First day of field work of my whole life.

May 16, 2013

What actually happened today omg. Today we woke up at 6 so that we could leave at 7 to make that meeting that we had with the monkeys at the blind.
So I loaded up with all my gear. And we set out ahhhhhhh!!!

Lol guess who was just freaking waiting on us at the blind!!!!!! THE MONKEYS!! Lol they wanted nuts and corns. Doree threw those items all around the outdoor lab. And so they sprung into action. They are so political.

Then, when they had their full of foods, Allison and I followed them in the wilderness for 8 straight hours. Biggest news here is that I only peed once.

So, literally we were standing and walking RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE of this group of monkeys for 8 hours. We picked one focal animal to stick with the whole time. Since neither of us have all the monkeys straight yet, it was easy to just choose Mansinho as our first focal animal. He is the pirate. I decided today that he is my favorite monkey and he is handsome like Jack Sparrow. He has a scar on his top lip that makes him look really rugged. He was basically very nice to every monkey all day. And wasn't scared of us AT ALL. They get so close to us.
We ate our lunch of scrambled eggs, rice, and beans that Maria already had packed for us when we woke up- on the trail.
I mean, my feet definitely hurt, it was really hot, I was definitely sore from the past few days.... But geez, I wasn't in a bad mood for one single second!! It was just so intriguing...

When Mannie would stop to rest, I would pull out my phone to practice Portuguese with Allison. She answers all my questions and I don't think she minds.

Here are the top events of the day:

-Mannie yawned and it made me yawn.

-Mannie carried two infants on his back. He doesn't know if they are his or not!! He just wanted to help those infants.

- Mannie picked a mini coconut little thing from a small palm, bit the bottom off, and held it up over his head and opened his mouth to let the milk drip into it. We thought that was ballin'.

-Coco and I held eye contact several times. He likes humans the most of everyone. And I really feel special when he stops to talk. Lol I imitate his noises and he responds. I'm not kidding.

-we had been following this dude closely ALLLLL DAYYYY and as Mannie was finally about to go up and over the cliff (actually, the same cliff from yesterday's phonebooth) he climbed and climbed and realized we weren't following him, it seemed. He looked down at us from like 3 stories... And he kept on raising his eyes brows, flashing them, at us... For like 10 minutes. As if to say, "y'all, come on! What? You can't climb? Come on, it's ok! You can climb this!" Or, "alright, y'all- bye. See y'all again soon, I'm sure." It was remarkable to us. He hasn't flashed his eye brows us all day... But as soon as he realized we weren't following him, it was a big deal! Isn't that something? I think it is.

- there was a BRIGHT GREEN iguana on a dang tree. What kind of freaking green was that!? NEON. I have a pic to show y'all one day.

-Allison and I talked a lot. Bonding. I think she is so awesome. I'm scared she will read this though. Lol K BYE.

Basically, you guys- I'm happy here. I'm exhausted like some kind of dirty buggy soccer camp. My feet hurt like someone stole my cleats. And my brain hurts from learning monkey and Brazil languages. Love you guys.

-LA