are you afraid of the dark?

i have discovered a fear of mine while doing research: the dark. you laugh, but you would be afraid of the dark too if you saw snakes like this at 5am.

juvenile boa constrictor


there are so many bad things that could happen to me in the dark dark forest. i could trip and break my leg (which i almost did-- proven by a contusion to the shin).. i could get eaten by a jaguar.. get mauled by vampire bats.. or be struck down by the branches that capuchins break. mousse hit me with an Anona purperea fruit (huge spiky fruit about the size of a pineapple) on friday.

mousse


A.pur.


anyways so the point is that my fear is legitimate. so before you start cackling relentlessly, bite your tongue and think about how much more legitimate my fear is than yours.

frogs are kind of like puppies...

there are two frogs that live in my shower. shower #3. i've named them puppy and perrito. but today there were not two but THREE frogs in my shower! we had some fun sexy shower time together (they like to watch me while i shower, i like to watch them watch me when i shower.. so it works out.) who knew frogs were such peeping toms?

anyways.. i have had a rough couple of weeks here in santa rosa national park. the rainy season is in full force. i have even had thoughts of quitting.. but then i thought about the frogs. and i CANNOT afford to leave those little puppies behind.

puppy.


perrito.


puppy taking a bath!


perrito, tamara, and i bwushing our teeths.

science transformed me into a monster.

LV enjoys hanging around the sendero natural, which is the tourist trail. often times i will be in the bush following a monkey and i will hear tourists walk by exclaiming ah! mira! monos! hay monos!! i get a tad bit anxious when this happens because i know what's coming next. the inevitable. so i plug my ears and cringe to hear them scream as i tromp my way out of the bush. i feel like the swamp thing with vines, leaves, and dirt oozing out of every crevice... emerging from the scary green forest to steal the tourist tico children. i suppose that it can be healthy to understand how it feels to be a monster. hard life i say.



...or sometimes i feel like the arrested development character buster bluth when he attends milford academy. "i shall neither be seen nor heard." i try to live by this quote and hide behind trees until they pass.



often times i cannot hide because i am collecting a fecal sample or doing a focal follow. school children will laugh at me and call me gringO. which translates to "white boy." this tourist trail is giving me a complex.

the sendero natural is also giving my bladder a complex. one of the comforting things about working in the field is that the forest is your restroom. you can go anywhere anytime. except when you are on the tourist trail. when i am peeing on the tourist trail i feel like a bit of an exhibitionist. i nervously flit my eyes around the area while i .. you know... urinate.. worrying that i will hear a tourist scream because they have found my round. white.. rump. oh well.. i suppose there is nothing better than a little nervous excitement to get your bladder goin'.

you wanna granada?

so a couple of weeks ago the married folk and i went to granada to renew our visas.. i LOVE nicaragua. hay buena gente en nicaragua. here's a list of the many things that we got to do...

1. sleep in (i even got 8 hours some nights!)
2. eat good food (the pizza at mona lisa's was mouthwatering, mindblowing, earthshattering-- can you tell i am tired of cooking?)
3. meet good people (i met a friendly man named mauricio on the top of a bell tower who is going to be my new email penpal so that i can practice my spanish-- he got a degree from some californian college)
4. go on a private boat tour (tourism is really dead in the wet season)
5. go to art exhibits, old churches, markets, cultural centers (there are neat petroglyphs in granada transported from ometepe-- my favorites were el diablo and hunchback. i also found out that people used to worship these deities by hanging from tall log things.. it looked like they were just playing see-saw though.)
6. ride the public transportation system (nicaraguan buses are just old blue birds from the states.. one lady got on with a giant bowl of flan that was filled to the brim! everbody was eyeing it nervously yet hungrily..)


also! the dogs there were so cyute and scraggly. there was one particular dog with sticky-outy, lopsided ears that i couldn't resist. so i petted him and called him my little perrito (people in central america usually don't pet dogs- so gringos who do it are a bit of a joke).. well after that.. one thing led to another... and i was deskirted... in front of some fruit stand ladies. they loved it.. i loved it. the dog loved it. fun sexy times for everyone!


here is my favorite picture from the trip courtesy of jeffrey rinderkinecht.



rescued spider monkey on one of the isletas from our private boat tour (courtesy of jr).


ain't nothin't but a horse and carriage! (courtesy of jr)


tamara and me in our very own panOrama! (courtesy of jr)



cool old church.


tamara on the bell tower. (courtesy of jr)

a list of mood-lifters and boredom-cures.

1. dancing naked to tainted love.
2. singing songs like a moose would.
3. singing songs like the grinch would. schmmooosshhyy schmoooshshy rreee merrr...
4. hip circles and thrusts.
5. brass monkeys, greyhounds, beer, chocolate, screwdrivers...
6. naps.
7. screaming in the shower.
8. talking to geckos.
9. narrating your actions in a british accent.
10. tv on dvd.

but no rain.. can touch me now...

so it rains quite a lot here. lately, i have been trying to convince myself that i have an impermeable superpower. that i have the preternatural ability to repel water. searching for monkeys through water up to your shins, in the pouring rain for hours on end, one often wonders what the hell they are doing out there. i try to play mind games- like the superpower bit, and sometimes i try to think about how happy the frogs must be.. and the leeches and maybe the worms if they haven't drowned already. the other day i thought that maybe the rain is just a way of the sky hugging me. or punching me in the face. pounding me to the ground, until i have no willpower left to play these mind games. you might say, well suzie, don't you have a poncho? a poncho? heh. ponchos, in the rainy season, are about as useful as pasties. which are not useful.. unless you are going for arousing lingerie. and you can't use ponchos for lingerie...

i received an email stating that today, rain levels broke records in santa rosa national park. the station reported 405.9 mm from yesterday morning (7am) to today (7am). this satellite image of central america was taken today at 6:30am.


also-- it is so humid here that the nerds that fell onto my desk last night turned into little nerd puddles by the morning. i guess 100% humidity will do that.

i guess planet earth was right.

in the bbc show series planet earth, david attenborough states that "capuchins are the bully boys of the forest." i never gave that statement much thought until the other day. in a single morning LV ate bird eggs, chased howler monkeys, tried to eat a baby coati, and lunged at a tamandua. the coati episode was particularly disturbing. LV reminded me of chimpanzees, seemingly cooperating, screaming as they encircled, jabbed, and yanked the poor baby's tail. in one moment, the coati looked at me with panicked eyes, almost urging me to help. i had to fight every impulse in my body pushing me to scream like a bag lady, flap my arms about, and scare them away.

i have also seen LV eat birds, pounce on iguanas, throw sticks at boas, and break branches on my head (cayenne did that on purpose, that jerk). mark wainright, author of the natural history of costa rican mammals, proves planet earth right writing that one captive capuchin used a squirrel monkey as a projectile, hurling it at a human observer. yep. bullies through and through.