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Big turtles
Rescued turtles are kept in a pool at the camp Well, these past 2 weeks in school have passed without much excitement, studying the past tense, how we talk about habits and analysing not extremely profound texts on May Day celebrations and tourism in London, written by Anne and myself.
Last Monday we visited another school for the afternoon, a private primary school in which one of the secondaria´s English teachers works in the afternoons. It really couldn´t be much different. Firstly, at aged 11 and after only 6 months of classes the students we saw already have a much better grasp of English than the 14 year olds in our senior school. On top of that it´s so quiet! The children actually do the work they´re set, when they are set it, and get it right and they listen to each other and the teacher when they are working as a class. On the down side though they were a bit too quiet. Maybe it was shyness and not wanting to be wrong in front of the new teachers but these kids struggled to say anything - a problem we definately don´t have in our other school. This class also has a high-tech computer projection system where the pages
Truck
In the back of the truck going to the camp. Everyone here rides like this. from the text book are shown on the screen in front so that they can all work together on the questions. It seems to include a video and sound system too, and this is just in one of the classrooms, presumably all the classrooms have the same. Compared to our dirty, falling off the wall white boards in our other school it was luxury. The classes are much more sensible in the primary school too, we had about 20 the day we were there; 35 is normal in the secondary. Hopefully we shall be going there to do another couple of classes at some point so that should be interestin: the children there certainly learn more, but they also seem a bit less spirited than the others, but maybe that´ll change.
Other than the schools, this week we have mostly been watching television. It is proof of the quality of Mexican TV when I say that the American sitcoms and dramas are the best things on. So this week has been full of Gilmore Girls, ER, The OC and Will and Grace, punctuated with old episodes of What not to Wear and Changing Rooms (with Carol Smilie) - the
Babies
Baby turtle swimming, these ones hatched from eggs confiscated from criminals by the police. They are really tiny (or else my hand is MASSIVE!!) Mexican´s evidently only import the best of the BBC!
We have also been to the park a couple of times in the past week and as from tomorrow I am starting some more Spanish lessons.
TURTLE CAMP At the weekend, Anne and I went to Teaching and Projects Abroad other home, the conservation site near Tecoman, about 4 hours south of Guadalajara, known locally as ´The Turtle Camp´.
On the evening after we arrived we helped clean out the pool that the baby rescued turtles are kept in, which first involved moving them all by hand into a washing up bucket. They are really really cute and so so small. Unfortunately, Anne´s extraordinary ability with the camera meant that I spent more time posing for this picture than actually scrubbing the floor (sorry Anne!).
Unfortunately the egg-laying season for tutles has not really started, normally the work of the camp involves digging up freshly layed turtle eggs at night and incubating them in a protected area of sand and then waiting until they hatch and releasing the babies at sunrise, but without the eggs we didn´t really have that much to do. Beside the cleaning though
we did get to feed the big turtles some cucumber and we did collect some newly hatched babies born out of season, from the incubation area, although their release was after we had left.
Other than the turtle work there is not a huge amount to do here, I can´t believe people come for full months here! Anne and I amused ourselves by walking alot. We walked to the nearby lagune in which we swam on the first evening, very beautiful but a bit green as it is cut off from the sea completely except for at a few hightides. We swam whilst making sure our heads went no where near the water! We also walked along the beach, dodging the thousands of red and grey crabs, which with the rows of palm trees and warm black sand is also lovely. We also an iguana bathing on some rocks - quite a large one, which was a nice treat.
Typically the first night of rain the camp has seen in years was when we were staying. The rain came down. The rain came sideways - yes horizontal rain! The rain filled my tent and soaked everything I had.
Before the rain
The beach before the rain The rain flowed into the buildings through the cracks around the buildings. I thought I would never dry, especially after a dash to the loo ended with me sitting in the biggest puddle in the world while I laughed off a bruized head and bum. It was so loud and you couldn´t see beyond a few meters except when the lightning over the sea lit up even more rain. At least it kept the bugs away though!
The next day was typically cloudy until we had to leave, then as we were waiting at the bus station for 3 hours we finally got the proper sun we´d hoped for. It was a really interesting visit but there is no way I could stay longer, I used to laugh at my parents for not liking camping but I think I agree now. If you don´t have to sleep in a sandy puddle with insects and pick ants out of your cereal before you eat it why bother? The turtles are gorgeous however and it´s a real shame we didn´t see any laying, I can´t believe some people would rather eat these amazing creatures than see them in the wild, and
Misty beach
The black sand, sea, palm trees and buildings in the mist there are so few left it´s great that some people do want to eat ants to help them survive. Thanks guys!
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Julian Fell
non-member comment
Hi just to say that I'm really enjoying reading your reports as well, glad you're having a good time. Julian x