What a whirlwind of a first month. April in San Rafael Pie de la Cuesta proved to be a taste test of all the unexpected challenges, new experiences, and emotions that I was expecting from my two-year service. I had plenty of ups-and-downs with work and getting settled-in, but overall I really like my site and the work that I'll be doing here.
The park to which I've been assigned is called the Refugio del Quetzal, a terrain of about 8,000 square kilometers, that the current mayor bought during his first term. It serves as one of the few remaining habitats for the national bird of Guatemala, the quetzal (pictures below). The bird itself has been on the brink of extinction for a number of years due to deforestation and habitat destruction, an unfortunate common theme in Guatemala. Our goal is to preserve their environment, improve their numbers, and hopefully open the park to tourists in the future to generate revenue for the community of San Rafael.
In my first month we've already made some good progress. During Semana Santa we started a log book of all the visitors, giving us good marketing information on the profile our average visitor. We also asked for voluntary donations from our visitors, which generated about Q600/$85 in four days, enough to pay for a few tools and wood to continue building-up the basic infrastructure. As far as the infrastructure of the park, we basically have none. The trails need attention, we don't have letrines, and there's no place to throw away garbage. So we started small this month and are really focusing on improving the entry to our park with better stairs and drainage. I've also put together a budget for our most basic needs (tools, manual labor, and materials) to develop the first part of our trail. The total is about Q14,800/$2000. Now we just need an outside organization to help with the financial support, which is definitely the part that will stall our process the most.
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