Reflections on ARCAS

Our last day in ARCAS was on Friday and now that we´ve been in Panajachel for a few days, we´ve had some time to reflect on our time there.

First and foremost, it was an amazing experience. However, I see why people don´t usually live in the rainforest. The weather was fairly consistently hot and humid or raining or both. It was basically impossible to not sweat buckets during the day but there was a dock that we went down to whenever we could to swim. About half way through our second week, ants started to appear over all the paths. These weren´t the friendly neighbourhood black ants we have back home. No no. If you stepped on them, they went all out berserk attack mode on your feet and legs. At one point, a bunch of the volunteers were sitting by the volunteer house and this giant posse of ants started coming towards us. We used a stick to break their path and they turned back. Yes, we managed to outsmart ants... for now.

More important than that stuff was the people and animals we got to work with. We were disappointed to here that Dr. Alejandro was leaving only a few days after we arrived (he was going to the US to do some presentations to promote ARCAS) but we really enjoyed the time we did get to spend with him. We still got to meet with Dr. Fernando and even though he speaks very little english, we were still able to communicate and learn a lot from him. Dr. Rudy came back half way through our second week and the time we spent with him was amazing. The rest of the staff there were all amazing as well. They live at ARCAS and it is basically their life and they were all dedicated to the animals.

The volunteers come and go really quickly at ARCAS. When we arrived, there were more than 20 volunteers and over the past 2 weeks, about 15 of them had left and another 10 had come. We met people from Britain, Norway, Denmark, Germany, Scotland, Austria, Mexico, the US and another Canadian. Some stay just a week or 2, others stay 3 months and come multiple times. We eat every meal, do daily chores, clean and feed the animals every day with these people so its hard not to develop friendships with them in such a short period of time. We get a lot more chances to talk to them than we do any of the locals. I feel like I´ve learned more about European culture than Guatemalan at this point. The first time I was told by one of the Brits to bring my torch, I thought they literally meant a torch. I imagined myself walking through the jungle at night with a giant stick on fire warding off wild animals so I was disappointed when I found out a torch was European english for a flashlight. Other volunteers can make or break an experience like this and we were lucky to have a great group around us.

We got to work with such a broad range of animals at ARCAS. Chances are we won´t get to interact with a spider monkey ever again. In the hot and humid climate, the feeling of a macaw flapping his wings a metre above your head was glorius. Getting to give subcutaneous fluids to an armadillo (I don´t care if it was basically the exact same process as for a dog, it was an armadillo) and the paranoia that we got leprocy from him afterwards. Getting to watch an otter close up catch live fish. Feeding an injured hawk or spoonbill. So many species that we´ve had the chance to work with now and are greatful for.










So now, 1 boat, 1 bus, 2 shuttles and about 15 hours of driving later, we arrived in Panajachel to work with AYUDA.

Michael