Reflections on my first week

So, the first week is over!

You've already heard about the first two days of work, and because the others are pretty similar I'll briefly describe them before commencing the soul-shattering deep philosophical dissection. 

Feb 13 (day 3):
Not too much to report here! Spent my first day with the Green group, made a few favourite friends (there's an older male named George who is just a darling. If I could, I'd kiss his nose - however, because there are a lot of pointy things on the front of his face that would like to kiss my nose, I'll hold back).

I spent the day ghosting Paddy, practising ID'ing and getting a better feel for the behaviours I'll be collecting later on. Other than this, we ran our first successful experiment! Our audio experiment consists of playing an alarm call to the group from a hidden speaker and seeing how the group responds to a foreign aggressive noise.

Although I wish I could report fantastic findings, turns out the male we were focussing on may have been deaf. In fact, he fell asleep halfway through the trial. Silly old Ozz...

Feb 14 (day 4):
Ugh. Bad day. Although the weather was beautiful and we managed to run a successful experiment on the Blue group, it ended on a sour note. At around 9am, Liz and I were sent out into the wide yonder to seek out and study the Green group. We arrived at the Amphitheatre, where they were sleeping the night before, to find them. Lo and behold, they aren't there.

No problem, that just means we have to look in their usual haunts. Feeding bushes? Nope. Other sleeping site? Nope. Valleys in between? Nope. Back to the Amphitheatre? Nope. Back through different valleys? Nope.

Daily totals:
Hours spend searching: 8
Monkeys seen: 0
Trips between the two sleeping sites: 5
Valleys surveyed: 4
Distance walked: 20km, all through the snow and under the hot sun (yes, a contradiction I know, but trust me on this - deep snow that sucks in the feet combined with a blazing sun is possible!)

We ended up giving up and submitting to the monkey's deceit, knowing full well that someone was going to have to head up there and try again the next day. What a feeling of frustration! At least we got to spend an extra hour with the Blue group, where I tried my first practice focal on the computers of doom (remember the non-QWERTY keyboard? Yes, that.)

RETURN TO HELL FROM WHENCE YOU CAME, WINDOWS 98 RUNNING FIEND!

On the bright side, I cooked a super-rad dinner of Chinese dumplings and spicy cabbage soup. Woot woot!

Feb 15 (day 5):
Because of the special occasion of Liz's birthday and since we had walked our legs off yesterday, we were given the Blue group today. Sounds easy enough, right?

Wrong. We get to their sleeping site and they aren't there. What monkey in their right mind would get out of bed before 7:30am in the freezing cold dark?*

To cut a long story short, we searched again. Another good hike for the two of us. Fortunately, it was a quicker find that ended in success - after only 4 hours of searching, we found them by the roadside. Unfortunately, this site came at a cost.

Tourists.

It was a crack in a dam: first a trickle, then a deluge of madness. Like zombies, they stumbled out of their cars, falling over themselves as they attempted to cross the barricade of the snow bank in order to throw bits of human food at the monkeys. Meanwhile, their shrieks of either fear, cold, or fascination mingled with the honking of cars as they attempted to traverse the barricade left by the abandoned vehicles. Of course, this hubub caused the monkeys to behave erratically and jump all over the place, screaming, fighting, and generally behaving nastily.

All to the dismay of Liz and I who were attempting to track them.

Fortunately, the monkeys soon scattered, finished with the bombardment of human attention. They quickly scooted up into some trees and headed to sleep. Not before I spend a half hour waiting for one to defecate...silly thing! She was too busy copulating (five times in one hour - very impressive, although I just wanted the poop. Even my attempts to persuade her with song failed. I guess I'm not a good Poopsmith...)

Replace the shovel with a tiny plastic tube, and that's me. Yes, my hair has fallen out and I was stung by 12 bees, right on the lip.

By the end of the day, we had collected all of the data we needed for the week, minus my failed faecal sample.

Because it was Liz's birthday, dinner consisted of couscous cooked by Hadija, our fantastic landlady; cakes; and chips from a local shop. Delicious, and the perfect end to a hectic week.

Feb. 16 (day off wooot!):
Today was fantastic! I got a lot done, but will note bore you with the details. Time for my favourite information communication method: bullet points!

• Slept in until 8 (!!!) and read a book for about an hour before getting up and having a shower
• Lovely breakfast accompanied by "Wait Wait, Don't Tell Me"
• Did laundry in the bathroom (which consists of a shower head, a tap, and a hole in the ground for all of the water and various...bathroom activities that one may require - upon special request, I'll be adding a photo, but for now, imagine this with the addition of a shower head:

  

  I'm getting the hang of it, too! Sort of...as the bathroom floor is always wet from showers, you get used to soggy socks

• Wandered Azrou with Jamie while Paddy drove Liz to the airport in Fes for her week off
• Didn't get lost in Azrou! 
• Bought baking (yes, colonialism is a terrible smear on any country's history, but dang, I do love the French influence in Morocco - 10c croissants, pastries, and baguettes are a wonderful thing!), plus delicious fruits, veg, dates, figs, and Moroccan thick breads
• Managed to buy contact lens solution for Jamie despite not knowing any of the French for it...poor Moroccan shop owners must live in fear of our visits
• More importantly, DIDN'T GET LOST!!!

•  Helped J make some ravioli, had silly Skypes with the mother unit, and generally relaxed. Amazing. 

Now for the moment you've all been waiting for: the soulful and utterly tear wrenching dissection:

I am one with the monkeys now. It is too late for me. Save yourselves!

But seriously, wet and cold aside, I'm having a fantastic time. Don't let my bitterness above convince you otherwise - when the monkeys are around sans tourists, something clicks inside. We'll see if the feeling sticks, but for now, I'm thrilled to be here.

I should mention, this blog probably isn't going to be terribly active for the remainder of the trip, except for when there are crazy things happening (fires, bear attacks, tattoos, really nifty rocks, stuff like that).

*Biologists not included**
**some doofus goaded me about humans not being monkeys, so, for the record, humans == apes, humans != monkeys. Happy now, dweeb?