This Weeks News From Ghana

By Stephanie Fox -
The Clean Up Crew
Today was a big day in my relationship with the red ants at my door, who I call the clean up crew. I returned from the forest today at 5:30 as per usual, sat down, and took off my boots. When I got up and reached for the door handle, I noticed that the clean up crew were all facing me and frozen in their steps. I wasn’t convinced that they could actually be watching me, so I put my hand out and reached towards them like I might poke them. They all backed up in their tracks.  With pinchers like that, it’s a relief to know that I hold the upper hand in this relationship.  Like I said, it was a big day.


Blue’s New Baby
This morning we saw a newborn baby – it must have been born only an hour or two before we arrived. The mother, Blue, is an old woman and my assistant Charles was so surprised that she gave birth to another baby that he suggested that we throw her a party (in place of this we opted for cheering some beer over dinner). Babies are born with white hair in black and white colobus monkeys, and infants develop their black and white coats as they age. This baby was almost as pink as it was white after coming out of the womb, its hair all flattened and soggy looking – as if they don’t look enough like aliens when they have their fluffy white coats. Blue didn’t move for the first hour or so that we watched her, and we noticed that the umbilical cord and placenta were still attached.  She eventually came down from the tree to graze on some leaves, and afterwards she ate the umbilical cord (and we think the placenta too). This is pretty cool because these monkeys normally eat exclusively leaves and their gut system is adapted for this, like a cow, so eating ‘meat’ like this doesn’t occur in any other context. Blue didn’t let the baby off of her chest the entire day, and we were impressed when she had to leap from one tree to the next and the baby managed to cling on perfectly. The most interesting part was the other monkeys approaching Blue and looking at the baby. Blue was tolerant of several of the other infants and juveniles, but when one of the adult males in the group, JRock, approached and leaned in to inspect, she turned her back and then walked away. The other adult male, Crocodile, who is likely the father of the infant, didn’t show an obvious interest in the infant, although he was never too far away either.


Acclimatization

It is always a bit cooler out after it rains. Yesterday after it rained in the afternoon, I had goosebumps on my arms as I was walking down the road – wearing a t-shirt and pants and hiking boots. When I got home my thermometer said it was 25°C.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Donna, game driver and total badass

By -
Image
In early May, my mom, sister and I went on a safari in Murchison National Park. My mom had booked the trip through a local safari company. When I got word that our safari guide Donna would be picking us up, my ears perked up. Donna. Perhaps a woman safari driver? Huh. That would be cool. Were we that lucky? Yes. Yes we were. It's rare to see women driving in Uganda, let alone driving a standard transmission vehicle, let alone driving tourists around, let alone while simultaneously spotting leopards and lions in a four-wheel drive safari van. Indeed, Donna Katesi is one of four female game drivers currently working in Uganda. People did stare a lot – construction workers literally stopped working and stared, mouths gaping, as we drove by.   Donna is a skilled game driver and total badass. She joked that she makes her way among her male colleagues by being a bully. Case in point – when she sent us off on a boat tour one day, I heard her tell the guide t...
Read more

photos from the month

By -
Image
One day last week, the chimps took us to the top of one of the highest hills at about seven in the morning, just in time to see the sunrise. The hills in the foreground are all part of Kibale National Park, and in the far distance you can see the Rwenzori Mountains. This mountain range is also the border with the Congo. I haven't yet learned what this plant is, but I saw it in the forest this week. Isn't it crazy!? I think probably a fly trap of some sort.  The view from my porch, watching a storm roll in. My house looks just like the other two in this photo - each one is a duplex and I have half the house to myself.  A particularly large elephant, as you can see from this footprint, was hanging out nearby us in the forest a few weeks back. I could also see prints from its wrinkly skin in the mud. I got poured on while I was trying to get to town to get groceries. Luckily anyone will let you stay on their porch to wait it out.
Read more

and we're live

By -
I've spent the last few days setting up shop in Uganda. I unpacked my three pieces of luggage (each weighing in at a full 50 lbs), hired a cook, helped the cook sweep a nest of army ants out of my kitchen, harangued some cooking equipment and bought more groceries than my cook and I could carry. I had five people working on the house today fixing lightbulbs, sweeping off the roof, setting up the kitchen, and literally banging various things back into shape. Then I convinced someone to give me a table, a bookcase and some chairs, and pushed the few pieces of furniture around in circles until finding a satisfying arrangement. Hazah - feels like home. The humidity, the smell of the forest, the rain pounding on the tin roof, the incessant chirping from birds and bugs, the small plumes of smoke rising from village homes, hearing colobus roar in the morning and the rich color of the red dirt roads all bring back fond memories. 
Read more