Moving Sand

Loading up a wheelbarrow with locals

On Sunday we finally arranged a ride over to Costa De Oro to fill the hatchery. When we got to the house there were people from the San Jose Red Cross renting the place and seemed pretty put off that we were going to be working in front of their house. They even came over to us and let us know that they paid for privacy and that we were invading them.  Maddie and I apologized and let them know that we would only be working at the hatchery and would not walk anywhere near the house. They agreed probably because they knew we were using public land and had the permits to be there.

As we began filling the hatchery with fresh sand we started attracting attention from the locals and people came with their own shovels and wheelbarrows to help us. The sense of community astounded me. Before long Victor, the caretaker of the new house, showed up to talk with Maddie and I about his role at the house. He was incredibly friendly and apologized for the renters attitude towards us and told us if we needed anything at all he would help us.

Ana, one of our German volunteers, helping a local
child unload the wheelbarrow.

As the buckets and wheelbarrows loaded with sand were being added to the swimming pool size hole we made the week before, a young girl tapped me on the arm and said "Muchacha podamos ayudar?" This young girl and her 3 siblings wanted to help too. I was amazed! I grabbed 4 more buckets and took them too the beach and filled them half way with sand and looked at the kids. They weren't reaching for them they were just staring. I asked if I had made them too heavy and they replied that they wanted them filled all the way. These kids were maybe 10 years old and were carrying more sand than most of us. The kids kept trucking along carrying full buckets of sand and were filling them their selves before we had a chance to. Before long I look over and the kids have found themselves a wheelbarrow and were moving pretty heavy loads of sand. The kids could not have come at a better time, everyone was getting tired but nobody wanted to be put to shame by children either.  Overall between the help from the locals and the fact we didn't have to walk over 3 Km to get to work  we were able to fill almost 1/3 of the hatchery with fresh sand.

 I am happy to report that I have now seen turtle 4 nights in a row. We have been getting about 3 nesting turtles each night and everyone has now seen at least 2 nesting turtles.  So we now have 20 nests in our hatchery.