the zoo and guests... so many guests

The parrots have begun their molt (or moult if you're located anywhere else except America). They've been losing quite a bit of their downy feathers and a few days ago I started finding various body and flight feathers in their cages. One of the Yellow-loreds has a few damaged primary feathers and I opted not to pluck them as it can cause some serious issues. I was really hoping that they would start molting soon so that he could replace those damaged feathers... I got way too excited on Sunday when I found one of those damaged primaries on the ground. I'm such a nerd, but I'm okay with it. Baby season is coming SO soon. I do believe I'm a bit nervous about it.. hopefully I won't go crazy being the only person that can feed them!

Last Friday, I left a bit later than I had anticipated (as usual) and walked to the "bus station" in San Ignacio. I arrived just in time to catch the bus headed to Belmopan / Belize City. After a quick stop in Belmopan, the bus headed on towards Belize City. The zoo is located more or less in the middle of nowhere on the Western Highway in between Belmopan and Belize City. So I got dropped off in the middle of nowhere, paid $20 BZD (ouch, but it's for a good cause?), and ran into a colleague who gave me a personal tour of the zoo. I am not really pro-zoo, but the Belize Zoo is quite different from any other zoo that I have visited. All of the enclosures are natural and there is no cement save the water sources. All of the species are native and rescued; the signage is cleverly written and geared to educate the Belize people. If you ever come to Belize, I would definitely recommend a visit.

From Saturday evening until Wednesday there were some guests staying at the lodge. 16 guests, to be exact. A group of friends and their kids from America / India stayed for a few days. They were all extremely nice and it ended up being a lot of fun having them here. I got to do a little bit of educating and the kids performed a dance on Tuesday evening while the sun was setting. Most of you who know me know that I'm a relatively quiet person; it was a little surprising to me how talkative I became. Relative solitude will do that to a person, I guess. I've been able to meet so many different people since I've been here... I think it's help restore my faith in humanity in a little. Aaand now on to less depressing things!

I was invited to partake in a training session in Belmopan today. It was geared towards the upcoming field study that involves trapping small felids and jaguar prey items for radio-collaring and sampling. I learned how to load syringes for the dart gun AND shoot the dart gun! I found out at my internship in Texas that I am really bad at aiming firearms and sadly, the same applies to dart guns. Although, we were using a pizza box as target practice so I'll just blame that...? We covered zoonotic diseases as well and I learned about a fun one that can be contracted from birds. Hooray! I love diseases and parasites.

If anybody wants to send me a package (I know you want to!), just be aware that one: they go through the package in front of me so no embarrassing items! And two: they charge me to pick up the package, so lighter is better.

I'm determined to improve my Spanish while I'm here and tonight began the Spanglish sessions with the security guard. We somehow understood each other enough for me to be reminded that I was taught Spanish Spanish and not Latin American Spanish. This is going to be interesting since my brain actually started to shut down after about half an hour of "conversing".

This was kind of a geek post but really... aren't they all? I have no idea of what is to come next week, except that it's one less week until my sister gets here. I'M SO EXCITED!