Tur Klinic: My Debut as a Filmmaker

I made a video!

It's titled, "Tur Klinic." Can you guess what it means? Ok I'll tell you: "Clinic Tour." Bahasa Indonesia is a wonderfully phonetic language with many English cognates.

As a volunteer at Alam Sehat Lestari (ASRI), I've split my time between education and media. For education, I've created Planetary Health curriculum, presented to the complete hospital staff on climate change basics, and taught kids' classes ranging from healthy snacks to lemurs to mangrove ecology. (More on that in the next post.) For media, I've written blog posts, taken photos of ASRI's programs, and contributed to the Instagram account.

A teaser from the video, to get you to watch it :)

Last week I asked Oka, ASRI's only marketing and communication staff, what I should do next. She pushed me out of my comfort zone to make a video tour of the ASRI Clinic! It's not professional, but it sure was fun to make. And Oka was an excellent host.

An outtake!

For my friends who don't speak Bahasa Indonesia, you won't be able to understand the words, but I hope you enjoy the silly editing, music, and a visual journey through one of the world's first Planetary Health hospitals.

It would make Oka very happy if you would like our Facebook page, follow our Instagram, subscribe to our YouTube channel, and follow our Twitter.

Oka and I relax on the Old Dock after a day of media. (And Amad photobombs.)

Big thanks to Oka for making this video happen! Our target audience are potential patients in the Sukadana region who are curious about seeking healthcare at ASRI but unsure what to expect. I hope this video will make a visit to the clinic seem more welcoming and less scary for patients of all ages.

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Why Two Whitman Seniors Returned to 9th Grade

It was spring of my senior year in college, and there was just one more class I needed to take before I graduated: 9th-grade biology.

Every Tuesday, my fellow nature-nerd Eva and I volunteered in a Wa-Hi classroom. You can watch our interview with the Walla Walla Public School District here, and read below for the whole story.

When you live in Walla Walla, the name "Wa-Hi" rolls off the tongue. It's short for Walla Walla High School, one of two (along with Lincoln High) in the Walla Walla Public School District. That's about all I knew until January, when I got to Whitman for my senior spring.

During my three years at Whitman, I'd been wanting to get more involved in community service, but there never seemed to be time. I volunteered in small ways: I brought Whitman's crested gecko and rock python to bilingual elementary-school classrooms and did yard work for the elderly on Martin Luther King, Jr. day. Then I got an e-mail from our Science Outreach Coordinator asking for volunteers in a Wa-Hi 9th-grade biology classroom. I signed up for one hour a week on Tuesdays. My friend Eva signed up for the same time so we could carpool and work together.

The Wa-Hi campus.
Photo credit: Breanna Baltrusch.

When we got to Wa-Hi, I was amazed to see a barn full of sheep. In high school, I would have given anything for the chance to attend a rural school with an Future Farmers of America (FFA) program. And here I was, living ten minutes from an FFA school! I wish I'd gotten involved on my first day in Walla Walla, maybe volunteering with the FFA kids or a local 4-H club.

The campus is spread out between green, grassy commons and bisected by a restored section of Yellowhawk Creek. Eva and I signed in at the main office and walked through a maze of outdoor hallways to find Ms. Burt's classroom.

The Wa-Hi hallways are outdoors.
Photo credit: The Whitman Wire.

Mary Burt is one of those teachers students feel lucky to have. Even though these 9th graders were not always thrilled to spend their 7th period learning about cells and forest ecology, they were always happy to see Ms. Burt. She has a sense of humor that keeps her classroom's attention through laughter instead of discipline.

Here I am in the classroom with Eva, my volunteer partner, and Ms. Burt, the 9th-grade biology teacher.

I loved working with Wa-Hi students. I would have liked to invest more than one hour a week, but even so, I got to know the students' names and personalities. That's the great thing about high schoolers -- they'll tell you exactly what they're thinking. When a student would tell me, "No, I'm not going to do the work; this is boring and I hate it," I took her at her word. I remember feeling trapped by worksheets and standardized curriculum.

I tried to make every interaction about the student first, asking how he was doing and building a human-to-human relationship instead of just a teacher-to-student one. Second, I tried to bring in curiosity.

"Science is not about memorizing things, it's about asking questions," I told one student. "So if you don't know the answers about cells, why don't you write a list of questions?" Then, we'd pick which question sparked the most curiosity, and I'd help the student pursue the answer to that question instead of the ones on the worksheet.

Some students were motivated by drawing, so I encouraged them to draw their work. Others were distracted by YouTube during class, so we found relevant videos as inspirations for project topics. One student was making a scene by drinking a Dr. Pepper instead of working, so I asked him to explain the day's concept, diffusion, in terms of soda. His improvised explanation was so good, I used it with other students for the rest of the class.

The barriers to success in this classroom were high. It was the last period of the day; the honors and Advanced Placement students had been separated into other classrooms; and I imagine Ms. Burt would have loved to have a full-time assistant rather than a couple of volunteers a week. There were simply not enough resources to allow for the creative, engaging education these students deserve.

This semester, I was a teaching assistant for a Whitman course, Plant Identification Laboratory. Spending Tuesdays at Wa-Hi and Thursdays in a Whitman lab, I was amazed and disappointed by the enormous gap between the two classrooms.

Picture Wa-Hi: the desks were mismatched and graffitied. They barely fit inside the small classroom. There are no paid assistants, only once-a-week volunteers. The students were responsible for stacking the chairs each Tuesday so the custodian could mop, and Ms. Burt was responsible for keeping the blackboard clean. There are about 1700 students, and the student-faculty ratio is 19:1.

Now picture Whitman: the students are spread out across five rows of pristine laboratory benches, with extra space in the back for projects. The microscopes and stools are upgraded regularly. There are two paid teaching assistants (me and my friend Lia). We can leave the blackboard messy with chalk because the custodian will take care of it. There are about 1500 students, and the student-faculty ratio is 8:1.

I made up a name for this divide: the Classroom Privilege Gap. Obviously, a private college and a public high school are not parallel institutions, but this gap also exists among high schools, rural or urban, private or public, north-end or south-end. Working in these two classrooms each week was a reminder of how unfair and damaging this gap is.

Behold the Whitman classroom, replete with 45 microscopes and carefully arranged plant samples.

The weekly lab is planned by our professor, Heidi (right), set up by two paid teaching assistants (Lia and me), and supported by the biology department staff. Compare that to Ms. Burt's five-days-a-week Wa-Hi biology class, run entirely by Ms. Burt and a couple volunteers.

Teachers like Ms. Burt need more support, and students like the Wa-Hi 9th-graders deserve better school infrastructure. There's no easy solution, but adequately funding public schools is a place to start. Only 2-3% of the federal budget goes to education, and the Trump administration's budget called for a $9.2 billion (or 13.5% cut) to education spending. We can do better.

Edit: My friend and relentless activist for justice, Annie Want, just sent me this NPR article about why funding in public schools is so unequal across America. Did you know that school funding depends on local property taxes? And that in 1973, the Supreme Court decided in a 5-4 decision that the U.S. Constitution guarantees no right to equal funding for education? And that by doing so, the Court negated the intention of the famous Brown v. Board of Education decision to provide equal and integrated public education to all children, regardless of race or economic means? If any of this is news to you, as it was to me, read that article! Seriously.

As Chief Justice Earl Warren wrote in Brown v. Board of Education:

"It is doubtful that any child may reasonably be expected to succeed in life if he is denied the opportunity of an education. Such an opportunity, where the state has undertaken to provide it, is a right which must be made available to all on equal terms."

Finally, I'll leave you with this sign I read every Tuesday in the Wa-Hi office:

I love this sign. It doesn't require you to believe that you are special or perfect or amazingly talented; it just reminds you to do what you can with what you have.

What can you do? Call your representatives. Volunteer in public schools. Vote for administrations and taxes that support education. If you have more ideas about getting involved, leave them in the comments. I'd love to hear from you.

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Happy Birthday Tree Ferns

It's May 2nd 2014, the day I turn two decades old! What present do I give myself?

Tree ferns.

The plant in which pterodactyls like to hide.

But let me back up. Last night, the day after finishing my Salkantay Trek to Machu Picchu, after not nearly enough rest and relaxation in Cusco, I flew back to Ecuador. It was an evening flight to Lima and then to Quito, where I landed at 12:15 in the morning.

"Happy birthday," I told myself quietly as the Ecuadorian customs officer checked my suitcase.

It wasn't until an hour later that I arrived at my hostel's lobby. There, in the middle of the night, I pulled my extra luggage out of storage and rearranged my belongings. I wanted to leave all my wool garments, alpaca-themed gifts, and winter clothes in Quito. In the Amazon I would be needing quick-drying pants, long-sleeved shirts and plenty of socks -- plus my Birds of Ecuador book, of course!

Without showering or brushing my teeth, I stumbled into my assigned bunk bed in the eight-person dorm room. It was with great sorrow that I yanked myself from bed a mere three hours later. Juan Carlos, the driver from my next destination (a research station in the Amazon called Estación Científica Yasuní) was scheduled to pick me up at 6:30am.

I sat on the curb eating a grand birthday breakfast of peach yogurt, the kind which comes with a little plastic cap full of powdery frosted flakes and a two-piece miniature plastic spoon. Just the thing to ring in my second decade of life.

Juan Carlos showed up an hour late due to traffic, or because of the thermos of coffee he had brewed, or maybe just because that's still "on time" in Ecuador. I got the backseat because another volunteer was in the front.

During our twelve hour drive to the research station, I got to know the two friends who would keep me company for the next twenty days: the jovial Ecuadorian man, Juan Carlos, and the sarcastic Dutch girl, Renate. We played loud music, stopped for bathroom breaks, and ate a delicious lunch of fish grilled in leaves and jungle green tea in the Amazonian city of Coca.

Arriving at the RepSol oil company checkpoint reminded me of last September, when I first visited Yasuní National Park with my study abroad program. This journey was much the same.

Even the friendly mama dog was still there, begging for love as usual.

Juan Carlos, Renate and I wandered around the barely-existant settlement of Pompeya while we waited for the RepSol canoe and barge to take us and our truck across the Napo River. We attempted to deliver a box of medical supplies to a house of nuns, but nobody was home.

The RepSol motorized canoe docked at Pompeya.

As we arrived to the other side of the river, I noticed the gorgeous wall of tree-ferns you saw at the beginning of this post. I wasn't with family or even people I knew on my birthday, and I wouldn't be unwrapping any presents, but I soaked in those elegant tree ferns and gave them to myself as a gift.

We bumped along the gravel road for a couple hours. Juan Carlos stopped the car to cheerfully greet every Huaorani by name, reaching out to touch the children and clasping hands with the adults. He speaks fluent Huao-terero.

Finally we arrived at the research station, just in time for dinner and desert of grape jello. It sure wasn't my grandma's famous chocolate birthday cake, but it was a fabulous end to my twentieth May 2nd on Earth. What better way to celebrate a birthday than to enter the lungs of the planet, the largest jungle in the world, the home of jaguars and river dolphins, the Amazon Rainforest?

The five buildings of Estación Científica Yasuní, as seen from the back.

Estación Científica Yasuní seen from an overlooking cabin.

I hope we humans manage to curb our tendency toward destruction so this place will be around for many more birthdays to come.

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Nest Exhumation

Nest exhumations are one my favorite things to do with Equilibrio Azul. On my second day, we headed down to Playita, a pristine white-sand beach with no access to the public.

I felt privileged to enter through this locked gate with a "no trespassing" sign.

This beach gets special protection because it's one of the only known hawksbill nesting site in South America. It's also a favorite site for green turtles, and it was a green turtle nest we would be exhuming today.

The Turtle Team preparing to excavate the nest site.

One of my first questions was, how do you know where to dig? The answer is this: every single night during nesting season, a small group of volunteers and park rangers camps out at Playita overnight. Every hour, someone goes on a "night patrol" of the beach to document any nesting turtles. The eggs are counted as they are laid, and nest is marked with a red stick. Two months later, we consider the nest "dead" and dig it up, since the average incubation time for both greens and hawksbills is 60 days.

Arica did the actual digging by hand.

The first eggs we discovered were tiny, round, hollow things. Our mentor, Caro, explained that green turtles often lay these infertile duds in the nest to crate airspace around the real eggs.

Barbara shows off an infertile egg.

Then we started unearthing egg shells of the successful turtlings and whole eggs of the unsuccessful ones. We ripped open the leathery/papery shell of each unhatched egg and recorded both the cause of death and the stage of development at which death had occurred.

Many of the eggs showed the bright green goo associated with fungus.

Others had the white, cheesy texture and rancid smell of bacteria.

The record sheet also had check-boxes for "plant roots," "insects holes," "crab holes," and "flooding." And those are just the threats inside the nest -- the turtles also face hungry birds, dogs, cats, and crabs as they make their journey to the ocean. It's estimated that only 1% of green turtle hatchlings will ever reach sexual maturity.

Some fetuses were at 4/4 development, meaning they were ready to hatch when they died.

It was amazing to feel the leathery flippers and tiny shell.

Dead 4/4 fetuses kept piling up.

Caro said it's normal to see a lot of unhatched eggs, but it was sad to bury the turtlings.

When we were done with the morbid affair, we returned all the refuse to the hole and buried it with sand. As we hiked the twenty-minute path from the beach back to the road, I was filled with unanswered questions. What kind of bacteria infect these eggs? What kind of fungus? I can't wait to take microbiology and statistics courses so I'll be more prepared to take on research projects like these in the future.

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Beach Patrol

One of Equilibrio Azul's tasks is to patrol four of the beaches within Machalilla National Park, here on the coast of Ecuador. Every few days a pair of volunteers walks the length of the beach looking for signs of turtle nests. I went on my first patrol to Playa Salango with Barbara.

We were equipped with flip flops, measuring tape, pencil, and my dandy Rite-in-the-Rain notepad.

We found one set of tracks in the sand - they looked kind of of like a tire track from one giant wheel. We crossed them out with an "X" to make sure we wouldn't measure the same nest twice.

Crossed out tire -- I mean turtle -- tracks.

That sandy patch is the nest.

When she's ready to nest, the Mama Turtle swims all the way back to the beach on which she herself hatched. She hawls herself up past the high-tide line and looks around for a suitable nest site. If she doesn't fine one, she heads back to the ocean, but if she finds a spot to her liking, she starts digging through the grass and sand with her clumsy flippers. It takes about an hour for her to dig the chamber, lay the eggs, and refill the hole with sand. Green turtles usually lay fewer than 100 eggs, but hawksbills can lay over 150.

Finding our way back home.

After the patrol, we walked down the coastal highway hoping a passing motorist would take pity and give us a lift home. Eventually one did, after making sure we weren't overly wet or sandy. The panoramic views of the Pacific Ocean and the tropical scrubland hills made for a spectacular ride!

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Stranded in Puerto López

Hey world,

I planned to leave Puerto López for the Galápagos Islands after a day or two. Well, the research permits didn’t work out right away, and my visa never came, and we are all on Ecuadorian Time after all. I integrated myself into Barbara’s turtle volunteering organization, Equilibrio Azul, and I’ve been here helping out with the turtles ever since.

I won’t bore you with the daily trials of life in Puerto López. Instead, I will focus each blog entry on a different aspect of the turtle conservation project. I’ve gotten the opportunity to do some pretty gnarly things, from ripping open dead eggs full of bacteria and fungus, to patrolling a restricted white-sand beach for nesting hawksbills at night, to snorkeling amidst jellyfish in search of tagged green turtles. I’ve also had my share of adventures of the bird-watching, horseback-riding, and scuba-diving variety.

Here is a tantalizing sneak peak at the entries to come:

Bomb scientists using tools to measure turtle tracks in the sand.

 Nest excavations and embryo autopsies.

Shark bycatch at the morning fish market.

Cute children painting the fence blue.

Mud ninjas.

Adolescent blue-footed boobies.

Big hawksbills in little boats.

And much more!

It’s not research in the Galápagos Islands as planned, but there are worse things than being stranded in Puerto López. I have enjoyed living these adventures – I hope you enjoy reading about them!

Yours truly,

Nina

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Are You Up for Montañita?

Thursday, March 6

This morning my companions, Brian and Aysha, helped me carry my luggage to a dusty spot in the road which was the bus stop. They bid me farewell as I boarded the $0.25 bus to Bahia. From there, I transferred to a bus bound for Jipijapa, and then to a third bus toward Puerto Lopez. The journey took all day.

As I waited aboard a bus at one of the many stations, I made friends with the large family across the aisle. A grandma was shepherding all eight grandchildren to their parents in Guayaquil; the kids spread out across her lap and the seats in front and back. She literally had her hands full.

When it was snack time, Grandma pulled out a two-liter bottle of coke and poured me a cup. I accepted, not wanting to offend her. The children all watched me intently as I sipped the soda. Were they waiting for me to hurry up and finish, or was I supposed to take one sip and pass along the cup? I had no idea what the social custom might be. I drank half the soda, then passed the cup back to the matriarch with a smile. She nodded and smiled back, filled the cup, and passed it to the children who all took turns sipping the soda. Whew, situation survived.

Then, one of the younger girls tugged on Grandma’s shirt. She needed to use the restroom. “That’s a good idea,” I said to no one in particular. “I think I’ll visit the bathroom too.”

“Perfect!” said Grandma. “Here, you can go with this lady,” she told the girl. Suddenly, I was in charge of a five-year-old in a bustling Ecuadorian bus station. I led the girl to the bathroom and aimed her toward a stall, praying she could take care of herself. Then I rushed to the bathroom, hoping she wouldn’t wander off. When I got back to the sink, there she was, patiently waiting for a boost so she could wash her hands. I helped her soap and rinse her hands, and brought her back to the bus, where her Grandma offered me a cookie for my help. I was just thankful we both made it back to the bus alive.

The bus dropped me and my bags on a sunny, dusty street corner in Puerto López. Half an hour later, I was rescued by Barbara, my friend from ultimate frisbee in Seattle. Although we had been only acquaintances in high school, we ran to greet each other with a hug. It's awesome to see someone you know when you're so far from home!

Barbara helped me get my bags to a four-room "hostel" which was actually the house of two Argentine dive instructors, a couple of her friends. She introduced me to all her the turtle volunteers and showed me around the volunteers’ house, which I would soon name Casa Tortuga. It was wonderful to feel like I had a community, a home, and a friend.

“We’re going to Montañita tonight,” Barbara said. “Are you up for it?”

Sure, I thought, why not? Another coastal town would be nice.

It wasn’t until I got to Montañita that I realized why a person might not be “up for it.” Montañita is the Panama City Beach of Ecuador, the sleepy town which turns into a mosh pit of drunken, partying tourists every night. My group flitted from club to bar to club, taking advantage of open bars and ladies’ nights and flirtatious Latino men. Someone discovered a body artist with a free face-painting booth, and I ended up with a glittery rose garden on my face.

Face paint from a night in Montañita.

We finally left for home at 4:30am. I showered the paint off my face and hit my new mosquito-netted bed, exhausted, just as the first light of dawn appeared. I don’t think I’ll ever be “up for Montañita” again!

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