sleepless in sija....

New photos, in no particular order.............

Which one is it??

Birdwatching......

Thirsty and adorable....and recycling.

Emerald green Sceloporus smaragdinus out enjoying the sun

Been doing a lot of this lately.

My summer camp group...reached the top!

ok more like restless, but i couldnt resist. And, not me restless, but my puppy (and yes, i think im just going to be one of these people that talks about her pet constantly in her blog...at least until the novelty wears off). And there is nothing worse than a restless puppy. Restless puppies try to hurl themselves up onto the kitchen table to get at the toaster oven baking your sweet potato fries, knock over all your clean dishes and the french press with old coffee grounds in it....

I have now been trying to start writing for about an hour and a half, after taking her for a short walk around town. But now, after her second dinner, she seems to have calmed down so its possible that she was just hungry. And now she's sleeping...phew.

Last week was the first meeting of the summer camp I started with some local kids. My idea was to offer an informal education/hiking activity weekly during their school vacation that will culminate with a campout on the last day of the camp. So far we've covered 'observation' and today birdwatching! They learned what a Townsend's Warbler and a Tufted flycatcher look like, how to find birds in the binoculars, and why we wear the strap around our neck when using the binoculars (mine got dropped and kind of broken...but i guess thats what i get for not pointing out the obvious....). I learned that 10-year-olds dont have the patience or stamina for a hardcore four hour long morning of birding...which is what i envisioned for some reason. But thats ok, i know when to throw in the towel so at some point i conceded the birding lecture and we hauled ass to the top of the hill to arrive at the letters of chivaretto, which are these giant metal letters, a la hollywood, that overlook the next county. All in all, a successful day, and a successful activity that I am really enjoying. Ideally another (guatemalan) adult would be collaborating with me so that i can pass the torch when i leave, but that can be a goal for next year. The park is such a great resource, so close to town, that it would be great to establish a program like this here and that is what i will work toward for the next year.

My challenge now is trying to scrounge up camping equipment for a group of 10-20 people (probably more) and put together that logistical nightmare, coordinating 10-12 kids and their respective parents/guardians and making sure everyone brings what they need for a night out in the woods. Am I ready for this, or just overly optimistic and blissfully unaware of what im getting myself into as usual?

A Week in Review

This week absolutely flew by, due to a few (kinda) big events.





On Tuesday had more than 100 visitors from a school in the county that me, my Guatemalan counterpart and his brother tried to herd in an orderly fashion along the trail and up to the top of the mountain. This of course turned out to be impossible because of widely varying fitness levels, our lack of communication (no radios) which led to the kids charging up ahead of us while I waited to make sure the older folk and young children were not going to collapse along the way-this resulted in said older folk left with the burden of carrying lunch (jumbo sized cans of beans, a large box full of fried chicken, several 3 liter bottles of soda) past where the car could no longer go. This all amounted in no small amount of chaos but with some effort (I helped by carrying one said gigantic can of beans) and a little luck all arrived safely at our destination where soccer games, tug of war, and even a little reptile education commenced. Unfortunately in all the chaos Bella decided to peace out, and once I realized she was gone I spent the remainder of the outing picturing various horrible scenarios involving my poor little lost dog. Of course when I finally got home there she was, in my yard, safe and sound...*phew* The good news is-she knows where she lives! All in all, a successful if slightly chaotic and stressful day up on the mountain.



The next day I went out to check on the (slowly) progressing bottle school. Last week I got very frustrated when I went out to visit only to see that barely any progress had been made in the last month. I was starting to wonder whether or not this project would ever get done.... but when I arrived on Wednesday, our contractor along with two fathers from the school were working away, and they seem confident now that they will finish by the end of this month, and that we might actually make it within our budget!



Lastly, our assistant country director came out to visit and wanted to talk to both me and the volunteer that arrived a few months ago to Agua Caliente, Emily. Emily came the night before and gave us a chance to catch up, cook some food, etc. Our director Wendy arrived on Thursday and we showed her the trail, I explained a little bit about what I've been working on in the park. She seemed to really enjoy the park and enthusiastic about my ideas for it. After we worked up an appetite, we had a really good lunch in a local comedor, then she went on her way. Emily and I took advantage of the sunny afternoon to continue trading music and movies and sitting in the sunshine on my patio while the computers did their thing-ended up taking too long and Emily was forced to spend another night in Sija-we enjoyed Mexican tortas and too much beer, and she made the journey home the next morning. I however got to sleep in ;)

And now to share some photos from the week....

Wild berries ripening in the sun

Mossy rock

More cool fungi

I caught an alligator lizard on tuesday and let it bite me to prove that no, they are NOT venomous....I love the kid's concerned look in the background.

Show and tell with the local herpetofauna

Latest photos of the bottle school-with cement on the walls it will look like just a normal building.

View of the countryside I walk through to get to the school-I'm excited to see the conclusion of that project but I will miss this walk!

Another view from the walk to the school-the mountain you see is the Park where I do most of my work, "parque cerro sija"

Just another landscape..wildflower season is starting i hear

September has come and gone-its October already! The common saying here in Peace Corps is that the days are long, but the months fly by-and boy is it true. Things are moving along with my park project-I have three weeks now to prepare for a summer camp i'm offering to the school kids during their vacation. The school year in Guatemala begins in January and ends in mid-October.

I'm fairly excited about this summer camp program i'm trying to organize. My goal is to get a group of 10 kids together, and take them up to the park to learn about various aspects of the ecology and biology of their park. If it goes well, I would like to continue offering guided hikes on saturdays once or twice a week. I like this idea because for me, the information that has stuck with me has always been the lessons learned outside of the classroom, and I want to pass that on here.

It has been cold and rainy here for at least a week. As a result, I've been feeling especially restless, bored, and I always get a little depressed not seeing the sun for extended periods of time-What can I say, I'm a California girl. I received a package yesterday from Mom with flannel sheets and a nice wool blanket-Thanks mom-I was snug as a bug in a rug last night. It's funny-when I was packing I think my fuzzy Ugg boots were one of the last items I was debating on, but (thank God) they made the cut. I also made a very last minute decision at the airport to take my heavy fleece lined hoodie with me-another lucky decision.

I have turned to comfort foods in all the cold rainy dreariness-I made a sublime tomato dumpling soup Wednesday night and right now am making a vegetable soup-more beets than anything else. i've always been a big fan of beets-but always bought them canned. They intimidated me at first, but i've successfully cooked them a couple different ways now. Tonight I peeled and sliced them and tossed them in my soup-they turn the broth red but the beet taste isn't too overwhelming-just the color. It is also alarming when you go to the bathroom the day after eating beets and see blood red urine or...the other... Until you remember what you ate for dinner the day before. I also indulged and bought some of the famous Sija cheese-fresh cheese probably made that day from fresh milk... This goes good on tortillas, bread, or just eating it in chunks-I don't indulge very often but when i do... Yumm.

For those of you who don't realize-being so close to the equator means 12 hours of darkness, or possibly more right now. Being a light sleeper, I find myself with a lot of down time indoors after work. Miraculously, high speed internet started working a few days ago and I got to talk to a few friends on Skype, which was awesome. Technology makes this whole experience easier, although at times I question whether the ease of connectivity I have with everyone back home really makes it easier or just makes me miss everyone more. Its a bittersweet/catch 22 type of thing. But i am grateful to be able to stay in touch with family and friends while down here. Can you imagine writing letters back and forth? Now that seems ludicrous, but for Volunteers of old (and many in other parts of the world i'm sure) thats how it was. So, long story short, my newfound skype capabilities may make at least some of my nights go by faster... one can only internet surf/watch movies/read so many hours. IT results in me trying lots of new complicated recipes, including a lot more baking than i used to do. That was going to get me introuble, but now I have a puppy who helps me eat what I make so I dont eat, like, a whole pan of lemon bars for example.

Speaking of the puppy-she now knows how to sit, lay down, shake hands, and roll over! who'd have thought I could train a dog?! I think I have to give credit where credit is due though-she's a smart cookie. So the dog-owning thing is going well and I think keeping her was a good decision.

As most of you know, I have an Awesome boyfriend who is still studying his master's at Cal Poly. He also works seasonally on an island off the coast of Honduras studying the Boa Constrictors there and has been trying to get me to go there with him since we met practically. Well I received the go-ahead from our safety coordinator this week and finally the time and place have come for me to be able to make that journey-the week of thanksgiving I will be accompanying him and other colleagues, including my adviser, from Cal Poly to the island for a week of jungle trekking, boa hunting and at least a little drinking rum out of coconuts ;) Be jealous...be very jealous.

This post is starting to ramble. Now that October is here, I officially have a year and a half left and have to ask:what do i want my legacy here to be? Its kind of a heavy question. I have some ideas that I think will take up the rest of my time here....I ask my fellow Volunteers-what will your legacy be??

peace and love,
amber

A walk in the woods

Thistles-we've got them here too. but it looks pretty

some kind of slimey mold fungus?

Bufo bocourti-what a cutie!

kodak moment with some schoolgirls on our hike

Bella helping guide the group

The view from the top of the mountain-you can see part of the Inter-American Highway from here. The community here built some big, Hollywood style letters with the name of the town just behind where this picture was taken.

So while our park guard is on vacay, or when he's busy, I get to fill in as a guide in our park. Which isn't technically part of my job-local people should be doing that-but in the interim i dont mind doing it. In fact, I really enjoy it-I gotta be honest. So here's some photos from this morning's hike-I guided a group of 5th and 6th graders up to the top of the hill, where we stopped for a view and some fried chicken! Have I mentioned that they love fried chicken and french fries here? Not joking-the little town I live in has like...3 fried chicken joints, not to mention the 5 or 6 street stands that fry chicken, starting pretty early in the day. Its kind of impressive.

Anyways, it started to drizzle and the wind started to blow and the temperatures dropped pretty quickly-im guessing it was in the low 50's, so we made a speedy descent. But all in all, was a great experience and most of the students and teachers had never visited their own hill before, much less arrived at the top. So i'll call that a success!

Thats all for now folks, i'm feeling in a bloggy mood since i've started again so look for more to come.

My Great Outdoors

"Are you coming??" Can you find the impatient puppy in this picture?

Really neat succulents growing out of a rock

Crazy fungi

Just look at those spores....

(These are the reproductive structures on the underside of the fern)

As some of you may have heard, 'Tropical Storm Matthew' passed through yesterday-for me this meant nothing more than a rainy day..but I was trapped inside all day when I had been really looking forward to a nice long hike on the mountain. The only thing worse than being trapped inside all day in the cold and rain-being trapped inside all day with a bored puppy-and like 3 movies I really wanted to watch that decided not to work anymore =(

Ah well, today while I did not awake to sunshine and blue skies, at least it wasn't rainy. So we geared up and headed up the trail. So I've got a kind of naturey post today. The park I work in is a humid, high elevation oak forest on one side, with an old pine plantation growing up on the other side, and a bit of overlap as well. I've just started seriously birding the area, trying to get a comprehensive list together so that I can put together a guide for the park. This is actually, officially part of my job-the next step will be training some locals in birding techniques and how and where to spot the birds we do have. Today was a good birding day. I guess everyone was out and about eating and enjoying the 'nice' weather, even though we got started kinda late (8 am).

Fiddleneck anyone? our park is filled with various species of ferns who are all loving our extended wet season and all the rain. Good, at least someone is...

Regardless, we got some new species today! Which I expect to continue to happening for a while-we've got a very bird species-rich park. Its all a matter of being in the right place at the right time-which is just a matter of spending more time in the park (oh darn). Today we found the usual culprits-Yellow-throated Brushfinch, Stellar's Jays, Pink-headed Warbler; as well as some new faces- Singing Quail, Red-faced Warbler, Grace's Warbler, Bushtit, Band-backed Wren, and Tufted Flycatcher. Sorry though, no photos yet, you can find them on google though!

Also a ton of wildflowers continuing to bloom, and even more interesting-lots of mushrooms. They loved the rains this past week, since the last time I went up, a few hillsides had just erupted with the fungi-and there is an incredible variety as well. I would love to get some fungi-identifying experience while i'm out here. Maybe something to prepare for for the next season-although i'd say we still have a good month left of mushrooms here.

All in all-it was a good Sunday-and much needed hiking about and doing what I enjoy most here-discovering more of what my little park has to offer. It's my job =)

This week I'm fairly excited about a new project involving the artesans who make fresh cheese here. The idea is arranging for tourists to stay in the homes of these artesans to get a demonstration of the cheesemaking process-from the cow to the finished product. So I am working with a woman in town to get this project off the ground-we are (hopefully) meeting with a few interested families this week.

all work and no play...

Hehe, ok that's a total joke. As far as I'm concerned, my work here is play... at least some of the time. My main project-an oak pine forest covering the mountain that looms large over the town center- is starting to pick up pace and get very interesting. I'm finally being used in the capacity of my biological interest and knowledge as we start canvassing the park's flora and fauna. We are starting the process of applying to change the park's status from county land to protected area. This will require an exhaustive study of not only the park's wildlife and status but also the political climate, the opinions of the surrounding citizens, etc etc. On my part, i've been grabbing lizards and snakes (which are sadly few and far between) and id'ing them; and have also started birdwatching... early in the mornings-although still not quite early enough. I'm working up to it. Bella has been very helpful in motivating me to grab my binoculars and field guide and do a little casual birdwatching before heading to the office. Of course, bringing a dog birdwatching sounds a little counterproductive, i realize, but i'm (excuse the figure of speech) just trying to kill two birds with one stone.

Some pretty birds that I have seen already include the Painted Redstart and Pink-headed Warbler, and my counterpart got an awesome picture of a pair of Blue-throated Motmots... Google it as i'm not dealing with putting photos from google on here... the headache!

Also I'm very excited about my newest project-trying to put together a group of kids for a summer camp-like thing in the park-school here ends in mid october and resumes in January. I want to bring a group up hiking in the forest weekly and show them a little bit about the wildlife that lives right in their backyards. This is really what the park means to me-education and appreciation about the environment and wildlife for the local people that live directly around the mountain. When I initially heard that I would be working on Ecotourism here, i had grand visions of internationally acclaimed tourist sites receiving foreigners from all over. But this project, realistically, is geared towards local tourism; the way Mt. Diablo back home is used mostly by the people who live near it, and love it. I have a dream that this park will grow to be loved by its local people too, and that I can help them learn to appreciate the forest enough to want to conserve it.

The park, just in its beginning phases, still needs a lot of work, and that work is picking up pace since I arrived. But it is only one facet of the work that I'm doing here. More to follow on other 'secondary projects' that I think are just as cool!

peace,
amber

About a month ago, Tony came down to visit me-finally! No, only joking. He is the first one who has made it down here... so I went to meet him at the airport and we took a bus straight over to the Caribbean side-where I had never been before. We arrived in Rio Dulce, a town on the river that runs from Lake Izabal out to the caribbean. Exhausted and ready to put our bags down and get reacquainted-we headed to a nice little hotel you can only get to by lancha (little motorboats) from Rio Dulce called Casa Perico. We splurged and got the bungalow (my first bungalow!) with an awesome porch that looked out onto the swamp. I saw basilisks, frogs, and turtles from the seat-more species of herps than i've seen in my site in six months....awesome.... You can see Tony getting to know the local wildlife...

We took a day trip from Rio Dulce to a place called Finca Paraiso, further inland, where we swam in this awesome swimming hole with a hot waterfall that feeds into it. Then we walked across the highway and out about two miles to the lakeside restaurant for hamburgers. There we met a family from southern california who owned a marina in Rio Dulce and had arrived at the beach via speedboat-we chatted them up for a while and got a ride back to Rio Dulce in style! It sure beat the microbus...

Goofing around in the hot springs water fall..the sulphurous water falling down the rockwall over the year formed some cool looking mineral buildup.

After a few days lazing around in Rio Dulce, we decided to make a move out to LIvingston. Livingston, only accessible by a beautiful boat ride, is home to a population of Garifuna-descendents of an escaped slave population mixed with the locals who have a language and vibrant culture all their own. The main income comes from tourism and fishing-and most of the locals spoke Garifuna, Spanish, and at least some English. They were very friendly, and cooked some awesome food. Tony treated me to my first lobster and grilled conch which i didn't take pictures of, but it was DELICIOUS, and we ate on the porch overlooking the caribbean sea in the middle of a rainstorm.

Pretty much everything we ate there was amazing-the coconut bread, and coconut candy, and coconuts filled with rum that you drank and then chopped open with a machete to eat the coconut meat out... rice and beans with coconut milk. OK i love coconut, its official. We also stayed at an awesome hostel called La Casa de la Iguana, where they served family style dinners and also had affordable breakfast lunch and happy hour, and cool friendly staff and people. The pool and hotel pictured above is not where we stayed-just where we payed to use the pool one day....As luck would have it it started to pour the minute we settled down in the lawn chairs. Oh well.

Livingston was awesome but the time came to travel all the way across Guatemala back to Sija, so Tony could see where I live. I put him to work fixing drippy showers and backed up sinks and moving furniture, etc etc. =) Ladies, when a man travels to another country to visit you and fix your faulty plumbing...I think he's a keeper.

So in conclusion, had a great visit with the man, and he's ready to come back so we can go on a more 'focused' herping trip.... Can't wait! As it is, we have plans to meet up in Honduras in November to do some Boa-chasing. yay.