SATURDAY NIGHT

SATURDAY NIGHT

In the middle of the recap we take a day of to go to the beach and dry out our feet to avoid fungus. It is also an important mental break to keep us motivated. This time we all piled into the truck and went to Toco on the North East tip of the island. We stayed with Auntie Patsy, an older Trinidadian woman who wore relatively see through moo moos and sported a decent beard. She was a strong lady and an entrepreneur, juggling a number a businesses including providing all the sea moss to nestle for a popular drink and running this boarding house/hostel. She cooked all our meals for us with the main (read as only) ingredient being homemade BBQ sauce and would read us random disjointed snippets from the morning paper as we ate.

The beach was beautiful! Whats new… white sand beaches, coral reefs, coconut trees you know the drill by now. But we did meet some locals on the beach who were celebrating a graduation from the masters program at UWI (University of the West Indies). They were mostly biologists too and it was interesting to hear more about the research they were doing on the island. They invited us over for a poolside BBQ. We were excited to get to lime with some locals and soon found out it was even more than we had hoped for. They were staying at an estate owned by the biggest Soca star of Trinidad.

We arrived to find a huge house with a deck equipped with many loud speakers blastin music and an infinity pool over looking the valley. There was a large grill filled with chicken and ribs being cooked by the house chef who danced along to the tunes as he re-applied BBQ sauce. There was another building with a pool table on the bottom story and an open porch on top with a kitchen, hammocks and a bar. There was yet another building with another deck with a hot tub. It was the spot! You can try and imagine the 8 of us rolling into this place a little worst for wear from the recap and the beach and thinking we had fallen into a music video. But without all the nasty stuff that comes along with the nice house. Everyone was really well educated and interested in what we were doing there and our future plans as biologists. It was a very different crowd from the regulars in Arima and a refreshing look at a different side of Trinidad.

Even more exciting, one of the guys there lived in Brasil for 4 years so I got to practice my blossoming Portuguese with him! He had even been to my town, Mossoro, and gave me a few local words from that area. It was very exciting.

And don’t worry, we made it home before Auntie Pasty got too worried.

WET

WET

I have gotten much better at being wet. Growing up in Tucson very little of the time I was wet and if you happened to get soaked, it never lasted long, evaporating in minutes usually giving you a necessary cooling off.

Claremont was not much different. When there was water around I often did everything in my power to stay dry, suffering teasing from my heartier north western friends, joking about my rain boots and 1^st rain jacket at age 20.

Here I spend almost all of my time soggy. If its not traipsing through the stream or using your butt to block the fast moving water so that you can see into the pool or riffle then it’s the rain. And since it’s the rainy season there is plenty of it. We have spent an hour or 2 just standing in the rain waiting for it to stop so we can go back to fishing. We watch as the water rises and we pray that it doesn’t get too murky, forcing us to return the next day to finish the job. We are on constant watch for flash floods when working that would threaten to wash all out bottled fish away. By the end of the day our finger tips are always pruney and our feet pasty white (as one girl said, like a cadaver!). Even beach day can be a rainy affair.

It took some getting used to. Some adjustments I made were bringing a rain jacket. Not to stay dry because it makes you sweat enough to soak your clothes anyway, but it creates a warm sauna feel inside. I also have what I call Post Fieldpants Pants, or dry shorts in the truck waiting for when I get back to the top. They help avoid crotch rot and make the ride home much more enjoyable.

Who would have thought it of the desert rat from Tucson but some of my favorite moments have been when I was hiking in the rain and stopped to hear the thousand drops hitting layers of leaves all the way down to the floor. You can feel it soaking your hair and beads rolling across your brow, ever growing and gathering speed as they traverse down your check. The bugs disappear and it smells fresh and clean and cool. The wet is growing on me.

Justin’s Place

Justin’s Place

For our couple days off, we decided to go back into “Da Bush” on a hike to the north coast. After finishing up our chores of cleaning the house, running errands around town, and of course the game, we packed up our backpacks and headed out on the 12 mile trail down to the ocean.

We left from Brasso Seco, a little town not far from here where our boss lives. I went with Meredith, and the two newer interns John and Jen, and our cool manager Brian and his girlfriend Brie. We met Max and Lev who had set out a day ahead of us down there. The hike was beautiful. It was a much easier and nicer trail than the ones we use to get to the work streams, and we took our time looking at butterflies, fungus and the landscape. Imagine how long it takes a bunch of science nerds to get down a mountain through a jungle of cool stuff… a long time.

It was about 8 miles down to a beautiful Paria Waterfall where we took a relaxing swim. Then we set out along the coast, weaving down to the beach and then up through the jungle to the next beautiful bay. All along the sandy beaches there were little huts up on the shore where people were living. Each shanty was built out of wood and bamboo from the area and sheet metal brought in on boats I suppose. They were inhabited by mostly older rasta men who clearly all knew each other and had created their own community out there. There were men with boats and they carried people and good, helping everyone out in trade for things like fruit.

We made it to Justin’s place just in time for a dip in the ocean before dark. Justin is an old man who is one of the few remaining descendents of the native Karina tribe. He has lived on the north coast for 19 years and when asked if he would be there in a few years he responded, “boy, I gonna die here.” He had built a number of little shelters next to his own, which he lets people come and stay in. Mostly it is other friends and family from around Trinidad but the project made a connection with him in the past and so we know and visit him every couple months. He spends his time cleaning up around his land, collecting fruit and cooking while singing to loudly playing Reggae. In fact the music was on constantly, I figure it keeps him from getting lonely.

We spent two nights at Justin’s and they were very relaxing. The ocean was rough and it rained off and on so we spent most of our time on his kitchen/porch chatting playing cards and reflecting. I am very bad at doing nothing but it was a great place for me because it forced me to slow down and stay still. He made delicious jungle pot dishes out of things that he had and that we had brought, combinations you would not image to taste good together but were delicious!

After a couple nights we arranged for one of his friends to pick us up in a boat and take us along the coast to the nearest town. We were to rendezvous at 9 in the morning at one of the points that jutted out into the ocean. He couldn’t come into the beach because the seas were too high. We got up, thanked Justin and headed out. Through large jesters with the two men on the boat we realized that we were to creep out along a rocky cliff, dodging waves and time our drop into the boat with our packs on. Ready for some adventure we went one by one all clearing the lurching hull of the boat and only getting a little wet. It was very exciting. There was no real danger.

In town we found a little guest house to stay in where we could take a shower and nurse the many sand fly bites we had sustained at Justin’s rustic retreat. We spend a day on this beautiful beach that had just enough breeze to keep the bugs off and plenty of sun to dry out our soggy bodies and clothes. We found a friendly local women who had lived in PA for many years who offered to make us lunch AND dinner. It was delicious and just what we needed. We checked out the local Rec Club to see what the Saturday night life was like. We found many people of many ages drinking Carib and Stag beers chatting over blaring popular Soca tunes such as whistle song (ttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dga-mQOg8LY). I chatted with some of the younger people around and soaked up the cultural experience. I learned about where they went to school and what they were planning to do with their lives. It was a fun night as the older folks left us youngins to dance late into the night.

We had another day on the beach before we got a maxi to drive us home back to the other side of the mountains where we would soon begin work again.

Divali

Divali

I was very excited to find out that the Hindu holiday was on the 26^th of October, My Birthday! I recently found out that it actually falls on the new moon so it is not always on my birthday But this year YES!

It is a holiday of light when families remain at their homes to invite in friends and strangers. Those who celebrate the holiday at home do not eat meat and neither do those who visit them. Small, inviting oil candles called deyas are lit all over the houses. There are normally fireworks, but they are not allowed this year, so we had plenty of sparklers or starlights!

For 2 weeks leading up to the night of the 26^th there is a large festival on the west side of the island with food, crafts, and entertainment every night. When talking to our host dad Mahais, he offered to take us down there to check it out one night. So we all piled into his Maxi Taxi with him and his daughter and headed down south.

It was a large fair set up for the occasion with booths and a large stage. We hit the food first, sampling a little bit of everything and learning the names and ingredients from Mahais. It was most like Indian food but with a West Indian twist, using tropical ingredients that you can only get here like dasheen bush. We washed it down with a number of fresh juices: paw paw (papaya), barbadine, cane juice, and guava.

I then got a beautiful henna tattoo to match with Ruhini, the daughter who has grown attached to me. We cruised the shops with beautiful clothing for the holiday, bags and small crafts mostly imported from India. Then the show was starting so we found seats and watched a number of different acts. There was dancing and musical groups, but my favorite part was the play about one of the legions related to the holiday put on by a bunch of kids. There was waving to parents in the audience, there was stumbling to the correct location and the occasional yawn. Great!

It was a very relaxing environment with people of all ages and none of the stresses and leering of Arima. All in all a very pleasant evening.

On the night of the 26^th my friends made me dinner and a cake! And then we headed down to the other house to celebrate with our hosts. The entire property was lit up with deyas on structures built out of bamboo and metal. We all played with sparklers and noise making poppers while others set up the bamboo to be busted! Bustin’ the Bamboo is an activity that accompanies most celebrations here. It involves a large piece of bamboo, about 5 segments with the dividers knocked out except for the bottom one. Near this you put a small hole where you pour in the Kerosene. This is then lit and blown out in a rhythmic way to great large blasts that sound like cannon fire. We didn’t get a great piece of bamboo so the explosions quickly split it.

Without our own to bust we set out into Temple Village, the little Hindu cluster of houses across the street. The entire hillside was lit up with the deyas all along porches and rooflines and lining driveways. We found some young men showing off their bustin’ skills and people watching and chatting. Kids ran everywhere throwing poppers at each other’s feet and holding the burning sticks (never really realized why my mom was so concerned when we would play with them when we were young… now I get it).

A main theme of the celebration is inviting people into your home and offering them little bags of sweet dough and fruits. I was sharing my starlights with some little boys who pulled me up the hill to their house were there dad offered me one of the treats of the celebration. I talked with their family for a while soaking in the twinkling lights, the smell of sparklers and new company. It was an amazing birthday and a holiday, which I plan to celebrate in the coming years.

Na Na Na Na Na Na BAT CAVE!!

Another adventure was to the Na Na Na Na Na Na BAT CAVE!! Pierson organized an adventure to go look for snakes that come and feed on the roosting bats in a cave about an hour away. We took Jogi (our host here) ‘s brother as a guide to hike us to the opening and set out.

After a 2 hour drive to go probably 25 miles due to rain and flooding, it was only a 20 minute walk up the hill. As soon as we got there Pierson gets his headlamp on and heads down in. Each intern follows the amount that they are comfortable with: One heads all the way down through the small crawl through hole, another into the first couple rooms before it narrows, and I just went inside the first large room which was enough for my closterphobia to act up. On the ceiling were hundreds of bats and throughout the many tunnel work there were thousands and thousands, and many different species. We waited for Pierson to come out with something cool for about a half hour and for sure he comes clambering out with a small caiman in his hand. Not exactly what he had wanted but he was ok with it. HE took some great photos of it and I got to hold it! It had a super fat tummy, absolutely stuffed from feasting on all the bats it could handle, and could barely move. It was actually pretty funny how lethargic it was.

After he was returned and it began to grow dark they started to come out. First a trickle then tons, streaming out of the opening like a flood. I can see why people are scared of them, the sheer numbers of them at once are intimidating and they are not the best flyers as then come out so they would kinda run into you if you were not careful, as if they were going for you or something.

Anyway two cool adventures for the break. A couple more to come once I write them up but until then We started the 3^rd recap of my time here. So fish process fish process fish process for a while here.

Soca Warriors!

Soca Warriors!

I can’t go to a place where soccer is actually appreciated without going to a big game! The Soca Warriors are the Trinidadian National Team and they play their home games in a big stadium in Port of Spain. I got all the information, piled everyone into the car and we where off dressed in the closest to red and black garb we could find!

The game was against Barbados, a long standing rival, but seeing as the world cup is still a couple years out there were not as many people there as I had expected but there were plenty of dedicated fans! We made it in time to cruise the stadium getting free stuff form the cracker and phone company sponsors. There are two cell phone companies here and they are always competing with each other, trying to get the best events to sponsor and stuff, so they have great give aways. We just missed the tshirts but we got free airbrushed soca warrior arm tattoos to rep the team!

The game was a good one. We won 4 to 0 so there were many goals. Im pretty sure the refing made the game but we still had fun. When we where back in Arima we stopped at the grocery store for some stuff. As we where walking from across the street someone started yelling something at us as they often do but we quickly realized that it was not the standard “Whitey” or “Sexy White Girls” but “Soca Warriors!” We had a lovely cheering moment back and forth, showing off our tattoos and boasting the score.

Reciprocity…

Reciprocity…

We got through the second recap pretty smoothly. Being a second month-er is very nice because you get into the routine and you know what’s coming. There is still enough new and exciting things to keep it interesting but nothing is too surprising.

Pierson came through the ever-revolving door of our house. He is a PhD student from Florida State who loves snakes and hates Trinidad. He works here for his advisor on the project but is more into reptiles than fish and does not like the way the country is run (a little disorganized) or the people (a little distracted). He hunts for snakes constantly and when he sees one he goes into a wild animal frenzy sprinting at the movement in the brush and lunging in to grab it before he has any idea of what kind of snake it is.

Later came Brad, his partner for their section of the project. They are looking at the populations of fish that live with the guppies and compete with them called Rivulus. We call them the Brothers Riv. Brad it super level headed and really cool. He is older than all of us, in his late 30’s, but manages to put up with our early twenty antics with much grace. He also went to Pomona, which I was very excited about, but he has been gone long enough that it was less interesting to him. Regardless I brought up references all the time but he never really came around to it.

My favorite moment with these two was out fishing in a stream when Pierson takes off running through a deep pool and up the bank coming up with a Huge black snake with a yellow belly. It was a Chironies, a fast snake closely related to the coach-whip of Arizona (ask my dad about it, he is relatively familiar with this species). It shares some characterists with this snake including launching for the face. I stood back as Pierson walks back towards us with a big smile on his face, holding it by the tail as it flails around, doubling back to bite him. He is a very successful nature photographer and proceeds to coil it up and place it on the bank where it site for a hot second before lunging at his face and off through the stream, at which point he takes of after it again, and brings it back for another try for the perfect photo.

As this back and forth dance continues I hear something behind me. We are at the beginning of the trail still near some houses. As I look up the road I see a huge group of kids coming down for a swim in their favorite swimming hole (the one that Pierson just traipsed through to pull out the snake). They come up behind me and one by one their eyes expand as they realize what Pierson has. The local fear of all snakes regardless of danger is pervasive and intense. They ask me if he is killing it with his cutlass and I said no, that it was not a mean snake (in the back ground it lunges for his face) and he was just taking pictures then letting it go. They looked at me like I was crazy.

They start into the water playing on the bank a bit weary of us down the way with the snake. When he finishes he carries the snake to the far bank and encourages it up and away from the pool containing now happy kids playing. The snake had other plans and plunges back into its pool swimming around a bit to the sounds of screams and ducks under the bank into a hole. The fleeing kids scramble on to the bank, sure now that we Are absolutely crazy. Pierson starts up back to the car content with his photos leaving the menace in the swimming pool the kids have probably been visiting daily for their whole lives. When I give him the look he rolls his eyes and trudges back in, reaching up in the mud and finally pulling the 5 foot snake out by the tail. He takes it down the river a way where it slithers off into the jungle.

We walked back to the trunk leaving the kids horrified on the bank staring at their pool as the ripples go away and it glassed over again. I tried to explain that it was ok but they where not going to be convinced.

Better Mus' Come

Better Mus’ Come

I try to get the paper every time I am in town and look for interesting local events that are

coming up that I can rally the troops for. It is usually a matter of reading about it or hearing from someone that something is happening, looking it up online where I only find a phone number to call, than calling over and over again for 3 days until I finally talk to someone and get direction… But my persistence has paid off! A couple times One being a movie at the Trinidadian Film Festival.

The TT Film Festival hosted a number of movies showings all over the 2 islands made by Caribbean directors or having themes realated to the Caribbean. One feature was Sing Your Song a movie about Harry Bellefonte that I had seen at the Sundance Film Festival this past year.

This time we went to see Better Mus’ Come, a movie made by a young Jamaican direct about a young man trying to rise above gang violence in Jamaica during the cold war. Apparently different political parties vying for power where funding different gangs to duke it out on the street and increase their chances by killing everyone who wouldn’t vote for their guy. It was pretty heavy stuff but I was in the mood so it was good. It also felt relevant, as the gang violence here has been on the rise in the past decade or so and people frequently are discussing it.

The movie was shown at Trevor’s Edge, a little bar/restaurant near University of West Indies (UWI). There were all different types of people there, lots of students, both local and international, and artsy movie people from all over the Caribbean. It was a relaxed feel. The movie was projected from someone’s apple laptop both inside and out on the porch, and seats were set up around tables where people chatted and munched on burgers and fries. We got a little lost on the way and showed up just as it was starting. Because of this we had to stand outside the porch and lean on the gate but it actually allowed us to see more of the peoples reactions to the movie, which were just as interesting as the movie. People laughed when I was not expecting it and didn’t sometimes when we did.

At the end we moved inside for a question and answer session with the Director. He was a very articulate young Jamaican man who was clearly well educated and dedicated to his craft. The questions related to his art as well as the messages he was hoping to convey and again the audience reactions where the most interesting part,

relating the movie to the current situation here. After words I went and talked to the director for a bit and asked him to remind me of the first voice over line in the movie that I really liked. “Shadows stand upright in the corners of honest towns”

David Reznick Comes!

Alright, so I fell a little behind so here is catching up!

When I returned from Tobago, Dr. David Reznick, the founder of this project and Guppy expert extraordinaire was waiting for us. He has been studying guppies in Trinidad since the 70’s and thinks about nothing else. He is a small wiry man in his early 60s but still has a kick in his step, leading us down the forest trails with the determination of a

He stayed in one of the boy’s bunkrooms and would help chop when we were cooking. He only wore old t-shirts with frogs, snakes or fish on them and drank espresso like it was his job. When he spoke he would use only the biggest words possible, and in the most scientific way possible. It has been rumored that he reads his 2 and 4-year-old daughters Darwin’s the origin of species as a bed time story.

He would spend literally 6 hours straight in our fish lab staring into the tanks of guppies, moving them around, treating them for fungus and just watching. When you would ask him what he was doing he would go on about the types of fungus and their different host organisms and life cycles, using only scientific names of course. He would often repeat these long lectures so after a few times through I could kind of understand what he was saying.

Although we technically had another week of break we where quickly enlisted to help in a number of projects. Now like most great minds in his field, he is very disorganized, flaky, and unfocused; so the few tasks that he wanted to accomplish managed to drag out for the rest of the off time and into our next recap.

That being said it was very interesting to spend some time with the man behind the whole program. I feel like I learned a lot about what we are actually doing down here: the projects that have come before and those to come and how our work fits into the bigger picture. I also have a better understanding of the research side of academia that we don’t see at the Claremont and how it changes the profession.

Some highlights: fishing for predatory fish that eat guppies and learning how to ID them, going out at night and catching frogs, and having one of his dry, dry jokes (that only came out after a couple days) go straight over everybody’s head…