hello lovely family and friends,

well ive now been in mexico for ten days and figured it was about time to send an update. seeing as we're pretty dang busy and have limited access to the internet, ill be sending a big news email fortnightly-ish but still hope to corrsepond with everyone indivudually.

so here's the scoop- this place is amazing! the campus is beautiful, all the buildings are palapas, white stucko buildings with thatched palm rooves and we're about 30 m from the water. its in the 90's daily but we get some nice breezes. dont worry- im wearing sunscreen and a hat. the food is delicious- lots of rice and beans and tortillas of course, good veggie options too.


the town of san carlos is an interesting place. its about a 10 minute walk from here to the center. ive gone in for some field trips to talk with shrimp shellers, see an Independence day parade, and go to the disco and danced my socks off with friends, townsfolk and professors. it is definately a small and impoverished place but full of wonderful people. the taco stands are delicious. im practicing my spanish and certainly improving although some people just dont understand me. we're teaching englihs classes for the community that are going very well.

the past two days, ive been working with 5 other students and a researcher on conducting monthly water quality tests. lots of time on the panga collecting samples using the GPS and about 8 hours in the lab today. our data is looking pretty good and soon we'll use GIS to extrapalate and make maps of currents and pollutant distribution. hopefully this experiment will encourage the local cannery to run its filters to decrease nutrient levels. i also went on a 2am sea grass transplanting operation, lots of fun on the tidal mudflats.

ive gotten pretty good at identitfying the local turtles species by shells. tomorrow we are going on a 3 day camping/ turtle capture expedition. we'll do late night shifts to watch nets and hopefully we'll get to measure and tag a few black or olive ridley turtles. while collecting water, a juvenille bottle nose dolphin swam along with our boat, pretty incredible. also spotted some cormerants diving from 30 ft +. there is a tidal wetland just outside of our fence so we get loads of birds- osprey, ibis, pelicans, frigot, great blue and tricolored herons, comerants, and a whole lot more that im learning to identify.

the professors, Paco, Hector and Edgar, are quite characters. In a few days we pick our directed research topics and am torn between an encotourism project and a survey of childrens attitudes toward the community and environment. my classmates are some pretty cool kids. some of my best friedns are Max, a cool girl from Ontario who knows a lot about forestry, Sasha from Berkley who is studying the HIstory of Science and Social Justice, we joke that she is my twin because she too has a ukelele and has parents named Joan and John. There's Dan who'l from Mexico city who is teaching me salsa dancing and spanish and i help him with english. Pete is from NORTH HAVEN, CT and is a whale lover and excellent frisbee player. And Berta, who is an intern from La Paz who knows everything about black turtles and is so sweet. Although we have been booked nearly all day every day, we fit in a little bit of ukelele on the porch or voll! eyball, frisbee, or hamock time. On our sunday off we went out to the town bridge and swam in the estuary. We talked to lots of local kids and plunged off the bridge into clear deep water. it was so nice to cut loose and get salty. weve been spending lots of time in the field which is so condusive to my learnning.

so yes, everything is as wonderful as i hoped and thank you all for being so supportive. i miss everyone very much and would love to know how you are doing so write me!

besos, xox, phoebe


p.s.- if you go to here there should be a 'Mexic: News from the Field' which will tell you what we are up to.