EIL Intercultural Learning

Hola eveyone, hope you are all well. I have decided to do a special blog on the animals here because they are such a big part of my daily life.

The title of the blog is Dr.Dolittle. For those of you who don't know Dr.Dolittle was a fictional doctor who could talk to animals and understand them as well. Now I'm not saying the animals here talk to me.....that would be a little strange.....so I'm not saying that at all.....on the otherhand I talk to the animals here all the time!!

My favourite would have to be the turtles. This involves patrolling the beach in the middle of the night and coming across a mother laying anything from 100-150 eggs, then we collect and record the eggs in the turtle camp and 45 days later the baby turtles appear ready to be released that evening into the scary ocean. I always give my turtles Irish names, so if you come across a turtle sometime called Seamus, for example, looking for it's Irish mother, I'm to blame, but of course people don't talk to turtles......so that will never happen.....It is amazing to think that only 1 out of every 100 turtles we release with make it to adulthood as there are many perils in living in the Pacific Ocean, only the other night we found a turtle dead on the beach who had been attacked by a fish. The people of La Ventanilla went from once robbing the eggs themselves to now building up a conservation and educational hub to protect this wonderful creatures and the respect they have for them is to be admired.

Now onto the crocs; powerful, intriguing and captivating. I love seeing the reaction of the tourists everyday when they see their first croc. They linger in the water and when they dip below you always wonder if they will resurface Jaws style under the boat. However in 15 years there has never been an problems with the crocs here. Although I nearly had my very own moment last week involving two crocs and me doing a bit of Steve Irwin style videoing, it is hilarious and I will post it as soon as I get home. I saw my biggest croc so far the other day and when it opened it's mouth I wondered if Irish stew was on the menu!

There are around 150 species of birds in the lagoon and on one of the bird-watching tours last week we spotted 35 which is good going. All of the species are so unusual looking and I even got a video of a woodpecker attacking a tree, as they do. How can I not mention Juppy the spider monkey, who if you give him a lime he will wash himslef like a cat! He knows me now and stretches out his foot for a tickle when I see him.

I am going to need another post for all the animals, those were just a quick sample. Lets not forget my bedroom lizards, one of them fell onto the floor the other day, its walking upside down obviously had failed it and it had a look of terror when it realised it was on the ground. Oh and a chicken decided to lay an egg in my clothes the other day, weird but true! 

Ok only a quick post but had to give a shout out the animals!

P.S If anyone wants me to name a turtle for them post names below!

Ciao for now

MC