Adventures en Route

I arrived at the field station two days ago. In total, I spent roughly 20 hours in the air so I am really happy to move around freely now! I traveled on my own until I reached the Dubai airport where I met up with Lizzie, a researcher who flew out from London to continue her PhD research in Uda Walawe. Lizzie was at the field station last summer, so you may remember her from some of my previous posts. Once we reached Colombo, we shared a car down to the field station.

While traveling solo, I made a couple of friends in the JFK airport: Miel and Ali. Both live in Dubai and were happy to pass the time before our 13 hour flight chatting and wandering around the tiny terminal to stretch our legs. We exchanged contact information, so if I ever have the opportunity to spend some time in Dubai, I now have two wonderful people to show me the sights! One of the great things about traveling is meeting people from all over the world. It still amazes me how naturally two strangers can strike up a conversation in an airport. It must have something to do with the shared experience of being far from home and the familiar. In any case, I was very happy to have company to distract me from the stress of flying!

Once I reached Dubai, I had 7 hours to kill before my next flight. I decided to walk around the enormous terminal and find a snack. I had just sat down to enjoy a cup of coffee and a croissant, thinking how well my travels had been going, when I noticed a gaping hole in each foot of my hiking boots. You have got to be kidding me. How had I not noticed this before I left? I would really like these shoes to see me through the summer, so I set off in search of duck tape. I asked a couple of vendors if they sold any, but to no avail. I finally found a store owner who let me snag some Sellotape she happened to have stuffed away in a drawer. Now quite as good as duct tape, but it will do for the moment. Actually, the addition of the tape enhanced the rest of my trip because I really looked the part of the seasoned backpacker - emerging from the depths of the wilderness in weathered field clothing, off to who knows where next! 30 hours into my trip I am sure I had also cultivated an aroma that added even more to my nomadic appearance.

I won't go into detail describing my 13 hour flight from NYC to Dubai - it was utterly boring. I couldn't sleep, which was a bummer. Instead, I found myself shifting my position every 15 minutes in an attempt to escape the cramped conditions. On the bright side, I was able to spend a lot of the time thinking about my PhD. project. I am beginning to realize that I have taken on quite a load and now spend the majority of my time trying to figure out how I am going to manage it. There are SO many details that have to be accounted for: funding, my schedule, finding farmers willing to participate in the study, the farmers' schedules, hiring a field assistant (who hopefully speaks English), training the field assistant, learning Sinhala, etc etc. This summer will really help me to hammer out the details and determine what is feasible. I also look forward to sitting down with my advisor(s) in the fall to sketch out a timeline for my research. My time this summer will be devoted less to data collection and more to site selection and setting up my experimental design. Even though I have not yet been out in the field visiting farms, just being in Sri Lanka has helped my creative thinking - I can feel the wheels turning, which is an excellent sign!

While I have been writing this entry, I have been interrupted several times - we have a bit of drama going on at the field station that involved a feral cat Ashoka has taken in. This tiny feline, who we are calling Amber at the moment, had a litter of kittens. My breakfast with Lizzie this morning was interrupted by high pitched yowling and hissing coming from the roof. We ran up to the roof to see what all the commotion was and discovered that Amber had been keeping her kittens in a nest of leaves under an eave, which had been discovered by a male cat - who was obviously not the father of these kittens. By the time we reached the roof, the male cat was slinking off, but we couldn't see Amber or her kittens. About half an hour later we heard another scuffle and shortly thereafter Amber brought a dead kitten to Ashoka's doorstep. It wasn't long until a second dead kitten was found. We buried the babies cooked an egg for Amber. I think this was probably Amber's first time as a mother, so hopefully next time she can find a better place to hide her litter.