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21 September 2003

Something Fishy

I finally have two days off after working by myself doing transect for three days. Transect days end up being very long because of the amount of walking at a timed pace and constant searching. Luckily it rained only after I finished, otherwise I would have had to wait for the rain to stop before I could commence walking the transect. Since no one was around I was really really tempted to stay in bed instead of waking up at 4 am. But, I couldn't ignore the transect. I did realize that when I was out walking that it is nice to be up early and appreciate the sunrise, calling gibbons, smell after the nights rain. Working alone makes the forest seem all the more vibrant and towering. I do like to work on my own sometimes...I carry defense spray and a radio. I realized it probably wasn't smart to do the transect alone with everyone gone, but like I said, I feel like the entire community is watching out for me. In the evening two separate people stopped by to turn on the generator for me. Wichian thought I would hurt myself trying and said girls shouldn't do that sort of thing. Well, I showed them and turned it on myself before they arrived! Unfortunately, that also meant I had to turn it off myself, which ended up being a walk in the pouring rain down the slick slippery path crawling with leeches. 

I taught the English class by myself for the first time tonight. I prepared some flash cards this morning, but the lessons end up being rather spur of the moment anyway because it is difficult to tell ahead of time how well the kids will listen. We never got to the flashcards. We did the usual "Today is Friday, September 19th, 2003" and then completed pronunciation of the remaining six letters of the alphabet (and vocabulary words) that we needed to get through. They get easily bored with that though because most of the children can read, but there are a few younger ones, so we still have to start with the basics. Next they wanted to draw a picture (usually indicates the end of class) or sing a song. I tried the "hokey pokey" because we've been teaching them body parts. It went ok, but they couldn't really sing the complicated words. Then we wrote some key words like left, right, in, out, and shake. I wrote the whole song for the older kids to write down, but they groaned at the length. We are going through the alphabet drawing pictures for each letter. Tonight was the letter "j" for jewelry. 

At dinner, Batong invited me to sit with her and eat. That was nice, but also forced me to eat her food instead of pick at it like I usually do. Dinner was an egg omelet with strips of onion insides. Yucky yuck, but I forced a quarter of it down. Batong asked if I eat fish and I replied yes without thinking and with a smile to be polite. Well, she brought me out my own full fish -- head, fins, guts, scales, everything. I don't know how much the Thais eat or how they go about it, but I picked in among the ribs and bones for a few white pieces and pulled off the skin and scales. I thought I made a good dent in it considering it looked and tasted disgustingly fishy.
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11 September 2003

Elephant Encounter

I’m busy struggling with the tedious nature of working long hours in the forest every day, but there is still some excitement: After six months I have finally seen my first WILD Asian Elephant in the forest. I was working alone. A constant light rain all day had not left me in a cheery mood. I found my langur group early, but they were 50m distant and we sat all day in the rain. As the rain drops finally slowed I took off my backpack and set down my poncho and umbrella. I left the umbrella open to dry, a big shiny silver one. At 4pm I was cold and wet and the langurs were visible only as balls of fur, but not moving and not close enough to practice identifying individuals. I was seriously considering up and going, but I told myself it stopped raining and I had already put in 10 hours so I could wait 2 more until dusk. 4:20 the langurs started to get active and I expected them to travel so I turned to get my bag. An elephant was obliviously walking and snorting and eating down a perpendicular trail, a visible 15m from my location. I thought if I stayed still he would just keep walking past me down the trail. As his shape materialized, the ears, the tusks, I slowly moved my body behind the nearest tree (which unfortunately turned out to be only about 10 inches around) and froze! The elephant stopped and walked right toward me, but his focus was on the umbrella. I was so intrigued by his analyzing this foreign object in the forest that I stood and watched as he walked even closer still. The male was now less than 15 feet directly in my line of sight, no bushes blocking the view, nothing separating us except my measly tree. No kidding, I'm not exaggerating the distance, I actually went back and found our footprints the next day and measured, only 15 feet between us! As the elephant reached with his trunk to the umbrella my brain suddenly jolted and screamed "what are you going to do if he come to investigate you next!" So far he hadn't noticed me, but I could just imagine him glimpsing the shine from the whites of my eyes or something and snorting and charging. I had no where to run through sloppy slippery mud and a tangle of roots around me. I slowly reached for my defense spray figuring it could slow him down if he did charge and I didn't want to make sudden movements. Of course, the spray was on my belt which was now under my rain jacket. As I rustled the jacket aside I shifted my weight, making a sucking sound in the mud. The elephant looked up directly at me, turned up his trunk, gave a little trumpet, turned, and ran off. He looked a bit confused and scared, seeming not clear if there was danger. But I guess he figured better safe than sorry, and it meant I could breathe again. Walking through the forest, the elephant seemed peaceful going about his business. I could have watched him for hours, but there is also an aura of power and strength surrounding them. Truly awesome. I was stupid to allow him to get as close as he did. Yet, I feel I did the correct thing in freezing instead of running. I think it is best not to spook something that could outrun you anyway. I wonder if they really would be so curious as to come up and check a person out ...
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04 September 2003

Sticky Rice

Nothing much as far as an update at this end. I'm finally getting over my flu, so I'm back working in the forest. Still the same routine everyday, walking around from 5:30 am in the morning until we find a langur group and then trying to observe them for the day. I've been working many days and long hours to make up for the time I was out. We're in the rainy season now, so I usually wear my rubber boots to schlep through all of the mud. This makes crossing high rivers easier, but the soles are slippery and I mostly end up sliding down some hill and getting covered in mud anyway. It usually rains from one to four in the afternoon if it doesn't rain the night before. Most of my mornings start out extremely frustrating because I can barely see to walk...my glasses always fog over because of the humidity. My wash basin has algae looking growth in it and my door is fully covered with mold! I am seriously starting to wonder if any of the clothes I brought with me will be salvageable by the end of my stay. I can barely stand sleeping on sheets and a pillow and sleeping bag that smell so horribly of mildew. I'm afraid my room is going to start growing strange little creatures! Our newest hobby around the house is cooking kao nee-o (sticky rice) to take for lunches. News spread around the entire sanctuary in one evening that the farang (foreigners) cooked sticky rice. They couldn't believe it because usually Westerners dislike the consistency. If you are unfamiliar with it, it is different than white rice. The rice is indeed sticky, enough so that you can grab a handful, scrunch it into a ball in your hand and dip it in sauce to eat, but not sticky enough to cling to your hands (if that makes sense). Well, at least it is not supposed to be that sticky....a few of our batches have not come out quite right and everybody seems to offer different opinions on what we are doing wrong. It is a small community and gossip travels quickly. Everyone at every time knows what we are up to. Some of the other assistants get irritated that we live under constant inspection, but I find it rather amusing to be a novelty.
 

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