"Do what you can, with what you have, where you are"

The quote above, by Teddy Roosevelt, should really be the Peace Corps motto. It also relates perfectly to the work we've done in the park over the last month.

Since I last posted, we finished construction of a bridge that crosses a small river at the entrance of our park that swells during the rainy season. Below are some "before and after" photos. We re-used wood from an old indoor soccer field that was torn down in July. The wood from the rafters served as the base of the bridge, and 3-foot slabs from the building's facade were laid across the walkway of the bridge. Our finishing touch was to fill in the sides of the bridge with bamboo donated by a nearby coffee farm.

Shortly after we finished the bridge, I invited two bird experts from a town called Coban to come for a second visit to our park to do a bird inventory. Knut Eisermann and Claudia Avedano, from Cayaya Birding (http://www.cayaya-birding.com), know Guatemala's birds possibly better than anyone else in Central America. Just standing at our look-out, they identified about twenty different species of birds through their calls/songs. Having visited our park four months ago, this visit was focused on the migratory population of birds that cross through Guatemala on their way to the States. I never would have thought in a million years they would have found a Baltimore Oriole in San Marcos, Guatemala. Crazy! Our list of birds now includes 55 different species of birds in an area that's about 250 acres.

Continuing the bird theme, we are about two months away from quetzal nesting season (February - May). One of the main reasons the quetzal is a threatened species is because of its fickle nesting habits. It only nests in dry dead trees, which, last time I checked, have a tendency to fall over in wind and heavy rain. Did I mention we get 4 meters of rain every year? In our park, we have tons of beautiful live trees, but these are way to dense/hard for the quetzal to burrow into. So we hung artificial nests last week; essentially dry trunks hung on live trees. Last year a pair of quetzals took to one of the nest we hung, and we're hoping they do again.

So there's the recap of the last month of work. Check out the pics below and check back soon to hear about the half marathon in Xela and my trip to the tallest volcano in Central America.