Projects
This week we worked with the Fanca eco kids club to make recycled paper. On Tuesday they showed us how to rip up papers, what kind to use, how to soak them, blend with aloe to make it sticky, and then use frames to create papers. We left them to dry until Thursday when we completed the project making boxes, notebooks, frames, cards etc. We […]
July 16-22, 2005 The two brothers who were here short term left midway through the week, and the two Canadian girls, Jenny and Elisabeth, moved in. They will be here a month, till mid-August. They are friends of a past volunteer. Now we have 5 people in the house including me. Carley leaves at the end of the month and Jackie in mid-August. We have […]
This week in Bahia I have been focusing on educating the educators. That is to say that my students are preparing to go and talk at schools about what they have learned. The two themes are Mangroves and Dry Tropical Forests. We spent both Tuesday and Thursday preparing materials, posters and discussing activities and ways to present information. I am working with Marcelo to organize times […]
July 11-15, 2005 We’ve been having some beautiful weather recently, interspersed with the gray skies and misty air. All four volunteers arrived, two on Monday and two on Thursday night. Together with Jackie and Carley there are now 6 volunteers. After another week, we will be down to 4. We spent time at the greenhouse transplanting trees from baggies to bottles, repairing one of the […]
July 4-10, 2005 This week we watered and finished installing pipes at the Dairy Farm and Cherry Tree sites. So far no problems with insects or animals at Cherry Tree, and the trees look healthy. There is a world of a difference in growth between the trees planted just 2 months earlier in the rainy season, and those planted later. Dairy Farm fencing is being […]
I am sorry that I wasn’´t able to write sooner but there was a strike here in the lovely province of Manabi to demand more money to improve the infrastructure here. Everything was shut down from the buses to the schools to the internet cafes. It put a bit of a cramp in this week´s lessons as well. On Tuesday we continued with a lesson on […]
Marcelo and I led a presentation on birds and how they can be a good indicator of contamination as they are migratory animals. We will be going to Isla de Corazon to see many birds, mangroves, as well as a successful effort at conservation. The students will be giving presentations on the different birds we will see there such as pelicans, cormorants, frigate birds, etc. […]
June 20-25, 2005 Angel and Pablo from Maria Auxilidora stopped by to discuss their idea of fixing up El Bosque with bamboo handrails and steps, and making two miradores. I guess they’ve been inspired by Bella Vista. We painted and punched holes in the bamboo watering pipes, and installed them at the three km 8 sites. We did not water at Endara as there was no […]
The seeds that we collected for the seed art mainly were jaboncillo and maracuyá. They also collected some seeds that I unfortunately didn´t write down so I will try to keep better track of details next time. This week we did some review of plant zones. I taught my students some English words such as plant, trail, pollution, grow, forest, environment etc. which they loved. Since Tuesday […]
June 6-12, 2005 Aside from the usual greenhouse activities (watering, composting, clearing out dead plants, organizing), we did a lot of structural maintenance as dogs had broken in. We reinforced certain sections with wooden posts and/or chicken wire. Also continued fixing the seed beds. We put up plant label signs for the seeds that the Bioregional Education Program had sowed, and remounted the Planet Drum […]