27 NOV 08

This is going to be a very quick one, so I apologise in advance!

We've just got back from Sukau where we've been liaising with KOCP about our projects. We've been lucky enough to encounter several orangutans this week, including a flanged male and two mothers with their young. We also bumped into the elephants, which is always an awesome sight!

I'll write about it properly when I have a chance (hopefully Saturday), but that's all I have time for now. Pathetic isn't it?

Rachel x

11 NOV 08

It's Rememberance Day. We've observed our minute's silence, which to me doesn't seem quite enough time to contemplate anything, but nevermind. Anyway, just thought I'd post a reminder before heading back to the jungle, as here the world carried on turning over 11am. Of course that was expected, as I'm pretty sure Rememberance Day isn't marked at all in Malaysia, but regardless of the extent of a nation's involvement in the first and second world wars, there are enough conflicts going on in the world today to spend 60 seconds thinking about them.

This was highlighted again for us this morning whilst trying to book our next visa renewal trip. The recent executions for the Bali bombings have left us with large doubts about travelling to Indonesia during the Christmas period, especially as violence between Christian and Muslim groups is present in several Indonesian provinces. The Philippines are also suffering from internal conflicts at the moment, and there are problems on the border between Thailand and Cambodia. It's so easy to forget problems further than the eye can see, and whilst these conflicts are closer to 'home' at the moment, the newspaper I bought this morning has refreshed my knowledge of what's going on in Iraq, Afghanistan, Georgia, Congo, Zimbabwe... When you put these on top of the loss of human life in past conflicts, a mere 60 seconds is nothing to spare from a busy day.

...I don't get annoyed with people who ask me why I bother to 'remember' on this day, I just wonder why they don't too.

On a quick orangutan note, here is the governmental response to a Downing Street Petition to have all products including palm oil in the U.K. labelled so that consumers can make informed choices about their shopping. http://www.number10.gov.uk/Page17322
It's worth a look. Also, since when did 'United Biscuits' become one of the largest companies in Britain? It's in a list along with Tesco and Asda!!! Very odd!

The jungle awaits, and so I'll write whenever I'm next near an interwebbing machine.
Take care and keep in touch,
Rach x

10 NOV 08 - An addition!

Okay, this may or may not amuse you.

I had one responsibility today, and that was to look after our hotel room key whilst we went to find lunch. We had a nice noodly lunch and returned to the room to get on with some work, but for some reason the door wouldn't open. 'That's strange', I thought, 'It's got to be the right key, we only have one ke...', ah. Also in my bag this morning was the key to our house in the jungle on a very similar keyring. Oh well, I'll look a bit silly but I'll just have to ask at reception for the spare key.

Reception presented us with 37 keys, but not the one to our room.

After breaking one key, a ruler, a flip-flop (I don't know how they thought a flip-flop would open the door), and my one hairpin (kept for such emergencies), they produced a hammer! They had to repeatedly hit the door handle to get us back into the room. Once in, I was busy trying to find the room key whilst mentally totting up the likely cost of the damage, when Chloe whispered "Oh no, the key was in my bag all along!!!" We pretended to find the key under the bed and apologised profusely. The manager went off to find a tool kit and a new door handle and left the heavy fire door to swing-to. Wanting to leave the room, I tried to open the door (now minus a door handle), by putting one finger in the hole we created and another on the little bit that goes in and out when you open and shut a door. It backfired and the door ended up firmly closed, with us trapped inside the room.

Within the space of an hour we had locked ourselves out of the room, and then locked ourselves in the room. To top it off, there are extremely large machines pummelling hundreds of 24m tall poles into the ground for foundations of a new building next door, and the deafening noise had been shaking the building since 6am!

Eventually we were freed by the receptionist who thankfully found it all very amusing and didn't charge us for any damage, although I did replace the ruler as a token effort!

That's the last time I take the keys.

10 NOV 08

I'm exhausted and we've only been back for a fortnight!
Huge staff changes have brought a completely different cast to Danau Girang, with Zainal being the exception. We've finally begun to sort out our data for KOCP, so most of our time is spent sat infront of Microsoft Excel spreadsheets at the moment. I've also completed the latest edition of 'Jungle Times', our newsletter, and if you'd like to recieve a copy by email then please send a request to danaugirangfieldcentre@yahoo.com!

I returned to find that the ants had managed to out-smart my 'anti-ant-food-protection-measures'. A solitary packet of unopened, emergency, extra-strong, Trebor mints. I'd left them in a tied carrier bag, inside a second bag, pegged to a piece of string which was suspended between two walls. None of this proved a problem to the ants, but I should be proud that my measures had held them off for two months. I should also probably learn not to keep an emergency stash of sweets! Ants have actually sunk to the bottom of my favourite animal list, joining the mosquitoes in last place. In the last week they've invaded my guitar(!!!), eaten our bread and the fire ants that sometimes swarm across the path after heavy rain attacked me again the other day. Unfortunately, it's quite difficult to spot them at night and they happen to shoot a small amount of formic acid under the skin, so you experience something akin to walking into a nettle patch whilst wearing flip-flops. It really was the final straw of the day as earlier I'd been playing football and sustained an injury to my toe, thinking it was broken. Quite how you can hurt yourself playing with an inflatable ball and a six-year-old, I don't know, but I did, and I did it by accidentally kicking my boss. Oops. At least my toe's starting to get better now!

We had a bit of mid-week postal excitement after news arrived that a letter was awaiting me at Sabah Wildlife Department. We took the boat and the car out to collect it straight away, taking bets on who it could be from. Having gone to all the kaffuffle of retrieving said letter, I think only Basil Fawlty or Victor Meldrew could quite imagine my frustration to find that my first letter to the jungle was a proffessional training year handbook sent by Cardiff University. Not only is it exceptionally boring, but also completely irrelevant as it fails to mention crocodiles or leeches, only marking schemes and assessments! Grumble. Still, we used the trip as an excuse to stock up on supplies and I bought a Malaysian rock compilation CD. There's a guitarist on there which would appeal to my little bro called 'Man Kidal', who plays for a band called 'Lefthanded' and seems to be stuck somewhere between Guns N Roses and Aerosmith. I don't suppose Lefthanded have got as far as HMV in Poole yet though.

I heard on the radio that Mr Obama has won the USA presidential election, and whilst I don't want this little blog to get all political, the media coverage here made me chuckle so it's worth a mention. The newspapers have come out with some gems on the matter, such as "The whole world is amazed that a black man is a president." I'm not amazed. And I'm also pretty sure there are other black presidents in the world, but whatever. The one that amused me on the car radio yesterday though was the newsreader who stated that "British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, is hoping to be a good friend of Mr Obama's," which is nice! She then went on to quote him as saying "Any changes we make will have to be progressive to move forwards." Well I'm glad our PM's finally understood his role as a world leader. Our country's in safe hands! Nevermind, I'll stick to concentrating on orangutans as they seem much more sensible.