On Monday we made our last visit to the clinic as a team. We checked our progress, straightened and finished the canalita, and assured that the shadehouse would be complete by Thursday, by the end, we were happy to move on to the next part of our project.
Having completed our visitis at Dona Alicia’s, we gathered enough information on medicinal plants for us to finally devote our time to transcribing and digitializing her knowledge. Alec has been typing out our hand-written rough drafts onto an Excel document (on the Windows desktop computer that now seems like an ancient machine, requiring us to draw back on our long-lost memories in order to operate it) that was nearly lost due to an unexpected power-cut. Along with the help of Sally and Alessandra, each medicinal plant’s description and uses have been translated to English – which was thoroughly checked and corrected by our fluent Spanish speaking visitor Gretta the Great. With this complete and formatted spreadsheet, including Q&A, Spanish and English bilingual descriptions, uses, and photos, we were able to formulate a sample module to be sent to Gary (founder of WiRED International) over the long-awaited weekend in Iquitos with the hope of being published online at www.wiredinternational.org.
Krislia and Anna have drawn on all of our packaged information in order to create a sample pamphlet, which will also be sent to Devon (director of PA) for review. Once approved, this pamphlet will serve as an informative and accessible tool for the communities to use.
HOLD UP, WE JUST SAW A SLOTH!! – As we were all calmly working on our respective tasks, Zoe burst into the room jumbling up her words, gasping for air and finally announcing ‘SLOTH, SLOTH, SLOTH’. We immediately abandoned our duties and scrambled up the cement path to witness this jungle miracle. Only coming down once a week from its sleepy-tree-palace, we delightfully witnessed the slow-motion crawl of Pablo the Sloth. After admiring it and making him a celebrity in our lives, we reluctantly left and went back to work.