Click her for photos of dance class and Rio Grande watershed: Dance/Watershed
Click for a short (2 min) dance clip: Dance class 2-15
Internet has been unavailable in the evenings, so we are largely confined to morning posts. Yesterday morning Spanish classes started at 8:00 am. At 11:oo there were dance classes and just plain dancing. After returning to their homestays for lunch, we regathered at the Park for a 10 minute ride outside of town to an area of mature forest along side a small river–the Rio Grande. Atenas has a significant dry season, but it is not as pronounced as Santa Rosa. As a higher altitude site, it is also cooler. After some significant discussion of the concept of watersheds, we set out on a trail, doing field natural history as we walked along. We then broke into smaller groups, and students we are asked to make journal entries containing their observations, impressions and questions. In each group we also did some site comparison between this sit and Santa Rosa.
We gathered back together as a large group and brought together ideas from each group into a larger discussion. Beyond site comparison, we also touched began a discussion of pollination ecology and seed dispersal. As this site was a small fragment of forest as compared we also talked about park design with respect to size, range of habitats within the park, and target species for protection. We’ll build on these topics as the course progresses.
Some of the things we experinced included tasting a forest fruit–guapinol (not a big hit among all(see some photos) ), a Buteo sp. hawk, a fox, a huge leaf cutter ant colony, balsa wood with “fairy disk” seeds, and termite nests.
We returned at about 4:30. Most students remained in the park for a while before returning to their homestay families for the evening. While there is some anticipated period of adjustment, the homestays are working out well. Some students report some problems sleeping because of the noise of barking dogs, roosters etc., but that seems to be getting better as well.
(Note: See posted photos of Jeff and his host sister with their birthday cake. )