Monkeypox Office at Night

In this photo, I am preparing the notes from the day's work, during a long field trip in Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo) to study human habits in relationship to the rodents found around the villages and agricultural areas. Because there was no electricity where I worked, lighting was limited to kerosene lanterns.

The large notebook mapped out the location of nests, and distance from a point along a transect, of the rope squirrels that we were studying. Due to many variables, the time spent in an single location was too short to learn actual density of the squirrels, but this was a quick way to get relative density indications for various areas that I studied.

The folding table belonged to our team and was the "office." This photo was taken outdoors, in front of the main house of the village chief. Like other local activities such as cooking, relaxing, working, and visiting, my study was not done in a hut. Mud huts were primarily for sleeping and for escaping the torrential equatorial rains.

One of the things not seen was my audience. The people -- adults, kids, and assorted dogs and chickens hung around to see what I was doing. They would quietly talk, work, or play and keep me company, partially as a favor. In the culture, being alone was anathema. And I was a stranger, doing strange, and unfathomable things, that would be talked about for years. I always had onlooking eyes, even here in the soft nighttime air under the stars.