The truth is rarely pure and never simple: Reality

Once again it has been two months since i last updated this blog.

A lot of the time whilst I walk around Pearl Lagoon or while I'm sitting there doing yet another excavation in the Pearl Cays, I am simultaneously writing this blog.

It just never gets typed out.

I went home last month and it was not what i expected. I mean...frankly after being here in Nicaragua for six months I'm pretty sure i romanticized how great Florida and seeing everyone would be.

Don't get me wrong, seeing my family and friends, eating hummus, and super fast internet was great.
Its just things change don't they? And sometimes it feels like while you were living in another country, time has been standing still and everyone has moved on to bigger and better things...or grown up.

I don't know.

Mind you readers, I have grown plenty. I have dealt with many things I didn't realize I could push through. I have surprised myself. I have been disappointed in myself. Its just, i feel pretty isolated here and at a stand still. Especially in a place that can be so...backwards.

My life has completely changed, What I thought was real is a lie, what I believed in and loved has taken on a form I no longer recognize.

And damn its hard to get past it. Its hard not to just shut down and not speak to anyone.
I may seem ok, but I am not...but who ever really is?

We all have our issues.

Besides all this vagueness I'm putting out...

I had a great time in Canada visiting the six amazing girls I met here in Pearl Lagoon, AND I WAS SO COLD. haha!

I also am planning a mind blowing trip to Thailand (possibly also Cambodia...andddd Canada again, ay?) starting this April. I am so scared and excited, but glad I'll be going on this adventure with Jay and Shivani!

The turtles are...well here.

I got really upset the other day. Mind, I am never happy when i see turtle meat being shared out....but this is the first time I have seen this large amount. I had just finished "making exercise" with my friend Sara. I was walking up pointe to visit my lovely friend Laura. I was in a damn good mood for once. And then i start seeing people walk by with flippers and carapaces and bags full of meat. And DAMN IT, i couldnt help but start crying...its just fucking gets to me sometimes....these poor animals are so endangered and cant catch a damn break in this town, in the whole Pearl lagoon basin. No matter how I explain that we need to protect them: lecturing, cajoling, arguing, threatening, WHATEVER...they Don't Care.
At all.
And its just hard to see what you've worked so hard to protect be slaughtered in front of your eyes.
Then later that day I saw at least 20 greens laid out in the cays to be brought in for slaughter....

Green on Columbilla Cay
Notice the practice of drilling holes in the flippers
and tying them together....

It is upsetting to say the least, cultural practices aside...killing green turtles outside of the ban is ILLEGAL. And that...that is what kills me the most. If they are killing so many outside of season, how many do they kill during?

But this is why we keep fighting on right? If WCS was not a presence here the killing would be much worse, it wouldnt just be greens getting slaughtered, by now the hawksbill population might have well been extinct. And that my friends is what keeps me going...this project went from 150 nests to over 300 less than 15 years later.

BOOYAH!

I am sorry for this next section but I just saw this happen a little over an hour ago and it is what prompted me to write again, sometimes you need to let things out.
I have seen a number of unsettling things here...too many. Today I saw a small puppy get run over by a motorcycle...I am very surprised I did not throw up....it is one of the saddest things I have ever seen. I feel so sorry for the poor little girl whose puppy it was....

And if I havent depressed you enough with this post and you are still here with me...

here are some happy pictures of a cool sea slug I found yesterday! It really is the little things that keep you going, and these guys made me giggle!