...when our car broke down and we all...

Please excuse the delay in posting.  I was sick with the stomach flu for the better part of a week, and since then, as you'll read in my next post, I have been extremely busy.  The day before I came down with the stomach flu, though, was so Israeli.

The night before, I got a call asking if I'd like to go down to the Negev to help with the vulture project.  Everyone in the lab had been talking about vulture field work and how it is the field experience to have.  I didn't have classes, and I knew they needed help, so I decided to go along.

The next morning we left Jerusalem around 10am.  We drove down in two cars: the old jeep, and the new pick-up truck.  The jeep had already been retired, but we got permission to take it out once last time--we were nine people and lots of equipment.  The pick-up had just been initiated a few days before.  We had a pretty easy drive down; we made one quick stop to pick up pita, hummus, and veggies for lunch (so Israeli).  A little after noon, right on schedule, we pulled off the road and onto the dirt path (well, not really a path and not really dirt--the previous days' rain had left huge puddles throughout the desert-scape), and began the 15 minute drive to the research site (open only to researchers and a few nature preserve officers who feed the vultures).


As soon as we passed through the gate to the study site, the jeep stopped.  For no reason.  And we couldn't get it to start again. It was so Israeli when we decided to just grab all the gear from the jeep, put it in the back of the pick-up, and then jump in the back too (the cab was full already).  I guess to us, it didn't seem like such a bad idea to be off-roading in the back of an open pick-up.  We would just have to deal with the jeep on the way out of the study site.  We transferred all the gear and a few people started to jump in the back of the truck, but before we drove, someone decided to give the jeep one last try.  It started, that time, but the people already in the back of the truck stayed.  It was quite funny (and a bit scary) driving behind the pick-up and watching my lab-mate and the gear bounce around.

We made it safe and sound to the study site, though, parked the cars in their places, and began unloading gear.  Everyone had a job.  Some people built up the study site, some people counted and surveyed the caught vultures, some people cut up our veggies and made a nice lunch spread on the back of the pick-up (so Israeli), and I got a crash course in data-entry.  I was in charge of keeping the excel spreadsheet (in Hebrew) updated.  Over the past three or four days, vultures had been attracted to a large enclosure stocked with food (read carcasses) in a location that was normally used as a feeding site (without an enclosure).  Once the vultures entered the enclosure, they couldn't leave on their own.  We then came, took them out one-by-one or two-by-two and recorded all sorts of information about each bird.  I was in charge of the recording.


As the afternoon progressed and we were taking out more and more vultures, Hebrew number and colors (details on the ID bands and tags) were being yelled out from all directions.  I had such a hard time keeping the numbers and colors straight because I heard them in Hebrew and had to record them in English within the framework of a Hebrew spreadsheet.  There were definitely occasions where I wrote the Hebrew color in the spreadsheet in English letters and didn't even realize.  Aside from ID tags and rings, I recorded weight, age, and technological specifications for the GPS transmitters. I was also in charge of collecting feather (from which DNA can be extracted). Then the birds' wingspans were photographed and released.
It was amazing to be part of the ringing effort.  I can't even explain what it felt like to be so close to such a strong and powerful bird, holding it down, taking feathers, watching it fly off into the distance.  It was an unreal (and slightly very stinky) experience!

We put in a good 4+ hours of work and finished just as the sun was setting.  As if on cue, the rain clouds that had been threatening all day burst, first into a drizzle while we were breaking down the study site, and then into a heavy desert storm.  It was magnificent to see.

Getting ready to release on of the vultures

It was a bit less magnificent to drive in.  We made it out of the field a bit muddy but all in one piece and drove for about an hour before stopping to have dinner (more pita and hummus and olives, so Isareli) in a gas station parking lot/rest area (also so Israeli)  Right as we pulled off the highway towards the gas station, the jeep  went dead, we coasted to the shoulder and sat just a stone's throw from the gas station.  We were in dire need of gas, but lucky for us, that wasn't the problem.  It was the same problem as in the field: an unexplained one that corrected itself after five or so minutes of sitting.  After our sit, we tried to and successfully started the car; we made it to the gas station, refueled, and waited for the pick-up so we could all eat together.

We ate a quick Israeli dinner and the headed back to Jerusalem.  I drove the last leg of the ride in the jeep, and as it turns out, that was the jeep's last field trip, so I was the last official driver!  We got home safely, and I am even starting to know my way home.  I really took it for granted that I know my way around in Deerfield, Chicago, Champaign-Urbana, and a number of other places.  Learning a new place is hard.  It was a great day, though, and it left me excited for my next field outing and a chance to drive the new, big pick-up.

..we day drank in the lab...

Some of you might think that I am confusing America with Israel.  On American college campuses, day drinking in a huge thing.  It usually happens at bars, in apartments, or in other venues not associated with the university.  Here in Israel, we do day drinking a little bit differently.

Not once, but twice this week we had day drinking experiences.  One was organized. the other, less so.  Let's start with the less so.  We (the department of Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior) had just finished our weekly meeting.  Each week, a guest lecturer comes and presents to our department. These meetings are accompanied by coffee and cookies (so Israeli) and afterwards, we all usually go our separate ways for about a half hour before reconvening for lunch.

After this week's lecture, though, we (our lab, not the whole department) decided to make a toast.  A visiting researcher from the Czech Republic had brought us a bottle of Becherovka herbal bitters a few months back, and another Czech researcher was coming to visit later in the week, so the time had come to drink the bottle.  We wouldn't want to slight our collaborators by shunning their generous gift.  So we all gathered around in a circle in the lobby of our building at one in the afternoon with mugs and cups (we don't use disposables in our lab) and made a toast: "To finishing grant proposals!"  Spontaneous drinking was a nice treat and a good way to bond.  We plan to reconvene again the day before grant recipients are published (and hopefully again after).

This wasn't the first time that we did a bit of day drinking.  At the end of last year, in honor of grants received and awards won, we had a toast with wine in our department, and we had another this year to kick it off.  These were both classy events: a small cup of wine for a worthy toast.

Today's organized drinking, though, was not so refined.  The whole School of Biology had a beginning of the year kick-off with beer for students and professors.  There was hardly even a speech (unlike at the department toasts).  Instead there was free beer (a cup--not Solo Red--a person), snacks, and even a sax player.  Who would have thought that twice in one week we (my lab/all of biology/professors/30+-year-old PhD students) would take a break, just for fun, and have a drink in the middle of the day.

People always ask me if college in America is like the movies, and I usually say yes.  Israel isn't doing too badly either, though!

...I tried to figure out what it meant to be a...

There are some key differences between students in Israel and students in America.  There are also some key similarities.  Most interestingly, there are key differences between me as a student in America and me as a student in Israel.  I don't know if I am so Israeli  or so American..

Additions will be made as they come up.