May 8th, One turtle nest

Wednesday morning was a little confusing. I was informed both Katie and I would be getting up at 6 to ride the ATVs on the beach. So we're both up and getting ready, we get out to the front of the house and there is only one ATV. Katie hasn't seen as many turtles as I have so both Irma and I were pushing her to go, but her first day took quite a toll on her body. She was exhausted still so I went to the beach for 3 hours, and she went back to sleep.
In the beginning of the ride, we found a momma tortuga laying her eggs so Ramido suggested I stay at that site to collect the eggs, and he would ride on and be back a little later. This is something I was used to by now, so I parked myself by the mother and waited for her to finish. I sang songs to her, sat and drew on the beach with a stick, walked in the water for a little bit.. all of the important things you need to do on a beach. One the mother had finished and exited the scene, i dug down to her eggs, bagged them and then started to walk. By now, as most of you have probably noticed, when in doubt, just start walking.
I walked for another hour or so by myself until Ramido rode back to me on the beach. He hadn't found any turtles at the other end, so we ate some oranges and went back to camp. When I got back into the house, I found Katie and Laz drinking coffee with Fernando, so I sat down and joined them. This was the first time I'd seen Fernando since I had gotten back and he was so cute. He was smoking so I shouted "como chingas Fernando?!!?" then laughed and gave him a big hug. He said that now our team was complete because I was back, which probably isn't true since I don't feel like I do that much, but never the less, very sweet. We had some fresh squeezed orange juice and just talked for the rest of the morning. Katie was scheduled to go out at 11 30, and Laz and I were put on cooking duty so before that it was all business. Katie and I discussed different ideas for ways to build up Tecolutla, rather than only the camp. Her idea was to really start from the base of what Fernando had to work with which is the town he lives in and gets support from. We both felt that if Tecolutla was taken care of by a bigger group, it would be easier for us to take care of the camp. She recommended something called "sister cities". I had never heard of it but was quite intrigued. Katie described it as a large city sort of sponsoring a poorer smaller city. Not as small as the little town of Tecolutla, but it got us thinking. Maybe a school could sponsor Tecolutla, or an organizaton. If anyone who is reading this has any ideas of "sister-anything" for Tecolutla, please post or email Laura Kiehner about them. Another idea of a way to start bringing money in is to work with the school of Tecolutla, or promoting women and girls in the town. Anything to expose them to a life outside of Tecolutla, because for the majority of girls here, this is all they will ever see. This life-style of marrying young, having children, and expecting nothing else from life is what they see their mothers and aunts to have done and the way they have been raised, they believe that they are to do that too. Perhaps even after being exposed to a life of possibilities, they still believe this is the best way to do things, who knows. Still, if we can generate any kind of financial support by at least trying to show them a new world, I think it all for the best.
After Katie left for the beach, Laz and I were left to our own devices. This always means we're going to have an adventure. I helped Laz make a tasty soup and chicken dish for the house, and after we decided it best to go to the beach. The explorer Laz had borrowed from his brother was a possible vehicle to drive to the beach and so were our feet. We decided we would take a comfortable drive to the beach. So we pack ourselves up, got in to the explorer and headed for the beach. This is when we just should have turned back and walked. Lazaro started to question whether or not the Explorer had 4x4 wheel drive. If it did, we couldn't find the button for it, so we pulled out the manual to try and find where it would be located. We read a part of the manual that had us believe the truck had four wheel drive but we soon found out...that wasn't true. Right after we got on the beach, we were stuck. Laz's maneuvering got us even further stuck so he suggested we try and dig it out.. that so wasn't happening. We dug and dug and made no progress. A couple nice guys came over and tried to dig and get us out, but their efforts went unsuccessful as well. We laughed at ourselves for being lazy and getting into trouble everytime we were in Mexico, so we headed for the water where it wasn't nearly as hot, and started walking. Noe came riding up on the four wheeler, laughed at us, and then attempted to help too. After this attempt, it became quite clear that we needed a large truck to get us out of there. Nothing was working.
Probably after an hour and a half of being stuck, a big white truck rode down the beach and came to our rescue..yes..like a big white stallion coming to save the day. He pulled us out! We gave the guys who helped us a little something for their efforts, and drove back to the camp. We really were never getting to the beach at this rate. We walked to the beach and headed forth to hopefully find some turtle eggs. I would say we walked for about 5 minutes when Lazaro lost his sunglasses in the water. This was bad news because his eyes are apparently very sensitive to the sun. He said he would be fine so we walked for 10 more minutes. That was it though, he had had enough and really couldn't bare the light. So again..we turned back to go to camp. We were both frustrated about our luck so we decided we would go into town, buy some new sunglasses, get a soda, and find the internet. We finished two of the three things with much success, but after attempting to use the internet, we gave up. The public computers have so much stuff saved to them, they run extremely slow. To make matters worse, when all of the computers are in use, you often lose your internet connection. We finally gave up with trying to use the computer, and went back to camp..again.
Little did we know, our luck was about to change! Lazaro still needed to check his mail so he figured he would just ask Irma if he could use the house laptop to do that. I remembered that the first time I was here, my laptop picked up their wireless signal but couldn't connect because I didn't have the security code. We took care of that problem though! Soon we had created our own internet cafe. I was on my laptop, Lazaro was on the house laptop, and Katie was on hers. It probably looked pathetic, but I don't think any of us cared. We were just excited to have the ability to be on the computer.
After way too long on the laptop, I finally called it quits. I put on my hardcore bug spray (thanks Dave Haley!!) and decided to join Katie and read outside.
I take for granted sometimes, my ability to just come out here and have the support of my family 100%. I can read and takes naps, walk the beach and walk into town, and never feel I'm not doing enough. Having Katie and Laz here this time is great, too. They are both interesting to talk to, and although we can all speak English, it doesn't stop me from practicing. Right now, I am extremely happy to be back. I'm pretty sure that feeling is going to stay with me until I leave.