The Monkey Island, Cayo Santiago, with Puerto Rico in View.
Mango season lasts for only a month in Puerto Rico, starting now!!!! I' meating one right now.
I've now spent 3 days on the monkey island, Cayo Santiago. Whew. I have a bit too much to say. I'll start with where I live. I live in a typical, neighborhood house in this small town, with 2 houses and a seafood restaurante between my house and the beach. Its beautiful. My housemates are Grace from Seattle, who also works for Maria, and Yoav, a boy from Winthrop University who is working on his own project. He's having a much more difficult time than I am, having someone hand me materials and explain the ins and outs of the island quite thoroughly. The house has bars on the front porch just like all the all the others, and comes with a dog. It is also well furnished, with a TV and some random as hell VHSs, and a dog. Her name is Ginger and she's nice, but hard to walk.
Maria, the women I am working for is sooooooo nice, and helpful. Her project that I am helping with, to analyze testosterone levels and rank in males, is a dirty one, where I have to follow around monkeys until they poop. She does, though, call it poop, instead of fecal samples, which helps the day pass easier when I hear her asking me if someone pooped yet on the walkie talkie.
I've now spent 3 days on the monkey island, Cayo Santiago. Whew. I have a bit too much to say. I'll start with where I live. I live in a typical, neighborhood house in this small town, with 2 houses and a seafood restaurante between my house and the beach. Its beautiful. My housemates are Grace from Seattle, who also works for Maria, and Yoav, a boy from Winthrop University who is working on his own project. He's having a much more difficult time than I am, having someone hand me materials and explain the ins and outs of the island quite thoroughly. The house has bars on the front porch just like all the all the others, and comes with a dog. It is also well furnished, with a TV and some random as hell VHSs, and a dog. Her name is Ginger and she's nice, but hard to walk.
Maria, the women I am working for is sooooooo nice, and helpful. Her project that I am helping with, to analyze testosterone levels and rank in males, is a dirty one, where I have to follow around monkeys until they poop. She does, though, call it poop, instead of fecal samples, which helps the day pass easier when I hear her asking me if someone pooped yet on the walkie talkie. They are provisioned with Purina Monkey Chow
This guy is a hoarder, but they all are since they're
all "stresseed" out about others stealing their food
To work on the island I have to be at the dock at 6:50 am, and take a speed boat driven by the funny Puerto Rican workers to the island, about a 7 minute ride. On the island, there are monkeys evverrryyywhere. I've never worked with free ranging monkeys, so I was a little scared. Especially since all the monkeys have Herpes B, and if they bite or scratch me, or pee in my eye, then I will get menengitis and die. But that has never happened on the island, and I have to wear sunglasses so that if i look up into the trees for them and they pee on my face I won't die. I have been threatened many times so far by the monkeys, but they threaten many times before they charge, and if they threaten more than once, we are told to pick up a rock. I did have to do that today because I accidentially looked a mating couple in the eye, and one moved towards me. She immediatley ran away when i reached for a rock though.
Anyway, I work with group R, the second biggest group on the island with 263 monkeys. They move in a group, and tend to roam all over the hilliest part of the island, so I am constantly walking up an down steep hills and tripping over rocks.
So why do I do this? There are many positives. I was feeling sorry for myself for working on the steepest part of the island until I went today to where other groups roam, in the mangrove forest, or swamps. There it's stinky, hot, and ugly. I realize that I work in the shade, there's a breeze, it only smeels like monkey poo a little bit, and I can see when rain is coming. Oh yes, the first day on the island it POURED but only for about 20 minutes. Anyway, the monkeys are great and rediculously interesting. When I come walking, the mothers scoop up their babies and throw them on their bellies and run up the tree. The babies also come very close to get a better look at me. They are just curious, though, and not a threat. Mothers grooming their babies is quite adorable, especially when the babies want to go play but the mothers hold them down. Sometimes they walk upright when they get food (monkey chow) and run with it in their hands. They also have huge cheeck pouches, which they fill up first. Then they all go find quiet places to eat the food in their mouths, and they sometimes have to use their hand to get the food out of the pouches. When they take naps later in the day they often fall asleep sitting up. They are rhesus macaques, which I used to think were not too cute, until recently.
Everything is going very well so far. I walk the dog Ginger, read, go grocery shopping, and watch random movies at night. That'll be my life for the next six months. mmmmm. :-)
