The Condom Tree

Every year in August, a Japanese university rents out our site and our services. Twenty Japanese undergraduates descend upon the center with their faculty supervisor for a crash course in rainforest ecology. They come armed with boundless enthusiasm, trigger happy fingers on digital cameras (to the disappointment of stereotype bashers everywhere), a smattering of English, and an excellent sense of humor.

At first, I didn’t know what to expect from the Japanese students. We received their student photos in advance to assist with learning their names, and every single one of them looked like a prison mug shot.

But the reality could not have been more different. The students were enthusiastic and incredibly fun to hang out with. They tried to teach us Japanese as we tried to teach them science. Hilarity usually ensued.

One afternoon, Tim, our plant ecology faculty, and I were taking the students on a botanical walk through Wongabel forest, an intact Mabi rainforest fragment not far from the center. We walked through the rainforest while Tim highlighted certain tree species, giving interesting tidbits about their ecology, function, and uses. Several times, he picked up a fallen rainforest fruit from the ground, such as a candlenut or Davidson plum, and then gave it to me to hold while what seemed like the entire group took several pictures each.

modelling black bean seeds

Halfway through the walk, Tim stooped to pick up a walnut-sized fruit and, holding it up to the students, said, “This is a quandong seed, from the quandong tree.”

The students exchanged startled looks of pure glee. Surpressed giggles snuck out from behind hands and pursed lips.

“Condom tree?” one brave student asked in accented English. Tim’s eyebrows shot up.

“No no! Quan-dong,” Tim tried to clarify. He then pointed to a conveniently placed plaque next to the trail which gave the species name for the quandong. As the students saw the name in writing, there were several “ohh,” noises and, one sensed, a bit of disappointment.

As we proceeded to move through the dense green forest, Tim pointed to the ridges on the quandong seed and said to me, “Look, this one’s ribbed.”

Jungle Jill Phone Home?

Keeping in touch with friends and family halfway across the world can be a difficult thing, even with today’s assortment of telecommunications technologies. Here in Tropical North Queensland, I’m 9073 miles and fourteen time zones away from the midwestern United States I call home. The time difference makes catching people at appropriate times difficult, to say nothing of the thirty-seven numbers I have to dial in order to phone someone back home. Add to that the various challenges of calling from a field school in the rainforest, and a relatively simple task turns into an erratic crusade.

This morning, calling my good buddy Jamie is my mission. I awake shortly after sunrise to a cacophony of rainforest birds, an interesting morning soundtrack including the raucous screech of the sulphur-crested cockatoo, the dainty whistle of the Australian king parrot, and the futuristic trill of the chowchilla, which has an extraordinary resemblance to a Star Wars laser battle. I walk from my staff cabin – ok, trailer - in the woods to the main offices, classroom, and general gathering area of the school, eat some breaky (Aussies like to shorten every word they can), and grab my phone book. As I am about to pick up the office phone, though, I notice the light that indicates our spare line is already in use. We strive to keep the main line of the school open for incoming business, so I would have to wait for one of my coworkers to finish his call.

I’m horrible at waiting.

After a good twenty minutes of frustrated impatience, a superb idea strikes me: the student phone line! The students are currently travelling on mid-semester break, so it’s sure to be open.

With a renewed bounce in my step, I grab my phone book, leave the offices, and walk around to the small alcove that houses the student phone. Brilliant. I pick up the cordless handset, turn it on, and begin the marathon dialing sequence. First, the toll-free 1-300 number of my “Say G’day” calling card.

I push the one. Nothing happens. I push it harder, and get the strident tone that indicates the number has registered. Ok, next the three. My finger pauses above a mangled button, and I recall former students complaining that a white-tailed rat, a rainforest rodent that can be the size of a medium-sized cat, had chewed the number off the phone.

I push the mangled rubber, and when silence greets me, I push harder. My ministrations elicit a double beep, registering the number twice. Gah! I hang up and start over. This time, I get to the fifth number before the curmudgeony old phone double registers another number. I try again. After several more attempts, I begin to get a feel for the exact pressure the numbers need to register only once, and in my overconfidence, I miss the eight and dial a five. I start anew, but the rat-chewed three foils me again.

Thirty-seven buttons is starting to sound quite daunting.

Finally, on what must be my 938th try, I correctly dial the phone card company number, select “one” for English (thank goodness it’s not “three”), and enter my ten digit PIN. I refer to my phone book to enter Jamie’s cell number, and in my haste and excitement to have made it this far, I forget to enter the country code to call the USA from Australia. Oblivious, and quite anxious as I approach a three in the final four digits, I successfully enter Jamie’s number and give an inner “hoorah!” when the phone starts to ring.

“Hello?” a deep male voice answers in a mysterious accent that I can at least identify as “not American.”

I freeze. This, clearly, is not Jamie. But who is it? Could this be a new friend of Jamie’s? Is this a practical joke? Should I ask if Jamie is nearby?

As I confusedly ponder these questions, I realize that it’s been an uncomfortably long time since the man answered the phone.

I panic and hang up on the guy.

Defeated, I sigh. What went wrong? I replay my actions, unable to identify my misstep. Then it hits me…the country code!

Briefly wondering where in the world the man I just called resides and what activity I interrupted only to promptly hang up on him, I attack the temperamental phone again. After only starting over four times due to misdials, the line is ringing once more.

“Hello?” a clear, cheerful voice answers, unmistakably Jamie’s.

“Do you have any idea how hard it just was for me to call you?” I greet her affectionately.

But of course, with old friends, the effort is always worth it.

The Tale of the Unflushable Poo

“Hey Jill, do you still have to pee?” Lizzie called down the office hall.

Somewhat perplexed as to why my need to urinate would concern her, I responded in the affirmative.

“Well, um, can I ask you a question about going to the bathroom?” Lizzie asked, her voice carrying a mix of amusement and reluctance. Intrigued, I rose out of my chair and poked my head out of my office to find Lizzie standing outside of the open bathroom door.

“Of course,” I responded, always game to engage in potty conversation.

“Well, I just went, and there are some stragglers…” Lizzie trailed off, struggling to find the appropriate way to voice her request. My mind instantly recalled both our desire to minimize flushes, saving water, and my own past experience with that particular toilet’s poo flushing ability. I drew the only logical conclusion.

“So there’s a little turdball still in there?” I asked. Sometimes a buoyant floater escaped the first flush.

“Yes, but not quite so little.”

“And you’d like me to see if it flushes after I go to the bathroom?”

“Yes.”

“Ok,” I cheerily agreed, and shut the door to do my business. I’ll admit, I was a little uneasy about Lizzie’s turd already residing in the bowl, but I put it out of my mind and emptied my bladder.

Unfortunately, when I pushed the flush lever, only a small trickle of water drained from the tank into the bowl. Then I recalled the water pressure problem that plagued the center’s faucets that day. We had a dribble, at best. Shoot! I’d have to find Lizzie pronto to discuss further options, before the next person walked in and thought it was my poo casually floating in the bowl.

I opened the bathroom door. “Lizzie!” I hollered down the hall. No response. I walked the short distance to her office. Empty. Was I going to have to deal with the disposal of her poo on my own?

I returned to the scene of the crime, and listened for sounds of a happily filling tank. No such luck. At this rate, it’d be an hour before another flush attempt could be made.

“Did it work?” Lizzie’s voice carried down the hall. Relief flooded me. She was back!

“Uh, no. There’s no water to flush it.”

“Ohh! Hmm. Well, we could try to bucket flush it with my reserves,” Lizzie suggested. A good suggestion, except for the tiny swish of water in her Nalgene that constituted her reserves. She walked in and dumped it into the bowl. Predictably, there was no appreciable change.

“No, we have to fill the tank to bucket flush,” I said.

“No, you fill the bowl,” Lizzie responded.

“What good would that do?” I asked.

“It pushes it all down!”

“But you need the force and motion of the water coming down from the tank for it to work.”

“Well when we bucket flushed in Peru, we put it in the bowl.”

“Maybe that worked for the toilets there, but I’ve bucket flushed in Kentucky, and we put it into the tanks.”

By now, our giggle-spattered argument was getting quite noisy. Tim, passing by on important center business, I’m sure, poked his head in the bathroom.

“What’s going on guys?” he innocently inquired. We related to him our current predicament.

“Yeah, I think I’ve bucket flushed by putting water into the bowl, but I don’t have much experience, I mean, I’m like a bucket flushing…not a virgin…,” Tim paused, searching for the right word.

“A novice?” I suggested.

“Yes! I’m a bucket flushing novice,” Tim confirmed and carried about his business, leaving Lizzie and I to dispose of her turd and squabble about the methods of bucket flushing.

Unable to see an immediate solution, I took a cue from Tim and headed back to my office. Afterall, it wasn’t the fruit of my intestines that was causing the problem.

“So what should we do? I have to go to class!” Lizzie said, following me down the hall.

“Um, we could just let the tank fill up. And shut the door,” I helpfully suggested.

“Ok, good idea! I’ve got to go!” Lizzie said, heading out of the offices. A moment later, she appeared at my window. “If I started a bucket filling up in the utility sink, could you watch it for me?”

“Ahkay,” I responded, making a mental note to actually check the bucket before it began overflowing as Lizzie went over to the utility sink.

“Oh, this water actually works!” Lizzie exclaimed. She was soon again at my window, this time with a full bucket of water. “Can I pass this through to you? I need to go to class!”

I took the bucket as she scampered off to the classroom and made my way back to the bathroom. I briefly considered which bucket flushing method I would employ, but figured if I was left flushing someone else’s poo, I could use whatever method I wanted. So I pulled the cover off the tank and filled it with the water, which had a rather murky quality to it as a result of the rain and water problems. After filling the tank to the water line and sending up a quick prayer to the toilet gods, I pushed the flush lever and hoped to soon be rid of my friend’s turd.

The toilet flushed healthily, sending a gush of sediment-filled brown water spiraling around the bowl and down the drain. This was it, the moment of truth. I peered into the bowl and saw nothing but brown water. No turd was visible, but then, it could just be well camouflaged. Still, I felt my job was done. Out of sight, out of mind, they say.

With Lizzie at Devil's Pool (and some creative sign alteration)

Down Under Where?!

My parents are renowned for their lack of geographic knowledge. For example, when I was younger and living in Ohio, my dad told me I couldn’t go to Arkansas with my friend’s family because he didn’t want me driving all the way across the desert. Momentarily flummoxed, I soon realized he was mixing up Arkansas and Arizona. Once he learned we weren’t traveling across the country, he let me go.

More recently, when I told my mom I was going to New Mexico with my college’s Outdoor Club, she asked, “Is that in the United States?”

Around the same time, my brother Brian and his then-fiancé Lisa decided to honeymoon in Whistler, Canada, after their winter wedding. Naturally, my dad didn’t know where this was. I think the conversation went something like this:

Dad: Where’s Whistler?
Brian: It’s above Washington.
Dad: Washington!? I don’t want you flying around the capital, what with the terrorists and all.
Mom: No, Dave, Washington D. C. isn’t in the state of Washington!
Dad: Oh, it’s not? Then what state is it in?
Mom: (Brief pause) Huh, I don’t know!

Considering they still haven’t mastered their own country, I guess it’s asking a lot for them to be familiar with Australia. Still, my dad has provided some priceless gems since I decided to come here:

Dad: What countries border Australia?

Dad: So what language do they speak in Australia?
Jill: …English.
Dad: Oh. Because you know, in Germany, they speak German.
Jill: Yes, that’s true, they do.
Dad: Is Germany by Australia?
Jill: Dad!

Dad: The Sound of Music was on tv last night. That’s a beautiful country.
Jill: Oo, I love that movie.
Dad: Is that where you are?
Jill: No, Dad, that’s Austria!

After 8 months, though, I think they finally have it figured out. In case you're curious, I live in the upland rainforests near Cairns in a place called the Atherton Tablelands.

Over the past century, large portions of the rainforest on the Tablelands have been cleared for logging, agriculture, and settlement. As a result, the remaining rainforest is highly fragmented. There are several excellent local groups, comprised largely of dedicated and amiable senior citizens, involved in replanting rainforest trees and creating forested corridors to connect the remnant patches. They do amazing work; in the past 3 years alone, one group has planted over 40,000 rainforest trees. We volunteer with the groups once a week, and I always enjoy getting dirty, chatting with the locals, and contributing to the restoration effort.

Much of the rainforest in the area is listed under the Wet Tropics World Heritage Area, meaning that the area has "outstanding universal value" due to its exceptional beauty, high diversity of plants and animals, and cultural significance. Prior to the World Heritage designation in 1988, the area was the subject of incredible controversy between conservationists and developers. Indeed, the first environmental protests where people chained themselves to trees and lay down in front of bulldozers happened just north of where I am! Pretty cool. Good thing they did, because this place is stunning (and it now brings in a rather hefty tourist revenue).