Vanessa's Journal

Sept. 18, 2009

Back for More

Well, I finally made it to Wolong Nature Reserve, the place I intend to stay for the next few months as I try to capture some giant pandas (for the third time). And I am now wondering how on earth I got myself back here … again. Let me try to trace my steps for you now.

I spent the better part of last week having meetings with colleagues in various cities in China, discussing our plans for this field season. May I just take a moment to say that I do not know what I ever did to deserve such great support from so many people and am now wondering how I can ever repay all of these gracious individuals who give of their time and energy for this project. It is very much a team effort and I am not sure what I am doing at the helm of this endeavor, but I will do my best to rally for the rest of the troops.

After buying some last-minute items and eating some last-minute imitation pizza (which I have to say has lost its appeal for me by now), I set out to get to Wolong. It sounded like an easy task at first, but quickly became complicated. In years past, I would just hop on a bus without a second thought, but in the post-earthquake era it is not so simple. Since the 8.0 magnitude earthquake struck just outside Wolong last year, traveling has been difficult, to say the least. This month is more complicated than usual because it has been rainy, which has caused landslides and shaken up the rocks along the road.

We ended up driving in by the usual route, but we had to get out and start hiking at one point where landslides had completely blocked the road. So we drove for about three hours and then hiked on foot for another three hours and then got into a second car to drive the last 30 minutes. Needless to say, after all of that, I’m pretty sure I am here to stay for a while. Talk about a dramatic re-entry.

I had to find some porters to carry my luggage for the hiking part. We said goodbye to the comfort of our four-wheel drive vehicles in exchange for a journey of bushwhacking through trees, rocks, and the ever-stubborn arrow bamboo to get to the next contiguous part of road. I was excited to get out and hike so early in the trip. Way to get back into shape after months of eating ice cream and sitting in front of a computer screen. It felt great during the hike, but I’m pretty sure that I will feel spectacularly sore tomorrow.

Physical exertion aside, it’s amazing how one hour spent in the serene forests here can transport you into another world. The funny part about the hike was that this increasingly worn path up and down mountains and over rocks of all sizes was like a highway for travelers going back and forth. I saw all kinds of people I had not seen since last year on the path, some of whom recognized me and did not think it at all odd for us to meet up in that way. I love it when I find that an experience is so extraordinarily unusual for me, and yet so dismissively commonplace for everyone else here. Just a day in the life of a Wolong resident.

When I got to Shawan, the main town from which I work when I am not at the field station, it was both the same and different. At first glance, some of the same people peeked out of their windows and the same rows of temporary houses stared back at me, the blue-and-white colored legacies of the earthquake. But the energy in the air was different. It felt too quiet. It felt heavy and brooding. I could see it in people’s faces when I looked closer. Even though we are now almost a year and a half out from the tragic earthquake that rocked this community (and the surrounding areas), the sense of loss is still here and is perhaps more intense as the time passes and the effects still linger.

The current time period is especially difficult because of the road conditions, which isolate this community more than usual and make it difficult for individuals to communicate with the outside world and also to make a profit from their businesses. It’s the awkward transition and the sense of anxiousness for a better future that are inherent in the recovery process make it difficult for people to keep putting one foot in front of the other here right now. I’m sure one could go to areas affected by Hurricane Katrina and see some of these same things I see here now. I hope that my time here this season will help me to better appreciate the reality of this process.

Next time I will write more about panda trapping. Right now we are trying to get all of our ducks in a row and get our gear together for our ascent up to the field station to begin picking out locations for new panda traps. Stay tuned for what I hope will be a whole new set of adventures about things like red pandas peeking at us from up in the trees or pheasant birds jumping out from behind bushes to scare us. Hopefully there will be a few giant panda encounters thrown in there too.