Giardia x2

The mystery of my massive weight loss seems to have been at least partially solved with my diagnosis of Giardia. Now unfortunately, it looks like Okan also has it and his host of symptoms are pretty unpleasant. But at least we know what it is and he has started medicine and is already feeling better just one day after starting the medicine.

We started in the field last week. After getting up to Kitabi we hired a bunch of porters who helped us deploy our traps up the mountain. It was a pretty big ordeal getting both the traps (huge) and many porters to the trail site. Once we got to the trail the porters were practically running up the mountain with their traps. I was following behind baiting the traps and putting them together and in good spots where they would be hidden. Okan and the porters made it up the 5km uphill trail in only an hour and a half, but it took me much longer to catch up and finally finish all the trap positioning etc. It didn't rain and it was a nice day so that was helpful. I am currently pre-baiting. This involves putting yummy treats into the trap, but the trap is wired open so the animal can come and go as they please. The idea is that they get used to the trap and the treats (raw or cooked eggs) and come back. We will hopefully be going "live" with the traps (ie taking out the wire that keeps them open and setting them for real on Monday.

Two of my students are also coming up with us. One is doing his memoir on the foraging ecology of the animals I capture, and the other is studying small mammal community dynamics. I find it really overwhelming to have them both up there while I am just starting my trapping. I want to spend more time training them and getting them set up but just getting my project up and running is a lot of time and energy. The hike up the trail from 2500-2800 m where my live traps are is 10km round trip and so when we are done, I hardly have any energy to go on another hike to help my students on their trails. But I am just going to have to bite the bullet and do it this week and hope they will get trained quickly so that I won't have to do field work from dawn to dusk every day. The work isn't so hard as the hiking. I pulled my achilles on the first day in Nyungwe this week and so you can imagine how fun it is to hike when your achilles hurts! Plus, I am still not used to the altitude and the very steep inclines. Okan can get to the top of the trail in 1 hour (even with Giardia!) and it takes me 1hr 30 minutes of panting to get to the top. Luckily, sometimes Okan can come back down and meet me as I am coming up to tell me if the traps need rebaiting or not. Or like on Thursday, I went on a hike with my student to find a good field site while Okan and another friend went and checked the traps on a different trail. Okan has been the best field partner in the world. I lost my phone one day in the field and thought it was gone for good, but Okan found it at trap #13 the following day.

Here are some baboons that frequent the road to our field site. We see troops with 50 individuals just meandering down the road. Some sit in the middle of the road and get groomed by another baboon as they enjoy the heat from the asphalt. Hopefully I will have more exciting photos to post sometime soon once live trapping begins!