Honey Harvesting and more!

The pictures are of my place, Briana you can stop harassing me now, and of the brooms I made to sweep my apartment.

Yesterday I harvested honey, it was pretty sweet. Its kind of scary at first cause all these bees are flying all around you, and your instincts tell you to swat at them, which would be a bad idea I think. I had the full protective gear on and even got to extract the honey from the combs. Of course that is followed by getting delicious fresh honey straight from the hive, sooo good. Later in the afternoon, I helped move parts for a greenhouse to a friends farm. Not your typical mothers day, but a good day regardless.

Last weekend I went to the fish fiesta, basically a big party on the beach, sadly the music choice does not consist of Britney Spears which is hard to handle, a party without britney just isn't a party. I went with a bunch of peace corps friends, and then the next morning we went on a 5k walk, always a good idea to walk at 8 am after being out till after 2. Needless to say we came in basically last place, but at the end there was this beautiful waterfall. It had rained a lot so the it was overflowing with water, so we couldn't get really close to it.

Work is going well, basically at the secondary school I'm going to do life skills and character building groups, and also organize extra curricular activities...along with anything else that comes up. Since I'm around the girls seem to be getting more involved with sports, before there were no female teachers that were involved in any sports. Everyone seems to slowly open up to me, and I am even beginning to learn how to play the keyboard through my help/interaction with the music class.

I'm still playing football and basketball after school, but that might slow down cause I am starting a study group for the exam the 6th graders have to take to get into secondary school, which is in a month. I'm off to pay bills, get groceries, and plan for a meeting, hope life is going well...miss everyone!

Beaches, football, cockroaches, and lizards

I'm finally starting to feel like a peace corps volunteer. Last week I woke up tried to turn on my water and realized I had none, not even a drip came from the pipes. Thankfully I had filled up a few big bottles the day before which last me the day, and by the afternoon the water was flowing. I made sure to buy a big bucket with a lid so I would at least have 5 gallons if I was withou water again.

A few days later I walked out into my living room to find a lizard scurrying across the wall, and last night I fought of an infestation of cockroaches. Of course the cockroaches freaked me out I saw at least four, and I feel there were many more. I sprayed to much big killer that I had to leave my house, and I now have roach pellets all over, thanks to the help of my host family. Now that is more of what I expected when I signed up for the peace corps, hopefully the roaches don't come back.

On the work front, my days are filled with incredible joy and frustration. The kids especially the little ones always bring a smile to my face, I live for their shouts of miss Aria miss Aria. One of the children I am working one-on-one with at the primary school was working on reading with me, and after we finished he was so excited that he wanted to share what he learned with the class, the whole class knows he can't read and the all clapped when he finished. He also asked if I could work with him everyday, which broke my heart because I have to be other places and can't at least at this time. Two girls at the secondary school didn't want to participate in PE class because well here girls don't really play sports, after a little convincing they decided to play and by the end of class they wanted to play more and even said they would like a girls football (soccer) team.

After school I am usually playing basketball with kids down by the main catholic church where I live about a 20 min walk from my house, or am playing football with the younger kids at the playing field just 5 mins from where I live. I also am learning a game called netball, which is basically basketball without any movement when you have the ball, in other words its nowhere near as much fun. A few evenings a week I have meeting with different community groups to help me meet people, and to help with different projects.

For the people that went to Greece together and went on that hike the last day we were there, and at the end there were orange and lemon trees next to a church. If you remember at all what I'm talking about I picked an orange and scotty took a lemon, but when I bit into the orange it tasted like a lemon. Well I've recently learned there are sour oranges and it was some mutant orange, but a sour orange I ate. Just wanted to share that bit of info.

I made pumpkin bread last night, it was delicious, and even my host sister, that don't like pumpkin enjoyed it. I also learned that a bag of lentils may look like a small amount before you cook them, but within an hour will be enough to feed 4 people lentils straight for a week. I am constantly learning new things, and with each blunder I have to laugh a little.

Well I'm off to meet some friends at the beach, the perks of living on a tropical island. Miss everyone at home!

Ps I don't have regular internet, but check it about once a week so keep those emails coming.