Tutatuta, Parapapa

Above are two songs that are quite popular at Taricaya.  I found out there names yesterday and couldn`t stop laughing at the sound of them.  If you can, you should listen to them.  The song tutatuta has a special dance to it where everyone gets in a congo line and dances.  The song parapapa has a beat that gets stuck in EVERYONES head.  As soon as it gets out of my head someone else starts singing it and it instantly is back hehe. 

Toast is delicous.  Not just any kind of toast, but the grilled toast in a pan.  You see, we don`t have a toaster.  So how else to make toast but smother it in butter on both sides and plop a slice, or two, or three, into a pan until it is slightly blackened on either side.  Yummmmmmm.

As I continue to bird watch I enjoy it more and more.  I wish I could just see them and identify them immediately like most of the staff.  Some can even identify them by their call.

A very fun activity we have recently been assigned is collecting turtles from the artificial turtle beach.  Our turtle program is a very big deal to us.  We are protecting the Taricaya turtle (the turtle we are named after) from poachers.  Volunteers before us camped out all night on beaches to protect the turtle eggs and find them.  Once found, the volunteers brought the eggs back and put them in our artificial beach where they are safe from harm.   They just recently began to hatch.  We check the 45 turtle nests we have by uncovering them to the first layer of eggs.  If the first layer of eggs haven`t hatched then the ones below it haven`t either.  If an egg is very dark then it is about to hatch.  We also check each nest for rotten eggs that worms have gotten into.  It is truly amazing to see these little turtles hatch.  If they are part way out of the shell then you just leave them in their nest and they start scurrying out.  Once one starts to hatch then more usually follow.  What is it about baby things that make them so cute?  I named my babies coming out of the nest I was checking.  My first born was Tortuga, after her mother (my nickname here and also means turtle). 

One afternoon I was part of a team that had to rebuild the steps from the boat to Taricaya.  We joked we were rebuilding the stairway to heaven.  I say ¨steps¨ but I really mean terraces.  We chopped away at the hillside and filled sandbags to put in strategic positions so when the hard rains come our hill doesn`t become one slippery mud slide.  We worked hard on our steps, but when the rain hits it`s hard not to slip. 

Things decompose very fast in the jungle.  On the hike to the spider monkeys, Heather, Rachel, and I were searching for a dead snake that Yannik had seen the night before.  We were searching for awhile when we came upon a swarm of all different types of bugs.  We knew thats where the dead snake had to have been.  After searching through the dense layer of leaves on the ground all we found were snake ribs spread in different places and two snake fangs.  Those bugs had had a feast all night.

Heather and I have a roommate from Japan now.  Her name is Yuri and she is a very sweet girl.  She is here for a month and although our room is small it is perfect for the three of us:)

Killing big or fast bugs is always an adventure in the jungle.  When Heather and I were deep cleaning our room for Yuri`s arrival we came across this medium size (I say medium but it was actually the size of three quarter sized coins) black spider with my toiletries.  Not only was it on the larger side of medium, it was extremely quick.  It took Heather and me 15 minutes armed with empty pringles cans, a water bottle, and gloves to kill the spider haha.

I will return after lunch with more to say on my blog!