Our second day at Pacuare. We didn't do any turtle patrol last night, so we did one tonight. But I'll start at the beginning. We rolled out of bed, had some breakfast (guess what? more gallo pinto!), and got crackin' on some labs. Laura explained the water quality labs to us, and we made a chart with all that stuff on it. We also had to conduct tests on the Sarapiquí water collected during the water filtering process they had. We had to run all those tests. At least they're not hard. Nisha and I were assigned to get turbidity reading, meaning we had to try to construct a turbidity tube from scratch. It's basically a long clear tube with a colored disk at the bottom. I would draw it, but when Andrew tried, his looked like a bong, and I'm thinking I'd do an even worse job. You put water in it and measure how much you can put in until you can't see the disk. So we asked the guys fixing the well at Pacuare (yes, the well was washed out. and there's no electricity, either, in case you were wondering.) to give us some pipe. It wasn't clear, but it was a tube. Jim tried to cut it for us and wound up slicing himself instead, so we played limbo with some of the local kids. Then Nisha found a guy with a machete to cut it for us. So we tried to use the sequi disk as a bottom for the tube, and that failed. Water went everywhere. On to Plan B. We took the wrapper from one of my cough drops and marked on it with a blue Sharpee, then rubber banded it to the tube using my ponytail holder. Ingenious? I think so. Anyway, we attached a plastic bag to the end of it with a rubber band and our turbidity tube was complete! But none of the groups would let us use the test water because our tube was so experimental that the water might dump out and ruin the sample. So, without anything to do, I went out to play some volleyball. I like it, but it was a bit too competitive for my tastes. I'd really just rather not keep score and cheer for everyone than be so cut-throat about everything. Oh well. I guess some people are just naturally competitive. After the short game, Nisha and I took one turbidity reading and I went back outside to the hammocks. While they were pretty uncomfortable and I ran a high risk of falling out, you couldn't beat the beautiful view of the Atlantic. The sand was a beautiful dark color like the sand at La Fortuna. So I lay there in my hammock alone for a while, just taking in the view and everything around me. That was when I was really glad to be in Costa Rica. It was so peaceful, and I thought, this is the way life should be. But then I heard the damn dog barking. The same one who had actually eaten a baby turtle hatchling while we were playing volleyball. Jim offered to kill the dog. He sounded serious. It was scary. I had always known that dogs were a big problem on beaches, but I had never seen something like that before. Later, Alex told us that the dog had eaten 8 hatchlings. Anyway, I was rousted from my only lazy hour by Miah who said that the butterfly guides were ready for us to use. Yay. Note the sarcasm. I realize that I need to do the work, it's just . . . that doesn't make me want to do the work. I started talking to some of the kids there, and joking around with Katherine. So I go into the main kitchen and work with my compadres drawing butterflies. Katherine went in and drew with me. She's so cute, and it's great because I can talk to her in Spanish really easily, without caring about my mistakes. I only got four butterflies drawn by the time I had to stop and get ready for dinner, and Belinda's turtle talk. We also had articles that we had to read, but I didn't have to do mine until the next night, so I didn't even read it then. We went back to our rooms and Veronica came back with me to my room with Nisha and Amy. We basically had a big complaining session because we really needed to vent. Keep in mind that I'm still very sick, Veronica's arm hurts like a bitch, Nisha and Amy have been through stuff too, and we've been doing work for most of the day. So we decided that we were going to have to talk to Miah and Laura about how stressed out we were. So before we presented some of the turtle articles, and before Belinda's talk, we discussed how we felt burnt out and how in some ways we felt that the work was detracting from our experience, but in other ways, we understood how necessary the work was. At the very least, we thought that our concerns had been heard rather than letting our feelings fester inside. It was good to vent, even if it didn't really change anything. Afterwards, we talked turtles for a while and picked our turtle patrol groups. There was one at 10:30 and one at 11:30. I figured that if I tried to take a nap, I wouldn't wake up, so I opted for the 10:30 patrol. I went out with Aponi, Marion, Nisha, Karen, Laura, and Belinda. I was really amazed by Belinda's dedication to the turtles. It's inspiring to me that loses money to work here, but she still does it every year. I don't know if I would be able to do it. Anyway, back to the beach patrol. It surprised me how light it was outside near the ocean, even in the middle of the night. The moon gives off some light, but the ocean was really bright. There had been so much flooding that there really wasn't much beach to patrol, bit more than there had been before. I talked with Marion and Aponi for most of the way, and a little with Nisha. It was actually a lot of fun and I really enjoyed it. As we were coming up the beach, Belinda found a nest of hatchlings, and one girl from another group excavated it to find 9 turtle hatchlings. It was the first time I had ever been up close and personal with a sea turtle, so it was pretty amazing. The babies were so cute! We found 2 more in another nest. I bet that if people saw the hatchlings, they'd feel a lot worse about poaching the eggs. It was awesome to watch the babies go into the ocean, even though we all knew that their chances weren't that great. Then we got radio that there was a mother turtle who was on the beach, but she was so far away that even if we had ran, we wouldn't have been able to see her. The 11:30 group was there, however, so they got to experience the big mama leatherback. I was quite jealous, but the people in the 11:30 group didn't get to see hatchlings, so I guess it's a trade-off. By the time we had completed our beach patrol, we were wet up to our knees because the water was so high and covered with sand. Marion's leg was really hurting, and so was Aponi's. We all wanted to get in the shower. I went back to my room to get my shower stuff, and when I get to the stalls, Marion's already in one. We start talking, which was pretty funny, and then he tries to turn on the water. Nothing. Not a drop. He starts getting angry because he's in there naked and there's no water. I was angry because now I wouldn't be able to take a shower. So he says, "You know what? There's a bucket of water in here. It looks clean. I'm taking a shower in a bucket!" I start laughing because I know he's serious. So I keep talking to him as he's taking a shower in a bucket. In desperation, I checked the other shower stalls for a bucket, but no luck. When Marion finished his shower in a bucket, Aponi and I went into he and Chris's room and we talked for a while until Chris got back (he was on the 11:30 patrol). It led to one of the best quotes of the trip. Aponi spoke for all of us when she said, "I wish I could take a shower in a bucket." Anyway, we had raided my room earlier for trail mix because it was late and we were hungry. I offered it to Chris and he started eating it. Then Andrew came in, followed by Jim, until we're all piled into the one room. Chris ate all of my trail mix, so I beat him up a little. That was the only food I had in my bag, 'cause I had left the rest on the bus. Grrr. Anyway, Aponi left and it was me and four boys. I didn't really realize that until I looked around and all of sudden noticed I was only female in the room. I figured that if I got caught in there with all the boys, I'd never hear the end of it. So we talked for a little while longer and I went back to my room, hoping that Nisha and Amy wouldn't verbally harass me about it. Luckily, they were too tired and I crawled into my bed pretty late.

Back to the rest of the Journal!