Today Pierre took a few a few volunteers and I out to an aguajal to look for frogs. A couple of the longer-term volunteers claim that they saw a green frog in this area a week ago, and Pierre thought that it might be a frog which isn’t known to be present in the region, so he wanted to see it with his own eyes. Walking out there, it was interesting to see Pierre out in the jungle. He’s been here for many years, and it’s kind of amazing to watch how easily he carves up the jungle in front of him with his machete and vaults over obstacles. It’s also interesting to hear all the information that he gets from the jungle which goes over our heads. Sometimes he’ll stop and say “smell that? That’s howler monkey poop they’ve been in this area recently” or “hear that bird call? It means it’s going to be a really hot one today, hotter tomorrow, then the Friaje will come.” He’s full of small observations like that which show an impressive understanding of the jungle’s ecosystem.
Navigating the aguajal was challenging to say the least. It kind of like an obstacle course. Trees and patches of grass or palm fronds made little areas of land where you could put your weight without sinking. You had to make your way from one to the other without falling into the water, which was deep enough to get mud over the rim of our knee-high boots. We carefully worked our way through, looking in the water for frogs. We found a few brown ones, but only got a quick glimpse of a green one. We couldn’t manage to track it down and identify it in the end unfortunately. Pierre’s birds were right about the heat by the way; the walk back was scorching. Pierre told us: “it’s a shame we came on a Saturday. You know on Fridays they have a food truck out in the aguajal. It’s got hamburgers, cold beer, espresso, smoothies… You have to order while waist-deep in water but it’s worth it”
In the afternoon my activity was to build a floor for a second kitchen which will eventually be located on the far end of the property. We carried some wood planks that Rahul and Aga had helped to cut out in the forest earlier that day to the construction site, where JasonK and I tried to nail them together to build a floor. We definitely made progress, but the wood we were using was amazingly tough. Jason and I bent many nails trying to drive them into the boards before we got the hang of it. Even when we did “get the hang of it” we still bent quite a few more. In the evening we played games as usual.
-Rob Pakko
EGL Family Abroad 