Archives for July 2018

Written July 9th

The last three days have been amazing experience. The first two days were spent in the forest with the assistants following orangutans. The research assistants are men from the village and they follow the orangutans from the time it wakes up to the time it goes to sleep. We joined them for only half a day, spending six hours each day helping them collect behavioral and dietary data. Led by the fearless team of Abuk and Idun, I followed Ekko, the biggest flanged male in the forest. He is estimated to be around 300 pounds! He was very lazy, mostly eating and sleeping all day, but it was amazing to have him above us. An awesome moment was when he got territorial and scared off a rival male by knocking over a massive tree!

Photo credits to my professor Dr. Erin Vogel. (Don’t worry Ekko just has a broken finger, he is usually very well mannered.)

At first it was awkward to be around the assistants because they only spoke Bahasa, but now I enjoy being around them, even if we still can’t communicate well. All the people in Pasir Putih were fun and welcoming, and I was impressed because they are all just really happy people. There was rarely a moment when someone was not laughing.

Today, we helped install three water pumps, the cost of which was covered in our tuition. The men drilled into the ground with a jet of water that was being pumped from the river. It was great to see everyone work together and to see the general skills that everyone had to accomplish whatever tasks were needed around the village. The greatest feeling was now the village had unlimited access to water, and we had a hand in obtaining that for them.

After finishing the water pumps, I was honored to be invited to play volleyball with the village men. They had a sand volleyball court in the village, and after playing with them, I could tell they played a lot. The games were very competitive, but luckily I had enough experience playing volleyball to hold my own. It was amusing that I was valued for my height. Indonesians are on average pretty short, so most of the time I was one of the taller people around, whereas in the US I am barely above the average height.

Tomorrow morning we are leaving Tuanan. I think I will cherish the memories I made here and will miss this place, but not too much, because I also miss modern amenities like hot water and air conditioning. I am excited to get to stay in a hotel and I am looking forward to the next two weeks of this trip.

Written July 5th

It’s right before dinner time after my first full day in Tuanan. The jungle is such a cool environment, in the fascinating sense, not the temperature sense, because it is super humid here. The camp’s conditions are surprisingly comfortable and should be easily bearable for the next week. My pseudo bed/toilet/shower is better than nothing! We feast for every meal on local food made by the camp’s cooks, who are women from the local village Pasir Putih. And the cold bucket showers are refreshing after a long, sweaty day. (It is entertaining to reread my blog entries as I type them up back in the States because I can vividly remember wanting to do anything else almost every time I had to dump cold water over my head).

We explored the jungle today. reporting the orangutan nests we found. Pak Odom, our guide, is a veteran of Tuanan and we were lucky to be in his group. His eyes never missed a thing and we got to see many nests and he taught us about many of the fruits the orangutans fed on. I also got to see my first orangutans today, Ketambe and his mother Kerry. Ketambe is a five year old and is still not used to humans being around, so he spent most of his time breaking branches and throwing them at us. It was fun to play with Ketambe, but the experience of getting to see such an exotic and endangered animal is not lost on me and will be a memory I will not soon forget.

Picture credit to Andrea Pfaff for the great photo of Ketambe!

To get to Tuanan, we had a two hour boat ride up the Kapuas River, which besides being a fun experience in itself, was also a great bonding moment with my soon to be great friends. (The first time I wrote this I used the word peers, but I think they’ve earned a nicer description after the three weeks we’ve spent together).

Indonesia, as a nation, is certainly poorer than the US. Many of the roads and building are in worse shape, but there are some areas that are still quite developed. Many of the hotels were very built up and were equivalent to US standards. I think many Americans would be plenty surprised at the luxury they could find in Indonesia. This luxury is not for the average Indonesian, but for Americans, our money translates well. (Throughout the trip, I routinely purchased meals for $5-$7 that would have been $30 in the US).

I am glad I do not have to drive in Indonesia, because I am not sure there are actually any rules to the road. Motor bikes and cars swerve around each other, drive on the shoulder, and get inches from each other. It is interesting interacting with strangers here because I am something of a celebrity. Indonesians do not often see white people, and I have already taken photos with a few families who asked me to pose with them. All in all, a god start to the trip and I look forward to experiencing the rest.

It’s been a couple days since I’ve made it home after over 31 hours of traveling and I still can’t wrap my head around what an amazing experience Indonesia was. After editing my last few blog posts and reading through the earlier ones I realized just how many things I was able to do and learn. As someone who went into this trip relatively uniformed about primatology and conservation work done in Indonesia I came out not and expert but rather with just a taste of the many facets of these subjects that many dedicate their lives to there. I am intrigued by what I learned and can’t wait to continue to my own research about these things I as work though the hours and hours of footage I took while there to make several documentaries in the upcoming year.

Before I sign off I just wanted to say a huge thank you to my family for supporting me in this trip, my advisers for working with me as I planned, those who funded me and Erin Vogel/ Rebecca Britain for their leadership on the course. Not only was the contributions of all these people were the only things that made this trip possible but all of them also made it an experience above and beyond what I ever expected. These three weeks will be ones that I will never forget for the rest of my life.

And thank you to you all for your interest in my trip and for coming on the journey with me!

The last three days have been incredible and I can’t believe how many exciting adventures we’ve packed in our few days here! We headed out on the 8am ferry from the port in Jakarta to Seribu. Seribu translates one thousand in Indonesian which is how they island chain get their English name of the thousand islands but in reality there are actually only a little more than 100 islands with only 57 inhabited ones. But when you are in the middle of them and tiny islands dot every coast line as far as you can see it’s not at all hard to understand why without a birds eye map they were named Seribu.

We stayed in a “beach bungalow-ish” home-stay on one of the larger islands and were such a large group that we filled the home-stay to capacity and were the only guests. We only had a bit of time to get our rooms and settle in before we were back on the little motorcycle driven carts that make up the public transportation on the tiny island and headed to the main conservation headquarters where we met some of the main facilitators of the conservation efforts in Seribu who would be our guides around for the next couple of days as we toured the many outlets of their conservation efforts. They gave a short introduction presentation to their work before we were back on the carts and then on a little blue boat which would be our transportation about the islands during the rest of our stay.

Our first stop was an Island named Pari island (no not “party island” which is what we all heard when were first told) where the research station affiliated with UNAS is located. The station, like Tuanan and Halimun, has many researchers which study a variety of things in the islands but a major piece of the presentation was on coral restoration. As a Marine biology major who has spent much time reading scientific papers and giving presentations on the hot topic of coral bleaching this had to be one of my favorite presentations of the trip. To be so close to the source of all this research I had studied was exciting and informative. In many of these natural ecosystems there is a push for eco-tourism to support the research and protect the ecosystem by making its natural state an economic advantage but for coral reefs this can be difficult. It’s extremely easy for uninformed and careless tourists to unintentionally do over 200 years of damage to a reef by just putting their feet down in the wrong place or wearing the wrong sunscreen. To solve this issue the station has set of different coral zones all of which are protected but only some of which tourists are allowed in. This ensures there are reefs that can prosper without the danger of tourists while still providing the positive economic and awareness benefits ecotourism is known for.

After Pari, our captain took us to a sheltered lagoon where we all dove off the boat and swam around in the warm water. It was incredible. As we all piled back on the boat and whipped back over the waves to our homestay the sun set and shot colors about the sky. Sitting straddled on the bow of the boat bouncing over the waves with the spread of colors in front of me and wind whipping through my air was the most incredible feeling. It had been a good day.

After a dinner of the most amazing fresh caught Tuna and some star gazing we were off to bed to get a good night sleep before the next day which was jammed packed.

At the boat dock in the morning we all got some flippers and snorkels borrowed from the research station and all piled back on our vessel. Our first stop was Jakarta Animal Aid Network or “JAAN”. Their network is far reaching and protects a range of species from illegal trade and habitat devastation but the particular animal of focus on this island was the endemic kites/eagles that are at major risk of illegal trade. The eagles we saw were the ones the unfortunately will never be able to be rehabilitated and returned to the wild because they were injured so badly during their captivity but hear stories of successful rehabilitation from the Dutch woman who runs the island was quite a treat. Her three dogs were also quite a hit with us and we spent many minutes petting their fluffy heads. We then headed to the next island over which is a private island owned by a Chinese business man. While he is not there he allows other tourists upon request to come snorkel on his reefs which is just what we did! The reef was large, healthy and teeming with life! Sea stars, Urchins fish and coral lined the sea floor and it was easy to get lost in the labyrinth of coral that made up the reef and we spent a couple hours doing just that.

On our way to the next stop we unexpectedly found the conservation boat and after a short conversation between our guide and the conservation boat we were invited to jump of the boat and swim ashore to go follow the conservationists to see where the sea turtles lay their eggs. This unplanned excursion was the perfect complement to the sea turtle release that was next on the list. At the next island we started off with a tour of the sea turtle and mangrove restoration. This group collects the eggs from the island we were just on, hatches and raises them to about two months in captivity. This greatly increases their chances of surviving in the wild thus increasing the sea turtle population in the neighboring waters. About 20 of the turtles being raised there were ready to be released so we each were given a turtle to release. The proper technique to release the turtles is the place them with their heads facing away from the ocean and allow them to figure out they need to turn around and head back into the ocean. Gerald (what I named my turtle) got the idea very quickly and was the second of all 20 to get himself in the water and swim out into the open water. As a longtime lover of sea turtles this was an experience I never dreamed I would be able to have and one I’m so glad to have experienced. We then headed back to our own island and showered, ate and then crashed in bed.

Our last full day in the country was no less pack full of fun than the others! Coral rehabilitation was our last stop in Seribu. We were taught how the conservational its harvest and grow coral and then with cement and PVC pipes plant I back into the ocean moving into successively deeper depths thill it’s relocated to its permanent home making ton of artificial reefs. Many of us commented that these artificial reefs while not quite like the real ones were far healthier looking and inhabited than the natural ones we had seen. We got chance to plant our own reef in the pvc pipes and drop it in the shallow water next to the station. Then we snorkeled a bit around the artificial reef and head back to pack up our things. We were back on our ferry that evening and we just finished our last dinner together. He dinner was full of tears of laughter as we all went around and shared our favorite and most embarrassing memories from the trip. It was till then that it really hit what an incredible experience these last three weeks have been.

Tomorrow I’m up at four am to get on a flight home and while I’m excited to be home I can’t help but be sad about all the wonderful places and people I will be leaving behind here. There’s been nothing in my life quite like Indonesia and I would change a thing about my experiences here. Thanks for coming with me on this adventure!