{"id":239203,"date":"2024-04-13T23:50:35","date_gmt":"2024-04-13T21:50:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tropica-verde.de\/what-my-friends-wanted-to-know-from-me-last-sunday-evening-did-you-survive\/"},"modified":"2024-04-13T23:50:35","modified_gmt":"2024-04-13T21:50:35","slug":"what-my-friends-wanted-to-know-from-me-last-sunday-evening-did-you-survive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tropica-verde.de\/en\/what-my-friends-wanted-to-know-from-me-last-sunday-evening-did-you-survive\/","title":{"rendered":"What my friends wanted to know from me last Sunday evening: Did you survive?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A week ago, the time had finally come for me to play Kermit the Frog at the Zoo Action Day as part of the BioFrankfurt Action Week &#8220;Experience Biological Diversity&#8221;. Back in February, I had the idea of walking around as an oversized animal mascot as part of the public relations work for Tropica Verde. My friend had bought a Kermit costume for carnival and I quickly realized that the costume for Tropica Verde was destined for more than just the Quartier Latin or the local party boat. After all, a frog diversity survey had only recently been carried out on our Finca Curr\u00e9, so I thought it was a perfect fit.<\/p>\n<p>Thought &#8211; done. At the Zoo Action Day, our educational stand focused on the frogs of Costa Rica. Sarah and Janina had created a lovingly thought-out craft, game and guessing station for the stand. What could be better than wearing the brand new frog costume? Suddenly I was standing at the Tropica Verde stand in the shade at 30 degrees and in full costume, wondering how on earth I was going to survive the day under the green fleece top. Who could have guessed that the thermometer would reach 30 degrees in May.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_898\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" data-shortcode=\"caption\"><\/figure>\n<p><strong>The reactions &#8211; frightening!<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Full of anticipation, I threw myself into my task of drawing people&#8217;s attention to our stand, but I hadn&#8217;t expected what happened next. I received such a wide range of reactions that I was amazed: some of the children&#8217;s faces literally slipped away at the sight of such an over-dimensioned giant frog, luckily they didn&#8217;t start crying straight away. Other children were so delighted that they either told me wildly<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_966\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-966\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-966\" src=\"http:\/\/www.tropica-verde.de\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/img-20170527-wa0002-300x169.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"169\" title=\"\"><p id=\"caption-attachment-966\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Kermit makes a jumping frog together with Sarah and two little frog experts<\/p><\/div>\n<figure id=\"attachment_899\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" data-shortcode=\"caption\"><\/figure>\n<p>waved at me or wanted to give me kisses on my wet frog cheeks. I felt like a frog king when I was asked several times, C-list celebrity-like, for a photo&#8230; that makes every frog&#8217;s heart beat faster. The adults mainly looked at me with pity: &#8220;My goodness, the poor thing must be dying of heat&#8221; or &#8220;will she survive the day, she&#8217;ll get heat exhaustion&#8221; they could be heard whispering as I walked past. The WhatsApp messages from my friends, who I had told about my planned mission the day before, also had one question in common: &#8220;Did you survive?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Worse is always possible<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>My conclusion: Of course it&#8217;s nice to think about running around in a lined frog costume when it&#8217;s 30 degrees, but if I had gone to the swimming pool or lake, I would have missed out in more ways than one: Firstly, I would never have learned how to turn a square piece of paper into a bouncy origami frog.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_967\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-967\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-967\" src=\"http:\/\/www.tropica-verde.de\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/img-20170527-wa0003-300x169.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"169\" title=\"\"><p id=\"caption-attachment-967\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Pepe the giant otter from the Amazon and Kermit the frog<\/p><\/div>\n<figure id=\"attachment_900\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" data-shortcode=\"caption\"><\/figure>\n<p>frog (you can find a video <a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/FV445aCS0gU\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">here<\/a>), secondly, I would never have met Pepe, the giant otter, who shared the suffering of the heat with me and who was certainly worse off than I was with his fed ravenous head, and thirdly, I would never have realized how many children, young people and adults are interested in the conservation of Costa Rica&#8217;s frog diversity. Incidentally, it would never have occurred to me that the strawberry frog could simply be called the cherry frog because of its color. I love these refreshing ideas from children!<\/p>\n<p>So it was worth it! THANK YOU Janina, Sarah, Kim and Pepe for the wonderful day with you! I&#8217;m already looking forward to the next campaign stand! Thanks also to all the donors who collected money for our Finca Curr\u00e9 on the day. We are grateful for every supporter!<\/p>\n<p>If you are a frog fan just like us, then help preserve Costa Rica&#8217;s frog diversity <a href=\"https:\/\/www.betterplace.org\/de\/projects\/15813-regenwaldschutz-gegen-wilderer-und-holzeinschlag\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">here<\/a> or get in touch with Janina for future volunteer assignments<a href=\"http:\/\/www.tropica-verde.de\/kontakt\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">(short line to the information office<\/a>).<\/p>\n<p>Your Kermit, alias Jenny<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A week ago, the time had finally come for me to play Kermit the Frog at the Zoo Action Day as part of the BioFrankfurt Action Week &#8220;Experience Biological Diversity&#8221;. Back in February, I had the idea of walking around as an oversized animal mascot as part of the public relations work for Tropica Verde. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":4837,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[188],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-239203","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-testimonials"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tropica-verde.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239203","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tropica-verde.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tropica-verde.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tropica-verde.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tropica-verde.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=239203"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tropica-verde.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239203\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tropica-verde.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4837"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tropica-verde.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=239203"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tropica-verde.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=239203"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tropica-verde.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=239203"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}