Finally made it to the island of Borneo, on the island the
Indonesian part is called Kalimantan and the other part is Malaysia. We flew
here from the island of Java (where Jakarta is). Here we are staying at a house
that Carel van Schaik keeps for students traveling to and from Tuanan, his
field site. This city is much smaller than Jakarta but there still is a lot of
traffic and smog, but at least here when you get off of the main street you can
see palm trees and banana trees in peoples yards. The other two girls and I are
continuing the paperwork that is necessary to be given permission to work in
the forest, but this time we have the Indonesian field managers help. Even
getting this extra help it will take us at least a week and a half to get
everything done. That means it will have taken us somewhere over 20 days to do
all of the permit paperwork (and the grad student said we actually did the
paperwork pretty fast!)
But while we are waiting for all the paperwork to be
finished we are buying some of the last necessary equipment for the field. We
have to buy plastic containers to keep our food and clothes in to prevent mice,
rats, and cockroaches from getting it. Also we need to buy sleeping mats to put
on the floor, silica gel to put in with our electronic equipment, and hammocks
to hang up so that we can climb out of the swamp when the orangutans we are
following decide to stop and take a nap or eat for an extended time in a fruit
tree. So we have been doing a lot of shopping in the past few days.
Since we finally have a kitchen the other girls and I have
been making some “western” comfort foods we are used to. We made spaghetti and
also french toast! Here are some pictures of my time around town.
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| Islam Temple |
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| Little shops like this everywhere. |
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| More yummy coffee while we use the internet. |
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| The Indonesian camp manager joining us for sweet coffee drinks. |
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