Friday, April 13, 2007

slingshots suck

We made it back to Monteverde, where they promptly dumped us off with homestay families. My family seems nice. On my first day I met about 30 different people, all of who were some how related (my cousin's sister's, youngest daughter....). I have a 5 year old "sister" who is enthralled by my flashlight and intent on preventing any sort of studying I might want to do. My "mom" seems to think I don't eat enough, which might explain why she gives me enough food for 6 people, at every meal.
Life is pretty interesting, my alarm clock... aka the rooster next door.... goes off at 4:30. My family gets up around 5:30, and we have all had breakfast and left the house by 6:45am. I make it up to the station around 8, and then try to work on my independent project.
Ahh, the projects:
mine is on changes in photosynthetic pigments in a plant (i cant figure out which one) going up a tree. So far, no data. My first day was spent learning how to climb trees, and more importatnly, how to get back down. Going up is pretty easy (Jumars!), going down isn't so bad (repelling with a figure 8 device), but swiching between the two at the top of the tree is a little tricky. So I spent most of wednesday hanging three feet off the ground from a tree in front of the station, practicing with the gear... in the pouring rain. Thursday was even less productive. To get up a tree you first have to rig the tree. rigging a tree involves using a sling shot to shoot a metal weight with a string over a branch 100 feet up in the canopy. 6 hours of mosquito bites and tangled fishing line later, still no rigged tree. Oh, and the plant I was planning on studying actually doesnt grow in the area with the trees we are going to climb. So, I can now use jumars, shoot a slingshot, and, ummm, thats about it.
lunch time....

1 comment:

Emma said...

Sounds like your kind of trip, from climbing trees to the...5AM wake-up call...

Glad to hear your trip is going well! I can't believe how fast time has flown and how soon we will all be back in Berkeley and all this will be just a beautiful dream.