by Gabriela Schaepman-Strub
Kytalyk, July 11, 2013
In addition to the scientific research we are running a social experiment out here – we are only missing a control group 😉
There are PhD students experiencing the site conditions for the first time. The PhDs who do research out here usually arrive as very independent personalities – otherwise they quickly adapt. Others are out for the last summer of their PhD, collecting data that will go into the analysis of the manuscript waiting at home for this last data point, almost ready to be submitted. They are very experienced about how daily life is organized and how to deal with delays in field schedules or boats arriving later than expected. Most of them quite sad that this long-term experience comes to an end. PhDs stay for 6-7 weeks every summer, considered to be the maximum we ask students to live in the tundra, far away from friends and family, with simple food, bright nights, no shower, no washing machine, away from daily news. The supervisors join in the beginning of the field work for 2-3 weeks. Helping to set up experiments, taking decisions about selection of sites and measurements, help out with infrastructure issues.
Be it PhDs or supervisors, in the end, everybody needs to share rooms (now and then kept awake by others snoring through the thin wooden walls), share the bania, sit together during meals. Funny to see who is taking up responsibilities for which tasks, such as filling fresh water into the hand washing bucket or emptying the used one, taking care of the bania fire, charging of devices, ordering food and fuel, just all the little things that have to happen. At some point all this feels like at home, maybe with similar roles, but not sure about this….. We do not have any fixed duties, but somehow tasks get distributed over time and people. Luckily the cook is asking the guys to pump water or cut wood – not a womens job in Russia. Well, we have to carry the wood which is not much easier. Obviously also other social domains are interesting to observe.
Scientists currently in Kytalyk, joining for a beer on Saturday evening after the bania (from left to right): Pen Wang (Wageningen University), Inge Juszak (UZH), Maitane Iturrate (UZH), Bingxi Li (WU), Angela Gallagher (VU Amsterdam), Gabriela Schaepman-Strub (UZH), Monique Heijmans (WU) (Photo: Bingxi Li, July 2013).
When people arrive to the site they are usually very talkative, bring in news from Yakutsk or Europe, then gradually get more silent with the duration of their stay. At some point the discussions at table are mostly about food, weather forecast, charging devices, teasing each other about customs that have established out here such as eating mayonnaise in the soup, mayonnaise in the porridge, mayonnaise on the bread topped by jam… until somebody new comes in. But usually we get in fresh ideas every 7-10 days, with new persons arriving.
Most often social life out here is really good and people help out each other a lot – would simply not be possible otherwise, we all need support at some point, be it by a helping hand, to replace a missing screw or repair a broken device. And if people have a difficult day there is enough time to be alone during measurements, get fresh air, take a walk, listen to music or read a few pages in a digital book which is very easy to bring nowadays. I would like to thank everybody being around this year and supporting each other in Kytalyk – it’s great to know that you’re not alone! And if everything fails in the field we still have the connection to ‘outer space’ – the phone line to Yakutsk.
Sadly we just got the news from Olga arriving from Yakutsk that Stas has been involved in a car accident and needed to go to the hospital. We wish him all the best for a fast and sustainable recovery!
Photo shooting session at midnight. Who takes the nicest picture of the pingo 5km away? (Photo: G. Schaepman-Strub, 7 July 2013).