Ways of Life from WCAI

Panchita Peterson has worked most of her adult life addressing racism on Cape Cod. She trained at the National Coalition Building Institute and worked as a Diversity Specialist in schools across the Cape. Panchita is in her late70's but came out of retirement a few years ago because she felt like she still had work to do.

Summer 2019 was one of the worst on record for Eastern Equine Encephalitis in Massachusetts. Gabrielle Sakolsky is Cape Cod’s first line of defense when it comes to mosquito-borne disease. From the cedar swamps to the lab, her job is to search for something she hopes she won’t find.

John and Olivann Hobbie always thought of themselves as sensitive to social issues on the Cape, especially housing insecurity, but in 2012 they confronted the issue head-on by opening up their home.

It’s hard to go anywhere on Cape Cod and not see litter. People leave plastic bottles and food packaging on the side of the road and along hiking trails. Trash washes onto the Cape’s beaches, from people but also strong storms and ocean currents. Ralph Bousquet is a Cape Cod native. He’s a poet who started a new group to combat the litter problem on the Cape. But the reason he’s doing it isn’t really about litter, nor about his art. It’s about something greater than himself.

Boy Scouts of America has been in the United States for over 100 years. Earlier this year it changed its policy to admit girls into Scouts BSA – that’s the program formerly known as Boy Scouts. Troop 137 in Falmouth is one of three troops with girls on the Cape and Islands.

Peterson Farm in Falmouth is one of the oldest farms on Cape Cod. It dates back to 1679, and was farmed by the same family for nearly 300 years. The town of Falmouth purchased the land in 1998 to preserve the open space. But after its last tenant left, the farm was handed over to two somewhat unlikely shepherds. Diana Wickman and Simon Thorrold are now working to restore the land with the help of their flock.

Jacek Zuzanski is an actor, director, and, above all else, a puppeteer. He's been performing with his theater company, Dream Tale Puppets, for children on Cape Cod area using various hand-crafted puppets to tell the stories like Rumpelstiltskin and Cinderella. But he doesn’t always perform for a large audience, and some shows get canceled. But numbers are not Zuzanski's measure of success.

For emerging writers & visual artists, acceptance into the program is a dream. Rosana Ybarra is one of the Center's recent fellows and while art was one of her earliest passions, pursuing it as a vocation wasn't only unlikely — it was unimaginable.

Danielle Cholewiak is a research ecologist at NOAA. She has spent her career becoming a leading expert on finding and interpreting whale sounds. This past summer, she set her sights on finding one of the most elusive whales in the Atlantic Ocean. The plan was to be out at sea for a full month, scanning the horizon with binoculars and listening to hydrophones being towed behind them.

Athena Aicher is a boat builder on Martha’s Vineyard, but she wasn’t always. Seven years ago, Athena moved to Woods Hole to work in a lab at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Athena gave up life in the lab to work in a boat yard. Today, she hears sea birds while she works and can smell the salt air. Her dog, Clio, runs on the beach. The work is hard – bending straight planks of wood into a new, curved life is not easy -but that’s part of the appeal.