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14 March 2003

Bacteria, Giardia, or Worms?

Seems that I wouldn't last too long on Survivor Thailand. You wondered about the cooking? I finally got time to sit and type emails onto Carola's ancient laptop (black and white screen, windows 3.1 in German) because I was sick with stomach flu (diarrhea, fever, chills) for seven days. After five days of being sick and two days of taking a strong antibiotic along with Imodium, with no improvement, Carola and I went to the Cham Phae Hospital. Beforehand I used one of their DNA vials for a stool sample. Drove up to the hospital and saw an entire mob of people waiting - tired and spent looking, but at the same time interesting and full of life and experience. Many rural women in traditional dress of purple sarongs with geometric shapes and hair cut short. To help us out, Carola had her English speaking friend, Maun, from on of the cheapy gold jewelry stores in town, write down my symptoms in Thai. My Thai ID card turned out to be extremely useful for them to fill out a form for me, so now I have a hospital card. We were directed, given a sort of royal "show and tell" treatment, to a room that was bordered by partitioned rooms for examination. After waiting at various numbered rooms, one of which the doctor took one look at me and closed the door in my face, we were finally positioned in a row of four seats leading up to the door. The current patient was clearly visible to me. Even as they ushered me into the examination room, the doctor was still in discussion with another patient. After the prior patient left there were no introductions, I just handed my registration card to the Dr. and mumbled diarrhea 5 days, fever, headache. He had me lay down on a stained mattress and gruffly blurted "excuse me" as he poked at my stomach. No washing his hands or explaining what he was feeling for and found or didn't. This was all in fairly clear view of all the waiting patients who had no embarrassment over watching the whole time. I got down and he sort of patted at me and laughed as if to say "ha ha funny farang (foreigner) only has watery diarrhea and thinks is a problem." So, he told me to continue taking the antibiotics, wrote me a prescription for aspirin and something for pain and sent me to door 20. They took my stool sample after some confusion and embarrassment on my part of having people open an envelope and look at my sh!t. As we waited they looked at the sample under what looked like microscopes from a high-school biology classroom. Found nothing. So they conferred, walked me over to a table and showed me a long cotton swab. And this means? After many directions in Thai from three different people, I finally got a key word "insert." Fine. I found the bathroom, took the swab, and have absolutely no confidence that they will find anything. They told me they will mail me the results. Carola tried to explain we would come back for the results, but they were adamant about mailing. So, it should take them three days to get the results, and probably another week to get the mail at the sanctuary headquarters and a few days after that for the mail to reach me. Basically, I learned nothing. The entire hospital bill (including prescriptions which they gave me there) was something like 65 baht -- less than $2. The whole hospital experience was March 11. On the 12th I took one tablet of Mebendazole for worms. Today, the 14th is the first day that I have eaten regular food. Before this I ate only bread and rice and bananas, and before that, nothing but electrolyte powder drink. But, I do feel better today, and no more diarrhea. I hope to go back out in the forest tomorrow, because it has been six days now that they have had to rearrange the schedule without me working. The most annoying thing is that I have no idea the source of the problem. Could have been any of a number of too much bad bacteria, or giardia, or worms. But, so far so good today...
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01 March 2003

Phu Khieo First Impressions

I took a field assistant position working for two professors from State University of New York-Stony Brook on a primate behavior project. I have been living in Thailand at the Phu Khieo Wildlife Sanctuary since February 23, 2003 and will stay until March 2004. 

On first impression, the forest was not what I expected. It is extremely dry with crunchy leaves that litter the ground; not the lush wetness I imagined. Of course when I arrived it was in the end of the cool winter season, but the plants are indicative of dry areas. The forest is quiet, not like wet rain forest. If you didn't know better, a quick glance looks like Wisconsin because of the pine trees on the outer edge of the forest. One would tend to think of our study site as "forest" not "jungle," if that makes sense. Our living quarters are about a 45 min. drive on a motorbike from the sanctuary entrance. The wood buildings are raised three feet on stilts and look like summer camp cabins for kids (they are even numbered!). Black and white posts on the side of the road remind me of markers for a campsite. I have quite a nice green mosquito net (it is rectangular so easily forms and hangs around the bed). I can see though the planks on the walls and my floor has rather large holes. The bathroom took the most getting used to. It is an Asian-style toilet, just enough room for your feet on each side of a porcelain basin. You "flush" the waste with water you scoop out of a large holding tank. A second holding tank supplies water for washing your hands. You shower with a hand-held nozzle, cold only. All of the water is discarded onto the floor and there is little drainage. When we first arrived the floor was soaking wet and reminded me of an overflowing toilet in a bus station restroom. We take off our shoes before we step onto the porch, and because I had no flip-flops to wear I had to walk bare-foot into the water. Now I have gotten myself a pair of sandals to wear in the bathroom, but I still have trouble with the concept of no sink and constant wet floors. Typically I work seven or eight days and then have two days off (one to go into Chum Phae, the nearest town for supplies-about an hour distant by car; and one day to rest). I start the days I am scheduled to look for a monkey group (we are studying monkeys called langurs) with a dawn (4 A.M.) breakfast by candlelight (we only have electricity from six to ten in the evening), usually a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with instant coffee. Then it's off on the motorbike to pick up the ranger assigned to me for the day followed by a 20-minute drive the study site trail entrance. The majority of the day we spend slowly hiking trails until we find a group of langurs. One group of 22 (named PA) is already habituated, which means that our walking around and staring at them through binoculars doesn't cause them to freak out and flee. When we spend a day with PA we record their location every half hour based on a grid system of marked trees and we note down all of the individuals present. I am still learning how to identify individuals by their muzzle shape, hair crest, or white eye rings. The infants are bright orange, and their gender is difficult to determine. Non-habituated groups are a different story. We practically have to sneak up on them, and then slowly follow until they(invariably) decide they've had enough and flee. Think slow steps, no noise, much stealth. We usually leave the forest between 2 P.M. and 6 P.M., depending on how long we can follow the langurs. The schedule usually allows just enough time to catch a shower and maybe a quick snack of a Nutella sandwich and hot tang. Dinner is at 7 P.M., cooked by a local woman whose name is Ba-tong. We have our meals in sort of a central place near the headquarters with three large tables and benches where visitors and rangers eat. The venue even has a T.V. for movies. The food, however, is not even close to what I was eating in Bangkok. We always have tons of rice of course, and then a side dish of vegetables and meat/tofu. The side dish is always spicy and usually curry. Unfortunately, it often looks unappetizing. So I have to force myself to eat every night, in part because I know the food sits out for days (non-refrigerated of course) in a cabinet that keeps the ants out. Our routine after dinner is to sit on the porch, watch the Sambar deer attempt to eat our garbage, and drink beer (well, hot tang for me). Unfortunately, I haven't gotten to practice Thai much at all because I'm out in the forest all day and we try to be quiet. But, I am working on it. I bring my flashcards everywhere. And, when I work with the rangers, Lek or Wichian, I do try to learn new words. But so far we have only gone through a couple words related to the forest. They both speak a little English, though it took me time to grow accustomed to their pronunciation. A field guide to birds helped me "break the ice" with them. Lek loves to learn English bird names. So, I pronounce a name for him and he writes it in his language book. Then, he writes the bird's name in my book in Thai and repeats it so I can spell it phonetically. We also got into an involved discussion on the diversity of animal noises. For example, I insist that American pigs "oink," but Lek contends a Thai pig says "uut-uut-eeee." A U.S. frog goes "ribbit-ribbit," but the language of Thai frogs, says Lek, is "gop-gop." My favorite difference, which sounds more accurate than the others, is the Thai gecko, which says "tok gay" rather than "gec-ko." The conversations are simple and tedious, but friendly and fun. I go everywhere in flip-flops or hiking boots. And of course, there are tons of ticks, leeches and critters to deal with.
 

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