Week One

The first week went by very quickly. Almost immediately I fell into the routine of living on the reserve. I would wake up at about 6:15, shower, and eat some breakfast (usually oatmeal). While eating at the farmhouse, most of the other mole-ratters would filter in and we would slowly make it to the lab by seven to start the day. My days in the lab involved a lot of time spent with the others one-on-one to learn new skills.

I learned how to do the different types of observations (Scans and focals), pregnancy checks, how to enter things into the database, how to get urine samples, and helped with a few blood samples.I was given a checklist with skills to learn and by the first week I made a healthy dent into the list. By the end of the week I was doing scan observations almost independently, but with someone else in the room just in case.

10 Block, the group of rooms where I'm staying

During the breaks, I slowly figured out how to feed myself, alternating between eating dinner leftovers from the night before and making simply dishes with the few ingredients I had purchased and the communal food supplies. I didn’t really start experimenting until the next week, but I did help finish off a lot of leftovers.

Holding a 3 month old pup! 

I also spent more time with non mole-rat volunteers and getting to know the other people on the reserve. There are currently a little over 30 people, from all over the world. Most of us are all around the same age, between 20’s and 30’s. Most of the volunteers have bachelor's degrees and are in between that and further education. There are also some masters and Ph.D students, and a couple post-docs (post Ph.D).

I did go on a walk with a few people one day, but other than that I didn’t not spend much time exploring the reserve. Figuring out where everything is in the farmhouse and mole rat lab was enough to do.

I also had my first ventures into the garden behind the lab building. I had heard about its existence before coming here, and had been warned about its neglected state. My first goal was to figure out what was still growing there, and try to make a dent in some of the weeds that had accumulated. I found a couple massively overgrown tomato plants, to the point where I couldn’t actually tell how many plants there were. There was also some mint, and a relatively healthy looking rosemary bush of moderate size. I read up a bit on how to prune tomato plants and started the procedure, only doing a little at a time.

Armoured Cricket (Acanthoplus discoidalis)

The other big discovery in the garden was the infestation of armoured crickets. They are absolutely MASSIVE, but really neat looking. They are sort of blue-ish green, with small orange eyes and very large, squishy abdomens. Apparently they can bite, but of the hundred or so I’ve picked up I have yet to be bitten. The problem was that they were feasting on the tomatoes. In the middle of the large tomato plant, there were at least 50 or so crickets. Luckily, during the second week, I learned how to deal with them!