Lobster house Education Session

A month and a half ago, we met with Kelvin, an independent consultant that had been hired by ReefCheck to do lobster houses in La Caleta, and Kikito, the president of the fisherman’s association in La Caleta. We asked them to help us build our first lobster houses and to give an education session to the fishermen. However, they weren’t available until this week.

Kelvin and Kikito arrived to Miches around 10:30 on Tuesday, a half an hour before the education session was supposed to start and a half an hour after the fishermen were told the information session would be so that they would be on time : ). We arrived at Fran’s bar at 11:15 baring bottles of coca cola, 40 empanadas, a projector, a laptop, and a lobster house frame already made. Merengue and bachata music was blaring, people were playing pool and the beer was already flowing before noon. We set up the chairs and realized that we didn’t have sheet to project onto so Fran decided to paint a section of his wall white and that solved the problem. : ) We were finally ready to begin around 11:45 because we had to wait for all of the fishermen to assemble. Carlos gave an introduction and told the fishermen the importance of sustainable fishing. A feat considering he has had the flu for almost two weeks. Then I got up and read from the sheet of paper that Wilman had helped me translate that told how this was a scientific study that was part of my thesis and that Fran would be re

sponsible for these casitas and that they would be marked by buoys telling people not to fish there. If anyone was caught in these areas they would be arrested or fined because we have the support of CODOPESCA, SEMARENA, and the Marina de Guerra. I tried to be as engaging and loud as possible but the generator was extremely loud because the power was out and my Spanish is still not that great… Kelvin than did his thing and gave a power point presentation about the lobster houses. The fishermen were very interested, especially after hearing that each lobster house could have as many as 200 lobsters and after seeing the video of the fishermen collecting the lobsters. Fran looks the most interested; he's the one in the red shirt.

We took an empanada break and doled out some refrescos. No one helped me but Wilman. There were way too many people than refrescos due to the presence of a multitude of children and women that were mostly there because of the food. I tried to hand out the empanadas to people but no one would come up and take them. I ended up just putting the empanadas on one of the pool tables with napkins beside them and they disappeared within minutes.

Luckily after the refrescos many people left besides the fishermen and Kelvin described how to make the houses. I was surprised that they were very attentive because it was already 1:30, which is during the Dominican lunch break. After that we went to lunch at Paulina’s in town. Then we went to the ferreteria to sort out buying materials. I had told Kelvin that I had bought one m3 of arena caliza (limestone) and one m3 of gravilla (gravel). He had originally told me to buy 20 m3 of arena caliza and 10 m3 of gravillita and when I had gone to the ferreteria to buy the material, the people working there questioned what I was making because they knew that this was enough concrete to make a small house. They helped us do some calculations from the amount of finished concrete we would make and told us that we would need approximately one m3 of each and that is what I bought, figuring I could always buy more later.

When Kelvin saw the materials, he told me that the gravel that I had bought was too big because it wouldn’t fit into the sides of the houses to make the legs so we went to the ferreteria and ordered a camion (two m3) of gravillita (little gravel) to get us started. He also told me that we had to buy the remaining quantities of the materials because they get used up quickly so I ordered half as much as he asked me to buy because that was a lot of material and the program didn’t leave that much money for me to spend. Luckily, in the end I figured out to make 20 houses we only needed to order 2m3 of arena and 1m3 of gravillita and I cancelled the rest of the order. Luckily the ferreteria was slow in getting me the material so we only got the one camion of gravillita that day and the next day I only had to order 1 additional m3 of arena. We still have enough leftover material to make approximately 20 more houses!

This day I also found out that Wilman was leaving for the capital for two days. That means that I was losing my translator and my only remaining team member! Darien was in San Juan de las Matas with all three of the peace corp volunteers, Henry was still in the states due to his knee injury, and even Arias was in Virginia undergoing training. Carlos was extremely ill and I was surprised that he was able to speak at the education session and Juan was not present throughout the entire construction except for the last three houses. Erasmo also ended up going to the capital on the following day to pay some late fees for dive equipment and the next day to drop off the car to Henry, who was arriving on Saturday with the Engineers without Borders. I will most likely not see Henry or Wilman because I’m leaving on the last guagua that leaves from Miches on Saturday, which leaves at 2.