Did I mention that it is hot here? It is really really hot! It must be getting up into the 100s on some days. When I walk in the sun I feel like I am in a sauna. Luckily my work is in the forest where there is shade. However, in any of the developed areas there are no large trees and no shade. It seems to be a habit of some Communist countries to cut down all the large trees when they do any major development (at least that is the case in Laos and much of Vietnam). I guess it is just easier that way (?) but it is very uncomfortable. In the shade it is 10-20 degrees cooler. At night it cools down a bit and in the morning it is generally cool until around 10 am. From 11 to 4 pm it is stifling! Okay so you get it is hot here.. moving on..

I was pretty disturbed to find several trees in gibbon group A's home range have been cut down for rattan. Apparently the whole tree has to be sacrificed in order to get the rattan shoots. What a bummer.

Beautiful flowering epiphyte

This butterfly loves my boots

Notes in Lao.. We translate them at the end of the day. Lao and Thai have a similar alphabet that is very pretty but incomprehensible to me.

View from the road

Back at the village, the guys help with the construction of new houses along the road.

As my work here nears its end, every day seems longer than the one before. Being apart from family and maintaining a long distance relationship has been very hard. It is not something I will be signing up to do again and would not recommend it! It doesn’t help that the Naiban’s wife every time I see her asks me “Where is your husband?” and “Where is your baby?” (In Lao). It is simply unheard of for a woman who is almost 30 to be single in a foreign land walking around in the forest. The villagers are always worried about me. They think it is too dangerous for a woman to be out in the forest. They tell me they are worried about me a lot. It is quite touching actually but I don’t know why they are so worried when they are in and out of the forest all the time. The Naiban’s wife kindly invited me, my husband, and babies to come back and stay with them anytime. Once the road is finished, that is actually a possibility in the future.