A Day in the Life

New mattresses for camp: via truck, klotok
(boats on right) & lori (flatbed on rails)

Woke up, made coffee. Started on computer at 7:30, checking emails. Revised student acceptance documents to let people know proper clothing to wear in town. Straightened out pay for 4 part-time staff members. Asked Riethma to call someone to repair leaky roof and to rent a truck. Forwarded Excel sheet created to organize photo library for communications, directors’ requests for presentations to Berni and Suzi. Helped load 8 new mattresses, 2 compost bins, a couple of plastic chairs, some washing tubs, 12 sets of sheets and a new transformer for the solar panel power system into a large truck. Asked (again) about support letters for research visas from Indonesian partner. No answer. Rode in truck to Kereng harbour. Used one of the chairs to wait for klotok boatman to finish noon prayer.  Laughed at his double take when he saw the pile of things to take across the river. Berni texted about flight arrival for Gunung Paleng staff exchange. Didn’t have an answer. Called him, told him to check tickets with Riethma. May be a booking problem. Helped load everything on two klotoks, texted men at camp of our imminent arrival so had lots of help to get all things onto our flatbed lori and carry them to camp buildings. Took a  picture of  loaded klotoks. Tried to resolve pay problem with Dudin, the boatman, but failed. Texted Sara about proper amount. Staff will not sign for incorrect pay but will wait until it agrees with their calculation of days worked and money owed. Texted Suzi to ask Sara to call me. Dropped backpack in my room. Checked the men’s house had been well cleaned and ready for new mattresses. Talked to Sara about Dudin’s pay. Could not resolve over the phone. Hungry. Had lunch. Talked to Lis about new mattresses for cooks. Will definitely need  more. Talked to Ari and Santi about repairs to butterfly traps. Asked Ari if he could pick material up for that today so he can repair tomorrow. Maybe. Trying to encourage Ari to be more proactive when managing his projects. Went over work schedule for tomorrow with Helene and Supian, decided on number of staff searching/following primate groups, people scheduled for kupu-kupu traps, camera traps and kerja lain. Couldn’t answer question about what three staff members need to have for week-long exchange to Gunung Palung starting day after tomorrow. Aman available for butterfly trapping with one intern to help as well. Talked to Supian about a new backpack. He wanted a small, Riethma couldn’t find one.  Gave Supian money to buy one himself when he goes to town later today. Staff pretty happy with new mattresses. Azis K. picked up the new field pants he asked for. Adul’s watch awaiting collection. Advanced Jono Rp. 1.000.000 for doctor for his mother. Wondered about whether we’re paying too much for medical expenses and what will happen next month when purchased health insurance kicks in because care for staff’s parents will not be covered. Discussed intern schedule with Helene. Mental note to talk to Berni when he arrives at camp later today. Tried to catch Udin to pay him for 3 extra days for last month, but seems he has left. Turned on water taps to mandi buckets for filling. Turned off taps when full. Discussed fun jumping on mattresses with Helene before they’re all installed in staff house. Possible, sure. Used empty plastic box to store new sheets. Azis carried it over to men’s house. Answered Suzi’s text about asking Adul if she could go along on camera trap tomorrow. Will ask Adul when I see him. Thanked the men for cleaning their house. Asked them to be aware they have to take care of new things for house and told them that chairs and tables will follow later. Agreed with Helene about adding ‘clean office’ to gotong royong day. Put Lizzie’s new mattress in her room. Laughed at sign Emily made: “Casa Larizzie” indicating room shared by Larissa and Lizzie. Consulted with Jono about getting rid of old mattresses. He offered to take them back to village for disposal. Planned small arts and crafts project with Helene; using enamel paint to put names on field lunchboxes to try to reduce equipment loss. Had a coffee. Started working on intern review document. Said hello to Lizzie. Watched cloud cover increase. Looks like rain soon. Answered text from Azis K who cannot work tomorrow. ‘cause his neighbour died. Texted Azis to ask if he can follow gibbons instead of Azis K. Talked to Twenti about money for camp expenses. Seems like we’re 5 million short this month. Texted Riethma to confirm amount we paid earlier this month ‘cause I’ve forgotten. Retrieved intern 6-week review document from Dropbox to add tracked changes. Riethma confirmed lesser amount. Talked to Connie about her day. She told me several new words learned while we made ourselves coffee. Asked Lis about biscuits and noodles for field snacks. Paid Twenti extra money, hope we get biscuits for field snacks. Berni arrived. Talked to Berni about Chris working all projects. Plan to work on contracts tomorrow, to have ready for signature by end of month. Rescheduled Connie to follow gibbons, texted Azis to forget gibbons, he’s still on phenology tomorrow. Azis texted back OK. Dropped into kitchen and smelled good food. Discussed hunger pangs with Connie and Lizzie. Makan malam is ready and special, variety of chicken curry, lettuce and coconut kue for dessert. Laughed at Emily’s stories about waist deep water and mosquito attacks. Finished dinner.  Brought lunch boxes to mansion and painted names on them. Lizzie and Connie much more creative than me, so left them to it. Berni excavated more rat traps, looks like overnight rat massacre on the schedule. Very light rain, may get heavy later on. Played cutthroat game of Bohnanza. Went to bed, read, slept.

Everyone's got a job & they're all planned out for the month on this board

Meet Ulysses

Ulysses, an unflanged male.

This past week I had the chance to go with two of the primate staff members, Uji & Unyil, on an orangutan follow, although it wasn’t the first time I’d seen them & in fact not the first time I met Ulysses. He’s been hanging around in the trees around camp for several days, making it pretty easy to find him in the morning.

Uji collecting urine samples.

Forest lunch

The pattern of primate research, after groups of apes have been habituated to human presence, is to first search for your subject. That involves teams of 2 or 3 people walking transects in the forest, stopping at frequent intervals and looking and listening for your target. There are three primate species studied here; orangs, gibbons and red langurs, the last being the most challenging to find in the forest. Orangutans tend not to move as far (except for young males), gibbons sing in the morning, so are a bit easier to locate, and red langurs - well, I’m not sure how people find them yet. They’re smaller and more secretive. Anyways, after you’ve found your apes, you follow them, which means that gibbon and langur staff may have to travel longer distances and move more often, while Ulysses lounged around within 50 meters of camp for over 5 hours, munching on leaves and occasionally moving over to a different tree. (Male orangutans will spend most of their time alone; another pair of staff members were following a mother and baby farther away from camp.)

Unyil watching Ulysses up in the trees.

On the previous day, staff could watch
Ulysses from a chair in camp, with a
hot coffee from the kitchen.

The routine is consistent; every 5 minutes record what your subject is doing and how far he’s moved, with his current GPS location. Collect urine and faeces samples (at this point I’d like to reiterate why I’m a forester - trees don’t poop).

So while it was a pretty easy day, I had an excuse to leave the follow at 11:00 am (office work in town). My co-workers had to stay and record everything Ulysses did until he made a nest for the night and settled down, which is typically close to dusk (5 or 5:30). Considering that the day started at 5 am to be in place under the sleeping tree Ulysses chose last night, it turns out to be a long haul. Staff members usually follow apes for 3 days in a row, after which they are assigned work in the nursery or on butterfly surveys, which is a more reasonable 7 hour day.

The best part of the day for me was getting to know Uji and Unyil better. Between the 5-minute data collection points there’s a lot of time to chat & joke. And that’s one of the critical parts of my job; to build strong relationships with the staff. So I’ll be going out on more follows and searches, collecting fruiting and flowering data for tree species, identifying butterflies, picking up litter fall from leaf traps and helping with the reforestation project. Which will all be very welcome breaks from the office work and administrative details that fill a lot of my typical day!