This is long, I know, I'm sorry. You can skip it. I won't know!

This blog is as much for my own memory as it is to let people know I'm alive and well and enjoying my travel shenanigans. What follows is long. Rambling. Stuff about trees. etc. Just so you know.

We returned this evening from our three night stay in Laguna Kana and are now 18/20 finished with what we were assigned to do here in the southern Yucatan. I would like to tell you mostly about two things: the kindness of the people we've worked and stayed with, and what you do in a town that doesn't have running water.

Pretty much everywhere we've gone, we've been met with kindness. Karen, Irene and I all agreed that even if some ejidotarios have made jokes about marrying us (especially when Alex isn't working with us), no one has ever been outright creepy. Pretty much everyone has worked really hard for us. Cutting a straight line through dense secondary growth with a machete in the Mexico heat is not easy! I was particularly surprised with our trip to Laguna Kana though. When we visited on Sunday to get permission, we asked a man if we could stay in his house while we worked in the three northernmost ejidos. He agreed-- he housed a team from Ecosur last year, too. His wife was away in Cancun visiting their daughter, who I understand may be handicapped in some way. When we arrived kind of late on Tuesday night, it turned out his wife was home, but they cleared out of the two room house and slept in hammocks next door so we could stay. I just thought that was really nice of them.

I like to think I'm pretty flexible and open to new life experiences, but I was not particularly prepared for the whole no- indoor- plumbing/ running water at all scenario. I'll spare you the details of how these things work (though I had to tell someone and my mom was kind enough to pick up the phone tonight!). I clearly survived and now have a better idea of how I'll survive living in a village in Africa for a while someday (I mean, what? We'll cross that bridge when we get there.). However, I thought I'd share what a town without running water does have: pretty forests, pretty night skies, and very little else to do, so also good night's sleep. I slept in a hammock all three nights, and did so much like a baby. It helps that I went to bed earlier than I do when I'm in Chetumal uploading photos and sharing my shenanigans with you all.

But back to that thing about the clear, gorgeous, billions-of-stars sky... it was awesome. Breathtaking, even. I told my mom about this on the phone too (I don't just tell her about how people sponge bathe over toilets when we talk), and she said I was pretty awed when I first noticed stars as a toddler. I imagine this was pretty much the same. I've been in rural places, I've seen bright starry nights. One of the nights in Laguna Kana, the power went out (yes, they have electricity but not water), and it was even more pronounced loveliness. Oh man. Words just can't describe, so I'll stop trying.

But now that this is nice and long anyway, some snippets of my starlit ponderings these past few nights whilst hanging out in the village without running water or anything else to do besides ponder things under a gorgeous starry sky:

• Apples. Think about the produce section at your local grocery store. What's exotic to you? Ok, probably nothing, because we get whatever we want in the US. Well, here, apples are exotic. They are shipped from places like Washington State. People here are crazy about their apples! We have apple flavored crackers, apple granola bars, apple soda...
• Toilet seats. Why don't most toilets in this country have them? We don't need to debate actually utilizing them or not, but it just looks strange.
• Chickens. It's so obvious why people (not me) eat them. They're really dumb, and rarely adorable. However, why is it that some have feathers and some in the same flock look ready to jump in a deep fryer? Do chickens get mange?
  
• Bugambilias. They are probably my favorite flowers I've seen here, and I figured out why. The flowers look more like extremely colorful little leaves than actual flowers, so it's like they're extremely beautiful little trees. And we know how I feel about trees.

Speaking of which, trees of the last few days, and then I'm really going to bed!:

• Tuesday: jabin. We see these everywhere. On Tuesday, in Bacalar, Karen explained to me very specifically how we so easily identify them all the time. I won't bore you. I recognize jabin now.
  
• Wednesday: in Laguna Kana, pucte, a huge tree down by the Laguna that I half climbed
  
• Thursday: in Yoactun, DEFINITELY the amapola
• today in Santa Maria Ponientte: I know the Pich was already mentioned, but come on, who can resist a bunch of grad students measuring the DBH of a giant, beautiful tree in the town square for fun first thing in the morning?

In conclusion, I'm still alive and well and loving trees. Did you notice my invasive bracken fern wasn't mentioned? That's because it barely exists up north!

back to Bacalar tomorrow

Not much to report here. We worked from home after several failed attempts to get permission to work on ejidos in the area. Tomorrow, we're doing damage transects and bracken hunting in Bacalar starting at 6.45AM! Thankfully that only means we have to leave here around 6.15. Oof. And at the end of the day? Not playing in the laguna, sadly. Shower, pack, and drive up north to work there for a few days. We got our tree tags today!

By the way, when I say "up north" I kind of mean central Quintana Roo, the state I've been living and working in. I work in the Southern Yucatan region. So we're going to the sort of northernmost part of the southern part of the region, if that makes sense. I felt I needed to clarify. I am a geographer, after all.

Yesterday, though, was pretty cool. We had to drive all over Quintana Roo to arrange our schedule (you can tell we're working in rural places without phones) for the coming week, so we went an additional two hours out of our way to see some ruins and the Caribbean Sea. Long, but lovely day!

Tree of the day: orange tree. Unlike pineapples, these do grow on trees! And, we have one in our neighbor's backyard that grows up and onto our roof, where we all like to sit when we're working on our computers. Nothing is ripe on it yet, but it sure smells nice when climbing through it to get on the roof!

short list

I'm exhausted, but a few things of note:

• Our ejidotario yesterday was named Primitivo. For the English translation, exchange the "o" for an "e". A very nice and helpful man in explaining the land use history, but really? What were his parents thinking?
  
• Today was a half-work-day and a relaxing afternoon at Bacalar for the ladies on the team. Good choice.
• This evening, Zach, Marco, Alex, Birgit, Irene and I went out for a little bit. I wasn't that hungry so I tried to order "papa natural" (natural baked potato) and "frijoles with something else" (beans with something else) which Irene went through extensive discussion with our server to find out if there was any meat in the beans. The server said no, we placed the order. I was brought a bean soup with chunks of steak in it.
  
• (A similar event happened at Calakmul, when we asked, "No carne, por favor!" and the lady at the food table assured us, "No carne!" and I got a little grilled plantain packet filled with ground beef. I've been reminded often that the Latin world doesn't understand vegetarianism, though my advisor assured me ahead of time it wasn't a problem, which it mostly hasn't been.)
• Also, the baked potato was COVERED in cheese. So much for natural.
• Overall, a good day. Tomorrow we leave at 6AM for an ejido called Noh-Bec to do some damage transects. There are two that need to be done there, so we're (Karen, Irene, Alex, and me) splitting into two teams of two. It's a forestry ejido... it might take all day to tag and identify the trees, and we can't even use nails.
• Most importantly, I am sitting on my roof, and our "dealer" Doña Rosa across the street (let me be clear, she deals us fresh advocados and clean laundry) is listening to Spanish versions of old Motown hits. I didn't notice this until now, but am super amused now that I have.
  

damage

The last few days have been pretty busy, though in all sorts of different ways. We spent Monday and Tuesday at Ecosur, doing research and prep work. On Monday, Marco and Zach gave presentations (in both Spanish and English) about the EDGY project to the students (it's just a grad school, so all masters and Phd candidates). Afterward, we finally met Karen, our UVA contingent! The funny part about that (not really funny ha-ha, though we laughed later) is that we had found out upon our return the night before at 8PM from the middle of nowhere, that Karen had arrived at 6AM Sunday morning. No one told us ahead of time! Oh wait, it gets better! Karen actually arrived at 11PM Saturday night in Chetumal. She spent the night in the tiny bus station hoping someone would come for her. We were all in the middle of nowhere though. At 6AM Sunday is when she gave up and checked into a hotel. She was then clever enough to take a taxi to Ecosur first thing Monday morning, at which point, we met her. Crazy, but all's well that ends well, right?

Speaking of all being well that ends well... today was tough! All six of us went into the field together to an ejido called Buena Vista. First task of the day was to complete a damage transect. This is not any of our research specifically, but relates to the overall project and contributes more directly to the primary investigators' own projects. This is why all of the schools were so happy to pay for us to come to Mexico. I won't bore you with all of the details of what a transect is and what it accomplishes, but basically it's compared to satellite data. When a satellite takes a photo of earth, the pictures of a region are taken in a sort of back and forth sweeping motion, like mowing a lawn. We were basically doing this on the ground in a specific place, studying how damaged the trees are and how much they have or have not recovered since Hurricane Dean in 2007, which is EDGY's temporal anchor.

Ok, enough nerd stuff. We did the damage transect for Buena Vista first, tagging and idenfying trees, analyzing damage and resilliance, blah blah blah, and it took way longer than we thought it would. It's not really a job for more than two or three people either, so most of us twiddled our thumbs a lot this morning. After getting all hot and worn out (it was really hot AND humid today and we were in the sun quite a bit), we had lunch, and then dragged our exhausted selves to the other side of the ejido to start working on my bracken at 3PM. A little frustrating to say the least, but we found and mapped the fern in a timely fashion.

However, and you might see this in today's photos and in the days to come... there was a little incident in the process. At one point I was following Alex and our ejidotario guide for the day while the ejidotario hacked a path through the ferns with a machete (don't worry, that's not what gave me the gash on my neck... at least not directly). We got to the end of the area, marked it on the GPS, and turned around, so I was leading us back. Alex warned me to be careful, but didn't quite convey what I should be careful of. I watched my feet as we hiked back, looking up just once to check how far we had to go, at which point I stepped in a hole and caught my neck and chin on a sapling that was just freshly-- and sharply-- cut by a machete only minutes before. Needless to say, a little bit of damage was done, but nothing too significant. See photos. Notice I'm still smiling. Tough day, but valuable. We accomplished a lot, and learned a lot more for upcoming days in the field.

Because Marco and Zach are going off to do their own work for the rest of their time here, we decided to relax in Bacalar together for a while this evening since we won't be working together anymore. We jumped in the bay fully clothed. It was a really relaxing. I tried Modelo Negra, which is Mexico's "dark" beer... aka Mexican lager with a touch of molasses, I hear. Tomorrow will be another day of hard work, but we're getting better prepared for this as we go. We're leaving at 6AM though, so... signing off!

produce and productivity

This update is from El Colegio de la Frontera Sur (Ecosur), in a room that is reminiscent of the Mary Washington cart lab-- people come in, people do work, people drink coffee, there are big windows.

Today we found an ejido in Caan Lumil with many different types of fruits and veggies (plantains, oranges, these little apples, maize) and plenty of invasive ferns. We met some very helpful farmers who shared how long ago different areas were burned, and how they're trying to deal with the fern invasion. It wasn't even on our list of sites to visit, but we spent most of the day mapping it. The sketch got kind of out of control, but I'm going to redraw it tonight. I heard from my advisor, who seems to think I'm doing fine work so far. This is pretty reassuring.

We called it a day a little earlier to try and get the beds from the witch in Bacalar... but no success. However, plans changed at the last minute so only two others are arriving tonight, Zack and Marco from Clark. No one knows if we'll have anyone from UVA or not, or when... so we're making do for now.

We haven't had dinner yet and Alex is being very patient while Irene and I do some work, so I'll just share some photos: http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v473/fishius25/Mexico/. Don't worry, I'm not posting every fern photo I take... I'll bake a pie for whoever guesses closest to how many photos of just helechos we have taken so far...

Day two: still no flu!

Hola again from the internet place two houses down from our house in Chetumal! I actually came down here by myself, and asked if I could please use the internet in Spanish by myself (Puedo usar internet, por favor?), and have clearly had success in this endeavor. Now I´m just carefully studying my pesos to make sure I give them the correct one when I´m done. I´m catching on, no matter how slowly.

Day two in the field: Irene, Alex (after four nonstop days together, Alejandro tells us he prefers Alex, and that no one calls him Alejandro) took on some points in the next state west, Campeche. The day started with a meeting with the Primary Investigator of EcoSur, the EDGY university affiliate here in Chetumal. Birgit, a German native, is actually the only PI who will be present in Mexico this summer. (Rutgers, Clark and UVA each have one, too-- my advisor is the one at RU, but none are coming. It´s frightening how much they all appear to trust us.) She gave us some gear and helped us sort out some details for the next few days before we headed out for the day.

We stopped by the field house in Zoh-Laguna in Campeche. It lacks a proper shower and the internet but does have tarantulas! Don´t worry, people rarely see the tarantulas and there is a water spout and some buckets for bathing. The little town was on the way to one of the sites we needed to visit to search for my helechos (ferns, if you haven´t been paying attention). We actually found a lot of helechos today. Irene got some great photos and GPS points while Alex and I climbed into the bush to get details for my sketch maps.

It was really hot out, but today was slightly shorter. At the end of it we spent some time back at Laguna Bacalar, waiting for a woman to get home who is currently holding the rest of the EDGY beds hostage. We just sat on a stone wall near the Fuerte San Felipe eating some pan (bread) we got from a baker across the street since the woman wasn´t there when she said she would be. I guess EDGY rented some beds to her or something, but tomorrow our cohorts from Clark arrive, so we kind of need more than the two beds that Irene and I have been occupying. Tomorrow morning we´re going back to Bacalar for these beds, and if we have success, we´ll spend the day catching up on our computer work here in Chetumal, and I´ll be sure to post some more photos. If the witch, as Alex has come to call her, is not in, we´ll continue north to search for more bracken.

Hola desde Chetumal!

(Hello from Chetumal!)

Irene and I arrived safely yesterday! I didn't say so sooner because we've been recovering from our travels. We arrived at our house in Chetumal about 24 hours after I woke up to pack and get going. Dad dropped us off at Newark but there was some debacle when all of the flights to Mexico were consolidated and we were not on the final flight. The nice ladies at the check in fixed this, and we were off to Houston. I finished getting my grades in during our layover, and looked up my own final grades on Irene's Blackberry right before we took off, so my semester literally ended as I was about to leave the country. I passed GIS! Moving forward with my life now...

We arrived in Cancun without any problems. The flight was mostly empty so we each had a row to ourselves. Debacle two: the bus from the airport to the bus terminal wasn't running according to schedule because no one is coming to Mexico these days (why?). We ended up taking a rather expensive taxi ride, and then waiting two hours for a bus to Chetumal. We departed at midnight, and five hours later, we met Alejandro, the project manager in the area. He took us to the house and picked us up again around noon to get some things from the market. We slept for maybe 5 hours, and then didn't eat until late in the afternoon, almost 24 hours after our last meal at Houston George Bush International Airport. Ugh.

So today we're feeling a little better rested and we've had more regular meals. We met with Alejandro in the morning to discuss what work needs to be done, and the plan is to start tomorrow at 5AM travelling to an ejido (a sort of farming village-- there's 20 in all that I'll be visiting in the coming weeks) about four hours away. He'll work with us at least the next few days. After we were done talking work, Irene and I took a bus to Bacalar for an afternoon at Laguna de Bacalar, a gorgeous lake. It was a really lovely, relaxing day.

I am slowly learning some important words in Spanish, most notably today: catira (blond). Apparently, it's very obvious that I'm not from around here, and everyone's assumed that Irene is my guide. It's kind of hilarious.

So, things are going just fine so far, except for one very, very important thing that I left in my apartment. Honestly, I was just crushed when I realized forgot it: my Trees of North America: a guide to field identification. So many amazing trees here, and I don't know what any of them are. It's pretty sad.

However, you can see in photos that life has gone on without my tree book: http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v473/fishius25/Mexico/