Field work

Yesterday was my first field work experience! I arrived at the office (after a two hour adventure/debacle on the mini busses) and met Emily, a Peace Corps volunteer here. Emily and her two colleagues were going out into the wetlands to collect water samples and survey some experimental plates for baby oyster growth. Guess who they invited to go with them?! You may think I’m a little over-excited about this, but it was actually the bomb. Yaya drove us in a truck to the put-in site swerving down these tiny dirt roads. The previous night had also been the first rain of the season, so what are usually bad roads, were just barely navigable. That didn’t phase Yaya though- I think he just saw it as a challenge. After all that excitement we arrived at the put in spot where a few people agreed to paddle us out in their dug out canoes. These canoes are incredible. They are just these great old hollowed out and tapered logs with a few board rested across the top. They are even tippy-er than you might guess. We just stuck to the estuary where the water was calm because it is sheltered by huge islands of lush mangroves, but apparently people take these boats out on the open sea. I can’t imagine it.
Today we did “market research” which consisted of visiting one of the oyster harvesting communities and buying four cups of oysters. The women shuck the oysters by the ton, it seems. Giant mounds of empty oyster shells were piled high all around the area. Some of the mounds were smoking, which was explained to me to be the process of converting the shells into lime. After weighing and counting the oysters comes the best part of market research: eating them.