research update

Today is a work day at Ecosur. I'm pretty sure whatever tan I might have gotten through the intense amount of sunscreen I've been wearing is mostly gone from sitting in the library all day. We got to sleep in a little bit at la Casa amarillo, but we still got up at a reasonable time to enjoy a nice breakfast together: scrambled eggs, hash browns (from scratch!), coffee, juice and awesomely fresh avocado. The entire team (Zack, Marco, Irene, Alex, Birgit and me) met to discuss everyone's individual research and to try and figure out a schedule for the coming weeks. We did pretty well with the first half of that, but there are still some questions about our upcoming plans. For example, who from UVA is going to be joining us, and when will they arrive? This has changed several times. Also, there aren't enough beds here in Chetumal and there aren't any beds at the field house in Zoh-Laguna. The whole team is going to Zoh-Laguna this weekend for some talks for the anniversary of the Calakmul Biosphere Reserve, one of the two we work with. Are we buying mattresses or staying in a hotel? To be determined. It looks like Irene and I won't be spending much if any time at that house though; priorities have changed a little bit so we're going to spend more time in other areas, perhaps staying in a house in one of thse edjidos in northern Quintana Roo for a week or so. It's hard to organize so many different researchers and projects, but it's coming together.

We almost ran out of water in the house last night. Not the drinking water-- we keep one of those big blue jugs that you see on water coolers handy in our kitchen at all times. I mean the water supply we get from the city once a day. It goes into a tank under our back patio, which we then pump into a tank on the roof, which then goes to the faucets in the house. Of course, there's little other control over it-- we only have hot water in the kitchen, and only cold water in the bathroom. No matter. Point was, the level was really low and we were worried there wasn't enough for my shower. I ended up filling a bucket just to make sure I'd have something to rinse my hair with when finished, but dumping a bucket of water over my head was far more effective than our weak shower has been and I'll probably just do this from now on. Truth is, I was seriously considering a dramatic haircut, because between our low water pressure and the high humidity here, my hair was getting pretty awful to deal with. Necessity is the mother of invention though, and now I'm hopeful that I'll return home unaltered, except the whole more tan/ more blond/ more bug bites thing.