Manual Labor (Part 2)

Friday, July 6^th

Work on the hatchery at Parque Hawaii continues. While I was sick, everyone turned over the soil and cleaned out the egg shells for the hatchery at our parque. However, for whatever reason, it is lacking a roof. A roof is necessary to make sure that the eggs don’t get too hot. If they do, most of the hatchlings will be female. No one really knows the optimum ratio of males to females for each sea turtle population, but we aim for a 50/50 ratio. In order to build the roof though, we need wood, so off to the mangroves we went.

The parque helps to reforest the mangroves as well as the surrounding area with trees. Although it was sad to cut down the trees, it made me feel better that they were planted by ARCAS. Mariachi cut down 20 trees, which we had to carry back to the boat. It was about a 5 minute walk and those trees were heavy. I swear that when this internship is over I will be in the best shape of my life. Luckily, once we got to the other side of the river a pick-up truck transported the trees to the parque. All I could think of during this whole process is how different it is to live in a third world country. In the US, this process would’ve included a trip to home depot and maybe a short trip carrying the wood from the car to the building location. What amazes me is how resourceful these people are. They aren’t used to the luxuries that we know, but they seem to manage just fine even if it is more work.

The rest of the day was spent reading up on protocols and organizing information so that I can create a new protocol for this season. I see a day in my immediate future being filled with typing and papers.