3˚37-39'N, 53˚12-13'W

Visa

2009-12-15T10:53:00.000-08:00

The plan was to return to the States in early December but another opportunity presented itself. Turns out, it's less expensive to buy a new ticket out of Suriname than to change the date on my existing one, so I watched the date on my return ticket come and go. (I've now officially overstayed the visa-less limit for France).

Today was attempt no.2 at getting a visa to Suriname. As I did last Thursday, I showed up at the consulate at quarter to nine. The shoe-box sized space opens at 9am to the already assembled mob. At five past nine I received a ticket bequeathing me the 36th place in line. This allowed enough time for the slow enjoyment of an omelet and The World According to Garp in a nearby cafe.

Last Thursday at the Consulate I tried for a tourist visa; I did not yet have the ticket to the States that I'd need to get a transit visa. I told the guy across the desk from me that I was planning on dipping into Suriname for a few days before heading back to FG. He asked for flight information, which threw me for a curve; to get from FG to Suriname is a 15 minute ride in a little boat, cash and no receipt. When I pointed this out, he asked for proof of my future departure from FG. Shit. It was around this time that I knew there was going to be a polite battle and that I would lose.

I asked him about the many ways to travel that don't involve tickets, "As it happens, I'm planning on biking back to Brooklyn," I conspired. "Surely there is a way to accommodate such travelers." I practically winked when I said this to let him know that I knew he was too smart to con, and here was a chance for him to be stand-up guy and make the system work for someone. His middling bureaucrat nod said, "I'm sure you're a nice guy, and I'd like to help". His middling bureaucrat smile said, "but I'm not here to help people, I'm here to dot the i's." Getting up, I smiled a smile that I hoped didn't say, "You are largely what's wrong with the world" and then spent the next three hours making my way back to Kourou. It didn't help that I'd left for Cayenne at 4:40 in the morning.

Today I had the good fortune to sit across from a more sensible guy (and had proof of a return ticket). The guy took a cursory glance at my paperwork, curiously charged me 20 euros less than the going rate and sent me on my way.

I headed "across town" and hopped in a taxico bound for Kourou. With a bridge out, the route between Kourou and Cayenne takes a significant detour on a narrow and partially rutted road. The road is narrow enough that vehicles stick as far to the outside of the lanes as possible to avoid each other. The outside set of wheels are often half-off the narrow road so vehicles proceed leaning significantly.

The taxi-co's are privately run vans that leave whenever they are full. The driver of this one was a sinewy, older guy who seemed pretty down to Earth. He headed out of Cayenne at a reasonable pace, talking loudly in a creole that I can't understand, seemingly to no one in particular. I opened up The World Acording to Garp and passed out. A jerk - and the muscles in my neck responding - woke me up. The driver had slammed on the brakes as a vehicle went careened around us. Our driver had just gotten spooked. After that, he came to a near-stop every time a vehicle passed in either direction, and he did it with a jerk. What had been a long drive suddenly became a lot longer. Adding to the duration was a detour from the detour. The driver pulled off on an anonymous road, pulled over and hopped out to collect mangoes. Love it or leave it.

What Debate?

2009-12-13T09:31:00.000-08:00

While the health care debate rages in the US, I've become increasingly familiar with the French system. Most recently I sought out the "Hinie" (H1N1) vaccination. (I'll be hanging out with my sis's newborn soon and the vaccination was strongly advised).

I'd heard that the vaccination was being offered in the local gymnasium and pedaled that way. Following the handwritten signs led me to a blood-donation style set up where I answered a few questions and walked away 15 minutes later protected from the dreaded Hinie. I wasn't asked to pay a dime.

This kind of access to health care costs France exactly half of what the US spends per capita.

The Shake

2009-12-05T14:54:00.000-08:00

I think I posted on the shake before, but I mentally come back to it all the time.

Racism here has a different quality to it. There seems to be less shame about it which is oddly nice. It makes the subject easier to approach. It also seems not as deeply entrenched. Sidenote; I got swept up in a population census earlier in the week. It was about an hour's worth of questions and a good number of them related to how I felt I was treated socially, professionally and commercially with respect to my race. Interesting.

Sitting in a cafe in Cayenne a year or so ago I was surprised to get a handshake from a stranger. He walked into the cafe, made eye contact with every person in the cafe, said hello and gave a handshake (or the double cheek-kiss) to one and all. Eventually I came to learn that this is standard protocol. Even if you do not know someone well, or at all, you acknowledge them. This is especially true in an office setting where every morning each person who comes in shakes hands with every person they come across. It's a little striking at first; compared to the standard US wave or nod that encompasses one and all. The protocol has a leveling effect that I think wears on race issues like a steady drip on a stone.

Daily Grind

2009-12-01T14:30:00.000-08:00

(Sorry for the poor image quality. These were taken with a phone loaned to me during convalescence).

One way to describe a forest around here would be to say “It is characterized by this tree, and this tree…and these 600 other species as well”. It’s grindingly specific. Alternatively, by measuring traits of those 600 species one can say things like, “this forest is characterized by trees with higher/lower than average wood density” or “trees in this area are particularly efficient at grabbing Nitrogen”. Some of this is purely academic but bits can also used to demonstrate that say, a forest established after logging has lower wood density and therefore traps less carbon than the forest that it is replacing; a decent argument for conservation or at least for a modification of current practices. Much of the trait-work is done on a macro level – measuring bark thickness, chlorophyll content, etc. Nutrient analysis on the other hand is done on the micro-level and requires a chunk of lab-time.

For the nutrient analysis leaves are dried and then crumbled and crammed into metal cylinders the size of shot glasses.

Each cylinder is loaded with a metal ball the size of a pinball and then sealed up. A pair of these cylinders are loaded into a machine which rattles away at 24 times per second for two minutes. After this rapidfire pounding, the leaf is reduced to a powder.

The bulk of the powder is transferred to little eppendorf tubes. The rest joins the pile of every-shade-of-green...or is used as eyeshadow.

BTW. The foot is way better. With a little convincing it can now be squeezed into my Croc and I can keep it a little below waist-level. I’m getting around crutchless with minimal limp.

I probably should have mentioned in the previous post that very few people die from Bothrops bites. Wiki says that they kill more folks than any other reptile in the Americas, but that’s mostly a function of the frequency of encounters. They’re just really common. (The team saw two others last week). The mortality rate is in fact way low. The title of "Most Dangerous Reptile" also has much to do with Bothrops’ attitude. They don’t budge. They’re of the opinion that there’s no reason they should move for you, and they’re right. That’s all well and good if you see them, but they’re pretty cryptic when they are not moving; the ground is always a collage or brown and Bothrops is as well.

Case in point: last week Chris started to bend down to collect a root sample. Seth pointed out there was a Bothrops coiled around the base. Yikes.

A Funny Feeling

2009-11-23T11:52:00.000-08:00

The team met around seven AM at the lab on the Kourou campus. We loaded up the mini-bus and a car and headed to a research plot that we'd established a few weeks prior in NW Guyane. The plan was to collect samples for “traits” which include things like leaf toughness and surface area, wood and root density, bark thickness, wood moisture content, herbivory, chlorophyll content, etc. In a half hour or so we were on the road and a couple hours after that we turned off the main road at Lausat and into the research area. We plowed through some white sand and at the forest edge a branch found the car's fuel tank and punctured it. We transferred people and equipment to the bus, ditched the car and continued on. After a short hike we arrived at the plot where we collected samples until around 6pm. Running the traits took until 1AM. The plan was to do a plot a day until the end of the week.

Thurs 18 Nov, mid-day:

Up and to my left, beeds of liquid form on two plastic nubs. The beeds drop into little liquid reserves which drain in turn through plastic tubes into the top of my left hand. With a little huffing and puffing I can look out the window over my left shoulder and see the prison where Papillon stayed, the Maroni river and Surinam. That hurts too much to be worth it right now. To get anywhere I sprawl on the floor and drag myself, so the scenery is not foremost on my mind. The walls are banana yellow and slightly ridged like someone dragged a comb downward while the cement was curing. Lavander, lime-green and mango round out the color palate. I’m sharing my room with a guy who snores a lot and loudly and spends waking hours sitting with his back to me.

Yesterday morning, we were on our way to sample the second plot when a strange set of feelings coursed through the top of my foot. First pressure, then a pinch then a stabbing, all in the space of a second. I looked at my foot frantically for answers before seeing the answer slither away in the periphery. Bothrops (link).

I could see two holes in my calf-high rubber boot. This totally exploded my notion of jungle safety; I’d thought that rubber boots trumped fangs. As Chris tells it I called, "Hey Chris, I just got bitten by a snake that I think was a Fer de Lance" in the way that someone might say "Hey Chris, there are seven of us and only two tins of sardines". He didn't quite believe me at first. I shrugged off my pack, took a seat, removed my boot and got comfortable. Seth took out his bite kit and applied suction.

In a flash, the team had fashioned a gurney from two pole-pruner poles and a poncho and soon enough I was getting hefted out.

What had been a speedy 45 minutes in, was a two-hour grind going back out. ¾ of the way out I nearly cried with appreciation. You couldn’t hope to get bit in better company. Given their brains, muscle and determination I had no worries about getting out. Chris, in a stroke of genius, put on his backpack and stuck the poles through the straps. He was up front, calling out tripping hazards and keeping a quick and steady pace. In the rear where my heavier top end was situated, the remainder of the team handed the gurney off to one another in seamless rounds.

Early in the morning the team had split. Two team members dropped the rest of us off and continued on with the bus. When I got bit, Ben ran all the way out and to the other site where he bashed in a window to get at a cell-phone. Thanks to his fleet feet paramedics were on scene nearly an hour before I made it out. The hospital was an hour away on a roughish road. I spent a decent amount of that time airborne with clenched jaw. Greg (French/Irish) came along as moral support and translator. Even in a non-emergency, Greg’s company is unparalleled.

In the hospital I got prompt treatment with few questions. I think the French love treating Americans for just that reason; they love to point out the disparity.

Morphine followed within the hour and was as lovely as always. My brain loosened and went for wonderful little romps in different directions. The pain doesn’t go away entirely, it just doesn’t matter. Greg stuck it out with me for hours despite having hauled my ass out and not having eaten all day. It was ten past nine when I got bit and well after dark when he left.

Before Greg left I was settled in a room upstairs. In the debriefing I was informed that Bothrops venom blocks clotting. Accordingly, I would not be able to eat with a knife or fork, have hot foods or anything not in a paste form and I had to be careful while chewing. Biting one’s lip would be an embarrassing way to go. I was not allowed to brush my teeth...for four days.

Thurs 19 Nov, afternoon:

The first blood test showed my clotting capacity at 20% of norm. I am drinking lots of fluid which all seems to all go directly to my left foot and calf. From knee down, I look like a Botero.

Last night’s meal was so unsavory I couldn’t do it. Breakfast was cold tea. When I took the cover off lunch I burst out laughing at the two gooey piles, one pale green and the other a sort of pink. I had no idea what they were before the tasting. The pale green was taters with veg. The pink was a pile of whipped hotdog. I swear.

Thurs 19 Nov, afternoon:

In these situations I often find myself gushing with appreciation. Sprawled on the bathroom floor and considering how to drag myself up and into the bottom of the shower, I looked up at the sink and contemplated how great it is to be in a place with clean, running water. The care is bizarre, but it’s caring and pretty good I think.

Once I got set up in a room, I was left with a one liter “pistolet” to pee in and over night a larger container to empty that into. In the dark and wee hours I managed to botch a transfer and poured piss over my mid-section. I arrived here in underwear, pants and a right sock, a bandana through the right belt loop. Out of clothing options, I swapped out my pants and underwear for a bedsheet and spent the remainder of that sleepless night in a chair. I've spent the day comfortably wrapped in the sheet, scooting around, looking like Ghandi.

Thurs 19 Nov '09, 5:20PM:

The doc just swooped in and said my clotting is up to 50%. Like most docs, she worked quickly. She poked, prodded and squeezed my calf and foot. The pain was exquisite. I panted and giggled uncontrollably. The swelling has claimed my thigh.

Thursday dinner: Beef and peas

Friday 20 November 2009 9:20 AM.

Chris and Benoit made the two and a half hour trip out here to say hi and droped off all sorts of goodies. I now have a stack of books and my computer with hours of podcasts of soothing, liberal radio. This morning the swelling seems a bit diminished and the color perhaps a bit more foot-like. Breakfasts are great for their absence of whipped meats.

Friday Lunch: Fish and ?

Fri 20 Nov '09, Afternoon.

The difficulty isn’t that I can’t weight my left foot, the difficulty is that if I even drop my zeppelin of a leg below my waist it throbs with pain. There is no room left in it for a pulse. Chris joked that I’m going to have stretch marks. He might actually be right. Going anywhere - anywhere being the two meters to the bathroom or the two meters to the porch - means dropping to the floor and scooting. But it means scooting with an IV and whatever else I might want; book, piss pot, water, soap, etc. It involves a lot of moving things a foot, scooting, moving everything another foot, scooting some more…Getting down to or up from the floor sucks but the scooting suits me fine. It does seem to alarm the staff, which is nice because it means I get checked up on every time someone passes by and sees me dragging myself across the floor. It’s a convenient way to get the pistolet emptied or water refilled. This morning I met the disapproval of someone on the nursing staff for having dragged myself to the balcony. I was splatted on my back like the victim of an improperly packed parachute. Despite the obvious trouble I have getting around, some staffers continue to do things like place the water up on a table a meter or so away instead of next to me. I think they’re just not accustomed to viewing the floor as an acceptable living surface.

Chez Papillon in the background

Fri 20 Nov '09, 6:50.

The doc swung by on her way out. I take it as a good sign that she doesn’t feel the need to visit me more than once a day and even that, in the afternoon. This aft she told me that my clotting factor as of this morning’s test was at 65%. That means I get soup with actual chunks of stuff in it and that I get to brush my teeth tomorrow morning. Maybe I’ll pull a fast one and sneak in a gentle scrub this eve. On the flip side, she was not pleased to see that the swelling really hasn’t gone down. I’m not too pleased about that either. The top of my foot is a patchwork of fall water-colors; yellows and reds. I noticed for the first time that my viens look unusually dark lurking under the tight skin. I know only enough about necrosis to be scared of it, and I’m a little scared. So far I’ve thought very little about it, but it has occurred to me to wonder about a one-footed life. Usually the wondering is in question form; would I still climb trees? Would I move back to NY and if so, would I get a discounted Metro-card? How would I transform my prosthesis into a miracle of gadgets; a street-cleaning garbage stabber so that I could clean the city as I hopped along. Certainly a bottle opener…how are bikes outfitted for monopeds?

The sun dropping behind Surinam has turned the North wall all kinds of lovely

Fri 20 Nov '09 7:10PM. The guy next to me gets bread with his dinner and it’s not even pureed.

Sat 21 Nov '09 10AM.

Laying back in bed this morning I luxuriating in a long, slow love session with my tooth brush, which culminated in that fresh from the dentist feeling. The doc just paid a visit and was impressed with the state of things. The swelling has gone down enough that the skin on my foot is starting to look like a rumpled paper bag. I can make out where ankle bones might be. It’s still a funny patchwork of red and yellow, it looks better on the whole and is less uncomfortable. She gave me the green light to head home this afternoon. The rest of the team has been planning a serious birthday party for me which I’m pretty psyched to be able to attend.

Sat 21 Nov '09, 6:30PM.

Home again, Home again, jiggity jig.

Post Script

For my b'day the Peruvians, Marcos and Elvis, made ceviche and grilled fantastic meats...that were not pureed before consumption. Three cakes, one with over a kilo of chocolate!

Bocci: Team France vs Team Peru vs Team USA

Tuesday 24 Nov '09, mid-day:
Swelling is going down in bits. The color is still...variable. My foot now shares some properties with the green foam used in flower arranging. Squeeze it and the impression stays. There's a tiny isosceles triangle where the fang found it's mark.

Nouragues Wrap Up

2009-11-15T15:49:00.000-08:00

We got helicoptered out of the Nouragues reserve yesterday after a two-week botanizing marathon. The heli-man made a point to bank sharply, hug hills, skim tree-tops and point out illegal gold-mining operations. We were shoe-horned in among damp and fetid backpacks but the flight still wasn't long enough.

At Nourague's Inselberg station two plateaus spread out beneath the camp - Le Petit Plateau and Le Grand Plateau. Each plateau is gridded by paths that delineate 1 hectre parcels and along the paths are 160, 1msq nets that have been intercepting falling fruit for nearly a decade. Since the nets' installation the station manager has gone out every two weeks, collected their contents and shipped them off to Paris. The years-long collection has generated an amazing record of the plateaus' phenology. Our goal for the two weeks was to identify to species as many trees as possible within a 15m radius of each of these nets. This will bring the phonological data into sharper relief and add another layer of information to subsequent studies on the plateaus. The operation required four teams:

1. Botanists with eagle vision, keen smell and a staggering mental catalog
2. Griffers with curved tree spikes, harnesses and pole pruners
3. Pro-climbers
4. A cartography team

The botanists made the first pass and identified the vast majority of trees to species. The standard set was that 2-3 botanists had to feel 100% certain of an ID for it to pass muster. If not, the tree got flagged for collection. The spike team followed and collected what was reachable by climbing relatively short and thin trees. The climbers followed to clean up what was left. Team cartography updated the map and tree locations.

At the end of the day, back at camp, the botanists would would go over what had been collected by the griffers and climbers to take another stab at identifying things that they hadn't been able to in the first go-round. Initially, including data entry and plant pressing, work didn't finish up until midnight or 1am and we were back on the trail by 8am. (I was generally passed out by 10pm...but was up early to brew strong coffee for the sleep deprived botany crew). As the project progressed the botany team learned more species, needed less collected and was able to sleep more. At least one sample of each collected species was pressed by the head of the herbarium from the Paris Botanic Garden. She took those with her to incorporate into the collection of 10 million samples that she and her 20 full-time staffers are currently re-sorting.

Among things to be collected there were often groups of trees not too distant from one another. In those cases we (Benjamin and I) would climb one tree and slowly make our way across from one tree to the next at canopy level. (Canopy level was generally in the 9 to 15-story building range). I hadn't done this kind of thing before and as it turns out, it's just about the best way imaginable to pass the time. "Up there" is a truly different place. It is airier and moving and home to very different things. It is a collection of crows nests, a hanging garden and a zoo.

Day one my arms cramped themselves into a right angles and my hands, into fists. I hadn't climbed regularly for three months. The second and third mornings arrived a kaleidscope of upper-body ouch for both me and Ben. After that it was all gravy. Seth, a PHD candidate from Berkley was my steady "Anchor Man" for the two weeks. He learned a host of knots in no time and took easily to the fancy rope-work required below to facilitates traverses above. In down time he left no leaf unturned.

New York On My Mind

2009-11-07T01:28:00.000-08:00

I was walking along the main loop around Central Park. A novice roller-blader picked up more speed than desired and started crying out like you wouldn't believe; sounds that were completely uninhibited, guttural, animal. Just before opening my eyes I realized I was still in the Nouragues reserve. The mayhem was standard Spider Monkey fare.

Weekends in Kourou

2009-10-18T11:00:00.000-07:00

Weekends here can be dizzyingly slow. They can also be full of parties. Ask just about anyone here what's to and they'll say, "Party". In the absence of other goings on, folks gather and dance and drink a fair amount and so we get to know each other fairly quickly. It's nice.

Last weekend our new teammate Greg had his twenty-somethingth birthday and declared it a Funk party. Oddly enough, in the average Chinoise (the FG equivelant of a bodega) one can find neon afros, giant gaudy sunglasses and even hair picks, so the revelers were well equipped. James Brown, Jackson Five, P-funk and Aretha made audio appearances. The party throbbed along until at least 3AM when I hit the road. By then a good portion of the funksters had moved, mostly clothed, into the swimming pool which had long since turned murky.

Perhaps it was the weekend before that that a bunch of us campus folks got together to turn some unused greenhouse space into a veggie patch. Afterwards we grilled at my (and Seth's) place. More and more people arrived and before long there were conversations running concurrently in French, English, Spanish, German and Portuguese. Love it. Probably much of this confluence of international minds and talents represents western glut and a waste of resources (is it really necessary/worth it to fly in a climber from Brooklyn?). That said, it's an amazing group of people and I feel lucky to have stumbled into the fold.

Besides parties there is the beach. On weekends I try to take at least one long, beach stroll before it gets too hot. The beach is wide and clean but yields to a milenia-thick layer of goopy sediment. At low tide the goop sprawls miles out from the coast. Egrets poke along snatching out this and that. The sky is intense looking with clouds that are somehow always severe even when not at rain-capacity.

Walking East from campus along the beach plops you on the edge of the older part of town. As a general rule, the architecture in Guyane comes in two styles; colonial and boxy. Kourou is almost nothing but boxy. It's one of the ugliest places I've been. Parts of it rival communist Russian housing. If it weren't for Lifesavers colors and kooky giant satellite dishes everywhere, the place would be really hard to look at. There are also dirt-floored, tin-roofed shanties that recall pleading Sally Struthers ads. It's mind bending that this exists just kilometers from where a good portion of the world's satellites head skyward. Inland is the Saturday market, one of the better bakeries in Guyane, an open air fish market, and restuarants (about ten of them) that range from Chinese to Moroccan. I settled in a creole nook and ordered an iguana.

I suppose I shouldn't have been, but I was surprised when it arrived that it looked an awful lot like an iguana. The chunks of meat had distinctly lizard looking skin. I recalled my Americorps colleague, Regina. She was posted in Harlem and would lament when she forgot her lunch on Wednesdays. She was vegetarian and reported that Wednesdays were foot days in Harlem. Chicken foot, pig foot, etc. Peering into the stew I could imagine how she must have felt. The stew was dotted with half a dozen or so eggs that I supposed were also iguanan. These were so squishy and leathery that they couldn't be pierced with a fork. The best I could manage to do was to pin one down with a fork and slice it open. The insides were a lot like boiled, mashed and spiced egg yolk...and they were yummy. As for the iguana, it was tender and tasty, skin and all. At the first bite it proved to be irresistibly tasty. I took my time with it and considered that Michael Pollan probably would have approved.

Iles du Salut

2009-10-11T13:31:00.000-07:00

Twice in Guyane I’ve woken up not knowing where I was.

This weekend it was a rumble that roused me. I opened my eyes and saw a 100 pound panacle of coconuts menacing me from above, Democlean Sword-like. Apparently I was in a hammock. I poked my head over the side and saw the source of the rumble. A wall of water was headed my way. The question that took shape in my mind was simply “what the fuck!?”. And then the rest came to me.

My collegues and I had arrived a few hours earlier by catamaran and I was taking a little sieste. We were on Ilse Royal - one of three islands that make up Les Isles de Salut, the infamous French penal colony. Just beyond my toes I could Isle de Diable which housed political prisoners and a few c.f.b.j.’s – Convicted for Being Jewish.

I’d slung my hammock between two coconut palms that projected from the side of the cemetery wall. I think the cemetery was reserved for wardens and family - convicts got the heave ho and became chum. Coconut trees are everywhere on the island. Everywhere. And coconuts are too. Much of the island is undulating mounds of coconut. I’ve never seen anything like it. And this saturated-fat landscape supports a colony of rats that would raise the eyebrows of any New Yorker. They are a smaller and cuter forest variety, but intensely numerous. The population is so dense that it’s difficult to find a coconut that hasn’t been bored into and eviscerated. Living along side the rats are their larger cousins, Agoutis interspersed with feral chickens.

Coarse shell makes up the beach’s substratum. There is no mineral sand to be found, just the remains of billions and billions of creatures. Supported by creatures-past is a knobby field of smooth black rocks that range in size from basketball to Volkswagen. You don’t get into the ocean as much as clamber into it and if it’s low tide, you take a beating. The serf batters the rocks and mists. The mist is so thick that looking west after waking up from my nap I thought that other parties had fires going.

One arrives on the Isles by way of a tranquil 45 minute boat ride. The catamaran makes its first stop at Isle Royale, former home to low security prisoners and the administrative center. One of the larger buildings has been converted into a fairly posh hotel. The church – painted back in the day by an inmate convicted of forgery – has been restored to its former glory. A diesel engine that probably runs ‘round the clock keeps the hotel a/c running and powers water desalination. The opposite side of the island (maybe 300 feet away) houses three large dumpsters sopping with the detritus of fanciness. It’s also where I came across two types of monkeys splatted on branches, waiting for the heat to subside.

After a few hours, a smaller boat scoots over to Isle de Saint Joseph. The boat returns to the mainland but you can sling a hammock and make the return another day. I.S.J. housed prisoners that were thought to warrant tougher love, ie years of solitary confinement in cells exposed to sun and rain, whipping, beheading and the like.

None of the publicly accessible structures on I.S.J. have been restored. Stone construction befitting Goldsworthy frames almost the entire island. A broad sloping ramp and a steep, narrow stair (both of smooth black stone) lead to the flattened top of the island. On top is a grid of thick-walled cells separated from the sky by iron bars. It’s here that a hundred years of inmates alternately burned and froze, piled rocks, got sick and died. These days, trees gobble the walls. The paint is shedding. The walls themselves are shedding. The day when there won’t be much left seems not too distant.

Take Off

2009-10-11T13:26:00.001-07:00

Returning from the field last Thurdsay, we passed a bizarre array of military equipment followed by a convergence of parked and parking cars and a steady flow of people herding their way up a hill. An Ariane 5 rocket was scheduled to launch. On campus we stashed everything in the lab then walked outside and stared west. It was approaching seven PM. The sky was completely clear.

The sky turned yellow to the west followed by the sound of a small armagedon. The shuttle came into view a few second later streaking up and then over to the East. It pounded an Eastbound trajectory with a speed and fireball that were otherworldly. Knowing that we’ve been doing this as a species for some time now did not prepare me for what a feat it is. It seemed truly beyond human. The rocket was hundreds of miles away within minutes. The stages separated and then winked out of sight leaving a corkscrew of smoke trailing to nowhere.

The project

2009-10-11T13:04:00.000-07:00

The aim of the project I am working on is to better understand how geography affects plant communities. (I think I’ve heard this referred to as phylogeography). Those differences could be differences between the pant communities, difference within a species, forest structure, carbon trapping capacity… Once the data is collected it can be crunched to look at any number of things; do trees grown in nutrient poor soils produce larger amounts of defense chemicals, etc, etc.

The soil types here vary widely and plant species do too. Guyane, small as it is, hosts some 1,200 to 1,600 tree species. New York State is almost twice the size of French Guiana and has fewer than 150 tree species. The number of species here depends on who you ask, the day of the week, the latest publication, etc. The variability in those numbers has a lot to do with the fact that there isn’t yet a good answer to the question, “What’s a species?”

The looks at plant communities in three distinct soil types:

× Bas-fond - low areas that are often inundated

× Terra-firma - richer soil that is generally not inundated

× Sable-blanc - white that are very low in nutrients.

The plan is to work in areas that have all three soil types, set up multiple plots in each of the soil types and repeat that protocol in different parts of Guyane. Trees as small as 8cm in circumference are identified to species within a small area. This gives a picture of the woody plant diversity.Trees 60cm and larger are i.d.’ed to family or genus within a larger area, provides a picture of carbon storage.

When I say, “we identify” I mean of course, they – they who are tropical botanists. The degree to which they can identify these plants is staggering. They look at the various characteristics of the bark, make a shallow cut and look at the sap, smell it, feel it’s texture, look up at leaves through binoculars, tap the trunk, feel the bark, see how it peels and so on and so forth. They can often identify a tree to species within seconds. When they have trouble, we collect a sample of foliage with pole pruners, a throwline or…a shotgun.

In the Midwest I was bothered by how many trees I was removing. Now I’m shooting them. This is one of those things that takes a little getting used to as an Arborist, but it quickly seems to make a lot of sense. Taking aim at the twiggy bits at the ends of a branch brings down small samples quickly. Sometimes all the botanists need is a single leaf for a positive i.d. I can get my throwline (a 2mm line with a weighted sac) over a branch 25-30 meters up, but it often takes a long time and brings down branches far bigger than what we need so in some ways the shotgun is a gentler tool. When we get to the reserve of Nouragues with it’s no shoot policy, I along with one other climber will take the place of the shotgun.

Paris Markets

2009-09-27T08:37:00.000-07:00

In many conversations about what works in Europe and why, people have pointed out to me that most of Europe isn’t as diverse as the US and that a homogeneous population is bound hum along with fewer ripples. I can’t claim to know Paris, but in my brief stay it seemed like it “worked” and is incredibly diverse as well.

I was sorry that I didn’t have more time to get beyond the ivory center of the old city but glimpses of various markets showed what might be a more representative cross section of the Paris as a whole.

Training day

2009-09-27T07:53:00.000-07:00

I was out of practice. By the end of day one in Paris, my face was exhausted from speaking through a pucker.

Paris Metro

2009-09-27T06:44:00.000-07:00

Like NY’s subway, the Metro in Paris is a mish-mash of different lines built at different times to different specifications. So like NY, the Paris Metro runs different styles of trains. Despite the differences between the lines there are some trends, and they alluminating. Paris’s roomy, vaulted stations - fully tiled with white beveled ceramics – shrug off the dungeon feeling and stay cleaner than the NYC stations. These must be significantly more expensive to build and probably to maintain too, representing an investment in mass transit that we have yet to make. (The stations weave around underground a lot like the streets do above ground).

Photo credit: http://www.track0.com/japh/archive/2004_11.html

Photo credit: http://www.panochrome.fr

The trains are generally smaller than NY trains. Even when they are not particularly crowded, you'll sometimes find yourself closer to you neighbor than you would in NY. On trains with bench-seats at right angles to the car-length, the seating in amazingly close. Plopping down in a seat directly across from another passenger, either you will both have to position your legs off-center or one of sits with knees akimbo while the other’s are in between. It’s um…intimate.

The lines that I rode required that a rider push a button to open the door. Only activated doors open up, saving on heating/cooling. And this is probably really weird, but one of my favorites things about all of Paris is that Metro doors can be opened just before the train has come to a full stop. Practically, it has the advantage of preventing passengers from getting on while others have yet to get off. Aesthetically, it makes each stop a bit of ballet. People hop off the moving trains as they must have from trolley cars in the days of yore. I could have happily watched that dance all day long. I seemed indicative of a place that has faith in its public. In NYC, trains come to a complete stop, wait the few seconds required to fend off litigation and then open. The NYC system protects us from ourselves. The Paris Metro says, "Go ahead, leap!" The emergency electric shutoff - accessible to anyone - likewise showcases Parisians' trust in themselves.

For all of the criticism of bloated French bureaucracies, lovely bits of laissez-faire are everywhere.

River, tower (Paris)

2009-09-27T04:01:00.000-07:00

The Seine is large enough in places to create a sense of vastness, small enough elsewhere to feel familiar.

It’s oxbow curve huddles neighborhoods, defines arrondissements and makes jewels out of Isle de la Cite and Isle de Saint Louis. The smaller of the 30 or so bridges spanning the Seine encourage strolling. Some of them blend so seamlessly with little streets that you could cross the river without realizing it.

Tree-lined and cobblestoned promenades bordering the river encourage strolling too, along with idling, reflection, romancing (and fashion shoots).

Waterside, bollards dot the promenades, anchoring boats and barges that double as residences ranging from posh to vagabond. Many of the decks are covered in gardens, some producing noteworthy amounts of food. I tried prizing open the doors and windows of these vessel-abodes with my eyes to see who these river dwellers were, but couldn’t get a read on them.

I crossed the Seine by way of an unbelievably gaudy bridge and headed towards Eiffel.

At over 1,000 feet Eiffel is visible from a distance and can be approached without a map. But approaching it, streets often bend away and don’t come back. A game of cat and mouse ensues and the tension builds. These views of the tower peeking over rooftops and down alleys are far superior to the designed view one gets from the end of the Parc du Champs de Mars.

In the peekaboo views it appears like so many Parisian things; elegant and well considered. Like Brooklyn’s pre-Ratner/Bloomberg relationship with Mrs. Brooklyn, it seems like Paris has enough respect for Eiffel to keep all nearby structures well below it. The practical side of that arrangement is that locals don’t have to answer the where’s Eiffel question a million times daily. At or under Eiffel, it looms large. It seems less delicate and more hulking, but the up-close mass impresses as much as the far off elegance does.

Babel-like, the number of languages one hears gets more numerous the closer one gets to the tower. On line to buy tickets for the ascent, it’s a veritable schmorgasborg of romance and Germanic tongues. Ticket lines for the elevators were sizable, but tickets to the stairs were easily had. The stairs (which sadly do not continue to the highest platform) zig-zag asymmetrically up the parabolic slope of the tower. The ascent showcases the guts of the towers laced over increasingly stellar views of the city. Even stopping at the second platform, I was fully satisfied with the expansive view.

Mostly graffiti (Paris)

2009-09-27T03:33:00.001-07:00

Link to slideshow...

Over 30 (Paris)

2009-09-16T15:18:00.001-07:00

It used to be that I would wake up and have a monster breakfast. Around ten I would have a decent snack, a substantial luch at noon, a nibble in the afternoon and a full-on dinner. I turned 30 and my metablolism put on the brakes. Now I often have breakfast around noon...and dinner. In Paris, this kind paltry appetite is really, really frustrating.

This little piggy (Paris)

2009-09-16T14:22:00.001-07:00

My stomach was a bit agitated this eve. It's possible I ate something that one ought not to.

A conservative in Paris

2009-09-16T12:45:00.000-07:00

In the Midwest I kept company with some great and very conservative people. Over the course of many discussions, I learned that nothing gave them the willies more than dropping the “F-bomb”. I am talking of course about any mention of “France”. The F-bomb would raise goose bumps on their skin, make them suck their teeth and look a little squeamish. In solidarity with my conservative brethren I bring you a conservative view of Paris.

For starters, there is an overemphasis on hedonism here. The buildings here have been so carefully proportioned and detailed, the gardens so numerous and well-tended, the food so well prepared and impossible to avoid, it’s no wonder that France has a terrible time focusing on war-making.

The cars here are miniscule. They make a little buzzing sound as they pass. Probably, if you managed to find a spot that was too small for one of them, you could pull up next to the spot, get out, and just push the car in from the side. They can’t weigh much more than I do. They have none of the deep growl that accompanies a Lincoln Devastator or a Chevy Macho. Quite frankly, they’re sissy.

And a lot of the motorcycles here have two wheels in the front, like they belong to some little kid who’s still too timid to take the training wheels off. Sissy I tell you.

And on the subject of vehicles, as long as a decade ago, Paris had maps of rental locations for electric cars. Aren’t they special, getting a jump on the rest of us. I haven’t seen a trace of smugness, but it’s there, I know it. Also on the transportation front, the city has placed racks of bikes everywhere available for a Euro per hour. You can take a bike out from one rack and rerack somewhere else completely and just leave it. Obviously this undermines the free market by cutting into the business of private bike rental companies but more to the point, there are bikes everywhere and it's just a nuisance. (That giant green egg in the foreground is a glass recycling vessel. It seems pretty clear that it was specifically designed to accommodate wine bottles, encourage drinking and foster hedonism).

But returning to sissy, I visited the Eiffel tower today. Yeah, it was probably the tallest “man-made” structure at some point or other, but look at the Twin Towers. Now those are some muscular forms. The Eiffel is all delicate lattice work.

It’s a miracle that the thing hasn’t crumpled yet. I think the 19 layers of paint are keeping the thing upright. It’s sissy, and clearly part of the gay, socialist agenda. This morning I passed a school where the nurse was actually spoon-feeding socialism to the children.

And what’s with everyone walking around with long, thin loaves tucked under their arms like they’re some kind of defensive weapon.

Values (Paris)

2009-09-16T12:42:00.000-07:00

It's great when you traverse oceans and come across people with similar values.

Paris

2009-09-15T03:22:00.000-07:00

Occasionally, the rigors of tropical botany demand sacrifices...like week-long stays in Paris. I guess you've just got to suck it up sometimes.

Paris proper is divided into 20 regions called arrondissements. I’ve landed in the 11^th, at the home of a truly wonderful French/Belgian family that I know from Brooklyn. The buildings in this part of the city are richly detailed, and intimate despite being more massive than the brownstones that I am accustomed to. In places, they climb around and on top of each other like they’ve been play-fighting since the 18^th century.

The density and detail seem to go on forever and collectively represent the greatest human endeavor I think I’ve ever seen. It seems impossible that any other place could have been crafted with greater attention to detail. If our species had called it quits once Paris was done, we could have held our heads high. New York seems a bit extraneous by comparison.

The streets were clearly arranged before the invention of the right angle so sight-lines are quickly interrupted. Looking down the length of avenues and streets in NYC, one catches snippets of Brooklyn, Queens and Jersey and can feel the limits of the city. Here, there is no telling where it ends. The only option is to surrender to the possibility of never finding a way out, and I’m fine with that!

Butchers and cheese shops here use the same type of chest-high glass cases but here they sit on casters that allow them to be pushed half way out of the store. There are streets where almost every establishment projects out into the street this way, blurring inside and outside. The culture of outside seems so fierce that it’s hard to imagine winter ever gets a toehold.

The building I am in was built before the Revolution - sometime before the 1790’s. Every surface that you’d tend to want level slopes in a direction different from other surfaces that you’d want level. The wooden stairs have been so worn that the middle of each tread was cut out and replaced with a new strip of wood that is in turn worn. And there are strange things in the building like mystery fountains.

The building is on a little passage called Passage de la Bonne Graine (see third photo) which is itself off a bustling street called Rue de Faubourg. RDF is more or less like broadway in Manhattan but the second one turns off into one of the many passages, the quiet is stunning. The 11e is supposedly the arrondissement of passages which makes it super-fun to lope around (i.e. get lost) in. Considering my walk today, I get the impression that the place is central. Without way finding I managed to stumble across the Pantheon, Le Jardin de Luxembourg and Notre Dame. The gardens are interesting in that they have something for everyone. In le Jardin de Luxembourg, gold plated statues mingled with hoops, swing set and the like.

Paris is a place of sprawling. Not sprawl of the suburban variety. Rather, people here sprawl at every opportunity. In the parks and gardens, people shed their clothes and relax, often on top of each other.

They do likewise on thin strips of grass along the seine and they tangle around each other on benches that seem specifically designed for the purpose. Where NY benches are ribbed to prevent reclining, the benches here are broad, uninterrupted scoops, made for two. The city seems to do everything in its power to foster intimacy. It seems to work. Paris, it seems, is still for lovers.

Oddly Enough...

2009-08-26T07:46:00.000-07:00

So, it's old news that I spent my first year in French Guiana an hour and a half hike from the nearest village, and that I was the only one there. But check this out; On Bing.com the satellite photo of French Guiana labels that exact spot!

Upcoming (25 Aug, '09)

2009-08-25T20:15:00.000-07:00

A few weeks back a Botanist in French Guiana dropped me a line to gauge my interested in climbing for a two-week project there. It's such a pain in the ass to get to FG that I wasn't sure two weeks in the field was worth it. I checked around for other gigs that would extend my stay and the proposed two weeks quickly morphed into a three-month contract as a Field-tech. (If any one knows what a Field-tech does, please let me know).

Last Wednesday, funding for my position was confirmed so Thursday I packed and Friday I moved back to NYC.

The plan; Head to Paris in two weeks, fart around for a couple of days and then catch a flight to FG. If you think going through Europe to get to South America is insane, it's only because you haven't tried it the other way; NY-Miami-Haiti-(sometimes St. Martin)-Guadeloupe-Martinique-Cayenne. I've been pat down quite enough in the darkness of the Haiti airport.

As usual I failed to ask a few key questions. These include, "what will I be doing?" and "Where will we be?" As details of the project emerge, I've learned that I won't be at the research station where I was posted most recently (a bit sad about that). Instead, I'll be in staff housing on a college campus in Kourou - a coastal city that houses Europe's premier aerospace center. I've heard that the new Arienne V rocket turns night into day and rattles the Earth hard enough to intimidate Greek Gods.

The team will range from 7-12 people and will include a couple folks from the US, some Frenchies and a pair of Peruvians (one named Elvis). Particularly interesting to me is a French pro-climber. He has spent a lot of time in FG and from what I hear he is expert at moving from one tree to the next without coming down. He uses a technique known as a tyrolean traverse which is...something I know absolutely nothing about. Scores of times aloft I've wondered, "Shit, what would a professional do here?!" Hopefully, Salim will be able to shed some light on that.

We'll take day, overnight and extended trips to various sites, working each site for two weeks. The sites are all over FG, a few seeming to be in the interior. That's almost guaranteed to mean fun forms of transport including pirogues and helicopters.

Prospects (Jan '09)

2009-01-12T10:32:00.001-08:00

En route to the Inselberg station I was feeling ready to be more settled. The word profession came to mind along with the concept of having a mission that would pull me along for a while. By contrast it seemed to me that I’ve been a bit of a bum as of late. And then it occurred to me that perhaps I could be a professional bum; I could approach the lifestyle with true dedication, make it a raison d’être. Maybe there are relevant continuing education courses at the New School. I considered my résumé and I have no doubt that I am qualified. And having not paid my own living expenses for a year and a half, I have a decent amount of experience under my belt. To boot, I have a few offers that have been floated my way.

On Language

2009-01-12T10:27:00.000-08:00

When someone here mangles English to the point where they become difficult to understand, I generally correct them. Beyond that, I find the little mistakes charming so I let them go. Philippe uses the word “boring” where one would generally use irritating or annoying. Yins-yins (noseeums) are therefore “boring”, getting stung by wasps is “very boring”, a frog that proves very hard to catch is, “a boring young man”.

“Un baiser” is a kiss.
“Baiser” is “to fuck” (emphasis is the French not mine). Tread carefully.
“Baisser” (two esses) is to lower.
...Or is it the other way around?

In German, something truly fantastic can be described as “Total super” which is pronounced, “Tohtahl zoopah!”

The round-up (Jan 5)

2009-01-12T10:24:00.001-08:00

Thundering water woke me before dawn. I wondered if I was hearing the Arataie River, swollen and charging under the carbet (and I wondered if it had taken all of the station’s tools with it). Eventually it dawned on me that I am at the Inselberg station where there is no river; the thundering sound was entirely rain-mass on roof.

I came to the Inselberg station a couple days ago to round up the pollination study that brought me back to French Guiana last October. The plan is to collect fruits that have developed from the flowers we treated back then.

The Inselberg station is technically closed. CNRS policy mandates that I cannot be here alone, so I can stay as long as Philippe does. On an as yet undetermined day (that Philippe says will be soon) a helicopter will arrive for him and so I am feeling a little pressed for time. Two more days of checking five trees a day would do it. I haven’t a clue if I have that much time.

This morning I pulled on my soggy pants so that I’d be good to go as soon as the rain lets up. My pack is already on the trail with a giant garbage bag snugged down over it. The wood floor of the kitchen carbet is circled with dark tracks where my restless pacing has peeled up the thick layer of dust.

Generously-sized Hoccos – black birds with gaudy pompadours - sit out in the rain humming like it’s a beautiful day.

Poof

2009-01-03T13:30:00.000-08:00

You may have noticed a paucity of photos accompanying recent postings. The digital age ate my photographs. Gone is every image I’d taken since my arrival in early October.

I know, back up your data. But that’s easier said than done out here.

I s’pose my brain will get a little workout with its newborn dependence on the written word.

RDA (Early Jan '09)

2009-01-03T13:18:00.000-08:00

At Pararé we have been getting our recommended daily allowance of vitamin mango, and then some. The mango drop has assumed the tenor of a sprint, with torrents of fruit hailing down. Collectively we eat plenty but even so, the ground is blanketed. For a while I ate only mangoes that were nothing short of perfection. When perfection got old I started eating slightly unripe and slightly over-ripe fruits simply for the variety. My days tend to be peppered with the fruits while Georg will eat three at a time. He explained that he only has to pull the strings out of his teeth once that way.

Strike! (Early December '08)

2008-12-30T17:01:00.001-08:00

While the price of a barrel of oil has plummeted, the price at the pump hasn’t budget here for months.

The strike has been organized by a consumer advocacy group and a truckers union and is supported by the general public. There are very few roads in FG making it easy to block all major arteries. In fact, at times there are only a dozen or so people at each of the barricades. The blockades have been in place for a week now, with a few semis and the occasional backhoe parked across the road at major intersections.

No gas is coming in and until recently, no airplanes or boats. No rockets are being launched from the prized launch pad in Kourou. Even more devastating is the fact that fresh baguettes can no longer be distributed. With no fresh bread I’ve been forced to apply Nutella directly to giant chunks of coconut. Woe is me. Such a nuisance would have been cleared up by the authorities in short order in the good ‘ol USofA where public outrage is rarely allowed to inconvenience…the public.

Transportation has become a collaborative endeavour which is as it should be. You can drive to a blockade, leave your car there and either have someone on the other side pick you up or hitchhike. Going long distances sometimes requires calling a friend in each blockaded zone along the way. Alex and I had no trouble getting rides the second our thumbs poked up in appeal.

At the blockades there are tables where men are playing dominoes and stalls where people are cooking for those who get entangled by the strike. A friend of mine who needed to get through a blockade to catch a flight got held up for a while and got fed stewed fish over rice by the strike organizers.

Most notably, every gas station is shuttered. On the radio it is also being reported that there are no bikes left for sale. There also seem to be no bottles of natural gas around for sale and the number of flavors of ice cream is rapidly diminishing (no wassai left damn it). The CNRS house was out of gas before the strike and remains so. I left some rice soaking in water last night in hopes that it would have absorbed it all by morning. This morning it was slightly better than chalk.

Happy Hour (Late November)

2008-12-30T17:00:00.001-08:00

On the 21^st of November Alex pointed out that the following day was my birthday. I think I would have missed it.

We celebrated with a simple white cake - freshly made mango jam between the layers, cream topping. “Baking” in a frying pan produced a dense cake but for a jungle concoction it wasn’t half bad. Or as one of the Germans said (eyebrows popped up) “Dat iz one tasty cake man!” We ate and drank well and talked late into the evening (I’m sure it was at least 10PM before we went to sleep).

On non-birthdays, mangoes mostly find their way into our bellies unadultered. Alternately, they find their way into our bellies significantly adultered with Guyane’s local rum, La Belle Cabresse along with some off the tree lemons and cane sugar. There’s often a bottle chilling the fridge…and I’m generally the one making them.

An even finer beverage is Patawa which is made from the palm tree of the same name. The tree produces a massive, drooping cluster of fruits heavy enough that I needed a rigging line to lower the mass.

The fruits are prepared by pouring hot water over them and letting them stand for twenty minutes or so. The water is drained off and the fruits are pounded while water is added in bits.

The pulpy result is strained and then used as a sauce over rice or farina (manioc) or sweetened with sugar and treated like a beverage. The beverage is hot chocolate meets creamed coconut. It goes down really easily.

Vacation

2008-12-30T16:59:00.001-08:00

Since my time here has been so trying, I decided to take a vacation from my vacation. More to the point, if Philippe get’s me on a contract, instead of simply working I’ll be expected to work and thus won’t have the same flexibility to travel as I do right now. The German team planned to finish up towards the end of November and planned to travel a bit around FG before heading to Europe. They had a pirogue scheduled to pick them up from Pararé with enough room for me. All I had to do was step into the pirogue and poof, instant vacation.

When I returned to Pararé from the Inselberg station a few days prior to our vacation, I learned that Alex’s two assistants (“the Boys”) had rebooked their plane tickets so that they could return to Germany as soon as possible. The boys were at times enthusiastic, well-humoured, adventurous, and at other times sulky, unhelpful and timid. They seemed overwhelmed by the forest, not surprising given their limited travel experience and the fact that one of them had a sting-ray jab its barb through his foot twice on day number three of their adventure. Add to that the grief of being away from their co-dependent relationships and regular bouts of chiggers and they were not the happiest of campers. They more or less got their work done but without much pleasure. Mostly they lived to sun themselves til they looked like tomatoes and for dinners that were composed of meat along with meat, oil, more meat and perhaps some heavy dairy.

The "Boys" on their way to Tomato Land.

The "Boys" wrestle with frozen meat while prepping dinner.

So the Boys hit the road as soon as possible. Alex and I decided to stick to the planned sojourn.

28^th of Nov we were picked up by pirogue and headed north towards the river-side town of Regina. We passed the ghost of Camp Arataie, puttered under the newly hung sign announcing the reserve’s boundaries and then made a left where the Arataie spills into the Aprouague.

As soon as we rounded the bend where the two rivers join we passed a pirogue transporting a few Brazilians and what looked like a whole lot of gasoline. The irony is that at the moment there is a general strike in FG regarding the price of gas. I joked that while most of FG will slowly grind to a halt, the gold miners won’t even notice since they get their gas from Surinam and Brazil. Sure enough, we passed any number of pirogues packed with gasoline drums. One of them was so loaded down that it had bottomed out on the riverbed. A team of Brazilians surrounded the pirogue like pall bearers and was doing its best to heave-ho the craft upstream.

This time of year, bottoming out on the river is easy to do. It essentially hasn’t rained since I got here in early October leaving fields of rocks poking out of the river and many other lurking just beneath the surface. During the rainy season a pirogue going full tilt with a sizable motor can get from Parare to Regina in two and a half hours. Threading carefully between rocks, the journey took us five hours and I didn’t regret a minute of it.

From Regina we got a ride to in the back of a work van used by the National Forest Office. We were lumped into the rear like any other piece of equipment and wisked away to the CNRS house in Matoury where we remain, penned in by the general strike.

(Ghost)Camp Arataie

2008-12-30T16:57:00.000-08:00

While discussing CNRS employment with Cullen I wondered aloud, “What would I possibly do here?” Cullen replied that there would be no end to the ways in which they would find me useful and she was quite right.

After scooting around turbine parts at the Inselberg station I headed back to Pararé where I hopped onto a tiny project for the bureau that oversees the Nouragues reserve. The mission was to suspend a sign across the Arataie River announcing the park’s Northern boundary and protected status. That boundary is about an hour and a half from the Pararé camp by pirogue and so I got to enjoy my first FG river trip.

En route to the park’s border we stopped at Camp Arataie, a ghost colony an hour north of Pararé by pirogue. The camp was set up to give park access to tourists and school groups in a place more accessible than the two research stations. Camp Arataie’s other and unspoken mission was to leave the areas surrounding the research stations - and the researchers - as unmolested as possible. The camp is beautifully designed and constructed using almost exclusively native materials. And thought the camp is still in good condition it now sits nearly abandoned, another sad monument to French Guiana’s illicit gold trade.

A number of years ago a couple of “clandestines” entered Camp Arataie, killed the two employees present and made off with the camp’s two way radio. As the story goes, authorities were called to a certain location where the two offending Brazilians were found tied to a tree with a note on them. The larger Brazilian gold-mining community assumed that such a murder would encourage France to send in the Gendarme/army en masse. To prevent such an operation the gold mining community served up either the offenders or some sacrificial lambs.

Since then Camp Arataie has been closed to the public, occasionally weed-whacked and treated for termites while the park figured out what to do with the place. In the upper floor of the cafetieria carbet the tin roofing is pock marked and punctured where one of the shot gun blasts rang the closing bell of Camp Arataie.

The Turbine

2008-11-19T07:23:00.001-08:00

As mentioned previously, I made my most recent trip to the Inselberg station to figure out how to move a broken piece of the micro-hydro system up to where the helicopter could get to it. (Several months ago the turbine was hit by lightning).

The technician who arrived yesterday informed us that the piece weighs in at 120 Kilos, about 260 pounds. Moving the piece from the pump-house to the base of the rock slope took four of us and we could barely move it more than a meter at a time.

Heading out early with an odd assortment of tools.

Dragging the old piece up the rock face, block and tackle and heave ho.

(Wemo on the left and Georg on the right)

Helicopter Ben arriving with the replacement piece.

The drop zone is steep enough that Ben couldn't touch down. He expertly hovered inches from the gound. New piece in the cargo net, the old one is in the foreground.

Current state of electrical affairs: The new piece was lowered without a hitch. It has been moved to the pump-house, installed and is now producing a mere trickle of power. So it goes.

The 'berg

2008-11-18T17:33:00.000-08:00

Georg (the Austrian tree frog researcher) is waiting for the rainy season to start in earnest. Once rain falls regularly the frogs will start calling and he will be able to determine in which trees the frogs are hunkered down.

Lately the weather has been phenomenal and so Georg remains in a holding pattern.

Since things are slow for him he joined me in my latest trip to the Inselberg station. (I came because I was asked to figure out how to move several hundred pounds of steel up a rock slope). The day that we arrived at Inselberg camp we decided to sleep on the summit of the ‘berg itself. The walk from the camp to the summit is about 45 minutes of up and more up. Rather suddenly the forest gives way to a moonscape covered in succulents and epiphytes (it’s very strange to see the things one normally sees up in trees, growing in turf-like communities on the ground).

It would be very difficult to overstate the beauty of the Inselberg. I’ve never managed to take a photo that captures how bizarrely the terrain heaves and how bodily it is, but the sunrises and sunsets come across fairly well and give an idea of just how vast and undisturbed this bit of rainforest isLooking at that panorama, a few more attempts seem waranted. The shot above was taken at sunrise, a little after six. At that hour all of the valleys are fog-filled . If you were to zoom in to the panorama you would see this:

I think I mentioned that Alex's thesis is that French Guiana is home to lowland clowd forests (a preveiously undesignated term). I joke that she is wasting her time fooling around with mosses and liverwarts and that she siply needs to sit on top of the Inselberg and take a photo every morning; quod erat demonstrandum.

The night that Goerg and I spent up top, we slept out on mats in a slight depression at the edge of the 'berg. Pictured below is the depression during a previous overnight.

There aren't many warm-blooded creatures up top and thus not many blood-suckers. When Georg and stayed up top we simply laid out on mats and were not chewed up at all. Sunset with Georg pictured below; Georg pictured, not me.

And sunriseThe full moon on top of the Inselberg is almost too much. Below left the moonrise and to the right, a 15 second exposure taken well after sunset. I was surprised to see in the long exposure that the moon was bright enough for the camera to pick up color.

My previous overnight on the 'berg was with the German moss team. We slept in a bowl with an outlet facing south.

Fom down in the bowl, the outlet provided a lovely view of a sliver of skyline.

Below: The Pararé station is down in the thicker fog belt that extends all the way from left to right of the photo. That band hovers over the Arataie river and blankets the Pararé camp in the early mornings. Turning on a headlamp in the wee hours you'll sometimes be blinded by a ball of white directly in front of you. Can't see with a lamp and can't see without one.

Trying to describe the 'berg or even showing photos of it is invariably disappointing to me but I probably won't be able to resist trying now and again.

News travels fast

2008-11-17T17:40:00.002-08:00

News of Obamas victory arrived by pirogues mid-day 5 November.

Multi-culti

2008-11-17T14:39:00.000-08:00

The crowd at the two stations has been incredibly international as of late.

For a few days at Pararé there were three Germans, one Austrian, three Spaniards and this little American. There actually wasn't anyone French there...or even a staff member for that matter. It felt a lot like summer camp for big kids.

At the Inselberg camp there is a group which includes an American, three Brazilians, three Saramaca (not sure if they're French Guianian or Surinamese), one Spaniard and a Peruvian. A Brit will be joining them shortly. Last night at dinner the American spoke with the Peruvian by way of Portugese and the Spaniard spoke with one of the Saramacas by way of English. It's like I expect New York to be except that everyone is actually comingling.

Earlier in the week I discovered that writing in French on an Austrian keyboard is far easier than writing English on a French Keyboard.

Sundays

2008-11-16T17:00:00.000-08:00

Out of the blue I told Georg (pronounce geh-ohg) that it was Saturday. There was a puase, and then we both burst out laughing. The notion of days here is a bit rediculous. Most researchers here work when they feel like working - which is most of the time - and weekends come when they feel like having one. To keep track of the days, we try to make sure that we have crèpes on Sundays.

The munchies

2008-11-12T09:03:00.000-08:00

Last year I was awed by the efficiency of the dung beetles. I've since learned that even more efficient are the poo-eating tortoises that lope around the forest. When Eddie was here he said one would eagerly ‘rush’ over to where he was squatting even before he had finished taking care of business. The tortoises are about the size of a medicine ball and seem fairly indestructible. So it was a surprise to come across a couple carapaces that had been cracked open and devoured by a Jaguar.

Month one at Nourague's Inselberg station

2008-11-02T07:19:00.000-08:00

25th Oct, 08

This morning my two climbing companions Sara and Eddie got scooped up by Helicopter Ben. Before heading back to the coast the helicopter made a quick round-trip between the Inselberg and Pararé stations. The whirly-bird drinks a gallon of gas every couple dozen seconds so Ben doesn't cut the engine on such jaunts. I knew that when the helicopter touched down at Pararé the door would fly open, goods would get tossed out, someone would run to the chopper with a box of veggies and the heli would immediately be airborne again. When it arrived back here at Inselberg the door flew open, the box of veggies got jettisoned and Ben took to the air again. The blades never slowed. I stepped out of my shoe which was sent flying into the woods by the rushing air. The round trip took less than five minutes. When I hiked the same round trip two weeks ago it took me nearly six hours.

Even knowing in advance how quickly the round trip would be over, I was still a bit shocked by how fast Sara and Eddie got whisked away. The two were great companions and I'm a little sad without them. Before this project I knew them only well enough to know that I liked them. Over the past three weeks they proved to be hilarious, industrious, bright and very compassionate people. I could have happily continued the research project in their company. The group that is currently here is nice but doesn't begin to fill the void left by Sara and Eddie.

In addition to delivering Internet technicians, yesterday's helicopter arrived with oodles of canned peaches, canned mackerel and boxes of sugar thinly veiled as cereal. Rice is my new best friend. I've started a compost pile and will get some cukes in the ground if it looks as though I'll be here a while.

The project we had been working on for three weeks was an engaging one. Cullen is interested in determining if bats are aiding the pollination of Eperua falcata. To that end, we bagged and unbagged flowers at various times of day (and night) to deny access to diurnal and nocturnal pollinators alternately. We also deliberately cross and self pollinated some flowers and left others marked but untreated as controls.

Changing flower bags at dawn and rapelling down after dark

The diurnal/nocturnal treatments had to be done just prior to dusk and just following dusk respectively along with another bag swap just prior to and just following dawn. In the jungle, dawn and dusk are prime-time so our climbing schedule aligned us perfectly with tremendous activity both in terms of time of day and position in the canopy. It also didn't hurt that the abundant and very sweet nectar of Eperua falcata draws a dizzying array of wildlife. At times we were practically within reach of some incredible wildlife including the very gentle Howler Monkeys stunning Aura Pendulas and a really graceful climbing ant eater called a Tamandua. None of them seem to think much of perching nearby and the willowy, juvenile Howlers go out of their way to check us out. In contrast to the rowdy Spider Monkeys, the Howlers move slowly and barely vocalize. Thus they often end up sitting and drinking nectar very nearby before we notice.

Sara gets visited by a juvenile Howler qbout 85 feet above the ground.
(sorry, you'll have to turn either your head or your computer on its side - if anyone knows how to fix that, let me know).

The nectar of E.falcata has been in the range of 18% sugar and the flowers are so prolific that they generally produce more nectar than they can hold. Drops of nectar rain down in the wind and as we brush against the inflorescences. I got in the habit of draining any flower within reach that wasn't a part of the study.

The climbing has felt profoundly good. I barely climbed last year for safety reasons and had forgotten just how much I love it. Over the course of Cullen's project I climbed about three trees a day and would have happily climbed more often (didn't want to be a tree-hog). I feel like I got through a bit of a barrier in my climbing and am feeling more comfortable than ever up there.

Little Buddy

2008-10-31T14:16:00.001-07:00

Eddie - one of Cullen's climbers - related this tale: A friend of his decided to raise a cow for beef but worried that a single cow would feel a lot like a pet and that emotional attachment would follow. The attachment in turn would lead to signifcant trauma for the family come slaughter time. To maintain a degree emotional distance the family called the cow "Little Tasty". They loved the cow, but never forgot its destiny.

Exploiting the same concept of framing I decided to tweak my feelings towards "pests". Accordingly, I named the tick on my balls "Little Buddy". Little Buddy immediately went from blood sucking parasite to constant companion and dedicated listener.

Every time I've pulled a tick off me in French Guiana I've gotten an itchy bump that lasts at least a month. I couldn't handle having that on my crotch and figured maybe it would be best to let the bugger have its fill and leave in a gentle manner. So Little Buddy and I took a walk from the Pararé to Inselberg station this morning. We took in the sounds of the forest, saw a Tinamu (at least I did) and bathed in a creak about 20 minutes from the Inselberg station. The walk was lovely.

When I got the the Inselberg station everyone at the lunch table swapped stories of wildlife sightings which of course brought up L.B.. Everyone was horrified that I left it on, and pointed out that there are tick-bourne diseases here (I thought there were none). And so LB had to go. Despite the location where LB took up residence, Cullen kindly offered me her tick removal kit. The kit includes a solution for loosening the tick's grip and a removal tool that looks like an albino bat crossed with a pair of pliers. The tool was a bit too intimidating for me but I took the solution (citrus oil) and disappeared into my carbet with a pair of tweezers. The solution worked quite well, leaving me feeling not so physically maimed...and smelling like oranges down there.

C'mon and take a free ride.

2008-10-31T11:03:00.000-07:00

As some of you know, Philippe (the Technical Director of Nouragues) would like me to do some work at the two Nouragues stations. He asked if I would like to stay for a year and at a minimum he'd like me to remove the 20 year old canopy walkway that looks like some janky rig pulled from the set of an Indiana Jones movie.

Eddie on the canopy walkway and a less-than-stellar anchor at about 80 feet above ground.

I am very much interested in dismantling the walkway and so Philippe and I are in agreement that I will stay on for a bit. The catch is a bureaucratic one.I have not been provided with a contract and Philippe has left the country for a month. Philippe doesn't want me to head back to the States but he also doesn't want me to start work until I am officially on payroll. To keep me around he offered that I can stay at the stations free of charge. So, for the next month I will officially have a free ride. This is akin to ecotourism with none of the tourists. What's more, a steady stream of specialists come through with fresh stories and the ability to identify and explain a staggering array of things.

Mael and company during a bat study Pararé

I spent the past couple of days at the Pararé station getting a feel for the place, conducting a little bit of Cullen's research and helping a German moss and lichen specialist with some canopy work. The Pararé station is not as charming as Inselberg but the camp manager, Mathias, is a great guy. He's friendly and enthusiastic enough that I am giving more thought to the idea of staying for a year. If I were to stay I would be stationed primarily at Pararé so Mathias and I would be on each other like white on rice.

Mathias is in his early 20's and not quite accustomed to the idea of being an adult. He'll stand at the kitchen sink big-spooning peaches from a tin can into his maw. Occasionally he'll cast a sideways glance to see if anyone is watching, trying to gage if what he's doing is ok. I crack up and think, "Don't you know that being an adult is all about being a kid?"

He is interested in making Pararé more sustainable and tastier by planting edibles and using compost. Those are things that I thought about from my first day at Nouragues. Having grown up here, Mathias has lots of friends "nearby" who grow crops organically and could pass plant material off to him. He talks about taking a pirogue (small motorboat) downriver and bringing it back packed to the gills with Rambutan saplings and the like. Long story short, he and I have similar visions and would have a good time.

Mathias tasting Eperua collected during
the ancillary pollination study at Pararé

The moss researcher, Alex, has been conducting abundance and biomass surveys of moss, lichen and vascular plant communities in an effort to demonstrate that the Pararé area is a lowland fog forest. She has taken a course in canopy access which includes getting into and down from a tree, but she has no training in standard tree climbing techniques that are used to move about the canopy once you are up there. This is standard for researchers and mind boggling to me. The majority of researchers are limited to a little zone along the trunk and miss out on a good deal of the action. For two days Alex and I trained each other, her in climbing and me in mosses and lichens and we had a great time. I will probably head back to Pararé on Tuesday and continue working with her. So, my free ride will be more of a working vacation.

Back at the Inselberg Station I was up at 4:30 this morning with Cullen and her friends to net nectar bats. I'd never seen bat netting before so it was a treat. Once netted, the bats were identified, weighed, measured and if sufficiently large, radio tags were inserted so that an antenna at the "bat cave" can monitor their comings and goings.

Welome to 3˚37-39'N, 53˚12-13'W

2008-09-01T13:40:00.000-07:00

20 Something of May, 2008

Surely it's been at least a lifetime since last I wrote. That is not to say that time grinds slowly here. To the contrary I feel the end of my little adventure rushing towards me and I find myself already mourning.

Today I got dumped on while making my way to the village. Between 6:30AM and 9AM it rained nearly two inches. I was on the trail from 7-8:30AM. Almost the entire seven kilometers of trail was a rushing creek. The only exceptions were pools at the lowest points and slippery, bald patches at the highest. In between was all rushing and it sounded beautiful. Walking the trail/creek was like tapping into another dimension, a morphing kaleidoscope of sound.

I haven’t seen very many snakes this year. (That suits me just fine). But because snakes scare the hell out of me, I think about them all the time. I always imagined that if I did have a run in with one on my home turf it would be while I was:

1. naked or nearly so
2. wearing footwear that offers no protection
3. going to or coming from a bath in the creek.

Yesterday evening it happened just that way.

I was just approaching the rock that slopes into the creek when a tightly coiled fer-de-lance twitched its head at my approach. Generally, I leave snakes alone and they extend me the same courtesy. But this one was coiled up right at my bath tub / kitchen sink / Laundromat. They are reportedly territorial and so am I, so one of us had to go.

Believe it or not, killing vipers is nowhere in the curriculum of Growing up in Brooklyn 101. Truly, I was scared shitless approaching the thing. There was nothing manly about the process. It took multiple trips back and forth between the snake and my carbet, a false start, some fearful tiptoeing and finally a breathless swing of a long stick with the rusty and haggard head of an old hoe rammed on top.

The first blow rendered the thing a snake-a-pelagic but it still managed to heave slowly and flash open its jaws sporadically. The slow writhing and gnashing so creeped me out that I couldn’t relax until the head and not-head were a good 30-40 feet away from each other.

This afternoon when I got back from the village I decided to try to skin the thing. It was slippery smooth but lumpy at the same time. I settled down on a rock in the middle of the creek and set about slicing it up the middle with a pair of scissors. Animal pelting is also missing from the Growing up in Brooklyn curriculum, but I’d watched a Brazilian skin an Agouti and Agouti have the added complication of not being completely tubular.

The slit up the middle revealed an amazing interior, practically glowing white and semi- translucent. It had the brilliant, clean look of a fresh filet and I found myself desperate to eat it. Not knowing the rules on viper consumption, I abstained. The organs were all perfect little tubes within the tube. The whole thing was beautiful. It also happened to pull seamlessly from the skin in one long pull. I admired the interior for a few minutes and then heaved it downstream.

The skin was almost perfectly clean. I pulled off a few bits and then washed it in the creek. I remember Crystal telling me about tanning a deer hide the “traditional” way by pissing on it followed by I don’t know what. I supposed urine could work some magic, being sterile and undoubtedly acidic. Then again, it is quickly colonized by bacteria, giving New York’s back alleys their distinctive parfum.

The part of the skin that had been the underside was plated with thick bands like an armadillo, but the rest is so delicate, the skin impossibly fine and silky. I peed on it...for good measure? And there it hangs on my clothesline like the greeting sign at the edge of some small town, “Welcome, you are entering the land of small jungle Jews who kill vipers. Population: 1”