Trying to be an academic in rural Kenya... and other joys

Better late than never! November - what a month. It's been a reminder of a fundamental need for peace and purpose, combined please. I’ve spent a good portion of October and November (and will in January) writing grant applications alone in my little house in the forest and turning a bit gelatinous in mind and body, while my dedicated team has endured the El Niño rains. Most deadlines are past, but I won't soon forget the experience. I know that most fields are driven by a culture of "achieve, advance, pioneer " but few of them are quite so individualistic and combine a dependence on online resources with a year in rural Africa. No doubt, this is some kind of character building experience. Thank you, God.

Speaking of shaky internet - I currently don't have enough signal to wow you all with pictures. So sit tight for many to come.

I've hit my halfway mark now - 6 months in the field and 6 months to go. Yayyyy! I'm also 30 years old now. Yayyyy! ;) Really though, I'm very happy about this. Besides these two milestones, here are other things that happened in November that brought me joy.

1) I saw my friend Judith from C3 Church Manhattan (C3M) for a special weekend in Kampala, Uganda. 

2) I got to listen to a podcast of my sister preaching an awesome message at C3M!

3) I got a wave of kind messages, letters, and a few care packages from amazing people for my birthday.

3) We finished our second period of data collection fully on target.

4) I celebrated Thanksgiving with my buddy and coworker Lauren by seeing a movie (in a real cinema!) and having lunch in Kisumu.

Aaaaand now my dad and his partner Marilyn are here for a visit! We are currently in the airline terminal to take a small plane to the Maasai Mara. Be assured, LOTS of photos of that to follow!

I'm shifting gears now to address two things plenty of people have asked me about: what's the language situation like and why does my day involve so much excrement ;).

Language/Relationships~

After six months, my Kiswahili has improved polepole (slowly). Many people who live in the immediate area know that I know a few words and our conversation can move past - "she is speaking Swahili!" and my response that "… yes indeed I try." My greatest motivation was to have more authentic relationships with people… and to defend myself in the ever-so-occasional negative situation. Typically, people in Kenya learn their local language first (Kiluhya in my area), then Kiswahili in grade school, and soon after English, the second national language. So almost everyone does know English, but I prefer to catch heckling motorbike drivers unawares in Kiswahili... muaha-ha. On my team I speak casually in Kiswahili, but revert to English when I really want to be clear on something - instructions, schedules, money - so quite a lot really.

Monkey poop / Monkey pee ~

Aha, you've been waiting to hear about this, I'm sure! What am I doing with this stuff… Ultimately, the responses to my grant proposals will decide, because all laboratory analyses cost $$$. But first off, why collect poop and pee. When doctors want to give you a thorough check, they usually send you off to give a blood sample, which you may be more or less happy to give. For a wild monkey to give blood you need to trap it, immobilize it, and have epic amount of permits, training and equipment. Even then, other monkeys that watched you trap their brother may never come to trust you in their midst again! We avoid this major headache and opt for a more minor one of

collecting poop and pee from the ground and leaves. In this “excreta” them you can find lots of information or “biomarkers” that are also found in blood.

My research is about measuring the benefits of friendly social relationships of the younger monkeys. Very cuddly. So, a few ways that I've defined benefits are things like increased energy intake, lower baseline stress levels, and decreased rates of infection. You can measure the signals of all these things from excreta.  I’ll probably let you know which ones I do examine  — i.e. which ones I'll afford ;).

Hope you’re all having a wonderful holiday season, whether it be in snow or sun. God bless!

Lots of love,

Nicole

Good times despite everybody's favorite Niño

Cheers to one month Hans solo! Living solo has left me with A LOT of time for introspection (about 99.9% of which I'll spare you) and movie watching. Movies I've watched lately that take place in Africa (e.g. Blood Diamond, another on Kony's LRA) are such a far cry from the world I live in that they've been a good reminder: there's popular media and then there's reality. Just like not all Westerners are mysteriously well-off, sexually open, and glamorous like Carrie Bradshaw and/or gun-wielding like OO7 and Rambo, not all Africans are violent, corrupt, and in a state of crisis... We know this.

A very encouraging Weds ;)

Perhaps the best part of living alone, besides the space, is feeling compelled to reach out in the community. This month I started joining yet another group of missionaries in my more local area, Kakamega Town, at their bi-weekly "Encouragement Wednesdays." Yep, at the end of the day, encouragement is just what each of us needs, we who are far away from home and/or maintaining a new home in Western Kenya. It's an absolutely lovely group of American and British expats, most of whom have picked up and moved indefinitely to the Kakamega area. Some work in children's education and caretaking, others work in agriculture (e.g. animal husbandry, soil management), and others still contribute to existing congregations - pastoring and encouraging adult disciples. Most of them served in the same capacity at their home churches, found their way here via the missions their churches run, and felt God's call to move here more permanently. I can't imagine God calling me to live here indefinitely, but I'm glad He did them, because they're great company. 

My field assistants deserve a round of applause for having been excellent sports this past month. They've been essential in running the project through the various challenges we've faced and been brave enough to flex some new muscles:

Sylvia, the walking rock/
My boots aka we're not in
Brooklyn anymore

1) El Niño: We thought we were out of the rainy season, when suddenly ultra-wack weather arrived. It now either storms or drizzles from 13:00 on in the afternoons, part of the night, and most mornings are reminiscent of London and Seattle. Neither human nor monkey enjoys this weather (except for my oddball colleague from Oregon). So while we bat off-trail through sodden undergrowth and suck our boots out of ankle deep mud, the monkeys hide high up, spread out and quiet. Like the mud, we suck it up, although my assistants do a better job of it than I do.

Solar repairs on a sunny
morning/my baby...
I mean, freezer 

2) Related solar power issues: Because of said niño, my beloved solar freezer (where our bio samples are stored) had some power struggles. Thank goodness, not a sample was compromised, although my sleep and patience were. We had several visits from our friends at a small solar business to make adjustments and found a solution for every ill. My assistants have humored me and been hard-working throughout my freezer-sitting and prolonged email dances in the forest to search for signal.

Sheila teaching a secondary
student during an activity

3) Conservation outreach: In my Summer 2014 pilot season, I started visiting nearby schools with some of the local forest workers to build appreciation and conservation awareness about Kakamega Forest. This past month, I asked my field assistants to join me. Each played her part in style, leading kids in activities on population ecology and discussing energy-saving alternatives to common practices in the kitchen. We're looking forward to keeping this up and doing outreach as a team once every month.

Last thing, now. Every November something special happens - I turn another year older. That's right, this month marks the end of my 30th year on this planet. In the immortal words of Cedric the Entertainer "Ima grown a$$ man!" And I'm pumped. Let the celebrations begin.

Take care all of you wherever you are and keep in touch.

Lots of love!

Nicole

Satisfying September

Just this week I've said goodbye to my favorite housemate, field buddy, and older lab sister, Maressa. She finished her year of field work last Sunday and has now flown home :). Congratulations, Mareese! You've worked so hard - time to enjoy being back. Maressa has been my *lovely* house mate for the past four months, and I'm lucky to have shared the time with her. Now, I'm starting the eight month haul solo. As I'm still living in "Hans' house", you might even say I'll be flying… Hans Solo.

The current Cords Lab
pictured in the field:
Holly, Nic, & Maressa

In other lab-related news, in August our newest labmate Holly came out to get her first taste of the forest. It was great to welcome her and fun to see the forest as novel again through her eyes.

Mid-September, Maressa and I had the great opportunity to present our research to the biology and ecology department at our affiliated university in Kakamega, MMUST. My assistants came to help me present and did a fantastic job, having rehearsed their speaking parts and looking exceptionally *smart*. The audience was mostly advanced graduate students that were eager to listen and asked interesting questions. I was grateful they could make it - we started about an hour later than announced, so I'm not sure how they did! Ah, the mysteries of African culture.

The last half of September, I spent most of my time managing the team to round up data for the end our first "period" (i.e. two months of behavior and hormones). Aside from the usual routine of serially searching for a monkey and writing down everything it does for 20 minutes, you can see (left) what else ending a data period can lead to, i.e. maniacally praying for a monkey to pee and triumphantly collecting it (one day, I will explain our hormone analyses).

Last thought: as I'm settling into month 5 and starting to live Hans Solo, I've started to realize that my life here is really not so different from that in NYC, even despite some slight variations:

Running is the best medicine to clear the head (in rainforest vs. riverside park)

Commuting by public transportation is good thinking-time (motorbike vs. subway)

The bathroom is kinda far away (outdoors to the long drop vs. down the hallway of a railroad apartment)
My laptop is my evening companion (while I mind solar power usage vs. minding the hour of night)

Popcorn is a go-to lazy meal (pot vs. air popped)

Binge watching TV shows is still a thing (am currently into Homeland - pirated dvd's :'( vs. Netflix)

A good chunk of Sunday goes to church - worshipping, soaking in a message, meeting new people and catching up with others (dirt floor schoolhouse vs. The New York Times Center).

Yup, all-in-all pretty similar.

I'm looking forward to setting up some new routines to keep in even better touch with people going into the next 8 months. Thank you to those of you with whom I already get to occasionally chat - the simple chats mean a lot! :)

Lots of love,

Nicole

P.S. A shot from Maressa's going away party - a festive event complete with three legged races, beerpong (incidentally, without beer), and a whole lot of food. The beerpong game face seems to be universal :).

What is a focal follow? (aka. what I do all day)

Field Assistants Sheila and Sylvia in T-West North group

My study is observational, not experimental. Observations and experiments go hand-in-hand, but are different: experimenters manipulate conditions and observers do not (e.g. day length in colony room vs. day length according to natural season). In both types of studies, the researcher measures one or more conditions (e.g. day length) and response variables of interest (e.g. song frequency of birds). You may sometimes hear of "natural experiments" - these are times when mama nature herself (aka God +/- chance) is the manipulator, creating different conditions across which researchers measure and compare a response. For example, to see the effect of military service on income, a researcher could compare the income of veterans vs. non-veterans, given a random draft. Most observational studies take advantage of these natural experimental conditions, and so do I. Take away: I observe the monkeys' behavior with little to no involvement in it.

In 1974, a smart woman named Jeanne Altmann did everyone in the emerging field of behavioral ecology a big favor - she wrote "Observational Study of Behavior: Sampling Methods." In doing so she succinctly described the various ways that people can (and perhaps should) sample spontaneously occurring behavior. One of these ways, now ubiquitously common, is called the "focal follow." And in the focal follow you can employ a variety of recording techniques…

Frisbee, Sheila, and our digital data sheets

Focal follows are what we do for most of the day here. We follow a "focal" animal (i.e. one of our subjects) for 20 minutes, during which we record all of its social interactions. If I'm following Bike, for example, then I might write line by line in our code "bike receives approach from frisbee"…"bike receives groom present from frisbee, bike accepts and grooms frisbee". Then every minute on the minute, alerted by our repeating timers, we record what Bike is doing (e.g. feeding, resting, moving, grooming) and who is nearby. If Bike moves out of sight for more than 10 minutes in a row… we wail, shake an angry fist to the sky, and abort the follow. If we follow Bike for the full 20 minutes… then we cheer, bust a Saturday-night-fever, and move on to find another focal.

We try to do the same number of follows for each subject each month and conduct those follows evenly throughout the day…

Game-face time: the forest
observers and monkeys traverse

About 80% of the time the monkeys are high up in the trees (30-50m), so you need your game face (focus hard and write quickly) to avoid shaking that angry fist to the sky. When monkeys decide to move, they move! This poses a problem for us lumbering terrestrial bipeds. The treetops and underbrush are paved rode for the monkeys' lithe little bodies and nimble hands and feet, but they're less accommodating for us.

Nevertheless, there is that lovely 15% of the time when the monkeys come low, and the 5% when the follow is an absolute and glorious cakewalk. See above a photo of Sheila's cakewalk with Frisbee and a view of our tablet interface.

I'll save the fun details of how we collect hormone samples (pee and poop!) for another time. 

I hope you've enjoyed a glimpse into the world of focal follows! For more details, please just ask ;).

Lots of love,

Nicole

The Adventures of August

Cheers to the end of my project's first quarter! Only three more to go. No doubt this year in Kenya will go by fast. I can see from social media that your summers, too, have flown by and everyone is gearing up for fall. Here we're having an unexpected resurgence of monsoon-like rain, with regular downpours every afternoon from 3pm onwards. It's good news for our water tanks, but I'm looking forward to the dry season's long afternoon's and dry seats on the ground. We're also experiencing a mysterious blackout on cell phone service in the area. So, apologies for the silence! 

The Groom and Bride: Patrick and Casty

At the end of August, I had the honor of going to my first Kenyan wedding! The wedding couple, Patrick and Casty, go to the church I attend in the nearby town of Shinyalu. The wedding itself was held in the not-so-nearby city of Gilgil (an 8 hour bus ride there, detours and getting lost included -- a 10 hour matatu ride back, matatu-madness included). I was completely honored to be one of the wedding's official photographers! I did this along with my friend Lauren, a colleague on the project. To wedding photographer friends - I totally understand that your job is not easy! I was a fly on the wall searching for good lighting while the bride got ready with her maids. I was also challenged to capture the moment amidst trying to enjoy the singing, dancing, and praying - of which there was a lot! It was an incredibly good time.

Wedding party and guests in Gilgil (can you spot me?)

Lake Naivasha and
Hellsgate's Gorges

I swung down to visit Lake Naivasha for a night after the wedding and took a shot at biking through Hellsgate National Park. Hellsgate is so charmingly named because it gets quite hot midday. I found that out while biking and a nice man with a car was kind enough to taxi me back to my homestay (only a 30 min ride, marriage proposal included). In Hellsgate, I met some animal friends, both old (baboons) and new (warthogs!).

Cute and cuddlies of Hellsgate Nat'l Park

Celebrating birthdays on a rainy afternoon.

As for the real reason I'm here, my team at camp is really finding its rhythm in data collection. I am so proud of these women, their daily drive, and their genuine curiosity about animal behavior. More than scientists, we're growing as a team and as individuals. No one is perfect on any team, and lately we've been dealing with ways to hold each other accountable. Accountability and integrity are always difficult to maintain, but in this culture, "ratting" on a community member (i.e. reporting any misconduct whatsoever) is an especially nasty practice. I'm not sure why, but perhaps it's because communities here are so tight-knit and long-standing, because witchcraft is a prevalent method of revenge, or some combination of reasons. In any case, workers like to make their own schedules here, co-workers hate to be the narc, and bosses (like all humans) can only be in one place at a time. In my team, we haven't suffered from this problem extensively, but I've done my best to nip all signs of dishonest or uncooperative behavior in the bud. Not easy, but every morning we take turns praying for health, communication, cooperation, encouragement, and integrity. And God answers our prayers.

Just this Friday, we celebrated the birthdays of two of our teammates, Sylvia and Sheila. Being singled out of the crowd and celebrated is not as common here as it is in Western cultures, and the gifts and recognition make for a very special occasion. Sheila proclaimed she would be celebrating like this with her family in the future. Good times.

More about these ninjas and the work they do to come!

Lots of love,

Nicole

PS. If you're curious about where I was ... ;)

Real data collection, getting away, and keeping in touch.

Sheila and me during
a reliability test.

After 43 days of training 7:30 to 17:00, real data collection has begun! Huzzah!! Consolata, Sylvia, Sheila, and myself are now out Monday to Friday recording behavior and collecting hormone samples in our three study groups. The data are streaming in. What a blessing are good teams? I'm amazed to think that, in one week, four of us accomplish what I alone could accomplish in one month. I'm adjusting to spending my evenings and weekends managing the incoming data, and my weekdays coordinating collection so that when two observers are on the same group, they don't collect the same data. Cheers to new routines!

Last weekend, I went to the city of Kisumu to visit some American friends that I met in years past at a Christian wildlife retreat near camp. They've lived in Kisumu for 10+ years as missionaries. Whilst visiting them I treated myself to some of the latest treats of this growing city.

(Red dot: Kakamega)

Treats available in Kisumu: movie theater, java house with wifi and IHOP style breakfast, woolworth's, healthy u! (can buy quinoa, brazil nuts, nutritional yeast, bio-degradable dental floss, etc.), massages, lunches by lake Victoria, and a plush new hotel with gym, swimming pool, and shmancy restaurant. But by far, the best thing about Kisumu is the ex-pat missionary community. Last Saturday I was able to rejoin the praise/prayer meetings that I started going to in 2013. It's awesome to fellowship with these people (Americans, Brits, Germans) and hear about the crazy/incredible ways that they sacrifice themselves (e.g. special-ed teaching in orphanages, reuniting runaway boys with their families). I'm grateful to be a highly welcomed novelty (oddity?) in their missionary circles. Pictures of Kisumu to come...

There are dozens of people who I need to thank for keeping me afloat here. Some of you wrote letters that I brought here - THANK YOU! your letters are gifts that keep on giving. Some of you just casually keep in touch - via gmail, facebook, whatsapp, or just commenting here in blogger. I am super grateful for you. There is nothing like friends back home or elsewhere to keep perspective and keep going.

A few special shout outs: 1) Mike Zapata and Cornelius Van Wright sent along letters from the kids at church (I've been helping lead their Sunday school once a month for a few years). This was such an amazing surprise! 2) Clara Cheong: you are amazing. Really, how do you do it? Clara sent me here with a little present for each month accompanied by a note. At the beginning of August I opened up two little perfume samples. They smell like Eau de $$$. So exciting. 3) I have to testify that a miracle occured in early July… Hannah Omolade and Heather Obasare took a chance and tried to Facetime me from Australia. The call came through!!! We Facetimed as I stood in the middle of a parking lot, to the amusement of many onlookers! This was a momentous occasion :). Missing and loving you guys and many others.

Lastly, in response to someone (erratum: 'twas Mrs. Steele!!)
who wanted more pics of me in the field: here's a Nat Geo quality shot of me and a lady named Sputnik ;). 

Lots and lots of love,

Nicole

P.S. Resounding scripture of my week: If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and I have faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 1 Cor 13:2

Obama visits Africa

*Warning: the following blog post contains mild political and religious opinions*

This is a picture of Sho-sho, the mother of the Pastor's wife with whom I had the pleasure to stay with last weekend, and she's watching the news when Obama arrived in Kenya last Friday night. His arrival was heralded as a "homecoming" here and was especially emotional for the Luo people, the tribe his father came from, which happened to be the same tribe of my hosts. My hosts scrutinized all: who he was happiest to greet on the tarmac, his outfit, his wife and family, and whose brother knew someone's cousins' housekeeper that knew Obama's father's family. When I went to Indonesia in 2009 just after he was elected to his first term, the Indonesian people in many ways claimed him for their own, too. He lived in Jakarta with his mother and Indonesian step-father for several years as a child, and that seemed enough for him to bear Indonesia's national stamp. When I lived in the UK, Obama made a trip to Ireland and news had it that he was visiting the home of his mother's ancestors. Yup, Obama was also Irish. I read recently that a senator called Obama's international policy to be, essentially, the worst of any American president in history (this was in relation to trusting Iran to scale back its nuclear program). I don't know the specifics of his foreign policy, but I can tell you from my anecdotal experience that international travel has been easier with him as my head of state. People of the world generally like him. That's nice when you're an American in their country. I made a trip to Brazil in 2006 and was shunned as a war-mongering American to most locals in Rio to whom I introduced myself. Their scorn for GWB was real.

Obama's addresses to the Global Entrepreneurship Summit in Nairobi and to the African Union in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia have received some criticism - particularly the latter. Perhaps you have or can catch these speeches for yourselves. I'll avoid any pointed opinions, but overall I was impressed. His ideas were clear and I thought he was brave to express them. His speech to entrepreneurs put business in its place as a solution to many of the world's greatest challenges, particularly poverty. An innovative and entrepreneurial spirit seems rare here in Kenya, at least in its rural areas - where the stock ambition among many men is to progress from bicycle taxi driver, to motorcycle taxi driver, to automobile taxi driver. These simple and routine ambitions aren't for want of intellect, just opportunity and exposure. Women largely remain at home, which is never bad in itself, but they have few to no other options. Perhaps I should give kudos to his speech writers? I thought they were able to promote these ideas without sounding superior, distant or trite. Nevertheless, some people still felt they were exactly that and worse. As Americans, Obama and I are outsiders here, but I'm proud of him for respectfully reaching out and having an honest discussion about issues that are important for all people.

Take care and keep in touch.

Love,

Nicole

Big forest, tiny house

We have two houses in the forest, Hans' house and Marina's house... I've never met Hans, but I hear he is a lovely and elderly German ornithologist who makes the occasional visit to the forest. When he's away (i.e. usually) 1-3 of my supervisor's students live in his house - like me! Thank you, Hans! Here you can see the inside of our kitchen/office/dry lab/bedroom/common area. The tacit point here is that space is limited. The white thing on the left is our recently installed solar freezer where I store all fecal and urine samples collected from the monkeys.

The back room is a designated bedroom. Maressa's bed is on the left and mine (momentarily sans mos-net) is on the right. The desk was moved from the kofficebedlabroom when the freezer arrived. On the other side of the desk's wall is our shower-closet where we take bucket baths. At the foot of Maressa's bed and underneath both beds are where we store our clothes and extra equipment. I hope you're getting the idea... getting along with housemates and timing your farts appropriately is really important here.

 Here is a picture of the full summer crew at Hans' house for dinner. Clockwise from the photographer's left is Maressa, Megan, Lauren, Taylor, Alan, Darcy, and my supervisor Marina. Most of these people have now left and a few new ones have come. Maressa and Lauren are still here with me.

For dinner, we each take turns cooking for everyone else. Typical foods on our menu are curried vegetables, rice, pasta, and the occasional treat such as homemade pumpkin gnocchi (huzzah!) which Megan makes so well. We also take regular turns cleaning the house. As you might guess, we don't have a basement for laundry nor a weekly trash collector. Being at the end of the line in terms of waste management makes one very conscious about the quantity of waste produced. We have an organics pit for compost, but we burn plastics and paper. Yes, the photo below-left is one of the Ozone screaming, to quote my friend Chase Nuñez. Nevertheless, I find staring into undulating flames of the burning trash to be very therapeutic. Do you have great alternatives for trash burning? Let me know. For now, I just reduce, reuse and recycle like I'm going for a Girl Scout badge. Sorry to my housemates in New York City, who have to experience my stickler habits of trash sorting which are difficult to drop.

Therapeutic trash fire and its fumes wafting into our drying laundry.

Maressa and Megan processing plant samples outside Hans' house.

Good internet is difficult to come by, so don't be surprised if I'm only posting here about twice per month! Feel free to comment or follow the blog for alerts of new posts ;).

Lots of love,

Nicole

Ninja training

As you may have heard, I spend most of my time these days training. "But what is training all about?" you ask. Well, I will tell you, young padawan, how one becomes my field assistant in a few short steps.

Step 1: Learn the trail system. This came pretty easily to my ninjas-in-training because they live near the forest and are already familiar with its layout. In any case, the home ranges of our study groups are not extensive and the man that built the trails in the late 1960's was a birder. Birders like their trails like the streets of Manhattan - long, straight, and grid-like (that's so they can set up wall-like mistnets to safely trap birds as they cross trails). Most of the trails we use today are these.

Step 2: Identify monkeys. 

...First an interlude of some blue monkey basics: the monkeys that we study live in groups where members hang out more or less exclusively with one another. Usually, the group has a single adult male, multiple adult females, and all the females' infant and juvenile offspring. Females stay in the same group for their entire lives (!) whereas males usually leave the group where they were born just before they become adults. These brave young men leave either to find another group and become its lone resident male or embark on life as a lone bachelor. FYI: my lab sister Dr. SuJen Roberts did her dissertation about how males fare in these different lifestyles...

For my project, we collect behavioral and hormonal data on the juveniles, but we have to know everyone with whom the juveniles interact. Everyone! Every individual receives a name when they turn one (unfortunately, many of the infants don't survive to this age) and we recognize each animal using its natural features (we don't mark or tag the monkeys). 

Sometimes the identity of the monkey is obvious, like Tango on our left: an adult female with a dramatically arched brow like a crescent moon. Some monkeys, however, are not so obvious and can pose some difficulty to learn. Take the three pictured at right from top to bottom: Tanner (Tango's adult daughter), Paris, and Mini. All are young adult females that differ by the shape of their ears, noses, nipples, and (sometimes) tails.

There are many monkeys to learn (129!) and they don't always cooperate by making themselves seen. The process to learn all the monkeys is full time and can take several months. "That is crazy!!" you exclaim… or… wait, no, those are my thoughts. In all, we have 

• 45 individuals (+8 unnamed infants) in the group G-North,
• 29 (+7 infants) in the group T-West North, and
• 55 (+10 infants) in  T-West South.

At this point, I know everyone... I sense them by their unique auras and they come flocking to me like Cinderella's bluebirds and mice.

Step 3: Learn the ethogram. Ethos is Greek for way or nature and -gram means form, often implying the written form of a thing. Together, they refer to the codes we use to turn fluid behavior into discrete recordable entities. 

Some codes are used to record a subject's "activity" or what they're generally up to, e.g. resting, feeding, sleeping. Other codes record "events" or things that happen, e.g. an approach, a bite, a growl. In all, we have 81 codes for activities, events, feeding items, contexts, and other categories of behavior. I wrote all these… *brushes dirt off shoulder*. Because most of the behavior that I'm interested in is social, we combine ethogram codes with ID codes, which all 129 study individuals have, to write down a story of what our subjects do and with whom they do it.

Step 4: Learn to use a tablet. For many people back home, this would be the easiest of any step. Here in Isecheno, learning to navigate an Excel-like application using a touch-screen and qwerty keyboard is a significant challenge. 

We started with typing on a computer keyboard, testing on speed and accuracy with codes several times a week (see Sylvia to the left).

Soon after, all graduated to testing on tablets. We're getting there. Indeed, the ninjas are developing the bond with their weapons. See Sylvia to the right!

Step 5: The final step!!! Learn to put all this together in what we call a "focal follow". I'll let that mighty suspense build and say more when answering "what is data collection?" Stay tuned for exclusives on that, the data ninjas themselves, and our plush jungle lifestyle.

Lots of love,

Nicole

Sema! I'm in a place called the Kakamega Forest in western Kenya. More specifically, I'm living in the Isecheno forest station, amidst the homes of several forest rangers. My and my team's homes (pictured left) are nestled towards the back of the station on the forest edge and we receive regular visits from the local fauna (i.e. lots of monkeys).

What? Why? When? I'm here for the next 11 months straight to collect data for my PhD dissertation - a drop in the time-bucket in the grand scheme of things but a hefty time to be away from friends, family (e.g. fast-growing niece and nephews), and Netflix. Thankfully, I have some of the best friends in the world and they sent me here with a stash of encouraging letters for every month that I'm away (!!).  

The academic area that I work in comes with several names: behavioral ecology, behavioral biology, primatology, evolutionary anthropology, evolutionary psychology, etc., etc. My dissertation is about the benefits of social relationships, particularly those that occur during development. My study species is ... the blue monkey! No, no, isolating myself in East Africa is not a part of my experiment and the monkeys are actually grey. I do try to stay integrated in the local community and the monkeys are, nevertheless, very cool! You can see my buddy "Bike" (a 6 year-old teenager) pictured here on the left.

I arrived here via JFK-Heathrow-Nairobi at the beginning of the month, getting time to visit good friends along the way in Nairobi (hoping to catch London friends on another trip). All my belongings arrived unscathed! This was a great relief. Equipment for myself and three research assistants and copious amounts of sample tubes made for lots of precious cargo.

The atmosphere at camp is friendly and laid back - we currently have a great team of ex-pat American grad students, undergraduates, and assistants here for the summer (left: out at dinner at a field assistant's home). Most will leave at the end of July, fellow PhD student Maressa will be here until October, and Lauren the field manager and myself will be here until next May. Our good vibes are a huge answer to prayer! Working and living alongside the same people with limited space and means to maintain hygiene (…for extended periods of time) can make for a delicate situation to say the least.

Month #1 has been all about getting things settled and moving. My main agenda for June and July has been to train my data ninjas (aka field assistants) to flex their data ninja skillz (aka to collect data). Since my arrival at camp on June 5th, the daily schedule from 7:30 - 5:00 Mon - Fri has revolved around said ninja training. More exciting posts to come on what that entails! You can see us pictured at right, practicing our form. 

Stay tuned for the latest stories from the forest, including but not limited to... a showcase of data ninja and monkey profiles, clever how-to's for limited means of hygiene, a tell-all exposé on 'what the heck is data collection?', and more about why relationships are good for you. Please comment with any suggestions and/or requests for posts! Keep in touch.

Lots of love,

Nicole