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So CARNAVAL began on Friday night and tonight will be the final night of fiestas.Antonella and I went for ceviche on the beach on Friday night and upon leaving the restaurant were greeted with eggs and buckets of water on our heads…haha, VIVA CARNAVAL!! This nonsense continued each night (and day) we passed anywhere close to the main street next to the beach.Regardless of this silly custom, the nights out have been super fun!Full, full, full of music and dancing, people, eggs, buckets of water, music, dancing, swimming in the ocean, warm tropical rain, lightning, music, dancing, more tropical rain…
All of us here at Equilibrio Azul have had a long Carnaval as we have been guarding 2 separate beaches 24/7 for four days in a row to protect the turtle nests and the precious life within (while also trying to enjoy some of the festivities).Needless to say my sleeping schedule is way off. One day I got back to the house after a full day at the beach baking in the super hot sun, slept from 5-11pm, woke up and was wide awake as I am getting accustomed to the shifts on the beach where we sleep for two hours, patrol the beach for one hour, sleep for 2 more hours, wake up and patrol the beach for another hour, etc.In any case Mica and Fernando came home around midnight and we ended up going back out until 4am dancing in the pouring rain…super fun!
Aside from warding people away from the beach and picking up the mountains of trash the tides bring in, our time at the beach has been spent quite lazily as the sun has been super intense. I have still managed to put some good time in studying Spanish, practicing yoga, making jewelry (which has become a favorite pastime as of late because of all the awesome shells and rocks on the beach), journaling, and swimming.All of the people I have met down here seem to have some kind of artisanal talent up their sleeve so I have been fortunate enough to pick up some crazy cool macramé techniques!We did wind up wandering upon a baby turtle one morning while walking along the water line at La Playita.Crazy cute this little turtle was!We followed the tracks back to the forest line where the nests are and started digging in the holes to see if there were more to be found so we could set them free in the ocean.We ended up finding another live turtle that had been drug into the hole of a crab…the nasty crab was eating the little guy.This is pure evidence of how difficult it is for these turtles to survive when they are so young and in this delicate phase of their lives.Though this little turtle will most likely not survive its wounds we put it back on the beach and the little guy had enough fight in him to make its way to the water.The turtle was unbelievably adorable and watching it enter the water was almost as beautiful as watching the mama turtles re-enter the water after they have spent all night making their nests and laying their eggs.
As far as the whole learning a new language is concerned…it is just a long, persistent, constantly rewarding and frustrating experience all at the same time!Some days I wake up and can understand everything and some days I wake up and nothing sounds familiar.I have been studying the verb forms of common verbs and that has helped a lot, both with my speaking and comprehension.Though frustrating at times I am very content with the whole process and am so glad I will be here for long enough to really learn the language.
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