Another on ANET before absconding the Andamans...

After the school group left, and happily we could stop ascending to the roof top of the library every 5 minutes to retrieve my light-up frisbee, the pace didn't really pick up as expected. The heat of the day, the luxurious shade of the trees and the clockwork nature of the meals at ANET caused the first 6 days to slip laxcidasically by in a waft of book reading, sketching and library dwelling. I was finally given a project to design and articulate a guided tree walk for visitors, gratutiously utilising my degree whilst tackling some botanical knowledge in the process. I loved ambling along the jungle dirt tracks and precariously climbing trees to retrive samples of their tropical leaves or inviting flowers, whilst matching

Some sort of scandent species. If I had my
booklet, I'd impress you with the Latin

their characteristics against the verbose musings of the euphuistic botanist Parkinson using an archaic dusty version of his Andaman Flora I found in the library. Researching with the abominable internet connection caused progress to venture down a less than expedidious path, but after unabatedly battling on for a week I had finally gathered all the necessary information to compile. The next step was to tackle design software PhotoShop and InDesign to edit photos and order the chaos into some sort of coherent booklet form. The deeply and divinely sarcastic Aditi from Bangalore arrived in the nick of time to share some pearls of PhotoShop wisdom whilst providing regular cutting remarks on my performance. Padi as she told me she prefers to be know to friends, which was a joyful revelation given the ostensibly harsh and mocking ambience of most of our previous interactions, helped me cut some of the photos of tree bark, boughs, leaves and flowers I'd been gathering to include in the booklet.

After 2 weeks of much toil and trouble with the seemingly nonsensical functions of Windows' maddnening malfunctioning software, I had finally finished, and was pleased with the professional look of the final product. I layered the background beautifully with the help of English art therapist Ruth's leaf prints which she had been creating to build an art library whilst volunteering to assist with ANET's launch of an art department. Her Switz husband Klas, an architect trained in Scotland where they met, had been helping construct a little tree house up in the canopy of a small banyan tree near our volunteer tent which was a fantastic and exciting achievement and venue of ensuing star gazing evenings. Before the two left for the next leg of their 6 month break from work we trudged through the jungle up Mnt. Harriet North of Port Blair, cunningly entering the national reserve under the beguiling guise of students which exultingly saved us over 9/10s on the fare.

To begin with it took some time to settle convivially into the castaway community as, besides the difficulty of pronouncing let alone remembering the plethora of unusual names of the mostly Indian cohort, the majority of researchers were embroiled in the depths of their thesis studies, dissertations or university granted investigations and so had little time or energy for engaging passers by. Supplement this with the sometimes seemingly unmannered social interactions of Indian people as perceived by the bubble wrapped, soft and blithering politeness of the English, and I felt a little isolated to begin with. However, I quickly settled in as other volunteers, interns and dive master aapirants flooded in, amd I grew accustomed to the scathing remarks from Aditi, warded off the dark and often aggressive sattire of Nitya to enjoy the the dynamics of the jungle dramas. 

Ruth, Klas and me recuperating after a grueling dive

During work on the tree guide, the days happily remained blissfully relaxed with daily yoga on the wooden boarding of the library veranda, performing diurnal sun salutations to mark the passing of each gorgeous day with the help of ship shape Canadian yoga guru Zan and her hardcore yet soothing style. Ruth, Klas, Zan and I went on a few dives to Cinque Island some 40km south to an astounding underwater universe alive with sundry scores of species darting about their daily business amongst bright coral of all shapes and colours. When out of the water, and breaking from the internet and InDesign battles, Zan and I crafted jewelry from the beautiful plumage of an unfortunate Andaman Cuckoo dashed on the road (surely nothing says enironmentally conscious like such dedicated recycling devotion), practiced yoga and desecrated our clothes with scissors to suit our rustic setting with bedraggled raiment. Some of the other 

Padi, Thitlet, me and Indu a little smug after our
ray encountees

volunteers and I verntured off on a dive less far afield a half hour boat ride from the coastal doorstep of the jungle. We swam beside an enormous manta ray even before descending into the warm depths, felicitously flapping along after the blissful beats of its enormous wings. When we descended to the sea bed we found a beautiful chamelionic colour shifting camoflaged octopus and a gargantuan blotched sting ray far bigger than me relaxing beside a rock.

 

When I'd completed the tree guide, the slightly shambolick organisation of the volunteer project left me without any idea of the location of the ANET elders, let alone any further projects to take up, and so I began helping French-Indian Cammie with a mangrove fauna data collecting project, with the help of the new volunteer and slightly soporific Nick from Leeds. This was made all he more fun due to the timing of our morning endeavours coinciding with high tide which provided wet marshy, clay pits to squelch up between the toes during investigations. Plus the added bonus of wallowing in the glorious sun shine and the advancement of my tan having spent many days mostly under the canopy of the trees. It was cool being able to tag along with various researchers and volunteers helping and observing ongoing projects. Strolling onto New Wandoor at night with ANET's dedicated chefs slash Sea Krait monitors, as well as John, ANET's meek and modest longest standing affiliate whose roots are amongst the Karan people who migrated to the islands for work. He was a deep source of botanical knowledge on the islands and their flora and fauna and was leading the Sea Krait monitoring. Around

My personal favourite marrying of photo and caption.
Hung beside a close second which was a similar out
of focus, dusty shot of a grumpy looking pair in ragged
tracksuits in front of their wooden home labelled
laconically: 'A Local Couple'

this time I also had to venture to Port Blair to renew my visa for an extended 15 days. A chaotic occurence that took two attempts, tackling the 50 minute hurtling bus ride either way into the dizzying hectic hive of the costal town. It did however afford some enlightening visits to the Cellular Jail, where horrific incacerations of Freedom Figters were exercised before India's independence, which apparently warrants a tree narrating the grisly history lugubriously during a decadent but heavily dated and uninformative son et lumiere, plus a sweep through the ancient Anthropological museum which given the history of the Islands was vastly interesting to ponder, if perhaps not a little underwhelming in some displays.

During my last few days at ANET I was able to exersise one of my favourite new hobbies sketching birds of the subcontinent, and began a speices library to help visitors spot and identify 26 common birds likely to be darting through the trees around ANET. On

A Stork-Billed Kingfisher
nestled inconspicuously
in the middle of the branch

Valentine's day I also went out with some of the researchers to take part in the international Backyard Bird-watching event which had the whole world embarking on a quick count of speices in their home environment to help gather data on widespread international environments. So having completed a few various projects of my own and assisted whoever and whatever was in need in the sleepy recesses of the ANET remit, I began to pack up my things in the final week, and was getting ready to depart. Having been left very much to our own devices, which was probably a good lesson in focus and motivation, the days at ANET had been a blend of some self-imposed hard work, self-exalting diving trips to the sea bed and self-directed expeditions of discovery around the beautiful bucolic surroundings. I'd learned so much about the endemic and continental flora and fauna as well as some local history and so took a few hedonistic days off in the paradisiacal islands just North of Port Blair before I flew back to the mainland.