Turtle-saving, wasps, and grossness

well it's just over a week since i wrote the lastthe last email....

thought i'd elaborate a bit more on my last few weeks, and some of the best memories:

EPIC THUNDERSTORM
picture the scene... it's a night walk, and i'm with Sarah, Kyle and Molly.... it starts off really dark, and we can barely see... then we find a hawksbill turtle which are fairly rare around here, so that was exciting in itself, and then we tag and measure her, and her shell had bioluminescence so we are marvelling at it and rubbing it as it was really cool, then it starts t orain. and by rain, i mean as if you are standing in a waterfall, so much water that you can't see... and there was thunder, and lightning so bright that it lit up the beach as bright as day, so you could see for several miles in that split second. we couldn't see because we had that much water pouring onto us (and by the way, when you get wet, you get covered in sand, and you can't get the sand off) so we stood under a tree (the lightning was far away) and then to amuse ourselves, played slackjaw, where you have to let your jaw hang down and look gormless, and the first one to laugh loses. it was really funny.... plus we (mainly kyle) started saying vulgar things in what was possibly very bad spanish... i'm not sure why father christmas got brought into it, but much was said along the lines of "papa noel tiene huevos muchas grandes.... papa noel es numero uno porno estraella.... todos los chicas amore papa noel...." it was hysterical but maybe you had to be there, delirious with hunger, tiredness, and going mad because of the thunderstorm... but it may just have been the company :D we finally gave up trying to find our way through the thunderstorm, and went back to camp, where the single 'after' shot turned into a slackjaw zombie extravaganza - check out the facebook photos!! that was a fun night.

FREEING A TURTLE
on another day, i was out on a nest check (seeing how many nests were laid the previous night) with Deanna, Rachel and Molly, and we saw a turtle that was on the beach in the morning, and when we looked closer we realised that she was tied up to a piece of driftwood. Rachel had a penknife with her which Molly used to cut through the string which was so tight it was cutting into the turtle's flipper - it was really disturbing. on clear nights, poachers come up onto the beach and steal freshly laid eggs. this is really disturbing, but doesn't seem as bad as catching tutrles and killing them for meat. but even that doesn't seem as bad (in some ways) as tying a turtle to a piece of wood, and leaving her there in pain to die of starvation if no one finds her. well thankfully we did find her, cut her free, and watched as she went off into the ocean. she was all weak and disorientated at first, but finally we saw her go off into the sae - hopefully, she'll renest again in a week or two, and not be grabbed by evil people from right under our noses.

WASP STINGS GALORE
this week, we were out on an incidentals walk - i was with Jon (staff) and Sonja (other volunteer) and we found a turtle in the cocnut plantation at about 6am, which is really weird as they are normally all back in the sea by that time (it's braod daylight) and moreover, when they nest, they do so on the beach, and never go in amongst the coconut trees - so it was really stange to see her there. obviously, we needed to intervene to try and get her back to the sea; she was clearly disorientated and tired, and they weigh an absolute ton, so the way to get them to move is really to stand behind them or to the side, and they'll go away from you, so you can guide them back to sea in this way. so we were doing this, and suddenly jon yells out in pain - a wasp had stung him on hte head... then within seconds, all 3 of us were getting stung and/or having these big black wasps buzzing round our faces and bodies. i looked up and saw that sonja had run off and was shouting at me to run, but i'd been stung in the ear and it was really hurting, plus the waspss were still stinging her and Jon even though they'd moved away from the nest. then suddenly, i got stung in the eye, and screamed out; it felt like i'd been stabbed in the eye, and still more were buzzing round me. i kind of ran off with jon, but still screaming/crying and not able to see properly... we got away from them, and the whole episode probably only lasted a minute. we took stock to assess the damage; jon had been stung on the face, and on the finger (when he was pulling a wasp out of my hair); sonja had been stung on the cheek, arm, and back, but i'd got the worst of it, and been stung on the neck, ear, and eye. they all hurt but the eye was the worst. two lucky things were that we were only 5 minutes away from camp, and that the wasp had not stung me directly on the eyeball, but just above the eyelid. howerever, unfortunately, all the sting treatments said keep out of the eyes, so even though we all put cream on ourselves / each other's bites, the only thing i could do for the eye was to keep it cool, which is easier said than done in the 30'C heat, where we don't have fridges or freezers. it swelled up quite a bit on the first day, and i couldn't really open my eye, but now (3 days on) it is back to normal and feels fine. the swelling has gone and i can harldy beleive it was only a few days ago - it healed pretty quick, considering, so don't go worrying mum!!

IN OTHER NEWS....
i have uploaded a load of photos onto facebook - lots of slackjawing and nest excavations with kyle and sarah... i've tried to upload the rapper video but i'm not sure if that's worked or not - that was so much fun - in itself worth not going to panama for!!

so last week, the first phase of 5-weekers left, and the next phase of 5 and 2-weekers arrived - the last phase of five weekers were Sarah, Kyle, Melissa, Kirsty, Johannah, Edouard, Herman, Melissa and Sam (and Patrick and Paula)... People who are here for the whole 10 weeks (or more) are Marcus, Arno, Sonja, Lauren, Karen, and Deanna. Our new people are Rick, Marshall, Danya, Debbie, Kara, Trent, Laura, Casey, Julia, Emma, Alice, Steph, Suzie, who are all from the USA or England, apart from Casey who is Aussie.... so there's still plenty of potential for discussions of accents and words (biscuits, nappies, etc), cockney rhyming slang, and arguments about guns. this last one has already happened actually, which got quite heated and people almost fell out about it!! I am at the moment quieter than i was before... without Kyle provoking me into crude stupidity, i'm having to talk about real issues with people.... this is what i meant when i said that if my personality was severed in two like B'elanna Torres was, where one part was Klingon and one part was human - my two parts are the Intellectual, and the Vulgar, sweary eccentric; i was the latter, but now, for the time being at least, i'm having to tend more towards the former. OH, and if you don't know what i'm talking about, you obviously weren't listening close enough during the 20-hour Voyager questioning marathon (old 5-weekers), and people at home, well you'll just have to watch more Star Trek.

also, the turtle nest board is now in use, and has all our nests marked on it :D it's beautiful! :D

OH, and by popular request (from people who were here last phase) i´m also going to post my "list of things that are gross at home but are normal here!"