This post was written on Monday but posting was delayed due to lack of internet.
Sorry!!!
I know I was meant to be getting back on schedule and posting yesterday but we were super busy and I didn't have time.
It's been a reasonably busy week over all. On tuesday (since I wrote about Monday in my last post) Claudia and I spent most of the day finalising and finishing up our Villa Carmen leaflet advertising some of the wonderful goings on here at the centre. The design was finally sent off to Cusco with the idea that it would be here in time for the stand we were going to have at Forest Week's fair on Saturday.
Tuesday also saw two big groups of school kids showing up to work with SFS (School for Field Studies). They planned out a bunch of activities including a display of the local watershed and some games about the food web.
They all had a pretty good time by the sound of it but their second group apparently had a little too much energy, especially when the teachers wouldn't help control them.
On Wednesday we had more kids coming to work with SFS so a lot of time was spent making sure everything there was going to plan, including making sure they all got their snacks sorted out.
By thursday I think the SFS students were glad to see the end of their brief teaching roles and we had no more visitors. Apparently the community outreach team (that's us) were meant to be giving some sort of presentation in the school but for some unknown reason they decided that wasn't going to happen. Instead I decided I would help Jimena - one of the visiting researchers who's here for a few months - with her research project. She's studying population of larvae in the rivers in this area and after a week of concentrated sampling she's been left with a lot of samples to work through. I'm now going to be helping her on a regular basis with studying samples and in return I'm hoping she'll teach me more about the scientific aspects and how to recognise different macroorganisms that we find in samples.
Friday started far to early due to the constant thunder storm in the early hours of the morning. By the time it eased off it was basically time to get up. This would be fine under normal circumstances but it was day three of the same and we were starting to get a little grumpy from the lack of sleep.
For forest week we were eant to be going to cheer on and encourage the kids in a drawing/painting competition they were taking part in but once again we ended up staying on base - I'm not sure if it was because the competition was cancelled or if we just didn't go for some reason.
Instead I went with Jimena to collect samples. The state of the river was pretty amazing - there was no longer any sort of beach, the water level had moved up over 10ft and full sized tree trunks were being carried downstream.
On saturday we were supposed to be going to the Forest Week fair except due to some organisation issue we didn't have a tent set up or anything else prepared. I don't know if anyone else ended up going, but like the other events we were supposed to go to over the week we ended up not going.
Instead I spent the day studying and learning all about water treatment techniques.
Yesterday was our day off and we decided to go do something a little different. Not too far away there are some ancient petroglyphs which we'd heard about and wanted to go check out, so sraight after breakfast we set off. We'd been given brief instructions as to how to get there, apparently it was only about a two hour hike, but either we were walking to slowly or there was a bit of a miscomminication there cause it took us about three and a half hours to find them - also the might we took a wrong turn somewhere along the way might have accounted for some of that extra time...
It was a nice walk though and we did eventually find the petroglyphs.
I'm not sure if we were expecting a bit more but there were a couple of big rocks with a few drawings on - though I'm not sure how old. It was a good trip out anyway.
We got back a little before dinner with just enough time for a nice cold shower and a little Skype call with the other half and after dinner it was bat feeding time and the start of the first Lord of the Rings.
Today has so far been dedicated to processing water samples and installing a new rain gauge.
Well back to work anyway - lots of samples to go through!
Sorry!!!
It's been a reasonably busy week over all. On tuesday (since I wrote about Monday in my last post) Claudia and I spent most of the day finalising and finishing up our Villa Carmen leaflet advertising some of the wonderful goings on here at the centre. The design was finally sent off to Cusco with the idea that it would be here in time for the stand we were going to have at Forest Week's fair on Saturday.
Tuesday also saw two big groups of school kids showing up to work with SFS (School for Field Studies). They planned out a bunch of activities including a display of the local watershed and some games about the food web.
They all had a pretty good time by the sound of it but their second group apparently had a little too much energy, especially when the teachers wouldn't help control them.
Our team of volunteers and researchers (some of them anyway)! |
By thursday I think the SFS students were glad to see the end of their brief teaching roles and we had no more visitors. Apparently the community outreach team (that's us) were meant to be giving some sort of presentation in the school but for some unknown reason they decided that wasn't going to happen. Instead I decided I would help Jimena - one of the visiting researchers who's here for a few months - with her research project. She's studying population of larvae in the rivers in this area and after a week of concentrated sampling she's been left with a lot of samples to work through. I'm now going to be helping her on a regular basis with studying samples and in return I'm hoping she'll teach me more about the scientific aspects and how to recognise different macroorganisms that we find in samples.
Going to collect water samples: seeing full sized trees floating past was pretty crazy! |
For forest week we were eant to be going to cheer on and encourage the kids in a drawing/painting competition they were taking part in but once again we ended up staying on base - I'm not sure if it was because the competition was cancelled or if we just didn't go for some reason.
Instead I went with Jimena to collect samples. The state of the river was pretty amazing - there was no longer any sort of beach, the water level had moved up over 10ft and full sized tree trunks were being carried downstream.
On saturday we were supposed to be going to the Forest Week fair except due to some organisation issue we didn't have a tent set up or anything else prepared. I don't know if anyone else ended up going, but like the other events we were supposed to go to over the week we ended up not going.
Instead I spent the day studying and learning all about water treatment techniques.
Yesterday was our day off and we decided to go do something a little different. Not too far away there are some ancient petroglyphs which we'd heard about and wanted to go check out, so sraight after breakfast we set off. We'd been given brief instructions as to how to get there, apparently it was only about a two hour hike, but either we were walking to slowly or there was a bit of a miscomminication there cause it took us about three and a half hours to find them - also the might we took a wrong turn somewhere along the way might have accounted for some of that extra time...
It was a nice walk though and we did eventually find the petroglyphs.
Petroglyphs |
We got back a little before dinner with just enough time for a nice cold shower and a little Skype call with the other half and after dinner it was bat feeding time and the start of the first Lord of the Rings.
Looking out over Pilcopata, Andes in the background |
Well back to work anyway - lots of samples to go through!
No comments:
Post a Comment