So, we’ve been back at the field centre for a week now. Even in such a short time people have been coming and going all week. Milena and Dave have been finishing up their project on monkey poo, Farina and Harriet have been following a group of elephants near the centre for almost a week and there have been visitors from Cardiff and Birmingham Universities carrying out various field research, as well as members of organisations from this area coming together to discuss new projects.

Now Chloe and I are more or less on our own again, well, almost. We’ve got Harriet here until next week, and the family that live here are lovely. The language barrier is slowly being cracked, which is rather helpful, although it’s more a feeble chipping away with a toothpick than smashing it with a sledge hammer. That said, whilst the three young children were running rings around me (quite literally) this evening, I said to myself “If I had any idea what you’re saying, we could play a game”. At that moment Amoi tapped me on the shoulder and said ‘stuck!’ before running off to hide behind a table. Fantastic! For the last week, I’ve just assumed that they’re running around in circles hitting me, when in actual fact they’ve been trying to play ‘stuck in the mud’! They must think I’m a very slow learner, but at least now I can join in rather than standing like a clueless grinning idiot.

Unfortunately I couldn’t really participate this evening as I was still wearing a bright pink dress, decorated with black flowers. This isn’t something I’d brought with me to the jungle. Eja, the young girl, had brought in three brightly coloured outfits whilst we were munching our noodle soup at dinnertime. After dinner, she appeared with Adong who also lives here, both in beautiful flowy outfits. Adong’s husband, Mus, took photos of us all with Chloe’s camera, and if the internet will let me, hopefully I can put the photo on here!

This week Chloe and I have been reading article after article about orang-utans as background reading before we start our project. I can’t think of anything I’d rather be reading about, and it’s definitely better than most of the things we have to read back in Cardiff, but it feels a bit odd sat reading in a building in the forest, so we’ve been taking lots of jungle-breaks! I went on one walk with Chloe, Dave and Harry on a particularly hot day and ended up coming back covered in mud almost up to my waist. It was entirely my own fault, but it still meant spending the afternoon cleaning my boots, which I hadn’t really thought about beforehand… I suppose that’s what happens when you jump onto a muddy riverbank thinking it looks like a soft landing. If I learn nothing else, at least I’ve learnt that mud on a riverbank is squishier than mud in the forest!
The event of the week has definitely been the elephants. On a couple of occasions we’ve joined Farina on the boat to look for them in the evening. One evening we’d been out for nearly two hours, watching a group of them rolling in the shallow water at the side of the river. On the way back to the centre though, we spotted something that most people don’t get to see – it was a first even for Farina, who’s been studying them for several years now. One by one, the elephants were making their way across the river. They were crossing as family groups in single file, and making their way up the muddy bank on the other side before disappearing off into the forest for the night. As the sun set behind them, the silhouettes became harder to count, but we managed to get a total of 108 before it was too dark to see any more. The herd that live in this area is thought to be of around 150.

Still no internet at the centre, so I’m sending this from Sandakan. It took an hour on the boat and a couple of hours in the car to get here (and it’s the second attempt, as the town’s internet connection was down for the day before!), so I’m really hoping it’ll work this time! Not sure when I’ll next have the chance y’see!

I hope you’re all keeping well – good luck to Jenny for the move to Geneva!