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Published: February 13th 2010
Since most of my posts have addressed the intense treks through walls of thorny bamboo while following the tamarins, made more difficult by my somewhat irrational fear of every unidentified noise in the jungle, I thought I’d share a bit about life in general here at CICRA.
The field station is located on an embankment overlooking the Rio Madre de Dios. Although the view is certainly nice, it comes at a high cost: there are 238 slippery wooden stairs leading up to the field station. Trust me, I’ve counted them as I’ve climbed them (not recommended). When any CICRA boat arrives carrying passengers to the station, there is inevitably a huge amount of supplies piled at the bottom of the stairs, waiting to be carried up by those residing at CICRA. It’s easy to overestimate your fitness levels as you stock up on crates of tomatoes to cart up the steps. The first blow to my ego comes about halfway up when my legs start to shake and I’m hit with the embarrassing realization that some of the cargo I’m transporting isn’t going to make it up this time around. I regularly deposit some portion of my overly aggressive
load on the benches that mark the halfway point of the stairs, which always gets picked up by a more capable individual. The more debilitating blow to my ego comes the next day, when I find that my arms are so sore that I legitimately have problems moving them at high enough speeds to swat away the bloodthirsty mosquitoes. Talk about adding insult to injury.
At any rate, once you’ve accomplished the climb and have settled in a bit, you find that living conditions at CICRA are simple and good. There are a number of wooden dorms with electricity that surround the commodore, or simultaneous dining hall/recreation room. As a measly field assistant with no source of income, however, I’m residing in the back cabins that are a bit removed from the commodore. Each cabin holds two people and has just enough room for two twin beds and two wooden wardrobes in which to stash all your gear. Little time is spent here, as we’re usually in the commodore or labs when we’re not in the field. The commodore is a neat area with a few couches and several long wooden tables, and I usually head there right after
showering. Meals are served here at regular hours: breakfast is from 6-7, lunch from 12-1 and dinner from 6:30-7:30. The only meal we really eat here is dinner, as we’re out in the field for all the others. But I’m sure everyone is curious as to what the food is like and here’s my take: it’s good. Then again, I think that after 12 hour days in the field, I could convince myself that canned peas are delicious. There’s LOTS of rice, so much so that I can’t even think of a way to adequately quantify the amount I have consumed since my arrival here - it’s present at breakfast, lunch and dinner. The rice is accompanied by a range of foods, including squash, chicken, lentils, and veggies, among other things. There are some special meals that we all really look forward to, and these include pizza (!!), spaghetti, cheesy squash, lasagna and fried dough stuffed with meat. Meals are really great because it brings everyone at the station together and it’s nice to hear about everyone’s projects and what has happened over the course of the day.
After dinner is probably my favorite time of the day because
everyone relaxes in the commodore, either reading, playing card games, using the internet or doing data entry. We’ve all grown pleasantly accustomed to the sounds of Kat, another researcher at the station and a member of a bluegrass band back home, strumming the guitar in the background. This is the time when the generator is on for roughly 2-3 hours, so it’s the only time during the day that you can charge your computer. So we all definitely take advantage of that, as one of the more frustrating things here at CICRA is watching your battery power dwindle as you’re in the middle of transcribing a focal or writing a rare email to family or friends. Facebook stalking is, unfortunately, made nearly impossible here due to the negative speed at which the site loads as well as the ever decreasing computer charge. The absence of this daily ritual has definitely left a little whole in my heart. By 8:30 it’s time to head to bed due to the 4 am wakeup call the next morning!
Personal hygiene definitely gets back-burnered here. When you’re trying to decide between three more minutes of sleep and brushing your teeth for the first time in a week, the extra three minutes is the definitive winner. I’m also thankful that I have monthly contact lenses, as I have a tendency to leave them in for a few days at a time before finally mustering up the energy to take them out and soak them overnight. There’s a fair chance that a significant amount of the data I enter onto my computer may be inaccurate, as I’m finding that when I do data entry, my vision is often blurred due to the buildup of protein deposits on the lenses, making it really difficult to see. Probably not the healthiest thing, but I haven’t gone blind yet so I’m content to stick with the contact lens changing schedule for the time being.
The penultimate task in personal hygiene, however, is most certainly changing your sheets. As you can imagine, this is a huge hassle here at the field station, yet necessary to prevent chiggers from infiltrating the safety of your mosquito net. Upon arrival, I was told by Mini to use my sheets as long as possible. Though I really hated initially getting into bed at night due to the dampness and general filthiness of the sheets, I took Mini’s advice to heart. The other day, we were sitting around and I proudly revealed that over a month into my stay here, I was still using my original pair of sheets! I was greeted by disgusted and/or perplexed expressions of disbelief all around. Turns out I was a tad too aggressive in my adherence to Mini’s advice. Shortly thereafter, the sheets were changed and there has since been a drastic improvement in comfort levels within my net.
In terms of difficulty, laundry is another strenuous yet necessary task. The tools with which you are supplied for laundry include a bucket, running water, a bar of soap and a scrub brush. You can imagine how I feel about this, based on the fact that I once only did laundry twice during an entire semester at Bowdoin (I know, it’s not cool.) Anyways, after attempting my laundry once, I realized that there really is no point in even trying to remove any of the dirt stains on your clothing. The rapidity with which they become incredibly dirty again is also remarkable. Additionally, due to the humid environment, my clothing and bathing towels have also started to mold. Thus, I’ve taken to simply swishing my clothes around in a bucket of water, rubbing a little bit of soap on them until they seem slightly less smelly and then hanging them, dripping, on the line. No need to even rinse. Despite my simplification of this task, I still find it terribly bothersome and am concerned by the fact that my arms get sore the next day, a testament to my utter lack of any upper body strength whatsoever.
Finally, to end on an exciting note: people are always passing through the station, tourists or students or whatnot, and the other day we got word that several young MALE Russian birders would be coming through the station and staying for a few days. Now, all of us ladies have been a bit deprived of youngish and/or attractive-ish males at CICRA, so word quickly spread and we all got pretty excited. On the day of their arrival, we would periodically, randomly scream “The Russians are coming!!” in joyous tones. After a long day in the field, we arrived back at camp, eager to finally meet them. As we were headed back towards camp, we were greeted by the site of several balding, overweight Russian men wearing camoflouge outfits, a couple with intense moustaches, and sporting absurdly large camera lenses. Though we were initially disappointed/depressed, the situation quickly became hilarious.
As it turns out, the Russians were great company, particularly on their last night here. Occasionally there will be small fiestas at the field station, and the night the Russians left they decided to whip out their stores of alcohol, including rum, wine and pisco sour (a Peruvian drink). Fiesta ensued. Despite having to get up at 4am the next morning, we partook in the festivities and were rewarded by the sights and sounds of the drunken Russians loudly and cheerily singing Communist songs while we all happily clapped along. When Lucy, the film maker who has been at the station for the past month, and I decided to try the Pisco Sour, we realized that we had nothing to mix it with. Suddenly, Lucy excitedly screamed, “There’s a lemon tree outside!!” So obviously, we both scurried outside and Lucy, a bit drunkenly perhaps, climbed into the tree without hesitation, me cheering her on, and began vigorously shaking a branch to get the lemon to fall to the ground. I was laughing too hard to tell her that she was shaking the wrong branch, but finally mustered up the strength to let her know, after which she promptly switched to attacking the correct branch. We finally got the lemon down for the drinks. After all that hard work, I managed to spill my entire pisco sour over the front of my pants in about two minutes. Only in the Amazon!
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Hey, sounds like a good time. Have any of the large animals made it into camp or are the chiggers and mosquitoes the worsy of the bunch. Don't the monkeys hang out around the Commodore ? They must know that there's food there. Then again, they're probably really good at finding stuff to eat and are not at all jealous of what you guys put in your stomachs. Have they put up any signs yet "DON"T FEED THE HUMANS" for fear that you'll start to rely on them to bring "the good stuff." Or, worse, they're the ones providing the rice in an effort to discourage more visitors. Your description of the russians is almost typical-----they usually drink more than that.