Rules of the Forest

March 10th, 2011

I can’t ever recall having scratches and bruises on my stomach before.  Here, I get them frequently.  Mostly from falling of the trail.  I average one trail-fall-off every two weeks.  And, no, I don’t mean fall down.  I fall down, or almost fall down, several times a day.  I mean, fall off, like into the bushes or down a little hill.  I am very clumsy.  I also have a gazillion scratches from thorns and twigs, bruises from rocks and trees and crawling through vines, and bug bites I have unknowingly itched open in the middle of the night.  And every time I hurt myself, I make little rules along the lines of, “Don’t do that again.”  Here are a few:

1) Pick your feet up when you walk.  Otherwise, they will catch on roots or vines and you will fall.

2) Make sure there is actually ground where you are about to step.  Trail-fall-off number two taught me this.

3) If you stop to stare up in a tree, look down first to make sure you are not standing in a line of siafu or sungusungu.  Self-explanatory, I think.

4) Look where you put your hands.  Otherwise you will put then in thorns or on a weird stinging worm or sungusungu.  You’ll probably do this anyway, but it doesn’t hurt to be vigilant.

5) Don’t stand directly under a baboon.  Sure, they might pee on you, but the also might drop a mabungo fruit on your head, which, from 40 feet up, would likely cause brain damage.

6) When bushwhacking make sure to squint.  If you don’t, you’ll get twigs in your eyes.  Like, IN your eyes.  I’ve been poked in the eye a couple times now, the dangerous kind of poke that could leave me permanently without depth perception.  Once I closed my eyelid to find that the stick was on the inside rather than the outside.

6) Make sure the vines you grab are, in fact, vines.  There are twig snakes at Gombe.  They look a lot like vines.  A lot.

7) When it rains, avoid stepping on stones or tree roots.  Benign when it’s dry, these turn into mini slin’n’slides when wet and you will fall.  Hard.  Or off the trail (Trail-fall-off three).

8) Ditto wet plants. Trail-fall-off number one.

9) Always move the thin vines away with your hands.  If you don’t, they will wrap around your neck and choke you like a dog that, running full force after a cat (or a baboon) that has reached then end of its chain.

10) There is no shame in sliding anywhere on your butt.  Frankly, the field assistants would rather I do this than pull me out of a ravine.  Again.

11) Don’t walk too close to Issa.  Issa likes to grab branches as he walks and then let them go.  They will whip back and hit you in the face (or the eye).  Give him at least 5 feet.

12) Avoid putting all your faith (or your weight) on a log or a vine.  Just because it looks solid or attached, doesn’t mean it is.

13) Don’t touch that plant that makes your skin burn when you do.  I have yet to figure out what plant this is.

So far these rules have only been minorly helpful.

* This blog site insists in turning number 8 into a smiley face with sunglasses.  I have decided to acquiesce.