Subject: My brother the NYT blogger
From: "Alexander Snyder-Mackler" <[email-masked]>
To: "Alexander Snyder-Mackler" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 23 Sep 2010 15:41:39 -0400

The last paragraph, I believe, best sums up where our desires can differ.
(click the link for pics)

http://scientistatwork.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/09/22/onward-to-ethiopia-and-gelada-monkeys/#more-3429

[image: Scientist at Work - Notes From the
Field]<http://scientistatwork.blogs.nytimes.com/>

  September 22, 2010, 5:39 pm Onward to Ethiopia, and Gelada Monkeys By NOAH
SNYDER-MACKLER<http://scientistatwork.blogs.nytimes.com/author/noah-snyder-mackler/>

*Friday, Sept. 17*

Addis Ababa is like any American city, but some things have been lost in
translation: the Starbucks isn’t quite Starbucks, and all of the vehicles
aren’t quite vehicles. I get overwhelmed with the crowds, the noises and the
diesel fumes, so when it comes to Ethiopia — I’m not a city boy — I try to
minimize my time in Addis. The locals here would call me a “Gondari,” a
northern country boy. Unfortunately I had some official business to take
care of before I could head up to my field site.

My research focuses on the evolution of social behavior in a gregarious
primate, the gelada. Geladas, endemic to Ethiopia, are not only the only
grazing primate, but they are also found in some of the largest social
groups of any nonhuman primate (on occasion we have seen more than 1,000
individuals at the same site). Our field site is situated in the extremely
remote, stunningly beautiful Simien Mountains National Park (a series of
cliffs, plateaus and mountains situated in the highlands of northern
Ethiopia). The park is a 15-hour drive north of Addis Ababa and nowhere near
electricity, cellphone or the Internet.

View Larger Map<http://maps.google.com/maps?q=simien+mountains+ethiopia&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&ie=UTF8&hl=en&hq=Semien+Mountains+National+Park&hnear=Semien+Mountains+National+Park,+North+Gondar,+Amhara,+Ethiopia&cid=5371251043312328265&ll=11.005904,38.166504&spn=7.543735,10.546875&z=6&source=embed>

Doing research in a foreign country requires governmental permission in the
form of letters and permits of all sorts: a necessary evil. In Ethiopia, the
government offices that distribute, sign and stamp the forms are all located
in Addis Ababa. This can take anywhere from two days to two weeks. Around
our lab we like to call this the “farengi Olympics” — farengi being the
Ethiopian word for foreigner — because we have to run, jump and climb our
way to different offices all over the city.

I only had to get two things while I was in Addis: a resident’s permit and
an Ethiopian driver’s license — the former so I could open a bank account,
the latter to drive legally. I received a gold medal in the resident’s
permit event:
it took me two days to get a letter of support from Ethiopian Wildlife, copy
my passport/visa, get those forms signed, stamped and signed again, get a
picture taken and, finally, get the permit in my hand. For the two
colleagues who came before me, this took at least three days. They were the
trailblazers.
Noah Snyder-Mackler At Kaldi’s, Ethiopia’s Starbucks.

I spent five months in Ethiopia last year and learned enough Amharic (the
national language) to function. After 15 months in the United States, my
Amharic is a bit rusty. Nevertheless, I have found out that a little Amharic
goes a long way. The shop owners and restaurant servers are pleasantly
surprised when they see a farengi butchering their language when ordering a
“meat and cheese and bread” (cheeseburger). This makes me feel a little less
like a tourist and a little more like a Habasha (Ethiopian).

After two days in Addis, my transition from farengi to Habasha is complete
and I have my resident’s permit and driver’s license to prove it. I hop on a
rickety prop plane for the flight from Addis to Gondar. Gondar is not your
standard Ethiopian city. As the capital of the early Ethiopian Empire, it
can best be described as Africa’s Camelot, complete with castles, fancy
horses and unpaved roads. While the flight takes a measly 45 minutes,
driving on the one-and-a-half-lane pothole-ridden road from Addis to Gondar
can take anywhere from two to four days — longer if there is a diesel
shortage. At the airport my three colleagues from the University of
Michigan, Clay, David and Eila, are waiting to pick me up. It is nice to see
such familiar faces. We have a hotel booked for the night so we can spend
the day taking the project’s truck to the mechanic and purchasing our
supplies for the coming month.

I’m anxious. I am so close to seeing my long-lost gelada monkeys that I
can’t sleep. I stay up part of the night talking to my family and girlfriend
at home, this being the last time I will be able to speak with them on the
phone for another few weeks. After a few hours of tossing and turning, I
fall asleep to the sound of street dogs barking outside my window. Tomorrow,
only a four-hour dirt-road drive separates me from the mountains and the
monkeys.

It’s good to be back.

-- 

Alexander Snyder-Mackler
(302) 598-867