The rebellion and the big box

After three weeks of hard work, I really could have killed my supervisor that remained in Zurich. But, after a fight with blood and tears, I won and she suddenly became human!

Thus, step after step...

I started to work in the field on my first Sunday there, after have worked from the first day of my arriving. I went with Pablo to check the meteorological station. So far, so nice! (Well, we went there at 7 am... but, compared to the following days, it was like holidays!)

On Monday the stress begun: every day I wake up at 5.30 or earlier to go to la Hoya, for my field experiment. In the evening I was in the lab until late (like 8pm) because of the preparation of the following experiment and so on.. I had days of almost 14 hours of work! I was going crazy! I wrote to HER (my supervisor) to ask for a reduction of the experiments, but SHE thought that it's only a problem of organization..

Well, at this point I had three choices: 1) go back to Switzerland and kill her, 2) work every day like this for the next two months, feeling like an imported Swiss slave, 3) ask for help.

Even if the first choice was very attracting to me, I opted for the third one and wrote to (now you have to imagine the sound of trumpet, as when a national held is regressing from a war) Balti, my professor and study advisor for my master direction ecology and evolution. He wrote to HER a very strict email. First she thought she has to talk with him about that, but as she felt the pressure from me, Jaime, my tutor here in Colombia and Balti, she give up and resigned.  I think that the fact that also her Prof. was finally involved helped a lot.

Final Balance: from 5 experiments which she wanted me to do in the beginning, now I’ve had to do only two of them!

I still had to work really a lot, but I then also had some time for living Colombia, to see some places, to have social contacts!

Still an open question was, why had I to take with me this big box (just to remember you: 104cm x 55 cm x 60 cm… my little baby!) with the fog collectors. Already in Switzerland I asked HER if they are really necessary, and she said YES!

Well, as you can imagine: no one there needed them! Incredible! Probably they are still in the box, now.... :-)