Hola todos y todas!

My name is Christine Hodgdon and I am currently living on Lake Atitlán, serving as a Peace Corps volunteer in Sustainable Community Tourism.  I work for an NGO, Atit’t Ala’, in San Juan La Laguna (located on the lake and also one of our water sampling sites).  One of Atit’t Ala’s primary objectives is to promote environmental protection of the lake through a variety of projects related to agroforestry, soil conservation, and water and sanitation, to name a few.  I am attending this training to learn water sampling techniques that I can then take back to my community to implement a water quality project.  The project aims to test the effectiveness of Lake Atitlán’s native water hyacinth to remove contaminants from the lake.

Prepping the Van Dorn Sampler-
that's me on the left in blue with
Alecia (UNR) and Luisa (URL).

My background is in zoology and conservation biology with a focus mostly on terrestrials, therefore my water sampling experience is very limited.  However, I was thrilled to learn that my first day of fieldwork would include sampling from the center of the lake during both the day AND night.  Before sampling however, we had to mark our rope for sampling at specific depths, which proved to be a very difficult task- I now have a new appreciation for limnologists!  The next day, I was in the group that collected deep water samples using the Van Dorn.  I learned how to prepare the Van Dorn for the sample, shoot the messengers down the rope to capture the sample, and to pull the sample up from the water.  I am proud to say that I successfully pulled 100 meters of rope (no break!) all by myself.  After a long day of sampling, I still managed to find the motivation to venture out for the night sampling which began around 11pm.  The very first sample we did was at a depth of 300 meter.  I was fortunate enough to be the person to send the messengers down for this sample- quite possibly one of the deepest sample ever collected from Lake Atitlán.  We had an amazing team of people this evening and were extremely efficient collecting samples- we were finished by 2am!  I like to think my 80s playlist that blasted from the speakers all around the boat helped keep us all awake and dancing :)

I am looking forward to the next week of fieldwork and am excited to learn more sampling techniques along the way!