I´ll start today´s blog off with a short fun movie taken down at my new favorite place with my new favorite local buddies.

Fran, Efrain and I taking a dip at our swimming hole. This is their 1st time using a camera




Some of you might be wondering what I´m doing down here - certainly a valid inquiry - seeing how I seem to only show photos of wildlife and house building. My task that you lovely taxpayers are paying me for is to build local capacity. Some might say I´m a capacitizer, although most wouldn´t cuz that´s not a word.

My community is fairly remote and lacks many amenities and opportunities that most developed communities are accustomed to. I´m here to be a bridge between them and the outside world so that they can become familiar with skills and potential opportunities that can improve their lives if they wish to. So far we´ve been focusing on how to work together in groups and talk about our problems in a public forum in hopes of solving them. I had a very successful community meeting last week that highlighted the water issues in the community and what their strengths and capabilities are so that we can address them. I lead them along and they do the work, it´s their community. It´s hard not to want to do the work sometimes myself so we can move along... I constantly fight that urge. In the next big meeting we will focus on re-electing a new water/health committee and go over how a good committee operates. Soon I hope they will be able to look at the water related problems and come up with a concrete plan of action. Soon we will do some manual labor and go to town on getting these guys clean reliable water. That is if we can find outside funds.

Since it´s hard to take photos of this I´ve taken a few of my closest volunteers Peter and Kelly in action.

Kelly´s from Milwaukee and loves wildlife

Peter´s from Iowa´and is 6´4"

Simply captivated

Now back to photos of life with the Ngobe tribe in the jungle

Baby Emelina at 6 months

My great host sister Araselly (and 16 year old mother) and Melida

Kitchen life: chickens, pigs, baby in basket, grandma weaving a bag, a fire rolling, a fresh pot of boiled green bananas, coffee dripping from a cloth filter and my host sis Joanna coming back from school to begin her chores.

No blog would be complete without some more local wildlife

Weekly I kill these guys in my room. I hope my new house is "a la cran"-free

A CATERPILLER!!

We woke up to the screaching of a baby chick being strangled by this red boa. ¡Buenos dias! We saved the chick.¡Gracias a Dios!

The same day saw this beauty down by the river. Fer de lance or locally known as eckeys ( or x) This is my biggest safety threat where I´m at down here

Occasionally I take night strolls, and this night I stumbled upon this quaint little guy

Thanks for viewing!