Hello oh ye faithful followers of our blog,
We are all feeling rather guilty about our limited effort to keep this thing updated.. and I guess some people will be wondering exactly what we have been doing for the last month..
First I'll talk you through the positives.. then I'll talk about the not so positive outlook on my project.. woohoo! Lisa, Marvin, Joe and Avit have been working very hard for the last month, going out in the treacherous stinky mangroves most days, being attacked by prop roots, pneumatophores, sinking sludge, swarms of mosquitoes and branches dead set on blinding them. After the very long, tedious and slightly maddening task (Marvin can definitely vouch for the maddening element of this, although we haven't quite determined whether he was mad in the first place, got madder, or whether it was just the result of cutting up green nylon, sewing it together with a sewing machine, collecting kilos and kilos of leaves to put inside them, sewing them up so more, sealing them by melting the nylon round the edges then attaching them to sticks and ropes to secure them in the mangrove which drove him over the edge) of creating the mesh bags and litter traps, distributing them across the different sites has been a huge task indeed. Joe seems to enjoy being covered in brown gooey stuff, and the other two don't seem to hate it so much, although it is extremely tiring. They can't smell themselves anymore but I can safely say they all STINK when they get home. Mangroves smell like.. well methane. And damp. Additionally the lovely deposition of waste water straight in doesn't help. However, believe it or not, these are the positives! Lisa's project is progressing well, although it's definitely a far cry from the original proposal (she is now only collecting data within the one mangrove, she wasn't to know how time consuming mangrove trekking and locating samples was actually going to be). There have been set-backs, such as missing litter-traps or vandalised traps, or simply not being able to relocate them. The tides are obviously a massive factor in determining when she can work as well. We've been having more and more electrical storms so it's a bit of a panic if they are waist high in water, in a forest when they've got a storm directly above them, one which is so strong that it makes the boardwalk shake. I've had a couple of panics when the night is drawing in and they still aren't home and they fail to answer their phones. They seem to go through lots of pairs of shoes as well, Lisa got a pair of converse shoes specifically for mangrove-trekking about a month ago and they are now totally wrecked. My one venture into the mangrove to try and find them didn't go so well. I got about 10 metres in 15 minutes and cut a huge gash in my (bare) feet.. I decided that if mangrove sharks did exist they would most definitely be after me in seconds and rushed out as fast as the mud would let me. My one other experience in the mangrove was whilst trying to take care of a very mentally limited baby kingfisher. He had fallen into the mangrove presumably when trying to fly and was rescued by one of the workers. I took care of him for most of the day, then it turned out that the mother was in a bit of a flap (ahaha, I've spent far too much time with Joe) trying to locate him. So we both took a little wander down the boardwalk to where I thought his nest might have been to wait for mummy. The moment another kingfisher started calling the idiot kingfisher decided that he was a flying/swimming master and jumped off the boardwalk, straight into the swelling creek below us. So, naturally, I jumped in after him fully dressed. He got swept away downstream only to land safely on a log, whilst I walked into about six Rhizophara and gashed my leg, and got a mouthful of nutritious mangrove water. Huzzah. Thereafter I stuck him in a hole and left him there, although I do feel a little guilty about that now. Anyway, they've been in the mangrove a lot. Lisa has collected lots of litter bags already and has been trying to get the leaves dry. That was a bit of an issue as we don't have a drying oven here, and even normal ovens are very hard to come by as noone seems to bake here. Presently she is using a halogen lamp but the bulbs blow out very fast, so she is considering using the charcoal oven although that will be very tricky as she cannot control the temperature on it. The leaves need to be dried to stop them from further decomposing so that they can be analysed back in the UK. So this is the positive, whilst things have been tricky for Lisa, she is at least going to have data..(provided there isn't a typhoon and well..).
I don't even know where to start with my project. The reason I've been avoiding writing here is because I'm so confused myself and don't know how to start explaining it to other people. My biggest issue currently is how pressed I am now for time. For the last month I've been trying to figure out exactly what are the key issues here, and ground myself in the theory. I totally underestimated the amount of time it takes to adjust to a new place, a new culture... and to understand the undercurrents of a community and a conservation project. I've been terrified as well, I wont lie. I just don't feel qualified to be going out there and speaking to people. Every time I do I sit there thinking.. 'well, anyone could be doing this, what makes me different?' And I guess what makes a researcher different is experience, that which I don't have, and a solid grounding in the theory and literature. I've also just been longing for some expert advice, but I just don't know who to go to. I thought about writing to some of the academics that have come up in the literature a lot, however I'm not convinced they would get back to me, and it would take more than an email to communicate all the factors here. If they did get back to me it might make matters worse as they could tell me that I'm doing it all wrong and I'll just get into another panic. Also, the negative experience that I had near the start with the people at top made me very trepidatious (is that a word? is now) about who I should speak to and what questions I could ask, and also just very confused about who was being honest with me and who was not. Also, just nerves about how I had influenced peoples perceptions of me, and how they would receive me. However, a follow-up interview with the person at the top cleared things up. I now also have my own bedroom/office, Lisa and I were sharing, which has made a huge difference. Our only workspace before was the park canteen which wasn't a particulary peaceful area to think in, and now I have a room, and a desk and notes to myself everywhere. It's amazing those things which can really really affect how well you work. So now I'm at the stage where data collection proper is ready to begin, I've done preliminary interviews, I've read all the papers I could ever wish to read, I've observed, I've written so many notes I probably deforested the Amazon (sorry Peru expedition), and I've put it off and off and off, thinking tomorrow I will feel more ready. And now it's too late for that, I've just got to do it and hope for the best. I've constructed my questionnaires, I know what I want to find out, I have a question... presently I'm just trailing through all the notes I've made in the last six months, all the books and papers, and I'm making sure I've covered every avenue, thought of every little thing. How to structure the questions, how to ask the questions, what order to put them in, how much qualitative, how much quantitative, are there too many questions? Will that question translate well? Will I just get yes/no answers? Do I just want yes/no answers? I've met with the barangay captains of the places I will be working in, and we have meetings set up this week and next so that I can better understand the characteristics of their specific communities, and so that they can identify who the mangrove stakeholders are (i.e. anyone at all that has been positively or negatively impacted by the afforestation process, not just fisherman or harvesters). There is a lot of negative feeling towards the mangrove, but almost all of it is rooted in politics, it never helps to have a community organisation headed up by someone heavily involved in politics, especially when the the local councils are in political opposition! Some people also come up with some pretty flavoursome science.. such as the mangrove is responsible for all dengue cases in Kalibo at present because the 100% of the mosquitoes come from the mangrove (dengue mosquitoes don't breed in brackish/saline water). The mangrove has also been held responsible for causing flooding following typhoon Frank a few years back. I'm going to have to go at breakneck speed with the interviews so that I can make this worthwhile, but I will, I totally 100% have to. Except for the one massive hurdle which is still in my way. No interpreter. Those people who I thought I was going to use before I came, and even up till about 2 weeks ago, just wont work. The most glaring reason for this is because they are both employed at the eco-park, and just through observation I can now gauge people's reactions and how much they will/will not say in front of them. And it's not very much. I was trying to get a student also, but this place is so small, everyone is linked. Any student is going to be associated in some way with the mangrove and KASAMA, and their English is unlikely to be at the level which I need. I've tried translating some stuff with the guys here and it was a challenge and a half. First of all I just got a literal translation that made no sense, then doing it again with the other guy I got a better translation, but no attention to detail and he would choose to miss things out which he thought were not relevant. He also just stopped listening after a while, and it was taking hours to get anywhere with the translation, let alone the back-translation. I feel like tearing my hair out. I've got one last glimmer of hope which comes from Phil (the PhD guy that is out here) who knows someone who's been working in Manila but is from here so has the Aklanon, but is no longer associated with the ins and outs of the place and has done previous translation. However poor Phil has the dengue at the moment so I hate to chase him up on it.. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! Other things which we are doing are eco-park visitor surveys and a survey in the central plaza of Kalibo to find out how much people know about this place, the impression I've got so far is the people that live in this city really know quite little about the mangrove, if they even know it exists. Those from further afield seem to know a lot more. Actually, I haven't stated what my new angle on this whole thing is. I'm looking at perception, valuation and ecological knowledge and comparing that between KASAMA and non-KASAMA members to see if there is actually any difference, there should be but I'm not convinced.. but all that stuff will go in the final report. This angle hopefully works as a research project, but also something which can help the management here, to work out what is being done right and what might require a little bit more attention.
In other news.. dengue outbreak in Kalibo. Doubtful that we are going to get very much if any travelling done which we are very disappointed about, whilst the mangrove is great, it would be lovely to see some more 'natural' tropical vegetation/see all the endemics and to absorb some more of the culture (or find out if there is one more to the point, its lacking in Kalibo), we all have a case of severe cabin fever. Mosquitoes are evil and we have run out of DEET, currently waiting on a $250 import from America. Our wonderful Texan economist and charcoal extraordinaire Cody has left. Fireflies are cool. The plants are amazing, just wish we had the resources to properly understand them. Dr. Primavera is amazing. We found good brie and cheddar. Bad wine though.
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