Training

Sunday, July 15^th

Today, we drove over to the El Gariton hatchery where Glenda and I as well as some people from other hatcheries were trained on the creation and maintenance of hatcheries and the care of eggs and hatchlings. Alice was also there so that she could learn some new information. She ended up translating for me since the whole training was in Spanish. I was still able to understand some of what was said though, so it was good practice to listen. It was really informative and I liked listening to all of the speakers…especially Scott Handy from the organization Akazul.

The training participants

Scott used to work for ARCAS, but then started his own organization down at the El Barrona hatchery. He is a very impressive and passionate person. Not only did he start his own organization, but every night he patrols the beaches 4x a night and then wakes up early to do crawl counts. He said that he sometimes only gets about 2 hours of sleep a night! It was really inspiring to talk to him and he is also a great source of information. He agreed to go with Glenda and I tomorrow on our crawl count in order to give us a more thorough training.

After talking a bunch with Alice, I have decided to take Spanish lessons with her. In order to better interact with the parlameros and get more donations, I need to know more Spanish. She also said she will take me around to different families in the community, so that I can get to know the people of Hawaii better. Overall, it will be super useful and I can get to know Alice better as well. I’m excited!!

On our way back from the training, we all stopped at a small restaurant right outside Monterrico to have a beer... a Gallo of course! It was fun to chat with Colum, Alice, and Scott! While sitting on a wall with Glenda, we both noticed a sound coming from behind us. It turned out it was an iguana tied in a bag, which was tied to a motorcycle. They eat iguanas here, so Glenda and I decided to try and save it. Slowly, when no one was looking, we started to untie the bag from the motorcycle. When it was time to go, we had gotten the bag off the motorcycle, but we didn’t get the bag untied. Everyone was looking as we left, so we were unable to grab the bag on our way out. I’m hoping that somehow that iguana got away!

Later, TJ and I went to Alice’s house and had fried chicken and fries for dinner. It was nice to see her house and get the low down on the village and ARCAS. She is a great resource for everything (turtles, Spanish, the town of Hawaii). It was a lot of fun and I’m glad I have a place to hang out outside of the parque.