Hello from Barro Colorado Island!
When we last left off we were about to take a tour of the city. That tour kind of happened, it ended up being more of an expoloration of the historic district. That portion of the city is very pretty but the gentrification of the area makes me a little sad. We wandered the area, had lunch, I got sepearted from the group but found them eventually and all was well. When we returned to Gamboa it was pouring rain, but warm. The group played a few games then we decided to walk to the small corner store in town to pick up some supplies for dinner. We got thoroughly lost, and were soaked by the time we found the store. Its this cute little place behind some houses with only the bare essentials. We returned home and made rice and beans for dinner and everything was delicious.
The next day (Monday) we were taken to Tupper in the city for an orientation of the REU in general and about saftey and security. Turns out STRI has a system in place where one can log whatever trip their going on and if they don't sign back in when they are set to return the saftey team will got on the hunt to figure out where they are. So thats a nice feature. We were given a tour of Naos, a research facility in the city, and then we returned to Gamboa and had a nice group dinner again.
Yesterday was my first day on Barro Colorado Island, where I will be staying for the rest of the trip. The island is so cool. The only buildings on it are STRI research buildings or housing for STRI employees. other than that it is all wild and forests. I will be doing research on seed pathogens here. My mentor showed me around the lab space and told me all about the project. An intern in the lab and I hunted for seed pods and then I was tasked with separating the seeds from the pods with tweezers.
Every tuesday there is a talk back in the city. This week was about Mantis Shimps Occular Systems and it was hella cool. So around 2pm I took a boat back to land and then a bus back to the city. We listened to the talk and there is a small reception with food and drinks afterwards and everyone mingles about. All the scientists know one another and its feels like such a close community here. Then I tagged along with some of the butterfly researchers and we went and got all you can eat chicken wings at Hooters of all places. So that was bizzare. I've never been to a hooters before. The wings were meh but the company was great. Then I took a taxi back to the bus pickup site, met more people who live on BCI, and we bussed then boated back to the island where I quickly went to bed and fell asleep
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