I am hot

A kitchen in Porto Rica


building the rancho



Kids walking to school on the road in Chichica


On my way back from Tijera


The road to Chichica as seen from Tijera on the mountain

Well here I am again in San Felix, very hot and sweaty and frustrated once again. It feels like I am running my butt off for no real results, but I guess that is to be expected.

I visited a couple more communities this week, Porto Rica and Alto Estrella. It has been a while since I´ve gone to Porto Rica and they like it when I visit so it makes me feel like something is being accomplished even if it is just building good relations. Porto Rica is about 1-1 1/2 hours away, and then Alto Estrella is about another hour farther. So in all I walked for around 5 hours yesterday, and visited several people and the schools. I was talking to this one guy (I think his name was Rafael Zurdo? Man I am horrible with names) and he was really quite conversational. He was building a new rancho for his family so I asked him if I could take a picture of the new house that was almost done.

I like to visit the other communities because they are much more traditional than Chichica, which is full of Latino wannabes. I was walking home the other day when this guy from Cerro Algodon greeted me with Köbö kuin dere, which means good afternoon. This is unusual for someone to greet me in Ngäbere, so I hung out for about 20 minutes as he kept asking me questions in Ngäbere and laughing at me when I didn´t understand or tried to say something wrong. It turns out that he is the brother of one of my best English students, and his brother is exactly the same way only he . I should have known.

Oh I forgot to say last time that one of my chicks died. One day it suddenly was having a hard time walking and keeping up with the hen, and it kept getting weaker and weaker until it couldn´t follow her anymore. So it stayed at my back porch chirping sadly until another hen came along and gave it a couple fatal pecks. Thus ends baby chick number one, poor little guy. I buried him in the garbage hole that Orlanis decided to dig for me one day.

This week I also finally got tired of the dogs messing up my porch every night. They would always sleep on it and run along and jump on it, and it was always so dirty from the little buggers. So I asked my neighor Encarnaciona if I could have some of the leftover bamboo from the dance and she said I could. But as soon as I had drug the cañasa over to start cutting it up, Ana and Edgardo jumped in and took over my project. I think that they don´t think that I am capable of such things yet. So although I appreciate their help, I think I could have done it just as well or better, and it would have looked better as well. Same thing went with the baño, I had to go back and fix it right after Edgardo had finished it because it was already falling apart, and it still doesn´t even have a door. But whatever. At least the dogs don´t sleep on the porch anymore, they just sleep on the dirt in front of the porch.

My house keeps getting more and more bugs. I killed four big spiders last night and a little parade of termites that was starting to move in. There is insect sawdust all over the place. I think I will have to fumigate or something. I also need to close up the gaps in the boards from where they have shrank, there are gaps an inch wide in between each one. Ah the joys of being a home owner, the maintainance never ends. I do like my house though, especially when it is clean. I also appreciate having a cement floor even though it was so hard to get all the supplies there.

Well then I guess that is all for now. I think I am hungry but I am so hot that I don´t even want to eat. I also have to call somebody at the agencies to find out if they can help out with the seminar, we´ll see if that works out. Ok then, bye for now.

Oh, P.S. I added the video on the last post, but the other photos don´t want to work so I guess that will just have to be left out for now.