This is my host mom, Kak Su, holding our neighbor's little girl.
Here Makcik Su [pronounced Mah-chee, meaning "Aunt," but used for any older lady], the grandma, is splitting palm leaves to make cigarette wrappers with Mimi, another neighbor girl.
This is Makcik Lina, the local coordinator for turtles during the nesting season, helping me implant a microchip in this large female painted terrapin.
And here's the terrapin herself--what a champ!
I LOVE this picture of Atikah, my host sister, playing a game like jacks, while neighbor Leisa looks on.
Here Makcik and Pakcik ("uncle" a.k.a. the grandpa) are wholly unmoved by Atizah's extreme displeasure (she does this pretty often).
Unfortunately my camera batteries died right after I took this ONE picture of the wedding reception I attended in the village last week, but this is the throne on the porch where the couple sat to receive gifts and cut the cake (I'm noticing that it is almost impossible to take a picture without getting some random kids in it).
Finally, I saw this GIANT hymenopteran on the nesting beach where the turtles emerge to lay their eggs. Anyone know what it is?
January was a really slow month in terms of turtle work, but I have gotten very settled in, am rapidly improving my language skills, and have started volunteering at the primary school in my village teaching English to 5th and 6th graders four days a week, which I love.
Fulbright Fellow Colleen and her family are here from KL visiting Terengganu and they came over to my house for tea with my family. As usual a bunch of the neighbor kids were also around and we got a group picture (above). Colleen and Co. got lucky and came just as turtles have started to show up for the nesting season, so yesterday they were able to come see real live turtles and help release some back into the river after we collected data on them. Several of the girls that I teach, who live near my house, also came along to help me collect the data and release the turtles...
I love the looks Nazirah and the turtle on the left are giving each other in this photo.
A nice little one we measured two days ago...
All seven turtles that I have seen in the past three days have been re-captures from previous years, which is exciting because it means we are getting multiple data sets on the same individuals over time. This allows us to monitor growth and health, and to get a general idea of their movements. However it also suggests that there are probably not many individuals in the population that we have not already captured, which tells us the population is not very large. We have not obtained any eggs from local egg collectors to incubate yet, but I am hopeful that they will start coming in soon. For now, it is great to be seeing lots of turtles at last!
