More Panama Verde and disaster strikes

So the other day I went to buy some pipes for the two aqueducts that I am still buildings. I went with a member of the aqueduct committee to Changuinola where the hardware stores are and purchased several hundred dollars of PVC. I like this store because the delivery is free, this is a major plus when you live and hour and a half away from the nearest hardware store and half of that trip is off road. They have a very old flatbed drunk with broken glass, side windows that don´t work and no working knobs in the cab. After about half and hour on the highway a passing car flagged us down. When we pulled over our driver jumps out of the car swearing...

The whole battery is in flames and melting a mix of plastic and battery acid!! Apparently its thrown together wiring short circuited.


The Panama Verde environmental your group is still very active. After the regional camp kids in my town really wanted to do something big. They wanted to invite 4 other neighboring groups for a 2 day camp. I initially was skeptical and thought they didn´t know how much work goes into planning an activity like this. Regardless I told them that they could start planning it. After splitting the group up to right solicitation letters and going to the Changuinola to deliver them we received funding from the Hydroelectric dam company, the Mayor and the local town representative.
The mini-camp was all Ngobe, so our big activity was a hike with the local indigenous healers group. They explained what plants worked as cures for various ailments and how to prepare them. Much of this knowledge is not being passed down from the older generations to the young more hip kids. Part of this activity was hearing the same botanical group speak on Ngobe culture, traditional stories and what is was like living 70 years ago when there was nothing but jungle. (Elderly people in my town tell me about how jungle cats would eat their pigs!)

The majority of the camp occurred in the school. We ate in the school kitchen and everyone slept on the floor in classrooms. Other activities we did were a a talk about the composition of trash followed by a community wide trash pick up, a low ropes course, swimming and bathing in the river and at night we put on the DVD Planet Earth.
These are all the kids in my group. I was very impressed with how much they stepped up. Seeing how they are teenagers many times the goof off but when the responsibility was on they all delivered. Every one carried a huge load of firewood from there houses, large buckets of water to the school kitchen when the water went out, cleaned the bathrooms and maintained order amongst the members from other towns.
These are all the participants with their camp shirts and certificates.

Another activity we did was a beach cleanup in preparation for turtle nesting season. 25 kids plus 4 counselors piled into 2 dug out canoes for a trip to the barrier islands of San San Pon Sak. Before the beach clean up we were taken to a platform in the mangrove wetland to get a chance to see manatees!
They hang bananas in a hope to study the manatees. This was pretty much the extent that we saw.
To my surprise the beach cleanup did not exist of picking up trash. We moved large peaces of drift wood and seaweed clumps that could disturb nest turtles. The turtle conservation program at San San Pon Sak is protecting Leatherback Sea Turtles one of the largest in the world. They can be as large a 6 feet by 4 feet.

The conservation effort revolves around greatly improving the chances that turtles that hatch on there beach will reach adult hood. They do this by making the environment even better the what is naturally occurring. Even thought the turtles have powerful flippers they still can´t move large peaces of drift wood so its removed to improve there chances. When they come to lay eggs the people on the beach move the eggs to a secure nursery, so crabs and other wild life can´t dig them up.