PIIP 2024

"Preliminary" Presentation Day Today was extremely successful. I'm writing this blog around 4:55.  My group today, the "Plant" group, presented our poster on Flora de Batipa. Ebony and Salvador have been such amazing teammates. I slept in a little and that felt amazing. I even posted a few of the photos I took to share with friends. The weather today was hot, but now while writing this, it's extremely windy. I see possible rain coming in tonight. Also, I did an interview with Karolynn. Ate dinner, Went to sleep shortly after.

  Boat day and Beach day  So today, Sunday, started very early. Around 7:30. We checked out two beaches today. Swam in the water. The water was so nice and warm. I was able to see crabs and hermit crabs. I also drank out of a coconut for the first time while floating. The first island was nice and relaxing, I swam and then laid on a towel. When we left the first island we got the chance to snorkel. We left for the Last Island were we swam, set up the towels again, went tubing on a hot dog, and then ate lunch there. When leaving it was so hot I got so sunburnt. I saw dolphins and we also saw a huge bird in the sky, its feathers looked like it had two tails. After some research maybe a FrigateBird? But we also broke a seat after hitting a wave.. it was so funny.

Visited and did a presentation and saw a dance. So we visited the Ngabe tribe. It was so nice and I felt very welcomed. I saw a wonderful dance and ate a nice soup. We visited the medicine garden where it started to rain so much, still, everything was so beautiful. After that all of us completed a Clean Water presentation, where we talked about the importance of clean water and how to store water.

May 24, 2024 Today we spent a lot of prep time on our posters, coloring them, and practicing them. Figuring out the best order to present them. A lot of thought has gone into these posters. The posters are on the importance of Clean Water. where we talked about. 

May 23, 2024-Thursday My morning started around 5:40. then I had breakfast around 6:30.  Today was the hardest day, I hiked up the mountain to the lake and did some more. Plant group went off the path. It felt like we climbed up a wall. It was so sleep, once we got to the top the view was so amazing. It was clear and well once we got there we took a previously used path. I was so glad we had a path down lol. It's weird because I have not been feeling sore or anything from these hikes. Other than hiking my team and I made a lot of observations where we took a lot of pictures and uploaded them to I-Naturalist. We also had a field day where we visited the mangroves

May 22, 2024- Today   I woke up the earliest  I have so far while being in Panama. 5:30. We had good out in the field   Heard really loud monkeys   Identified more plants today than yesterday   Had a greatly needed nap Worked on poster   Ate Dinner (chicken rice, beans, broccoli salad) Worked on poster   Bought beautiful jewelry  Worked on poster   Showered   Ready for bed   Slept around 12:30 SOME PICTURES

May 21, 2024-  This morning I woke and had circle time at 6:00 where we talked about what we are all grateful for. Then shortly after we met with our mentor. Today my group and I started our field work. We we when to this first stop to learn how to use the app we will be using for this project. After we went to the Batipa Head trail, where we made our way up. It was the same one from yesterday, I was happy to check out the plants but this time utilizing the app.  While on the tail we had lunch then continued for about 3 hours. Even going a little off-trail. We returned to Centro Batipa, around 3:10 ish and had a break before dinner. After Dinner, there were about 30 minutes we had before circle time when we discussed the article "From "education for sustainability development" to "education for the end of the world as we knew it". There were so many good conversations and stories.  Ending the night with discussing the plans for tomorrow which start at 7-7:30. S

 May 20. 2024- Second Day was super productive. My day started early around 5:30 and we had a circle time. Were we working with Destry all morning on ways to do our poster. As well as talking about water quality and water quantity and worked on creating blogs. Then we had lunch. After my group and I met with our mentors, once the vehicles arrived we went on a tour. The tour was about a 2-hour hike that led to a lake. There were two small crocodiles and a couple of water-running lizards. Then when we got back to the Centro Batipa we had a little cool time with dinner at 6:00. Lunch Discussing Project Working with INaturalist Dinner

May 17-18, 2024- During my stay in Panama City, I ate some Columbian food called Bandeja Paisa, The next day we went to a Bio Museum, visited the City, and checked out the stands they had there, while looking at the stands it started to rain a lot. Then we ate Panamanian food at this place called Diablicos, as well as visited the Panama Canal and saw a movie about it after that was was about the Panama Canal in 3D.                                                                                                Bio Museum                                                                                                   Stand Chicken with rice and platacones                                                                                               Panama Canal May 19, 2024- Yesterday was hot not something I'm used to, but Panama is very pretty. When arriving our group got a tour around Batipa, where we will be staying until next week. I saw Howler Monkeys, one had a baby with it. I f