Tuesday, June 3, 2008

Los Puertorequenos and 7 hours of buttholes

The few things I've noticed about Puerto Ricans I've gained from my 4 trips to Walmart, 4 super market trips, and many walks on the beach. All the boys pluck their eyebrows! They have such pretty eyebrows because of it, and look clean and . . . .sturdy maybe describes it. And they're on their cel phones MORE than people in LA and the OC. Maybe not in quantity, but walmart workers are walking around the store talking and checker outers at the grocery store. Crazy.
Its true, I have to watch the monkeys butt holes for 7 hours a day, 7am-2pm. Yesterday I was crowned with my own cooler to pick up my own poop! Quite a right of passage, since it means I've learned to ID the monkeys, some of them, pretty well. Of the 20 individual males that are Maria's focals, I can easily discern about 6 of them, the rest I still need to look at my notes to figure out, or cannot tell them apart at all. There are some tricky things I am learning about collecting poo. Some walk and poo and some sit and poo, and learning the poo-ing personalities is pretty important. And there's no point to skewing the scientific data if I'm not sure exaaactly who pooped, like if I didn't quickly look to see if there was any poop in the place where the individual I'm watching sat down. In other words, I have to keep my eyes on the butt hole.
This afternoon Maria is taking me and my housemates to San Juan, where there is supposed to be an art gallery night = My first adventure in PR besides Walmart and mofongo (mashed plantains with chicken or seafood).
Paz y amor y monos.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Awesome Jenna, you'll have a search image for pooping monkey butt holes! So cool. I want to do field research, but I need to get paid...

Eat some more mangos for me. They are my favorite. One of our kids, a few weeks ago, was allergic, can you imagine? No way man.

--Nora

Anonymous said...

so, you're not in the u.s. anymore, eh? this is news, although not surprising :-) here's hoping that getting out of the country is everything i imagine it to be.

El Tux said...

you and those monkeys rock!

take care of the monkey piss and the angry monkeys...throw them rocks if necessary...don't let them climb the latter too high...(with that attitude, i mean)...

lovingly, from madrid,


Jesus

www.ciudadsomnolienta.blogspot.com

Roots and Shoots said...

It may sound odd, but I am jealous of how you are spending your days. It's for sure now that I won't be able to join you though because I got the job--the one that actually pays decently. That just means hopefully I'll get to go back to Indonesia next summer!! I take it you didn't get the camera cord you needed? Out of curiosity, what do you do with the monkey poo after you collect it?