Jatun Sacha Biological Reserve - Galápagos Islands

Jatun Sacha Biological Reserve- Galápagos Islands from Stevee Chapman on Vimeo.

By Stevee Chapman

As the second most populated island in the Galápagos, San Cristobal is a popular stop for travelers who have made their way to Darwin’s famous islands.

However, between the 5,400 permanent residents and numerous tourists visiting the island each year, there are multiple opportunities for quarantine regulations to be ignored. This allows new species of plants and animals to be introduced to the island every day.

While the Galápagos has some of the highest percentages of biodiversity in the world, introduction of new species to the island can wreck havoc to the islands’ ecosystem. This poses an especially big problem because a very high percentage of species (80% of birds, 97% of reptiles, more than 30% of plants and more than 20% of marine life) are exclusive to the Galapagos, and can be found nowhere else on earth.

In fact, introduction of new species by humans is directly correlated with the drastic decrease, and in some cases extinction, of different geneses of the famous giant tortoises found throughout the islands.

Many of the exotic species that threaten the island’s flora and fauna begin their rapid takeover through agriculture in the highlands of San Cristobal. Yet the highlands, although an essential aspect of the island’s delicate eco-system, have been almost completely ignored by other conservation and government agencies.

Luckily for San Cristóbal, Ecuador’s Jatun Sacha Foundation has a biological reserve deep in the highlands where volunteers come to make a difference. With their hard work in different areas of conservation, such as reforestation, Jatun’s Sacha’s volunteers are revitalizing the island from the ground up.

Welcomed by a Guatemalan fire

3-14-14

Christine Rushton, Murrow College Backpack Journalist

As the world opens to welcome a global community, journalists gain the opportunity to explore cultures beyond the limits of their backyards. Foreign reporting has existed successfully since the days of Edward R. Murrow reporting from London. However, students breaking into the industry have to combat a dwindling availability of jobs. The Murrow College at WSU offered me the chance to enter the embargoed borders of Cuba in May 2013, and now I venture with Hearts in Motion to Guatemala. During my 10 days on the ground, I will blog, interview the doctors and students performing surgeries on the locals and report on the issues. Follow along as I pursue the visual and written long-form journalism I hope to soon call my career.

Rushton Guatemala 3-23-14 from Christine Rushton on Vimeo.

Fire hung in a rim on the horizon. Tipped in blood red, the wings of the airplane tilted in descent toward the valley’s mouth, noted for the nearby volcanos. The ground drew closer; the flames climbed higher.



Christine Rushton | Murrow College

It was 5:30 a.m. on Friday and the plane leading toward Guatemala City had just made the dawn-hour landing. Flat ground filled with litter-strewn streets seemed to cower against the highlands surrounding the city. With my group of students and professionals with Hearts in Motion (HIM), we started the trek from the airport to Zacapa, the area in which we would spend most of our time working on the medical mission trip.

About 19 HIM volunteers crammed in a bus meant for 12 for the three-hour journey. But one side-look at the Guatemalan public transport with people hanging off the sides just to catch a ride, and I knew we fit in. Just like when I traveled to Cuba, I put the peoples’ behavior in the perspective of the limited resources upon which they must rely.



Christine Rushton | Murrow College

For one man, this meant hiding under a blanket in the back of a truck.

I noticed the man as we headed out of Guatemala City. Truck bed teaming with rubber tires, the brown-stained blanket set in the corner rustled slightly. His head peeked out when he adjusted his position, but I’d already witnessed the attempt to catch a free ride.

Heading into a week of observing people  support solutions to medical, construction, dental, or social problems Guatemalans face, I know this man isn’t the last I will see take a dangerous chance. As I learned in Cuba and will continue to learn in Guatemala, people in underdeveloped countries often turn to a concept foreign to our own: risking life is worth gaining life.  

Somewhere near the Beginning...

Four hours from Pullman to Seattle, four-hour flight to Houston, followed by a 15-hour flight to Beijing. The international flight was followed by yet another three-hour flight, sending me into the heart of Southwest China. Add on a three-hour bus ride then a 45-minute taxi ride totals around 31 hours of just traveling minus layovers. Oye...

 

You really don’t understand that long of a flight until you step off the aircraft. I settled into my coach seat in row 42 of the Boeing 777-3 plane; the only blonde in a sea of dark hair. The announcements were first made in Chinese, followed by an at best rough English translation.

My gate to Chengdu in the Beijing International Airport. 

Landing in Beijing around 5am local time meant the airport was next to empty. The glimmer and expansive modern layout was lost on my tired eyes as I found the gate for my final flight to Chengdu. Stopping at baggage claim to make sure my bag did not try to spend the week in Beijing, I came across the most practical idea we do not use here in the US.

As bags came tumbling off the conveyor, the belt would stop if bags were on the rotating caravan below it as to protect the luggage and allow passengers to hull theirs off more easily. I snapped a video for those of you who think it is a novel idea that should be implemented here (hint hint airlines).

Once I landed at the next checkpoint in Chengdu, I realized my bag had managed to deceive me and was still in Beijing. After what seemed like hours trying to communicate with Air China staff who spoke a few phrases of broken English, a group of young Chinese students fresh from the States approached and helped negotiate the shipment of my bag. No warm clothes and heading into the mountains where there is no central heating? I knew this would be an adventure for sure.

 

Architecture outside Chengdu International Airport. 

A young girl holding my name on a crumpled piece of paper outside the terminal brought me to McDonald's to grab some much-needed grub. Sadly, everything was in Chinese and I ended up with fries and chicken that smelled like fish. Eating in a rush, we made our way to the bus station where I was handed a ticket with more gibberish I didn’t understand on it, hurried to the bus, and we were on our way to Ya’an.

One moment I will truly never forget is our taxi ride through Ya’an to the town center. So many different sights and sounds. My guide Sunni said the weather was very bizarre and the sunshine usually never shows it face this time of year. Lucky for me I got to see the city with clear eyes.

The bus station where we purchased our tickets to Ya'an. As you can see, no English signs. 

An alley in Ya'an, as you can see it is a BEAUTIFUL day outside. Odd weather for a rainy city.

The twisting road up the mountain was a bit scary. Drivers in China don’t rely on marked streets or signs. They simply honk while turning a corner or passing with no visibility. Not sure I would call it safe, but we did arrive in one piece.

 

Most apartments in China don't have dryers, so hanging clothes is a common sight in cities and rural areas.

The view from the entrance of the CCRCGP park. 

The driver who is about to get us into a head-on accident.

A small argument with the center security guard that yes I belonged here, yes I had paperwork, yes I was blonde and no one else here was eventually got me to my hostel. A warm smiling woman greeted me with a hug and I followed her to my room. I tried to ask what time dinner was, but I was left only with a smile and wave.

After hours of travel, I have arrived at the Center! 

No English though, no one seems to speak English here. Next up, the China Conservation and Research Centre for Giant Pandas.

Backpack Journalism Video - Sri Lanka

Murrow student Mindy Rossner shares her experiences about her time in Sri Lanka with Murrow News 8 anchor Brandon Wahl.

 

About Murrow's Backpack Journalism Program

People of All Ages

Así es la vida of the Usumatlán senior center.

After spending the last two days with children, I accompanied the speech and hearing students to the local senior center to administer hearing exams on the elderly people in Usumatlán.

The students from WSU Spokane set up the audiometer, a small machine that sends different decibel levels to a set of headphones.  The patient places the headphones over their ears to test for their hearing threshold and basic hearing abilities.  Like I mentioned in a previous blog, you may have received the same test when you were younger, raising your hand and signalling when you heard a beep.

The majority of the people that passed through just had a bad case of earwax and hearing loss due to old age.  Dr. Amy Meredith quickly led a class on how to properly clean your ears, showing patients that Q-Tips actually impact the earwax more, and worsens the ability to hear.  It is better to pour a small amount of hydrogen peroxide in the ear, something I will start applying to my own hygiene.







           Así es la vida of Manuel.








The only thing bigger than Manuel's ears is his love for God.  I had the opportunity to sit with him and hear his story as he described to me his humble childhood.  He had five brothers and sisters, three of whom died young.  Another sister was born after him but she died at age three.  He began talking about his people and the immigrants to Guatemala, and the tears began to roll.  This is when he told me of how he turned to religion as his guide and as the foundation of his life.  He then told me of how when his father died, his last request was for Manuel to sing.  And I can't describe Manuel's ability to sing.  I am attaching a video below to show you that he has the voice of an angel despite his advanced age.  He found his first guitar when he was 18 years old, and taught himself to play by sight and sound.  Life could have easily forced Manuel to shut down but instead he turned his story, and most importantly his music, into a way to reach and touch people.

It took us a while to leave the center.  Every person in the center gave us a hug and a kiss on the cheek, showering us in thanks and prayers.  A woman stopped us to tell us that our visits are so important, not necessarily for the exam results, because the majority of the people already knew they were hard of hearing and all the exam could tell them was how much hearing they had lost, but she told us the most meaningful thing to the people in the senior center was that we were there.  Our presence alone was the highlight of their day, something that stuck with me personally thinking of my grandmother in a senior center back home.

I know I keep writing this, but I continue to walk away with a new appreciation for the Guatemalan people.  In my past posts I wrote of how the children continue to smile despite the hard lifestyle they are forced to survive.  It was once again eye-opening to see people who had lived their lives and still maintained the same amount of love and heart we received from the children who had just started.  The motion of the hearts in the people of Zacapa is perseverance.

About the Murrow College Backpack Journalism Project

Take a close up look at the medical relief program "Hearts in Motion" and how students took part as backpack journalists in a special program offered by The Edward R. Murrow College of Communication at Washington State University.


More info can be found here.

Animal Rescue Training in Nicaragua

By Bill McKee Murrow College Backpack Journalism Project Read more from Bill on his Backpack Journalism blog.

Along the banks of Laguna de Apoyo, a lake formed in the crater of a dormant volcano in Nicaragua, an unlikely group has gathered – veterinarians, rescue experts and volunteers preparing for disasters. When big storms like Sandy or Katrina strike, causing destruction and mayhem, people are not the only ones who need rescuing.  Pets and livestock are also at risk.

Volunteers gather around the banks of Laguna de Apoyo.

Rescue specialist Kim Little normally trains firemen, police and rescue response teams on what to do in the event of disaster.  But this week Little is some 3,000 miles away in Central America, teaching technical animal rescue. “This class was designed to help animal rescue (workers) get the skill level to work with (human) rescuers, and (to give human) rescue people the knowledge to be able to work with the animals without being harmed,” said Little. Little has been running a rescue training business out of Billings, Mont., since 1982.  He grew up in Colfax on the Palouse in eastern Washington and says he draws on his outdoor experiences river-rafting and climbing to develop his training program.

Volunteers prep for the pulley.

“I’m here to help train people from the United States who wanted to come down to learn and possibly be volunteers for World Vets when a disaster strikes.  But I’m also here to train local people, because even with a World Vets response, it’s going to be 24 to 48 hours before they’re going to be there,” Little said. Little is running the program for World Vets, a non-profit organization that designs international veterinary and disaster relief programs to help animals worldwide.  It has built clinics around the world and provides surgical training and practical experience to veterinarians and students, both abroad and from the U.S. With Little’s help, World Vets has developed this program, north of Granada in the Laguna de Apoyo Nature Reserve, to address a missing element in disaster relief – hands-on technical training for animal rescuers.

Volunteers learn to use        the pulleying system.

For Kansas State University veterinary student Laura Schurr, the training is an opportunity to go beyond the standard care she learns in class lectures. “After seeing all the destruction in Haiti, I remember watching on TV after the earthquake, I knew that was a place where I could be of help,” Schurr said. The group spent a day in class learning the basics – the organizational structure of a rescue team, how to read animals and approach a rescue situation, and basic knots used in rescue operations.  The next few days were spent out on the lake, putting those classroom exercises to the test.  The group practiced rope rescues on water and on land, basic boat rescue techniques, and learned to devise safe and effective pulley systems for harnessing and raising injured people and animals to safety from below.

Rope tying is demostrated to volunteers.

Graduates of the course are certified at a level higher than that required by the Federal Emergency Management Agency for animal rescue, and their names will be added to a database of potential disaster relief volunteers to be called on in case of an international disaster. The rescue training is just a small part of the mission in Nicaragua, however. World Vets is about to open its second clinic in the city of Granada – a training center for both foreign and local veterinarians. Dr. Sarah Seitz is a World Vets veterinarian working to develop the clinic.  A recent graduate of Washington State University’s College of Veterinary Medicine, Seitz says the programs that World Vets offers provide a unique opportunity for veterinarians and students who hope to brush up on their skills.

Volunteers undergo a final exam to test their skills.

“It’s a good place for them to come practice surgery in a low-stress environment.  They get one-on-one training, which is really important.  In most vet schools around the world, that is not available,” said Seitz. At the center in Granada, World Vets provides Latin American veterinarians and students with free surgical training, while international students can enroll in programs that allow them to work with experienced professionals in a modern surgical center – an opportunity many institutions lack.

Veterinarians and students receive free surgical training.

The center in Granada provides free health care, including spays and neuters, for the animals of local residents, as well as strays.  Locals get valuable help for their pets, while students get practical clinical experience. With surgical centers and rescue operation programs across the globe, World Vets works to increase the standard for animal care worldwide, providing vets and volunteers the opportunity to learn under ideal conditions, while still preparing for inevitable disaster.