My first full day at Boa Vista

May 15th, 2013

Allison came into my room at 7 to wake me up.She did so very kindly. I'm thankful for that. Worst thing you can do to me is wake me up roughly or rudely. It will ruin my whole day.
Take note that my first night here I dreamt that Mason and ALL my friends were throwing a large fiesta at my MOTHER'S HOUSE without her knowing and I walked in on it! I was freaking out! Y'all woulda been murdered.
I woke up, went potty, and headed off to breakfast. Was that too much info? Too bad. I WENT POTTY.
Breakfast was tiny. Just coffee and bread+jam.
After breakfast Allison and I started to mess around with our equipment. We are using normal handheld GPS systems to take points while tracking/following the monkeys. Later we will use a program called ArcGIS to input those points and stick them to a map of where we are! In addition, though, we are gonna use an iPad. This part is extra cool. Before we came to Brazil we downloaded an app called PDF Maps. I also got it on my iPhone5. On this app we can download maps and then use satellite junk to place points!! And finally, we can export those points to the computer to mess with on ArcGIS.

Please Note: I'm about I start calling Dr. Fragaszy by her first name because it is much easier and she doesn't mind.

Allison sent me out to take points with the iPad to make sure that it is accurate. So Doree and I set out to go to the outdoor laboratory AKA The Blind. Allison set me up with the most fancy heavy duty OtterBox iPad case on planet earth. It was so sexy. I strapped it around my neck, and set out with Doree.

Alright, so the Blind is the outdoor laboratory. It is 15 minutes away from our little veranda home. Through the woods, of course. The blind is amazing. They have been studying this group of monkeys for 8 years now... And this is where it all happens. They have a scale strapped to a tree with a water bowl to lure the monkeys into getting weighed! Doree has 8 years of weights for the same monkeys! They also have several different areas where the monkeys can crack nuts. That's what all the stones were for! It is quite remarkable.
We were just durping around the Blind. Doree was explaining everything to me. I was learning. Actually, I think I learned more today than I have ever learned in a summer day in my life. It was so awesome. Just a learning experience. *happy sigh*

I took lots of points on the iPad to bring home to Allison. They were pretty correct! When I got home, Allison and I fiddled with the practice data points. Hopefully I can learn those programs quickly.

We had a delicious lunch. I was so hungry.
After lunch... The unnamed boy from yesterday's soccer match came rushing up to to our veranda. He told us that the monkeys were on the way to the Blind!!! He had been following them all day. Doree and I quickly got ready to trudge on over to the Blind. I was so excited to see the monkeys for the first time.
They are absolutely adorable. How can I describe them!? I need to take so many pictures... I just don't know... Ahhhh. All the bugs and long walks and wilderness is worth it, I'll just say that.
I guess I will start introducing them to y'all. I will start with the obvious.... Lol since I absolutely do not know how to tell them apart.

I've mentioned Jatoba before. He is the big guy on campus. Alpha. Dominant. Also be is missing four toes* and has a gross bum finger. It is dangling just by its skin. And he gives no cares for it. He just manages. It is pretty gross. He seemed pretty uptight about the world while all the monkeys were eating... But after all the food was gone and he had had his fill, he was wrestling and playing with three babies at once... And it was so sweet. They were so happy to play with Dad!

Mansinho used to be the alpha male, as I may have me ruined before... But he got in a big right a few years back and was chased off for a long time. Then, Doree says, he just showed up again (minus one foot). So, because of this fight, he is easy to spot. He is a pirate. He uses his stump like a peg leg. Literally his foot is not there and he gives no fudges.
And the last easy one is Amarelinha. He has something wrong with her. We don't know what, but she is 12 years old and severely impaired. She is pretty weird looking. And slow. But she and Mansinho growled each other by the end of our visit. Which was good because one thing that I noticed was that she can't/doesn't move her eyebrows up and down to greet us or any other monkeys, which all of the monkeys do by nature. She just can't. So she is also socially awkward. And absolutely not a competition to the others, so she never gets in fights, says Doree.

Eventually the monkeys left the Blind since we didn't give them any more foods. So we went back to the house.

Right when we got back, Allison decided we ought to go out to find cellphone service. This is a good story.
Cellphone service is available in one place over here. Guess where. Yepp, a 20 minute walk to the edge of a 7 story cliff. Then climb that cliff. Pretty sketchy cliff... But TOTALLY WORTH IT. An amazing view, I couldn't even believe I saw that view. Allison and I were totally dirty after climbing up and down to the phonebooth. I looked like a rugrat. Such an awesome trip. And of course I didn't have signal.
I didn't play futbol today because I wanted to write all this and recover from all the physical activity. I showered, and ate a dinner of mashed taters, tomatoes, and rice. They also had little beef pieces.

After we ate, Noami invited everyone to play a card game called 'Bang!'. Two of the sons, me, Allison, Doree, Lucas, and Noami all played. Y'all, I love Noami. She's funny.
OKAY SORRY- so the instructions were read in English and Portgugues. I'm the only one at the table who can't speak Portugues. But they always try to keep me included; no worries.
The game was super fun, even though I was nervous to play due to language issues... But it ended up being fun. I'm so shy.... But I'm trying to learn so hard. In fact, at one point I said a Portuguese word and everyone was so encouraging!!! It really made me feel better. I just gotta keep trying, for real y'all. The encouragement I keep getting for my small words really helps.

And now I am lying in my bed writing this. I really hope I can post it soon. I just don't know how I'm gonna be able to..... Also, I've picked two bugs off of me while laying here, and one spider has crawled up its silk attached to my iPhone. So that's that.
Two days here, two mosquito bites. I'd say that's pretty good. But I still have 70+ days to go... :-/
We have a meeting scheduled with the monkeys at 7am tomorrow. But who knows if they'll show; you know how monkeys are.