Half-mapped

Hurrah! We´ve begun mapping! The meeting Monday morning happened as predicted and was amazingly punctual (only 10 minutes late!). The six men who gathered at Alejandro´s house talked for a little more than a half and hour in Tsafike, presumably about the mapping process and obstacles. When the conversation ended, Alejandro turns to me and says something along the lines of, "Well, would you like to say something about the project and Yanapuma?" I asked him to fill me in a little on the discussion, then tried to explain the one potential misunderstanding, that our final product will not be an official survey or even necessarily permantent.

Alejandro taking notes on a waypoint

To my surprise, a little after my fumbling speech everyone stood up and I learned that we were to start mapping right then. We walked to Zacarias´s farm and started back along the boundary, which was marked by a thicker line of brush between two fields. We started by putting waypoints about every 30 meteres, but since the line was pretty straight we decided to just mark corners and a few in between. Communication was a little tough that first day for a few reasons. I was out of the loop of most conversation and didn´t have a good idea of the plan, so I often stuggled to answer questions about the mapping process. I tried to stress that I was just a technician and this was their project, but they still needed to know how to faciliate the GPS work. My complete lack of experience in the area was complicated by my difficulty with a technical vocabulary in Spanish. In spite of that, we managed to cover a few kilometers that morning and put down 25 points. The hardest part of the work is definitely coordinating land owners, which I have little hand in. After the second day, the track of waypoints on my GPS seems to suggest that we´ve covered half of the border. We´re now discussing what we can do next. There are a lot of options; marking all the roads and rivers for reference points on the map, overlaying the boundary line on an aerial photo, or uploading the roads to google maps so tourists can get directions to community shows.
Apart from mapping, I´ve been having a lot of fun taking part in a different lifestyle. Yesterday afternoon we fished the creek with nets and a toxic root that makes the fish ´drunk´ as Alejandro told me. After the opaque extract from the pounded root is released into the water, the small fish swim to the surface impaired enough to easily scoop up. After getting the hang of the motorcycle taxis that took me to Puerto Limon where I lasted posted, I got a chance to ride one motorcycle with two other grown men. I sat furthest back on the ride on the dirt road that connects the community to the highway, my feet on the pegs and Alejandro´s feet on mine, his son-in-law drove us.
Well, that´s all for now, will post more when I have time.