Scuba Diving and New Volunteers

When in Rome... do as the Romans do. It's hard living on a tropical island for so long and not scuba diving. Learning in the ocean sure beats a swimming pool! The snorekling is also nice (hint, hint- you might want to visit?) I saw a huge brain coral the other day! It was wider than me and about 2 or 3 feet long. Today I went on two dives and saw 3 huge sting rays, 3 moray eels, a conch, tons of fan coral, brain coral, a barracuda, and tons of fish. The dive instructor showed me how to touch the large sting ray between the eyes and pet it. They're very docile creatures and stayed still while I pet them. Sonja is a very patient instructor and she's a lot of fun to dive with. She is able to identify and point out a lot of the wildlife.

The volunteers arrived this past week. It's been a slow week getting everyone settled in, but I've been getting to know the new volunteers and they're all really nice. They're from Britain, Scotland, and France. I've been practicing my French with the French woman. My French is horrible because I haven't spoken it since high school. I'm picking up some phrases here and there.

Work in the Botanical Garden is going well. I put in an order for the plants in the Fruit Garden on Friday. We have to spend the money in the grant that we received by December 31st. So hopefully this week we can clear out the Corallita (it will most likely grow back in 3 days) and then plant some of the fruit trees when they come in. Usually things take a while to come in when ordered, so there's no guarantee that these plants will come within the next two weeks. Also, hopefully next week someone is going to come out and look at the children's garden. It is covered in Corallita and very sloped. We're hiring a bulldozer to level it into three large level areas. Once the area is leveled we'll be able to seed it with grass which will hopefully out compete the Corallita. So there's a lot going on and my job is currently keeping me very busy. I'm also going to be writing a press release for STENAPA about the grant money and how we're spending it. So it's promising to be a busy week.

Money!

Money!:

Well the money just came in on Friday for the grants for both the Children's Garden and the Fruit Garden. I now have my work cut out for me because these are both projects that I will be working on for the next 5 months. The tasks are mildly daunting considering the land needs to be leveled in the children's garden and both areas are completely overgrown by corallita. The ranger for the garden, Carlton is leaving on Friday to leave me by myself to run the garden for three weeks. I'm excited and up to the challenge of running the garden and the maintenance with the volunteers while he's gone, but also realize it's a huge task. things are constantly breaking and I'm not quite sure how to fix everything. The electricity at the garden runs on solar panels, so when the power goes out the backup generator has to be turned on. I'm going to learn about that tomorrow! I've already learned how to start the lawnmower, weedwackers, etc. This may sound very basic, but these are very different types of machinery than I'm used to. For example the weedwackers here have two plastic wires coming out that whirl at high speed. When you want more line, you just wack the weedwacker on a rock and more comes out- voila! Weedwacking here requires the proper safety equipment. Shinguards, like for soccer and safety goggles. Now, if only there were something to protect my nose! Today, a small pebble shot up my nose while weedwacking! It was awful, but I was able to get it out alright- no worries.

I went for a lengthy snorkel this weekend, which was awesome! I saw 5 squid, a puffer fish, tons of coral, blue-headed wrasse, urchins (my personal favorite), and a spiny sea star. It was a blast! The area that I was snorkeling on is actually the old sea wall for the city. It isn't too deep, but the fact that it's completely underwater should tell the island of Statia something. Also, when out in the water, you can look back at the shoreline and see the ruins of old buildings. It doesn't look ugly in any way, because it's just stone walls that are jutting into the sea. These used to be warehouses run by the Dutch.

On Sunday, I went to Zeelandia Beach, which is the most beautiful beach on Statia. On the side there are many rocks that run out over the sea and also come down from the mountain. I went bouldering with some coworkers and it was great! I got up pretty high for myself and then just watched the people on the beach. There were only about 5 people on the beach, which is typical for Zeelandia. It's always very quiet on the beach, which makes it an awesome place to hang out.

I was also going to go fishing Statia style on Sunday, which means you just fish off the reel instead of using a fishing rod, but alas our truck picked up a nasty nail from the dump and we spent at least an hour fixing it. But it was fun nonetheless and it was great getting dirty and figuring out where to put the jack on a big truck. I'm used to smaller cars and it's so much easier!

Shipwreck Party!

Shipwreck Party! We had a shipwreck party up at the Botanical Gardens on Saturday. It was a lot of fun- we had a barbecue first and then invited people to come up later. The idea was that you were shipwrecked without any clothes, so a lot of people made costumes out of calabash shells and leaves, etc. The interns decided to crash the party and dress as the pirates that shipwrecked the ship! Unfortunately the party was kind of slow and it mostly ended up being STENAPA people because a lot of people's cars can't make it up the road to the Botanical Gardens.

Turtles: (again)
Two times this past week we got the call for turtle hatchlings. Arturo (the turtle guy) called the Botan phone and told us there were hatchlings on Monday night. A volunteer came into the pavillion and shouted: "Turtle!" which made me wake up right away and jump straight out of my hammock. Whenever there is a turtle, you are allowed to drive at "turtle speed" which basically means as fast as you can go down the Botan road. So here we were all excited because this particular nest was long overdue to hatch. We got down to Zeelandia beach (approximately 8 minutes later) and saw 5 baby turtle hatchlings. It was awesome! They always head toward the brightest part on the beach, which are usually the waves. If there are lights behind the beach (which they are at Zeelandia) the turtles will usually head away from the ocean. You can lead them with your flashlight down to the beach if they're having trouble.
The following night we were also called about the turtle hatchlings, but thankfully it was a bit earlier and we were all awake. We went down to the beach but unfortunately, there was only one baby turtle. The turtle survival rate to adulthood is 1/1000, so realistically none of the 5 turtles that hatched will probably survive. Thankfully, there was another unmarked nest that they found today that had 121 hatchlings that came out all at once. They usually come out all at once because there is safety in numbers. Thankfully after that turtle patrol was canceled. It's actually really boring to walk along the beach at night from 9PM-3AM. There have only been about 4 nesting turtles this season so there hasn't been too much action. Hopefully the conservation program that they're doing with the turtles (making sure they're nests won't get washed away once laid, tagging, and tracking the mature female turtles) will help and will eventually increase the numbers. The locals have harvested the turtles for a very long time so the numbers are painfully low. The first night I arrived we tagged a turtle and you can check out it's path at www.seaturtle.org The turtle's name is Track- named by a school-child that won a contest!

Snorkel Club:

On Mondays I’ve started working with Snorkel Club. I love it because it gives me time away from the garden and in the water. It’s a way for the children around Statia to learn to snorkel and sometimes even swim. Most of the time they say they know how to swim, but need to hold on to you when they do their 200-M swim test. Only three showed up last week, but this week there should be at least 5 more of them. Once they learn how to snorkel we take them to different snorkel spots so they can see the different diversity of corals and fish and then identify them when we’re done.

On Tuesdays and Thursdays I’m involved with the Junior Rangers. Junior Rangers is a program for the children that have graduated from snorkel club and want to continue on. Junior Rangers is a much wider program, they come and learn up in the garden about how plants grow, renewable energies, and edible plants. Later, they hike the Quill and possibly even the Boven to learn about trail maintenance. They will also do more advanced snorkeling.

Beach Cleanup:

Last Saturday we were involved in the worldwide largest beach cleanup. I love being involved in cleanups back home. However, here they are not my most favorite thing to do. Unfortunately, the village landfill overlooks the beach. STENAPA has been lobbying for them to move the landfill to a different spot or even just close the hole up so that it doesn’t wash onto the beach. Apparently, next year Statia becomes part of the Dutch government, which has much stricter rules about trash and how you should get rid of it. There isn’t even recycling on the island. It’s an environmentalist’s nightmare! Anyway, back to the cleanup. There were about 20 of us cleaning up the beach, and we were able to get a whole truckload of trash off the beach. Cleaning the beach is still important (whether or not I like to do it) because the baby turtle hatchlings get caught in the trash and can’t make it out to sea.

(Bradley and Brook at the beach cleanup)

Demographics of Statia:

Statia has a year-round population of approximately 3,000 people. The majority of the locals are descendants of the African slave trade that was a huge part of Statia’s early history. Also, because Statia is a Netherland Antilles island, many of the locals are also Dutch. In addition, there are approximately 300 medical students that live here for most of the year. There is also a very large Chinese population on the island.

With all these diverse groups of people, there are many different religions. The most prominent on Statia is the Seventh-Day Adventists. I don’t know much about this particular religion, but I know they don’t believe in evolution and they don’t work from sundown on Saturday till Sunday night. It makes it hard to buy groceries because they have the largest grocery stores on the island. However, some of them are open for a couple hours in the morning on Sunday because people come over from St. Kitts to buy groceries for the week. It’s very expensive to come over from St. Kitts, but since their taxes are so high they each pay the $100 round-trip ferry ride and come over here to buy groceries. Apparently, even with the ferry charge, it’s still cheaper to get their groceries on Statia.

In addition to Seventh-Day Adventists, there are Catholics, Methodists, Protestants, Buddhists, and Muslims. A co-worker of mine told me that in total there are about 12 different practicing religions on the island.

Me and my scooter: What do you think? Just kidding. I don't have one yet. Wishful thinking :)

Water, water everywhere but not a drop to drink!

Living on the wrong side of the mountain has many perks, but easy access to water is not one of them! The pavillion and the house itself have two cisterns underneath them that collect rainwater. The water is fine to use for the dishes, etc but not to drink. We get our drinking water in town. STENAPA actually imports the fresh water. And contrary to what I originally thought, I actually have had plenty of freshwater showers. It's the rainy season right now and there is plenty of rainwater to take showers with. It may not be warm, but hey, you get hot just from stepping out of the shower!

Our water pipes were broken yesterday and we were out of cistern water at the house. Fortunately though, there was still a ton of water underneath the pavillion, we just couldn't pump it into the house. So, we just filled up jugs of water and carried it to the house and all was well for the night. And thankfully we fixed the problem this morning.

Driving on Statia:
Statia is a very small island with very narrow roads. Most of the roads are one way streets. I almost have my way around figured out, but sometimes you know exactly where you want to go but just can't get there because of all the one-ways. Statia isn't exactly set up like New York City. The planning makes no sense!

The best part about driving here is the use of the STENAPA truck, which is awesome! When I drive it I feel like a tiny person that is driving a huge truck. In reality, it is the size of a regular pickup truck, but the truck usually has a ton of people in it. The trucks seem like a necessity here because the road to the botanical gardens is mostly dirt and rocks and very steep at times. The trucks have all taken a beating just from so much use especially on this really horrible road that we drive up and down about 8 times a day! When I got here, one of the trucks was out of service because someone had hit a huge rock with and dented the front fender and then later in the week someone else had an accident and took the door off. The truck is undergoing some repairs and will be operational on Monday. I am in the process of sanding the back benches and railing in order to help get it all ready to go.

Turtles and life on Statia

Airport: I was put on standby in St. Martin and I was booked on the 6:30 flight out to Statia. (Island speak for St. Eustatius). I basically planted myself in front of the desk so I could get on the next flight. I figured that the flight would be small, but I was not prepared for how small it was! It was about a 15 passenger plane. The flight was booked with mostly med students, back for their next term. I sat next to a med student, Jafar, who scared me by talking about how they almost died the last time he was on this really small flight. But we got in ok, and flying into Statia was pretty awesome because you could just about see the whole island at once. The best part was after landing in Statia, there was the baggage claim, which they told me was a hole in the wall. Now I didn't believe them, I was thinking conveyer belt, but no really it was a hole in the wall! I got in alright and I collected the rest of my bags the next day when they could bring in the next load of luggage. I was picked up by RJ and taken to the place that he's housesitting at for dinner. The rest of the interns and volunteers joined us there.

Turtles: That night the interns and volunteers had just decided to go back home to the Botan, or Botanical garden where we live and we got "The Turtle Call" which means that we all went running to the truck to go look at the turtle. Turtle call means you have license to drive as fast as possible down the rickety road to get to Zeelandia Beach where the turtles are nesting. Usually there are 2 people on turtle patrol at night and they call up to the Botan in case you want to see the turtles. In this case, however they needed to put a tagging device on the turtle, which meant everyone had to be there. It took hours! We got there at 11PM and finished at 3AM. Needless to say, the turtle was not a happy camper.

Life on Statia: Life on the island is very slow. Everyone is very friendly but there are a couple of rulse: The first is; do not walk around town without a shirt on. You must be clothed, and have your shoulders covered when in a government building. The second rule is; You must say "good morning," or "good afternoon" when going into shops around town. They think you are rude if you say just "hello." Also, the most interesting thing culturally here is the gossip. It's amazing, someone saw us out on Zeelandia beach, which is apparently very dangerous to swim on. We didn't know and instead of telling us that we shouldn't swim, they reported it to STENAPA that we were swimming on the beach. I also never saw anyone while I was there, so it gives it kind of a creepy element. The gossip goes all the way around the island first and then you'll hear about it. Although considering that the island is pretty small, it doesn't take long.

Botanical Gardens

So as many of you know, I'm working in the Botanical Garden on Statia. The gardens are beautiful, I live there with three other interns and 8 volunteers. I'm currently the only American. Everyone else is British, Dutch, Canadian, Scottish, and South African. Everyone is very friendly and has a lot of different interests and are here for different reasons.

The botanical gardens are very pretty, but they take a lot of time to maintain. Unfortunately, there is an introduced species calle Corallita, which takes over everything. It is a viny plant that grows up and chokes the plant that it is growing around. The interesting part about it is, that it has many tubers, like potatoes so it is impossible to cut back. You have to dig it out of the ground. The only part that doesn't really have it, is the Quill, which is the dormant volcano on the island. Unfortunatley, the ferral goats eat the plant and then spread it around the island. However, if you were to capture a goat and take it to the meat market, it would probably be claimed by someone. The goats have free rein of the island as to the cows, chickens, and pigs.

My main job is to take care of the Fruit Garden which was set up by the previous interns and to help set up the Children's Garden. The Childrens Garden has all the plans set up, and I will be looking online for some material to make things for the playground. The funding finally went through, so they are pushing to set up the Children's Garden as soon as possible. The Fruit Garden is very pretty, with many pineapples, mangoes, and cocoa plants. But Corallita is alreay starting to strangle some of the pineapple. I think we might work on that on Maintenance Monday, which means all the interns and volunteers get together and work on a project that needs a lot of attention.