CIG Training

On July 14^th, 15^th, 21^st, and 22^nd I was taking the training to become a Certified Interpretive Guide (CIG) through the National Association of Interpretation (NAI). I was taking the training with eight other people from the Forest Service, the bird lady, the two other interpretive interns, one of the wilderness rangers, two people from recreation and two people from off highway vehicles (OHV). I was the only one getting certified though, the others wanted to take the training to learn how to better communicate with visitors and improve their public speaking skills.

On the last day (this past Friday) we each gave a ten minute presentation as a final. This presentation could be about anything we wanted. Myself and one other intern took the easier road of doing our normal talks, bats and stream health, there was also talks on beer, cake decorating, keeping fish, owls, animal rehabilitation, and orange picking.

They were all really interesting and a lot of fun because it was something people were passionate about. The talk about orange picking was quite eye opening. The woman who did the talk is Mexican American and works for the FS over the six month summer season. During the winter she works in the fields picking oranges and lemons. The pickers have to supply their own gloves, clippers, and bag capable of holding 80 pounds worth of oranges. They carry this bag with all the oranges in it over their shoulder until it is filled and then they dump it into a bin. Each worker has their own bin and they are paid $20 per bin they fill. Sometimes they can only fill one bin a day. The woman said her father supervises the pickers, her mother works in the field, as do many of her friends. Her husband picks peaches and nectarines and other types of non citrus fruit. She also taught us some of the tricks the pickers use to pick faster and pull one over on the fruit company’s so they can earn some more money. Very interesting. And the tricks weren’t anything bad; they just fudge the exact parameters of the rules of the company.