Animals in the Field

Here are some more animal pictures from the trip! A huge grasshopper that was exactly the color of the leaves he was sitting on (right), and a big spider called a crab spider for some reason. The first day in the field I also found a hard to find TINY (1 inch) lizard on the ground near the traps. A few days later someone else found one, and we had a chance to take some pics of the second one (below). Though we only found six snakes in the field, but I caught one of them!! It was a tiny false-coral snake. Later that day another larger one was lurking near the gate and the night guard showed it to us. That snake is the one I'm holding in the picture below. The other snake shown here is the only poisonous one found, but I was the only student to hold him! He was really big, and it was so fun to take pics of him too.

Cobrinha Photo Shoot

Here are some of my favorite photos from my little snake (cobrinha) that was caught during the field trip.


























Marizinha, my amiga from the lab, also joined in on the photo shoot. Afterward cobrinha decided to stay with me permanently as my awesome bracelet (above photo)

Travels!

I have safely, though not entirely sound, returned from my field trip to the Rebio (Reserva Biologica) Guaribas. During the 36 hour bus ride home though, I also managed to get sick and have spent half of this week recovering. Yay! Marshall at least has a clean bill of health, and is almost done with his stressful and previously looming Teacher Work Sample. Now it's just me with the huge to-do list, and we still are lacking on final travel plans still-- yikes!

I WILL post pictures pretty soon, particularly from Guaribas, because we found a gorgeous translucent red snake that became my best friend and photo shoot model (before he/she become a permanent member of the CHUNB collection). However, there is a picture of me (the tiny person in the blue hat) setting up pit falls (traps for lizards, though scorpions and ridiculously huge ants, spiders, etc fall in them too) on the Brazilian goverment's website: www.icmbio.gov.br The only problem is that it is not a direct link and it's obviously in Portuguese. So. . .. choose Mais noticias in the middle of the page, after which it is necessary to click on 08/10/20008 - Cientistas da UnB e da UFPB inauguram pesquisas na Rebio Guaribas. I'm not sure how long their news articles stay online, but hopefully it will stick around for a bit longer!

First Day in Cavalcante

During our trip we started off hiking through the beautiful landscape (mostly Cerrado).
















The climate is sooo dry here during winter that humans easily ignite fires that can destroy large areas of savanna.























We also visited a quilombo community, which is a group of people that are supposedly descendants of original escaped slave communities, back when Brazil had slavery. The explanations were lacking by our guide, but we did get to peek around a bit.


















Here's the mad cow that Marshall thought would gorge us while we walked!








And then to the first amazing waterfall, Santa Barbara!






We got to take a quick dip in the clear, blue blue blue water and saw lots of tadpoles swimming at the bottom. Our crazy guide also climbed up a tree to get some pics. . .













After some swimming we ate lunch, and then got ready to go again, during which I fell on the rocks near Marshall in the pic above right, and had some nasty bruising/gashes to show for it.













And some more pictures, not necessarily from that trip!! The red fruit is actually a cashew fruit, but it is a special kind that only grows in the Cerrado. I don't like regular cashew fruit that much here, but this caju-do-cerrado is really sweet and delicious! We ate them a lot on the hike on the second day of the trip.




















Here's the bathrooms we used during camping! Surprisingly not bad. . . except for the gigantic cockroach! (Ele=He, Ela=She).



And a few pictures from the herpetology lab. The lake pictures are form my first turtle field experience, and the other is from one of our weekly meetings. . . lots of crazy people down here! The professor, Guarino, is furthest on the right.

Stranger Than Usual

Lots of time since my last post, and, of course, lots of happenings. A few highlights in writing, then I'll add another post with pics. First, we have moved living quarters! We are now located in Asa Norte in Brasilia, which is part of the city center. I can walk to school, and it is easy for Marshall to grab a bus to his school. And we have access to bakeries, grocery stores, restaurants, shops, etc etc. It is really great. And no crazy dogs, airplanes, or Brazilian ladies that attempt murder either. I will take pics as soon as I return from our reptile class' field trip. Much smaller quarters than before, but much friendlier and cozier (and great food!!!). Oh, and it is R$500 instead of R$1200 for our room, along with being able to use a washing machine, thank goodness.

However, Marshall has had some health issues over the past week as well, which contributed to the rather crazy/strange week. We're still thinking he has shingles, though the doctor yesterday didn't seem to think so. Not sure how much I trust her considering her diagnosis was 'heat rash.' Right. After two months of living here Marshall just now developed heat rash, and it blisters and spreads in a strange way. Sure thing. But he seems to be on the upswing at least with all the drugs (16 pills a day!), and went back to school today. He still is working on the big project of the semester, his Teacher Work Sample, and isn't so cheery about my being gone right before it is due. . . But at least I won't distract him! I leave tomorrow night for an ecological reserve 60km north of Joao Pessoa for 10 days (it is 84hr round trip by bus, fun). Still need to pack, but considering we moved yesterday, I just unpacked, too! Ugh. . .

Before Marshall got sick we also had a weekend camping trip in the neighboring state of Goias, in the city of Cavalcante. I have lots of pictures to go through, though it was cloudy a lot of the time so they didn't turn out the greatest. And we were also the only ones camping. . . Can't say we enjoyed getting dropped off at midnight in the middle of an empty field, completely alone to set up the tent and sleep. But we did see blue macaws, a toucan, great landscape, and many waterfalls, though Santa Barbara was the best. And after the trip I was able to go shopping for some of the things that were missing for trekking/camping. Tina and I had a good time heading to the imports fair, Walmart, and Extra (basically the Walmart equivalent here). Didn't buy much at Walmart because prices were quite steep. But we now have a nice and cheap air mattress for our one bed room from Extra. I think it is more comfortable than the beds at Dulce's!

Speaking of her. . . there was an interesting occurrence before we left. The maid apparently washed pans with oven cleaner (I'm sure under Dulce's orders), and when I went inside to get a pan NOT covered in poison, Dulce yanked them out of my hands and said we had to use the ones outside. That's when I had her come out and see (because we were thinking it was paint remover, because the pans also had paint spots from the kitchen being painted that same day), and she showed us the jar of oven cleaner with the skull on the outside of it. . . Stupid. Needless to say, we did not use those pans for the last week of our stay. Oh, and she was apparently upset when Marshall and I didn't give her a nice goodbye when we left. As if I had any desire to speak to that crazy old hag. . . Good riddance is all that would've come out of my mouth at that point!

Moving was only a problem in that we have seemed to acquired a lot of stuff over two months. . . But we got it all to fit nicely in our new room, so no problems now. Getting it all back to the U.S. will be a different story entirely. We still haven't arranged all our trips yet. Just is so hard to plan here. Brazilians don't seem interested in knowing what's going on until after it happens, I guess.

Casa de Moises Orphanage

As for today, Marshall and I left early this morning to meet up with the volunteer group from EAB that was headed to an orphanage ("Moses' House") in Aguas Lindas, a satellite city of Brasilia about 30-40min away. Apparently the students at EAB have to complete a service project, and can come up with any idea they'd like. Volunteering and donating to this orphanage is one of these ideas. Everyone in the group (five students, two computer tech friends, and us) donated some money so we could buy cleaning supplies and candy for the kids at the orphanage. On our way we also found the Wal-Mart lurking in Brasilia that I did not know about. It was next to the store we shopped at for cleaning supplies.

Upon arriving the kids were just about to eat lunch, so we got a tour around the place and learned something about its history. Basically it started with one lady that took in a few kids, which expanded until she had to find a new location to build an orphanage. We met her cooking in the kitchen and she really seemed like a mother figure for all these kids. The orphanage has expanded with donations to include a smaller library, a computer lab, and more recently the bank donated enough money to build a second dormitory to separate the boys and girls. Right now someone is donating money to rebuild/renovate the storage area.


But our job was just to hang out with the kids! For Marshall this was a little interesting considering his lack of Portuguese, along with the two EAB students who didn't speak much Portuguese either. It was still really a great time. The kids always called us 'uncle' or 'aunt' whenever they wanted attention, too. The students painted the kids faces with face paint, but we didn't get a group picture afterward. . .sadness! I did get one of the kids playing some games (the three taller girls in front are students from EAB), as well as the adorable little girl who just walked up to Marshall, tugged on his pants and threw her arms out at him. It was sooo precious.


She was too young to be talking, but the body language said it all! And when Marshall would put her down she'd just throw her arms out again. But even more amusing, after a little bit of holding her, the founding 'mother' called over from the nearby bench to Marshall saying she needed to be changed. . . It was really hilarious.




I also got some of the older students to play SET, the 'family game of visual perception.' It's one of my absolutely favorite card games that I learned in Math Club in middle school (it has its own set of strange cards). Some of the kids were really quick learners too! I hope we get a chance to go back because we would both love to do it again, especially now that we know what to expect. Also, I must say I was really impressed by the leadership capabilities the students showed during the whole day. Things were well organized, and no teachers were directly involved!

Photo Updates!

Here's a photo summary of some of the more exciting things that have happened in the last two weeks!

I went out again for the night field collection of toads and we actually found two toads of the species we needed this time. A ROUS (rodent of unusual size), better known as a capybara, also found us, too. Just as we found the first toad alongside the lake I heard some shuffling sounds in the dark near us, which turned out to be the capybara. No shyness at all, just munching on plants along the way, coming closer and closer. It was hard to pay attention to the little toad with the capybara distracting me. But it was really difficult to get a picture, as seen below in black and white, simply because of the absolute darkness surrounding us. And my little Canon's flash just wasn't enough!































I've also finally realized that these shiny 'lizards' (in the photo) are skinks. I didn't see too many lizards in the field on Tuesday with Jorge of this week, but on Friday I made an unexpected trip with Bernardo to the burned field at the reserve. It was really great because I of course didn't have any appropriate clothes to go outside with, so Bernardo took me to his place to try some of his sister's pants, and I got to meet his dad and brother, and I ate a yummy lunch with them too. Two other students also rode with us to collect scorpions hiding in termite mounds, and they found two poisonous vipers (unfortunately we were at another site so I didn't see them), along with some invertebrates like a gigantic spider (which I did see--shudder. . .) and, of course, scorpions. They also said something about a huge crab, which I was very curious about, but haven't learned more.




And, going even further back in time, a week ago Friday (Sept. 5) Marshall's school had a "Parade of Patriotic Feelings" (their translation!) to celebrate Brazil's independence day on the Sunday after. The kids were able to take a break from their typical school uniforms and wear Brazilian-colored shirts and jeans. Here are a few shots of the 'parade' where the students carried signs with different words like respect, peace, etc. But apparently they had a little difficulty with the final sign configuration to make the Brazilian flag. . .






















On Saturday, the day after EAB's parade, I spent most of the day making some amazing chocolate chip cookies for the graduation BBQ on Sunday. Unfortunately, we didn't end up being able to attend the BBQ because of some issues with having a ride. But at least the cookies were good!











And finally the 'spectacular' independence day, September 7th, parade that the Brazilian government put on in the center of Brasilia. We did have some expectations of greatness considering we were in the capital of the country, but it didn't quite live up. Perhaps the ridiculously hot sun, superb dryness, and packed-like-sardines stands combined with Brazilians' nonexistent space bubble, contributed to the disappointment. Check out the video clip to find out!




However, the parade did eventually start (45 minutes late, what's new. . .) and we saw lots of military people, the women's soccer team that lost in the Olympics to the U.S., as well as some other strange groups (seen below; I have not much of a clue what they were). There was a group carrying all the flags from the Brazilian states, and Tae Kwon Do and Capoeira groups.














































About an hour into the parade we had to leave the bleacher area to cool down and grab some food. And by then it was just military things--huge tanks, etc. BUT at the very end of the parade was the coolest part! All of a sudden rows and rows of 'knights' came down the road. The pictures were hard to take considering our distance from the edge of the road by that point, but at least when enlarged it is easier to see. They also had a cool air show afterwords with stunt planes, so I guess it was worth sticking around! At the end of the air show clip that is Marshall's face that I accidentally filmed, and it is also possible to hear the announcer saying the plane numbers 5, meia, 7. . . I recently discovered that when people are saying 'half' (meia in Portuguese) for numbers they mean '6' because it refers to a half dozen. No idea where that came from!