If you find yourself in Panama the 11th of March, make sure to stop by my beach, playa la Barqueta, for first annual artisan's fair! It's amazing how fast a seemingly crazy idea can turn into a full-blown project once you put your mind to it. I've been working hard organizing and promoting this fair that will take place next weekend, one of many events that will contribute to ecotourism revenue in the area. Fifteen art vendors from the area will be coming to sell their art, in addition to local food vendors, a folkloric dance group performance, and a discoteca dance for all at night. Many tourists (local and international) arrive to the beach, especially during the dry season. We hope to establish a permanent local market in the future in this site.

Some of the proceeds from the fair will go toward the sea turtle conservation project, specifically the construction of a new sea turtle hatchery that we will be constructing before the next nesting season begins in June. I will be posting a link to a website in the near future, for all those interesting in contributing to the project from home. My community counterpart, Marcial, and I will be travelling to Bocas del Toro this month, where the Caribbean Conservation Corporation (CCC) is holding a training seminar about correct management of sea turtle conservation projects. I am excited to finally see some mature female sea turtles! March is the primary nesting month for the Caribbean Loggerhead sea turtle, and the seminar will take us to one of the main nesting sites in Bocas del Toro.

My Panama Verde youth group is going strong so far, although with the start of classes next week there may be a few changes. The kids are excited about all of the activities so far, which have included an ecotourism lecture and visit to the beach, a community garbage clean-up and today an a jewelry-making lesson from a local artisan. We collected shells and decorative seeds to make into jewelry, possibly selling some art at the fair next weekend. I enjoy working with the youth (this group ages 12-20), and they keep me busy with visits and mini-dance parties in my house.

On Monday I'm off to a partner's conference in the province of Panamá, again taking Marcial away from his first month as a park ranger for ANAM. I look forward to seeing my friends again and taking a little break before the fair next weekend! ¡Que va!

It looks so easy, the business of being a kid. What synapses in our brain die as we age? We stop growing, eventually (except our noses, ears and waistlines: the uglier parts), learn and move at a slower pace. The older we get the more pruned our brains become, shedding the "unneccesary" connections. Essentially, what appears to be simplicity in childhood is actually complexity, unrefinement, the happiness of a brain yet unformed but forming by a small world of experience.

Yesterday I spun in circles with my arms out until I got so dizzy I fell down. The second-grade girls next to me fell down a few seconds later, while my head spun in a spun-drunk dizzyness, the nauseous feeling finally fading about an hour later. The girls got up right away, ready to invent some other game involving a tennis ball and a pair of plastic flip-flops while I sat in the grass wondering if I ever truly thought that game was fun and needing a small helping hand to get up. Evidently a few of the nerves connecting my enlarging ears to my brain have died, making the sense of equilibrium harder to acheive after a good spin. If I spin like this every day can I re-learn to not get quite so dizzy?