home again

Long, challenging trip home, but I arrived safely Thursday night.

Things I do actually miss about Mexico:

• Manzana Lift- I've never been a big soda drinker, but carbonated apple juice at the end of a long day of work? SO refreshing.
• Bugambilias- We've been over this.
• trying new foods straight off the tree/vine/plant/whatever- including, but not limited to pineapples, tamarinds, dog balls fruit, various types of oranges, coconut, guanabana, sugarcane, passionfruit...

There were plenty of other things I really enjoyed, but it's nice to be home. I had milk with dinner that night. I had Guinness last night. I've been to the beach. Life is good. I'm home for a week before heading out to a suburb of Pittsburgh to lead a large group of junior high kiddos on a housing repair mission trip.

Tree of the forever: the ugly ol' pitch pine, so near and dear to my heart!

dia ultimo

Last day in Mexico! My bus departs from Chetumal at 11.30PM for Cancun, about a six hour trip. My flight is at noon tomorrow.

This morning I woke up at 5.30 without an alarm. I was able to doze for a little while longer, but have been up for good since around 6. I guess I'll sleep like a champion on that bus.

This morning we went to the market so I could wander around, admire all of the tropical produce and take a few photos. We went out for empanadas for brunch. Apparently, typical Yucatan (the state and sort of the peninsula) food is empanadas made with chaya, a kind of leaf, and filled with cheese. We enjoyed these and some agua de jamaica (a sort of juice made with the jamaica flower, aka hibiscus tea according to a quick google search) before heading to Ecosur for the day. Shortly we'll be having a Skype conference with my advisor. In the meantime, we're having cake in the work room for Alex's birthday (this space really is like the cart lab at Mary Washington!) The rest of the day? Lunch at Ecosur, as cooked by Doña Rosa. I guess I should pack. (We know I have a history of doing this last minute, see: before this trip, before Canada trip, etc.) I bet my father, who will be picking me up at the airport, would also appreciate me showering before I depart. We may have dinner with Birgit (our EDGY person at Ecosur, if you recall). Just little things like these for the rest of today.

It's been yet another pretty excellent adventure.

Tree of the day: casuarina. I've had my eye on this all along. It's an invasive exotic... but it looks like a sort of pine tree. We know I love my pine trees, so this is in honor of me returning to my homeland, located snugly between the ocean and the Pine Barrens.

last day in the field

If I've seen any trend in the bracken so far, it's that the stupid fern doesn't grow well in dense forests. (I call it stupid because it's mean and kills everything else growing near it and cows and people's livelihoods.) Since Petcacab and Polinkin are a forestry ejido, I didn't expect to see a whole lot of the stuff. However, no easy day for us. The first patch that we visited took an hour to drive to down a 22km (that's about 12-13 miles) long dirty road. It was enormous and the ejidotarios insisted we hike through it rather than drive along it. It was a pretty hot day, and many ticks later (ugh, gross) we made it through and travelled back down that road to get to the other patches. We came to another large agricultural plot that had some bracken mixed in it, and again the ejidotarios insisted we hike through it. Alex dropped us off at the start and drove the truck to meet us at the end. It was around 1PM, and the sun was draining my will to live. Just as my head started pounding and I thought I couldn't possibly sweat anymore, we got to the end of the patch, where Alex was waiting with water and the announcement: this was the last patch.

The last patch!

I finished my field work!

With 24 hours to spare!

To celebrate, we checked out Belize's free zone and later went out for dinner in Chetumal. The original intention was to have Chinese food, because how hilarious would it be for the American girl to order her dinner in Chinese, in Mexico? But two of the Chinese retaurants were closed, and the third didn't serve my kind (vegetarians). We settled on quesadillas and beers, which were really, really good. Beer of the day: Modelo's Leon. This brings me to an important point: why hasn't there been a beer of the day in Mexico, like there was in Canada?

I like beer. I like trying new beers, especially local beers. That was my goal in Canada. Here in Mexico though, there is little variance, and no such thing as local breweries that I've found. I've tried plenty of beers, most of which you can find in the US: Sol, Corona, Dos Equis, Tecate, Modelo, but they're all Mexican lager. Nothing else. I've tried a few "dark" beers, aka Mexican lager with a drop of molasses in them: Negra Modelo, Modelo's Leon, Bohemia Classica. But really, little variance. And, while one cold beer is very refreshing after a hard day of work, the second beer combined with the heat and humidity made me understand why I see so many people laying around in hammocks in the afternoons.

This brings me to my next point: aside from my family and my friends, what am I most excited for upon my return to NJ in just a few more days? It's a toss up if I'm more excited about a cold glass of milk with dinner (they only sell the boxed Parmalat-type milk here, which did not agree with my stomach at all), or a cold Guinness. The funny part about Guinness being one of my favorite beers? I wasn't crazy about it when I tried it for the first time in Northern Ireland. But I digress. Regardless, being in Mexico has been a really great experience (except maybe the scar I now have on my neck and chin), but I am looking forward to being back in New Jersey (for reasons beside Guinness, of course!).

tree of the day: the lovely ficus in Polinkin's town square

I should be working right now but I don't feeeeeel like it!

Today was a productive, albeit frustrating second to last day in the field. Finally made it to Los Divorciados. I suspect that's one of the less poor ejidos; this assumption based not only on the facts that there are tin roofs and more recent paint jobs on the houses, but also that you can't see all of the stray dogs' ribs. These have been frustrating people to work with. Not 16 hours after we visited to get permission to work did we find ourselves there with no one aware, much less available to help us with the damage transect and bracken work. Members of our team have now visited a total of five times, but the work is done. Our ejidotario was a bit frustrating though. Around noon, he told us there was no more bracken. It was hot and sunny today, so we went to a store in town to get some cold sodas. As we pulled up, he said there was still another road full of bracken we had to visit. So we skipped the Coca Colas and went back to work for nearly four more hours. The time spent working is not the problem. The ejidotario said at nearly every patch of bracken, "This is the last one, but there's one more down there, too." Arghrghrakghdfg.

Also, can we discuss this photo?

Regardless, it's done! One ejido left! Petcacab and Polinkin! Tomorrow!

Tree of the day: ramon, easily recognized by its buttressed trunk

The skies are clear so perhaps I will take my field notes to the roof to type and think about...

My apologies in advance.

Happy Fathers Day! Hi Dad!

Not much to report here. It poured all morning. Everyone else has gone to the ruins at Calakmul, which are three hours away, so I opted out in favor of getting some work done at a leisurely pace and strolling around town to see what I can see later on. I'm happy with my decision, except for one thing. And this is why I'm writing.

I went back to bed for a little while after they left, and when I got up and walked out of my room, I felt a squish under my bare foot. It's been pouring for days, remember? So I figured it was a wet leaf that lost its way, or maybe some stray mud.

Then I looked.

It was an enormous cockroach. Emphasis on "was".

Thanks for reading, I couldn't suffer alone.

(At least it wasn't one of our little lizard friends, then I would have been upset in an entirely different way, kind of like when I ran over the prairie dog in Saskatchewan, which we never need to talk about again.)

Tree of the day: our coconut palm in the backyard, which has sustained some major branch damage after this morning's storm

Edited to add: Great to talk to you today, various family members who were spending Fathers Day together!

Ride, captain, ride upon your mystery ship!

Guess what it did today? There's a tie for rainy day photo, although one is foreshadowing and one is... aftershadowing? Is that a word? It is now.

It did rain again, though it thankfully held off until after we finished the ejido of the day, Aaron Merino Fernandez. We had a plethora of people in the truck this morning, which I was quite worried about: myself, Irene, Juan-Pablo, Angel, Alberto and the ejidotario makes more people than we have seats. I didn't like the idea of forcing anyone to sit in the back with the threat of rain, even the interns, who are meant to be treated poorly (right? But they're good boys. They're helping me. They're nice.) But Angel and Alberto volunteered to sit in the back while we drove from plot to plot. I'm the only driver left here and Alex had the day off, so I had a good time (and thus, the interns had a good time) sliding through some intense mud puddles in the Hilux. It was a bit more like sailing a ship than driving a truck at times, but I didn't get stuck or stall!

After we finished at Aaron Merino Fernandez, we headed out to the last ejido on my list. We've been having trouble finding anyone to ask permission to work. Well, today we had better luck, finding the entire leadership board of Petcacab and Polinkin. (Of note: two ejidos in one!) The comisario, his treasurer, secretary, security guy and I don't remember what the fifth guy's job was? together granted us permission to work there on Tuesday. That plus Los Divorciados on Monday means that I'll visit everywhere on my list before I head home!

tree of the day: cedro. Have I already picked that one? It's cedar, but it's very, very different from cedar as we know it in the United States.

FLASHback, shout out to JACK

Today has not been terribly productive, unless you count that I trimmed my fingernails. We were unable to get permission to work at any ejidos, but we have hopefully figured out a plan that allows me to finish my work before I go.

Rainy day report #5: It hasn't rained in Chetumal (yet) today, though it will pretty much any minute now (it just got DARK), but we caught a really awesome storm, complete with some phenomenal cloud to ground lightning, while out on the road this morning.

This made me think, about a year ago, I was also driving up to a quite apocalyptic looking storm somewhere in the prairies of Canada. So I decided to take a gander at our photos, and it turns out I was off by a day, but that doesn't much matter since it was pouring here yesterday too.

Tree of the day goes to the cecropia. It's a fast grower, so any time you've got a reforested area, you see these guys sticking waaaay up above all of the other secondary vegetation. They get tree of the day because I bet they are the first ones to get hit by lightning. Added bonus: they look like they could be straight out of a Dr. Seuss book.

t minus one week

The rains continue! The good news is, it is no longer eight trillion degrees out, and I don't have to reapply sunscreen every thirteen minutes. The not so good news includes the intense humidity, the loss of regular access to our rooftop office, and the mosquitoes.

The bracken continues! Yesterday was a long day spent at Ecosur, working out the details of my last week here, among other things. There was a bit of a faux-pas with some files, which lead to some confusion about what I needed to do (something like double digits more ejidos in seven days)... but a little bit of decision making later (yes, I am capable of doing that when necessary), it looked like I needed to visit five more of these farming villages to check out their bracken situations. Today I did two with the help of Alex and my interns. Two down, three to go? Seven more days? I might actually have time to be a tourist a little bit!

Things to do before leaving Mexico (feel free to make other suggestions):

• visit the market to take pictures
• go to Belize*
• acquire tequila for my brother and his fiancee (anyone who knows me knows this is true, and that in no way is said tequila for my own consumption)
• clean the mud off my boots so they can reenter the United States (current status: biohazard)
  
• probably some other shenanigans

I guess I didn't really think that list through very far. Oh well.

*Since it's down to myself, Irene, Juan-Pablo and Alex with US, Venezuelan,Colombian and expired Mexican passports, respectively, we cannot actually all go to Belize-- they need visas. Well, and Alex needs to renew his passport. Since I don't speak Spanish, I'm a bit wary of going alone, but there's a free zone 15 minutes from the house... I'm determined to go there! ANOTHER COUNTRY IS 15 MINUTES AWAY! Come on, you should have me figured out by now!

inundable!

I will try not to inundable you with information about my last two days, but come on, the title is "inundable" (Spanish for inundated, or flooded... one of my many forestry/conservation vocab words)!

Yesterday was the last transect for Karen and me (the 19th of 20 in real life, though). We went out with a bang, literally! Around 75 meters out of 100 of assessing forest damage, the thunder that we'd been hearing rumble all morning decided it would be a good time to arrive over our heads and start raining, after 18 transects without any rain, in the rainy season. Ludicrous. It was a tough transect, too-- selva baja inundable (lowland inundated forest, lots of young trees, lots of brush, very wet, and lots and lots of bugs). Thankfully, we're equipt with waterproof field notebooks, which actually work! You can write on the pages in the rain. Nothing smears. Nothing runs, except the water. Incredible. Bracken was bracken, but it was really rainy for the rest of the day. I somehow came home more caked in mud than everyone else, despite all walking and working in the same places.

We had a farewell dinner out with Karen. Marco and I dropped her off at the bus station late last night; by the time I woke up, Juan-Pablo had arrived from Colombia, been picked up, and had settled into our casa on Av. Bugambilias.

Today, Alex and Irene went to finish the last transect in Los Divorciados while Marco and I took my pair of interns west to train them to do my work for the next six months. What's that? You are also surprised, shocken even, that I have been given a pair of interns? I know, me too! But it's true. I have two interns: Angel, the tall outgoing one who speaks a slight amount of English, and Alberto, the shorter rounder shyer one who did not say a single word in English. They are clearly buddies, but they're required this internship in order to graduate from college, so it's a nice mix of hilarity and productivity. Also, did I mention, they are going to collect data for me for the next six months?

I had a great time in the field today. Most of what I did was troubleshoot the form Marco and I wrote for the interns to collect information with, questions about land use and fire history and all of the other things I won't bore you with that my thesis will be about. Ahem. Anyway. We were at an ejido called Nicolas Bravo, which my advisor worked at quite a lot for her Phd dissertation, so everyone there knows and loves her. In fact, our ejidotario named his daughter after her. So they were all excited that I, Laura's student, was there.

The coolest part might have started with our ejidotario saying, "Oh, there's an old Maya house." We just drove past this crumbled house sitting atop a mound (the Maya liked to build up the land they built their structures on). That house is more than twice as old as the country which I hail from! Just sitting there, in the middle of the ejido! I learned the words in Spanish to inform the interns that "I am a student AND a tourist" before I took that photo. At the next plot, what do you know? More ruins! Unguarded, un-roped-off... Marco mentioned casually that I could go up and see them if I want, so I clearly climbed on top of them and did my intern-supervising from there.

It rained on and off throughout the day. The rest of it was spent getting filthy by walking through burned helechals (plots inundable-d with the helecho, which is Spanish for fern) and standing around on Maya mounds surveying the awesome landscape. Don't worry, I was sure to leave my camera in the truck for the last plot, when we stood on a particularly high mound that offered a complete panoramic view of the landscape and horizon. (I'm so dumb.)

The day ended in an intense workout to prevent Marco, the interns, and my untimely deaths in the torrential downpour. I was behind the wheel in the Chevy truck, which is about 10 years old and only marginally better than The Monster. Shifting that thing was a pretty intense physical workout to begin with, but driving in that storm was a big workout for my brain. The streets in and around Chetumal were inundable-d. Also, the Chevy had crappy windshield wipers and the vent system did nothing to defog the windshield. I drove into town at about half the speed limit, and we clearly survived without incident, as I'm writing about it all now. The streets are still flooded here even though the rain has mostly stopped, but we're all home safely and planning on relaxing a bit tonight: tomorrow is an Ecosur day, Marco's last day, and Juan-Pablo's birthday!

happy ever after in the market place

I have alluded to my adoration for local foods. Well, a good place to find local foods? Local markets.

Marco's dissertation research has to do with commodity exchange and how that ties into landscape changes. He arranged to go to the market this morning with Rossy, the woman who runs one of the food stands at Ecosur, and her husband Elias. After sitting home for a lot of yesterday and knowing I'd be sitting home for a lot of today again, I asked if I could tag along. It was really cool! When we met Rossy, Marco went to find her husband, and she said something in Spanish. I gave my very apologetic, "Lociento, no hablo Español" that I've gotten so good at. Her response? She asked, in Spanish, if Marco and I were speaking English. I told her yes, and then she apologized to me for not speaking English. What? We're in Mexico! She doesn't have to speak English!

(By the way, anyone want to take Español 101 this summer with me?)

Rossy and Elias were both very sweet, speaking Spanish slowly and in short sentences to make sure I was roughly getting what they were saying. They bought Marco and me fresh orange juice to enjoy while we shopped. At the market, there were all sorts of exciting fruits and vegetables, most of which I've become familiar with during my time here if I didn't already know. Marco was taking note of what was being sold, and asking where it came from. Most of the smaller vendors offered foods from within a few hours' drive, but the larger shops had things like apples! From Washington! and plums! from California! We also walked through the carneceria. For the few people in the universe whose Spanish is worse than mine, that's the meat shops. Meat hanging on hooks everywhere. Tons of dead chickens (because they're not too cute and not too bright, obviously). But, I followed Marco and Rossy and learned a lot about the foods from this region and how they're prepared.

I regret that I did not take a single picture at the market. I was trying not to be more of a spectacle than I already am while Marco was trying to do work for his dissertation. I'm hoping to make it back there to get a few photos before I head home.

Most of the rest of the day was spent at the house on Av Bugambilias working... and napping... I went for a walk in the evening for a while, which is when I decided the tree of the day needed to be lluvia de oras (golden raintree). There were some really threatening clouds in the sky, and I found it a lovely juxtaposition between the beautiful yellow flowers on these exotic ornamentals and the dark, fluffy clouds that have yet to let loose, but we suspect that they will within the next few hours...

Don't worry, this one is much shorter!

After telling you how kind and helpful everyone has been along our way, we were blown off by the comisario in Los Divorciados today (yes, that means "the divorcees" but I'll tell you about it when we actually go there to work). He didn't tell anyone else we were coming and was out of town at least all morning so we couldn't work. Irene and Alex will return on Tuesday while I'm out galavanting with Marco and my pair of interns, so I'll return at a later date.

So instead, we visited some Maya ruins in Chacchoben. They were delightful. We were the only ones there.

Tree of the day: ceiba.

Also, for everyone who kindly requested that I not catch swine flu while in Mexico, there are three confirmed cases at Rutgers... and I'm still flu-free in the Yucatan!