Sick….Again :(

Thursday, July 19^th

I was sick again today. I think I either got food poisoning or I’m just so exhausted that my body was using it as a way to make me sleep. The past week I’ve only been sleeping for a couple hours at a time. I’ve been eating dinner, sleeping for a couple hours, going on patrol, sleeping for a couple hours, conducting the crawl counts, and sleeping for a couple hours, then waking up for the day. I’m not used to such an insane sleep schedule, so it has been hard on my body. I ended up sleeping for most of the day, but the volunteers were awesome and got the rest of the small hatchery dug up. Now it just needs to be leveled.

Later, Alice stopped by to let us know that there was another dead turtle right outside the parque. She showed me the correct way to handle the dead turtle and take measurements and body tissue samples. We determined that it was another death caused by the shrimp boats. At this time, there are not one, but four of them on the horizon. Hopefully, filling out all of these stranding forms will help the Guatemalan government realize how much destruction the shrimp industry is causing. Alice also let me know that it’s both ok and healthy to have mini breakdowns while I’m here. Not only is this work physically taxing, but it is very emotionally taxing. You are constantly reminded that no matter how hard you try, Guatemala has a long way to go in regards to sea turtle conservation. Sometimes you just need to have a good cry, so after seeing that dead turtle I did just that.

 Second dead turtle of the season

 

One good thing about today was that two more of the German girls left. Now the two that are left are much more open and willing to help. It’s funny how big groups can make people more exclusive. I had a great convo with the two that are left and I’m genuinely enjoying their company.