Lo and behold, data collection is done. Kenya asante sana and peace out!
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| Bike and Frisbee coming down low and playing on my last day of follows. |
We finished collecting data at the end of March, a bit earlier than planned. Why? Because we collected at a faster rate than planned! Hallelujah. After two months of training, four months of heavy rains, and four of light rain/dry season, we followed 40-41 juvenile blue monkeys for about 1600 hours (67 full days), or 5 hours per subject month. We collected 620 urine and 627 fecal samples… and the little-solar-freezer-that-could kept them frozen the whole time. The next steps for me are labwork and lots of data analysis. Data analysis and labwork will come together to reveal how social relationships tie into physiological status during development. They'll also overlap with the entire process of WRITING UP the dissertation. If you're interested in how the chapters of my dissertation are to pan out, I've put their titles at the bottom of the page.
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| Awash National Park, Ethiopia (baboons on right) |
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| Alexis, homegirl extraordinaire |
Since February, data collection was briefly interrupted by a trip to Dr. Larissa Swedell’s Filoha camp in Awash National Park, Ethiopia, where I went to visit Alexis Amann, a friend and PhD candidate at CUNY. Alexis studies female reproductive strategies in hamadryas baboons, a species where a single male tightly and despotically controls the movements of his small “unit” of females (once-upon-a-time called a “harem”). Units come together and travel as “bands,” and bands come together at night to form the upwards of 250 baboon-strong “troop.” They call this a nested-hierarchical social structure. As field sites run the range of plush to rugged, Filoha is rugged. The living situation is comfortable but the work itself is hard. Hamadryas baboons are cliff-dwelling, which means humans have to hike up cliffs very early in the morning to find the massive troop before it files off quickly into the great arid unknown. Alexis basically rock jumps (see right) and cliff hangs to collect baboon feces to monitor males' and females' energetic and reproductive status. If the camp did not have a cook on staff, and Ethiopian food weren’t so amazing, Filoha would be a bonafide fat-camp. The trekking is hard and dangerous, but if you ask Alexis, the "babs" are worth it.
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| Racing bikes at the Kisumu arcade |
At the end of March, my data collection team (and their kids!) spent a celebratory two days in Kisumu, the large city near our camp on Lake Victoria. It was the first time these four women ever visited Kisumu or saw Lake Victoria, despite living their whole lives two hours from it. They also saw their first film in a cinema (Kung Fu Panda in 3D), played their first games of air hockey and bumper cars, stayed in their first hotel, and saw their first zoo (lions, cheetahs, giraffes…). As a reward for their hard work this year, I also gave them their data collection tablets (Samsung Galaxy 3 Tab Lites). So we we spent lots of time using wifi to get them oriented with their new accounts.
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| At Lake Victoria |
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| Eating great Italian in Watamu |
All of April, I’m tying up loose ends and enjoying some holiday time in Kenya. I’m currently writing from the coast in Watamu, recently arrived from Kilifi, and experiencing how hot and different this side of Kenya is. Watamu and Malindi are considered a "Little Italy" of sorts, and boys on the beach call out "ciao bella" instead of "how are you mzungu?”, which is a welcome change. The pleasant "ciao's" have a less than charming origin - mafiosos started moving to this area several decades ago and set up a sex trade industry. You'll often find 60 year old men and women with their hot little 20-something local strolling the beach or eating shrimp cocktails by the pool. But hey... food's great!
After I get back to camp, I’ll head out again to two field sites of friends/colleagues in Kibale National Park, Uganda. And after that... I’m pretty much back home. Yep, I’ll be back end of April/early May and can’t wait.
After I get back to camp, I’ll head out again to two field sites of friends/colleagues in Kibale National Park, Uganda. And after that... I’m pretty much back home. Yep, I’ll be back end of April/early May and can’t wait.
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| Watamu Bay |
When I get home, I may take moment to shake off a bit of PKSD (post-Kenya stress disorder). Just FYI. There have been so many daily frustrations, big and small, which I sometimes think have left me a little rough around the edges. I haven’t recognized myself on several an occasion, and have had to reflect on how I might have handled a situation better on a semi-daily basis . While acting as if I wanted the world here around me to change, I’ve been praying, since November really, that God change something inside me. Pretty much “God, make me less angry and angry less often!” He did, but the story is complicated and ongoing. No doubt, it has a happy ending.
I’ll miss stepping outdoors into a reasonable temperature every morning and running through simple routines of checking the freezer in the morning and before bed. I’ll miss the beauty of worshipping alongside people with lives vastly different from mine. And I’ll probably miss the monkeys… But more than that, I’m looking forward to coming back to NYC and
SEEING FRIENDS AND FAMILY! And having fresh juices, sushi, wifi, network data, reception, etc.
SEE YOU SOON!
Love,
Nicole
The write-up plan!
Chapter 1 - Literature review: how do affiliative relationships influence fitness?
Chapter 2 - How do affiliative relationships influence survival in adult female blue monkeys?
Chapter 3 - What predicts patterns in juveniles social relationships?
Chapter 4 - Are the causes and patterns in affiliative relationships similar between juveniles and their mothers?
Chapter 5 - How are juvenile social strategies influence beneficial in the short term? Do they help juveniles maintain lower stress levels and fewer infections? Do they increase access to food and help individuals avoid predators?
