Greetings,

Well, as some of you may be aware from the other typical blog posts that I have put up on the site, this past week was filled with lots of work, and of course getting to know my current housemates.

Monday night my housemates arrived from the Philadelphia Airport, thanks to Dale, and very quickly we bonded and talked about each other, and the work ahead. The first housemate that I was to meet was David (Da-veed) from Belize, and the other was Cesar (Say-Czar) from Peru. Both appear to have fairly extensive experience in the tropics, and I would suspect will be bringing a lot to the table when it comes to working as a team. One of my main concerns about having to live with others from Latin America was of course the language barrier, and while I feel comfortable enough in spanish, I am far from fluent. Fortunately, both speak english very well, especially David because he hails from Belize, which as it turns out uses English as the primary language. I do however look forward to increasing my spanish, which is already happening, as well as learning a little bit of Mayan, as David is of course Mayan, and speaks it fluently.

After getting to know my housemates for a bit, the work week began in strong fashion, and we spent the majority of the week working on various projects. The two main ones that we are tackling is the making of the burlap holding pens, as well as practicing making the flag bands that will hold an alphanumeric code that can be used to identify individual birds at a distance. Both projects have their setbacks time to time (especially the bands), but we are slowly working through them all. We were in fact able to accomplish the making of the first holding pen, and thanks to David and Cesar’s previous sewing skills, it made the work go a lot faster. Although, I do have to say that my sewing has become very good over the past week!

Aside from the grind of work that we tackle with every day, we have also had the good fortune of going birding at most of southern NJs best birding locales: Jake’s Landing Road, Belleplain State Forest, Heislerville WMA, Higbee Beach WMA, Cape May Point State Park, etc. We have found lots of new birds for my roommates, and I believe Ceysar is nearing 70 new species? perhaps? Most of the migrants aren’t quite back yet, so I have not had a good chance to find any life birds for myself, although year birds are coming on a weekly, if not almost daily basis.

Aside from that, we are partaking in typical house life, shopping, cleaning, watching movies, and of course sharing a few beers together as we discuss the differences in our countries, and of course cultures. I have now had the fortune of living with people from many different nations (USA, Canada, Mexico, El Salvador, Panama, Belize, Peru, Kenya, New Zealand), and it is an experience that I would never trade in. There is too much to gain from it, and nothing feels better when you befriend someone and share moments together. If you can look past culture, race, and nationality and still share many laughs, than it shows the quality of people that are still in the world. A priceless experience.

At any rate, my time here writing this is running out as I have many more obligations to attend to. Things here are going well, and while the work is tedious and at times frustrating, it is very rewarding, and I feel lucky to be here. There will be more to come, I am sure!!!!

~Chad