Agribusiness Grant

So there is an awesome agribusiness seminar that I am going to help with. Through the Peace Corps Partnership Program you can donate money to help make it happen if you would like to. Here is the link: https://www.peacecorps.gov/resources/donors/contribute/projdetail.cfm?projdesc=525-090&region=latinamerica If you would like more specific information about how the money will be used you can leave a comment or e-mail me and I can send you a copy of the grant proposal.

The Door and the Parasol

One day we hiked out to the other side of town, about 45 minutes with a river crossing, and came back with a door for our house that the owners of the property had built. There was a group of 5 or so who took turns carrying the door and Angela and I carried our parasols. They are actually huge palm leaves that they use to make brooms out of but you may as well carry it above your head and have a little shade, right?

Helicoptor

This is a bird cage shaped like a helicoptor. Rigoberto, the oldest son from our last host family, made it. I have also found drawings and etchings of helicoptors around town and most of them have traced back to him.

Primativos

These are some bananas(primativos) that someone gave to us. That is as big as they get. They are tiny and delicious. This picture also features Lee being about a foot too tall for the rancho. The support beams are about 5 and a half feet tall, which is perfect for me and the Panamanians but too short for Lee... He has talked about digging a trench so he can walk through one part without ducking or hitting his head.

Night Parades

These pictures are from one of the night parades. It was pretty amazing. Each float has a queen and is accompanied by a live band and dancers.

Los Patos (the ducks)

These are our ducks. They do not know that they are our ducks yet because they keep running away and finding their way down to where they used to live but we hope that they will realize soon that they are our ducks.

Thanks so much to Nancy and John for thinking of everything, even the roof of our makeshift duck pen. Well, I think they intended it as a table cloth but it sure makes a good roof don´t you think? The children in the background are Sebastiana (Chana) and Feliciana (Chana). They are very good at catching ducks. It´s harder than you think...

Carnaval

These are 2 of the floats from the aquatic parade in our regional capitol. The 2nd one is from the Cucua of San Miguel Centro, a town near ours. They use the Cucua tree to make pretty much anything you can think of, including the clothing of the people on the float. And, yes, the floats move down the river with the help of people swimming along side and pushing. One of the floats was pulled by a boat this year but I like the other way better.