Poacher Party

Saturday, July 14^th

Today was the inauguration for the turtle season at Parque Hawaii as well as the other hatchery, El Rosario. It was a weird concept to hold a party for all the egg poachers. We got up super early in order to make sandwiches for all them. I didn’t really like the idea of making them sandwiches, but I didn’t really have a chance. At the inauguration, Colum talked about the study he did of all the hatcheries in Guatemala and then went over last year’s data for this hatchery. Then, the most collaborative parlamero was given a small gift. 

After that it turned into a discussion about adhering to the 20% donation rule. Most of the time, the parlameros and egg buyers only give donations of 12 eggs no matter the size of the nest, which most of the time ends up being about a 10% donation. This year the organization was trying to push the 20%. One of the parlameros spoke up and asked all of his peers to adhere, so that it would be fair for everyone. However, there was tons of backlash from many of the other parlameros, so he ended up backing down, which was disappointing. It was interesting seeing the dynamics of the egg poaching community though. After most of the parlameros left, the egg buyers stayed around and they decided to adhere to the 20%, but Colum says it only lasts for awhile before they revert back to the 12 eggs. 

 The buyers' meeting

In the afternoon, we went over to El Rosario for that inauguration. It had a much different feel because children were invited. We filled a piñata with candy and they had a great time hitting it down. In fact, I was impressed at how aggressive they were and how hard they hit piñata. I’ve never seen kids go at a piñata quite like that! It was also fun to play with all of them even though I couldn’t understand anything they were saying to me. They loved my camera and kept insisting that I take pictures of them. I got some pretty cute ones of them!

Piñata time!

 

My new friends!

I went on my night patrol last night and was completely exhausted. I was expecting to go out again and not find any turtles or eggs. However, TJ and I ended up meeting with Alice so we could give her back her dog (Juno likes to hang out with us at the parque a lot). As we were talking with her, one of the parlameros that is pretty friendly with her told us about a nest that was laid by El Rosario. As we were talking to the parlamero, the parlamero that found the nest in El Rosario walked by us. Alice flagged him down and asked him for a donation. We tried to get the 20% donation, but he only would give us a dozen. It was disappointing, but we took what we could get. We were just excited about getting the first donation of the season!

Overall, it was a pretty fun day because I got to see and interact with the community a lot more. It was nice meeting some of the people I have been seeing on the beach so often even if the whole idea of a poacher party is off-putting to me. Also, we got some more eggs, which is always good!