Museum Morning

Yesterday morning I went to the Natural History Museum of San Marcos University in Lima, with the Wildlife Brigade to start my 'training'.

A big part of the brigade's work is related to education, passing on what we learn on conservation, wildlife, environment, etc.

Raúl, President of BFS teaching

The Museum started a program for kids called 'Guardianes Ambientales' (Environmental Guardians), it is a summer program that teaches them about natural resourses, conservation, pollution, recycling, wildlife, etc. They have activities and field trips to help the kids understand the importance of taking good care of what surrounds them.

Yolanda, BFS member, explaining about their responsibilities

The BFS (Brigada de Fauna Silvestre) - Wildlife Brigade - was invited twice to teach about wildlife and its importance, the risks of having a wild animal at home and to encourage the kids to teach their families and friends.

Yesterday was the last day of the program and the Museum, once more, invited the brigade to give a final lecture. At the end, the kids received a certificate and signed a personal commitment with their own ideas on what to do to preserve nature and to share their new knowledge with everyone around them.

Mel, lady in pink, with Alejandra, first kid!

After the kids left, we were allowed to walk around the museum. I was amazed. I haven't been there since I was a kid and went there with my classmates, back then it looked so big and new. Yesterday it was sad to realize it was a tiny museum, well kept by the university, but with such small funds that animals on display were in bad shape. Birds had feathers off, faded colours and strange shapes. We asked about it and they said that even though they tried to keep them in good shape, resourses were not enough.

We walked sad out of there, but then Yolanda reminded us of what we saw earlier, just before the activities: Sitting quiet, like waiting for us, was a 'turtupilín' (vermilion flycatcher-pyrocephalus rubinus), it sat still while Tommy took this picture with my camera (remember that it is as simple as a digital camera can be). It looked at us, sang and flew away.
So, after all, with the kids, the nice people from the museum and the turtupilín, it was quite a good morning!