July 1999
Zenzontla, Jalisco, México
Top: little four-year-old Sarahy on the patio. Her parents let Yvette,
Rodrigo, Mike and I sleep and bath at their home during our stay in
Zenzontla. Really nice people. At the time the town had just
got electricity and this family was one of the first in town to have electrical
outlets.
It was cooler outside and there wasn't room inside the house for all of
us so I slept on the patio or in the yard most nights.
I had alreay stopped caring about all of the tick, chigger, horsefly, and
mosquito bites around my ankles and wrists
We had to watch out for scorpions when we slept on the patio as well as
checking checking for them in our shoes in the morning.
Sarahy Contreras (MS University of Madison, Wisconsin), our field leader,
would come by before dawn to get us.
Bottom: This was the trail from the house to the river where we got our
fresh water. Some of our mist-netting plots were on the other side
of it.
We had to carry buckets of water up this steep rocky trail. The water was
stored and boiled (of course to prevent amoebic dysentery) before use.
We also cooled off after a long field day or did our laudry in the river.