Even dirtier

First of all, I enabled comments, so anyone can comment now. I'm sorry if virtual space sent you rude messages saying "Don't contact me again." That shouldn't happen again.
I found my first two poops! For the first few days I was just wandering around and IDing different males. Now Maria gives me males to follow until they poop. From this point of view, following a male and his daily roamings, I learn a lot more about the island and the way things work. I am also reading a book written my a Cayo researcher called Macachavellian Intelligence that describes the monkeys activities. For instance, monkeys threaten each other and get in fights in order to maintain and climb their place in the rank hierarchy. Female rank is largely based on their mothers rank, while male's is based on his fighting and social abilities. So when a male threatens another, usually a lower ranking one, both the threater and the threatee will look behind them for support. Sometimes the threatee will look around for a scapegoat, an even lower ranking male, and go after him. Because of this, when threats break out, lower ranking males will run away VERY fast, so that they don't become scapegoats. All these things happen so fast that its hard to keep track, though.
On the subject of poo, I started learning about how different individuals poop. Some poop while walking, meaning I have to pay attention where it lands. Some poop sitting down, so I have to look at whatever they're going to sit on very quickly before they sit to make sure there is not any poop already. Dirty science, man. And if you don't believe that primatology is science, please let me know and I'll describe thangs to you, thoroughly!
But yesterday the rain got us good. There are two boats we take to the island depending on the day: A small speed boat and a slightly larger speed boat. The small one seats 7, the large one 15. Yesterday we took the small one, with 9 people. We went slowly. It rained on and off, very hard each time, for the entire time we were on the island. We cannot leave the island though, when its raining. We waited under a shelter by the dock until it stopped, headed out to the dock, and then it started raining again, so we returned to the shelter. This happened a few times, until we finally got in the boat and set off. Then it started raining, and the seas got a little rough. Having 9 people in a 7 person boat made it a little more scary. But we made it!
One more anecdote. The male that I was to follow yesterday was badly injured in a fight. He had a deep scratch on his arm, some scratches on his back, a hole in his scrotum, and a bad wound in his butt. Poor guy. He moved very slowly all day, and he is in a consortship right now with a much younger female, who brought him food. I'm anxious to see how his is when I go to the island tomorrow. He is N60, and has a bump on his face. I hope he is alright. One monkey died since I've been here. His intestines were sticking out for 2 days, it was pretty unpretty. The day he died the vet did come to the island, but none of us really understood why. Besides that we feed them, we want a naturalistic setting to learn the most about the macaques in a natural environment. I think they were going to put him under if the vet decided he would not survive.
I still don't have a hammock because they sell them mostly on weekends and it rained all day yesterday!

I eat mangoes with my eyes closed,
Jenna