make the conservation areas economically viable. Our daily work consists of running transects through the potential corridors to establish viability and conducting survey work with the land owners to see how interested they are in being a part of the conservation effort.

            To put it politely, our current accommodations certainly reflect the rural nature of our work. The road out here from the Inter-Oceanica highway consisted of two dirt tracks heading straight into the jungle. After crawling along two kilometers of makeshift road through jungle and cattle pasture, we arrived at our base camp, which consists of an open-air shed that used to house chickens and sheep only two days ago. Now they all live under the shed and can be heard bleating through the floor boards. One in particular sounds just like the death-rattle of a baritone with emphysema crying out “Ne-eh-eh-eh-ed!” which I imagine may wear on my nerves by about 3 am. We do have a generator though, which provides us with such luxuries as music, computer use, lights, and of course all the bugs in a 1000 yard radius that are attracted to the latter. We are fairly well situated with bed nets and repellant, but everyone has still managed to get bitten by what are either fleas or chiggers. Only time will tell… On the bright side, there is a beautiful tributary next to our camp, which allows something resembling bathing. The biggest luxury though by far is our accompanying cook who puts the local restaurants to shame despite our conditions. This evening we had squash soup, rice with cheese and pumpkin, and a dessert of rice pudding. We can get all the fresh milk we want too, collected daily. We also have an accompanying guide and translator who are both very amiable, making a total crew of nine right now, but we will regularly meet with the other group of two Stanford students and many local volunteers. I’ll try to provide a rough bug bite estimate in the morning…

           

7/19/09 6:05 pm: First Day of Research (for me at least)

            Today we actually fared well in terms of bug bites. The permanone I had left over from Alex’s Africa trip last summer served us well apparently.  I helped cut my first transect this morning. It basically entailed hacking our way 600 meters into the jungle with machetes and marking the trail so we can monitor it over the next few days for mammals and birds, and also lay print traps. There is suppose to be a jaguar that has been praying on cattle so if we could prove it is here that would go a long way towards demonstrating this as a very functionally viable ecosystem since apex predators are often the first things to disappear once an ecosystem is compromised.

            After lunch we took a dip in the stream, which was divine after the heat and humidity, and I finally got a chance to bathe. We also saw an 8 year old girl help kill and skin a sheep which certainly isn’t something you see every day back home. Later in the afternoon the group split up again to cut another transect, interview some local farm owners, and Joel and I went to work on the malaria project. We sampled several streams and stagnant bodies of water for pH, turbidity, cover and the presence of mosquito larvae. Along the way we also searched for animals, discussed the more notable events I had missed from earlier in the trip, and Joel informed me of all the venomous snakes we should be wary of including the bushmaster, which, while not very aggressive unless you step on it, is pretty much one bite, one kill. I was much better about swinging my machete through the grass in front of me after that.

            The areas we were walking through were incredibly beautiful, though it was somewhat unnerving when a herd of cattle all starting moving towards us at a good clip since they were used to the people who regularly came out there bringing them salt licks. My favorite areas we saw were the lush fields dotted with young trees and covered with vibrant pink flowers that smelled pleasantly of Indian food, especially at sunset on our way back when the sun was casting warm colors across the clouds on the horizon that would then backlight the jungle ahead of us. I promise I’ll get pictures.

7/21/09, 6:32 pm: Frisbee, sheep and anacondas

            The last couple days have been pretty enjoyable. Yesterday we taught our chef, Delicia, her husband and our guide, Larry, and the grandson of the couple whose farm we’re staying at, Cesar, how to play frisbee, which has always been a staple of our travels. I also saw an approximately 8 foot anaconda (or possibly boa) swimming across the river about 40 yards downstream from our bathing spot. Cesar didn’t believe me though.

            The research has also been going well, especially the interviews. The two families so far seem very open to the possibility of conservation in return for payment or other benefits like education and infrastructure. Mostly they just want to have some degree of active interaction with their land so they have something to do with their time. Though we found out one of local farming families shot a Harpy Eagle because they thought it was eating their chickens. Considering there were only two (a couple) in the entire Tambopata region, this is pretty devastating for an already endangered species.

In other bad news, Joel sliced up three fingers on his left hand on some bamboo today while he was sampling. The cuts are deep, but it should be ok though. I was also right about the sheep. Last night wasn’t too bad, but the night before the sheep incessantly called back and forth keeping everyone awake until about 3 am. It did, however, give me a reason to look at the stars, which, like the sunsets, are absolutely incredible here.

7/22/09 6:31 pm: More hazards

            Today was an early day. We had breakfast at 5 am which required running the generator again since it was still dark. This resulted in the nest of wasps living in the non-descript piece of old farm machinery in our shed thinking it was daybreak and flooding out towards the lights. Fortunately no one was stung, but breakfasting with about 200 wasps flying a couple feet overhead was a rather unnerving experience. We’ve also seen several of the 4 inch spiders, but they’re fairly harmless. Then to add to the excitement, last night our guide Larry saw an electric eel in the river while he was bathing. Like most things here, they aren’t aggressive, but if they feel threatened they can give off a shock capable of stopping a person’s heart given the right ion concentrations in the water.

            Despite all this, however, we all admit we’re going to miss it here, once we leave tomorrow. Somehow living with nine people in a bug-ridden, open-air shed surrounded by livestock has grown on us over the week. However, I wouldn’t be surprised if our next field location is equally colorful. What I really miss the most though is real furniture. After a week of my sleeping pad being my bed, desk and chair, my back is very excited for something with lumbar support. I could also do without the fleas, but then again I wouldn’t want to start getting soft.

7/24/09 7:55pm: Tambopata Research Center

            So after a night of gorging on pizza and checking email in Puerto Maldonado after leaving the Ppacca farm, we woke up at 4 am today (a truly herculean feat for me for those of you unfamiliar with my regular sleeping habits) to catch our boat up here to TRC. As luck would have it a friaje blew in today off the Andes making the ~7 hr boat ride in the cold rain less pleasant than it could have been. At least the boat had a roof and we got to stop for coffee and hot chocolate at a lodge on the way up the river. It’s also unfortunate because TRC is one of the best natural history sites in the world (not to mention a very nice lodge), but we’re much less likely to see any mega fauna here while it’s so cold, though we did see a capybara, the world’s largest rodent, on the way up. They also have a volleyball court, which has been a pastime of Alex, Joel and mine since we were in the Stanford Australia program, and the researchers apparently really need some help in the regular game against the staff, giving us another reason to hope for sun.