Community Outreach

Tuesday, July 24^th

Today, Andrea, Sara, and I went with Alice to the small town of El Dormido to learn how to make woven bracelets from a local woman, Maria. Glenda, Alice, and I are trying to get ARCAS and the volunteers to interact and give back to the community more so that relations improve. At the moment, the community doesn’t want to donate to us because they think we don’t have the community’s best interest at heart, so we are trying to change that perception.

We caught the chicken bus at 9:30 and boy was it a bumpy ride! Guatemala is famous for its chicken buses (old American school buses), so I’m glad I was able to ride on one. The bus took us all the way to the canal, and then Maria paddled over and picked us up in her lancha (canoe). It was cool to see where the river meets the sea. There were tons of shore birds! Unfortunately, my camera wasn’t good enough to capture any photos of them.

The chicken bus we rode on! 

 

 Andrea and I on the lancha to El Dormido

My new bracelet!

 

We decided that this would be a great excursion for volunteers. It would get them out of the parque for a day and it would also be supporting this local handicraft worker. We were also thinking that if we buy our own materials, we could take volunteers to Maria to learn how to make the bracelets and then they could make more back at the parque to sell and raise money. It would be a win-win situation for everyone.

In the afternoon, we worked more on digging up the plants around the hatchery. We finished 2 meters worth of clearing around the big hatchery. Also in the afternoon, TJ and Fay came back! They were my first friends here, but both left for a week. It made me happy to have both of them to hang out with again.

On patrols tonight, we saw two turtles! We came upon one that was half way through digging her nest, but two parlameros had already claimed her. We ended up getting the donation though! We also got another donation later. The second turtle we saw was found by one of the volunteers and was our second found nest of the season. It was a great night for turtles!