Media and society often picturize reseachers working under extreme conditions as hereos or some sort of idol, that everyone should be like.
Let me relieve you from this pressure and explain why it could be even more fulfilling to see exotic places on your TV when sitting on the sofa.
Last year from July to December 2021 and this year from April to May 2022 I had the chance to work in tropical Africa. Namely, in joined a small mammal sampling mission and worked as field veterinarian for the Tai Chimpanzee Project in Ivory Coast. This sounds like an awesome experience and yes, it was awesome when I look back now.
However, at the time when I was in the field it was often very hard and much more challenging then everything I had done before. I often thought: "This amazing nature, animals and people are not worth sacrificing so many things I loved at home. It would be fine for me to see all this on my cozy sofa in TV."
Arriving In A Francophon Country With No French -
Communication Problems And Culture Shock
I guess, you know this: When you take your first breath outside on the gangway on the aiport of arrival, every country has its distinct smell: Ivory Coast smells really humid, sweet and a bit fruity. With this first breath of African air I ever took I also felt the heat on my whole body. That moment I did not know yet how crazy this time would be.
Along our way from the gangway through the farely well organized visa office and border control, through baggage claim with huge rice packages and other weird looking parcels to finally meeting our local collabartors that would bring us to our hotel, there was a shift from consistently decreasing international ariport feeling to increasing Ivorian feeling: Things are just done in a more spontanious, improvised way. Nobody really cares whether things are done perfectly. They are done according to what people feel like doing: If they are motivated they might stop all your luggage and ask for import permits. If not they don't care about your luggage even if you have 20 big packages, suitcases and boxes. Actually, this is really cool and relaxed but also nothing I was used to.
This was to be continued: The traffic was crazy and wild, the heat and humidity were extreme and then there was this weird language, which was supposed to be French. With the three words of French I knew I understood nothing. This unability to communicate was one of my biggest struggles because I love to connect and understand people. So, at the same time it was an excellent motivation to learn quickly! Luckily, I met few people that were really eager to teach me like our lovely cook Alice.
What I really loved about the Ivorians is that they have a really vital and vivid way of expressing themselves ((808) À toi de décider - Épisode 1 - YouTube). They "scream and shout and let it all out", absolutely in the truest sense of Mecklemore's words. All in all, they do give a fuck on what other poeple think more than we do and this seems to promote one thing: Their mental health is excellent and, for me, it feels like that Western Countries are not healthier in general: Our mental health as declined to the extent of what we managed to improve our physiscal health. Problems shifted from a physical to a mental level.
Ivorian lifestyle and mentatlity are truely different towhat I was used to so that it took a long time to build connections with locals. The lesson for me was, that it needs a lot of patience, tolerance and proactivity to make friends when you are so different to all the people:
This was extremely challenging and I really missed my partner Kim and my friends! In the end, it was an invaluable lesson for me personally to understand even more how difficult the situation of immigrants at home is.
Accepting A Lower Standard Of Living, Health And Leisure Activities
Life changes at lot when comparing Germany, Ivory Coast and then "the forest". For things you get you have to sacrifice many more. Fortunately, over time you get used to not having luxury and this minimalistic way of living calms you down mentally but also is great physical stress. Later on, I will follow up with a video on what we can learn from chimpanzees about relaxing.
Category | Living in Germany | Living in Ivory Coast | Living in the forest of Tai NP |
|---|---|---|---|
Basic physical needs | | | |
Food availaibilty and quality | Good quality for little money; Straweberrys in Decmber and basically everything you are dreaming of | In Abidjan (the biggest city) you could get European food for 3 times the price of Europe. We usually buy cans and dried stuff for ourfield trips. Apart from that you get a really limited selection. Belly pain is an everyday issue-  | The driver of the project gets things of this really limited list. But you never know whether you get the things or not...  |
Water availabilty and quality | Amazing quality everywhere | Tab water is no drinking water, bottled water available at most small shops | Filtered rain and well water to drink. no running water to wash |
Medical sercives | Amazing | European standard in Abidjan; Apart from that, basic health care | If you get ill, it will take a day to leave the forest and arrive at an hospital. |
Safety | Amazing | Well, you feel save most of the time. | Everybody knows each other, so it is safe, but sometimes things disappear |
Sunrays | A bit little in winter, but the sun storage is filled sufficiently in summer | Too strong ;D | Nearly no sun! You turn super pale after a year in the forest. |
Sports | Anything you want | Well, street football, volleyball, thats it. | Your work. Thats it.  |
| | | |
Basic social needs | | | |
Leisure activities | Anything | Going to a bar or a playstore (a disco with really bad speakers and DJ) | Reading when it is not dark yet; Offline Movies if they have not expired yet |
Social acitivities | Anything | Talk to your colleagues  | Same |
Physical demands | Little, apart from sport | still the same | Walking, swetting and being dirty all day, 5 days a weak |
Nature | mostly controlled by humans | many plantations | untouched and partly super dense rain forest  |
Climate | a bit cold in the winter, warm in the summer, four different seasons | dry and wet season, really humid and much too hot in dry season | The forest cools everything down a lot but is super humid and you swet all the time |
Being in these environments for a long time uses up your reservoirs and you loose a lot of weight. Truely, this is something you do when you are young for some a limited amount of time. I can really understand the words of my supervisor, who spend years in the forest when he was doing his PhD:
"When my feet are hurting because I'm not used to the long distances anymore, and when I get up in the morning from that moldy mattress, I do think that time is over." Fabian Leendertz, my supervisor (in: This wildlife vet tracks deadly microbes in the African jungle. Now, he's on the trail of COVID-19 | Science | AAAS)
The Great Things
Being honest also involves to point out how unique and live-changing this experience was! I will never ever forget being in the forest of Tai National Park. The noisy background bird and cicade songs, screaming monkeys and the annoying shout of the Calao hornbill. The grean leaf cover, the giant trees and all the weird fruits on the floor. Especially amazing was the time I was spending with the chimpanzees: They are so much like we are. So vivid, without worries, relaxed and happy! It is such an amazing planet we live on and we are part of it!
An honor to Nature Video- and Photographers
These guys are in extreme conditions just capturing all these great things for us, so we can enjoy them on the sofa. After having seen the chimpanzees in Ivory Coast I can tell you, documentarys on them are really really realistic. They take you right into the highlights of what you see when you are there. The most spectacular seconds are filtered out of days of waiting for them.
So, what would be best to do?
There are still places with untouched, precious nature. However, there number is decreasing. If planning to travel: Ask yourself for the why, ask yourself whether is helps the place to be preserved for future generations. Honestly, experiencing some of these places will help you not only to know a place but to love it: We can only love what we know. We can only save what we love.
At some point you will be able to deduct from these in-person experiences to scenes in documentaries. Our brain is amazingly good at doing this. This is my personal experience and it really works! This a point where your answer might change and you might not have to travel any more to enable your children and the children of them to still really get to love our precious planet.
Are you interested in going deeper?
There is much much more to tell. If you want to learn more about Africa and my experiences text me on social media or here.
From now on, you may enjoy nature documentaries with the knowledge that they really show realistically how a place is and that we are able to get to know these places properly even when we are not there!
an interesting and important thought ... not having to personally visit all the beautiful or interesting places in the world. Unfortunately, there are numerous examples of "pioneers" doing this with the best of intentions, thus stimulating forms of mass tourism that threaten or destroy the beauty and uniqueness of these very places (e.g. Reinhold Messner in the Himalayas). We should not allow ourselves, just because we can afford it financially, to "conquer" the remotest places on earth out of pure love of adventure ...
However, there are two sides to the problem: Forms of tourism often represent an essential source of income for the local population.