There is something unnerving about fireworks going off right next to the runway during take-off

Slow loris foot which I tried describing last posting. Notice the cute little finger nails and then the mean claw! (Photo: Rich)

Not too much to report for my final week in Java. I wasn’t feeling all that great, so didn’t get to do nearly as much as I had been planning to do. I did get the opportunity to help out with some enrichment for the macaques at the center though, which was interesting, since we basically only had one material to be creative with, bamboo.

A couple days after I arrived at the centre, there was a large number of primates that were brought in – 16 lorises and 15 long tail macaques. The macaques went into quarantine, where they will stay until all the tests come back (for diseases and such). So in the mean time, they are grouped 1-3 individuals to an enclosure. So we made up some bamboo tubes with holes and put their food in there so they had to work a bit more to get the fruit out. It wasn’t much, but it was better and more than what they had before.

2 of the permanent resident pig tails (Photo: Rich)

There are also 4 pig tail macaques that are permanent residents – due to certain physical conditions, these macaques will never be able to be released, so we attempted another enrichment device for them, to keep them more occupied, which required them to pull a piece of rubber tubing through a hole which would allow food to drop out. This ended up getting a bit too complicated with the lack of materials and needed to be refined, which it hadn’t yet by the time I left – hopefully it will though because I think it would be a good one!

Had to go into Bogor, the nearest big city, to print off my poster for the conference in Kyoto, which ended up being a bit of a wild goose chase. Due to Ramadan and Idul Fitri just a day away (those being the answer to basically every question of “why?” this month – why are there fireworks at 3am? Why is their music coming from the mosque allllll night long? Why is there nothing open during the day and why does everywhere close so early at night? Why is there NO FOOD!). Anyways, why was the print shop closed until mid-october? That’s right. There were 2 people sitting outside of it who told us all about it being closed and then directed us to a different one. But as we pulled away, we noticed a sign for another print shop – so we popped in there, but they have to send their printing to Jakarta, so that wouldn’t work. But he gave us the name of another, and called to make sure they were open. So we decided to go to that one instead. Took us awhile to find it (Bogor is a crazy city), and by the time we found it, the rain started. And turns out this print shop didn’t even print posters! Agh! We tried waiting a bit for the rain to die down, and when it wasn’t, we just decided to go to the print shop that this last shop told us about. Again, took us awhile to find, and when we got to the area it was supposed to be, nothing was open. So after about 3 hours of going from print shop to print shop, we ended up at the one that the people at the first shop told us about and it was open and they could do it in about 30 minutes! Oh boy. So we treated ourselves to some yummy pizza – we deserved it! But the rain didn’t stop, and was just getting heavier. Since we were going by motor bike we decided to station ourselves in a coffee shop with internet until it slowed or stopped. But by 2130h, the shop had closed so we decided to make a break for it. Needless to say, we were soaking wet and I have been sneezing ever since, even as I type this.

Ran into friends at the airport in Jakarta which made the hours waiting for my flight much more enjoyable. It’s always nice to see a familiar face or three! Unfortunately, Marie and Susan couldn’t get on the same flight as me, but we are on the same flight to Osaka together (from Kuala Lumpur) and then roomies for the next week so I’m looking forward to that!

Just a quick note about the flight – regarding the title of this posting – I know it is celebration time in Indonesia, but it really is unnerving when there are fireworks going off right next to us as we were taking off! However, by the time we were over the height of the fireworks, it was very pretty – all over the city there were fireworks – quite a sight!

Beng-Beng time with Malaysia Airlines!! Mmmm!

Next stop – Japan. I am so excited – I never ever thought I would be going to Japan, so it was kind of surreal when Rich left yesterday (we have different flights going there), that I could say “see you in Kyoto!” I am especially looking forward to seeing all my monkey people I haven’t seen in ages from my undergrad at the UofC and also to see Chrissy Campbell, my howler monkey supervisor from Panama! Plus all the proboscis monkey people there it will be fabulous! I just have to think about what I want to talk to them about so this quite expensive 10 day trip ends up being worth it! I have no idea what to expect, which seems to be the theme of my summer, and I like it!

Sampai jumpa nanti Indonesia! See you next year! 

Me and Jojo - the little orphaned slow loris. Cute little guy, but remember, not a pet! As soon as he can eat solid food on his own, he'll be out of our hair (literally)