This month has been etched into our -Mexican- collective memory as both tragic and heroic, with two major earthquakes shaking our country. One of them, the so called "terremoto de Pijijiapan", emanated from the Chiapas coast on the night of September 7th not far from our study site at La Sepultura Biosphere Reserve. We surely felt it here in San Cristóbal as we hurriedly tried to get out of our trembling homes. The villages at La Sepultura suffered damage, mostly the adobe houses (
* update below ), but fortunately -what I heard- no one was gravely hurt. I visited there a few days after the event and still felt many of the aftershocks. People are obviously concerned and discouraged, but they are also resilient and strong and are helping each other out. They've carried on. I have great admiration for them, and all of Mexico in these times of amazing solidarity.
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| Los Ángeles, Villaflores @ La Sepultura |
* I just heard (a day after this post) that the Los Ángeles ejido decided to tear down and demolish 30 houses that suffered structural damage!! Among them the building and rooms where we stay (picture below) when visiting La Sepultura. Sadly incredible. I plan on visiting next week.
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| tearing down the house |
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On the other side of news all forage quality samples are being analysed in the lab, forage biomass has been harvested and weighed twice this season, and just this afternoon as I went to visit the nursery (I hadn't done so in a while), I noticed four seeds of totoposte (
Licania arborea) have germinated! Three months, we should pre-treat the seeds next time ;)
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| analyzing leaf phosphorous content (I'm just there for moral support) |
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| totoposte seedling in the making |
