Me, my neighbors Aura, Jennifer, my host mom Cecilia and my host aunt Monce. This picture makes us all look the same height but I am standing two stairs below everyone. We are at the Night of Art/music concert in a near by community, which turned into a big dance party. I am really not a fan of dancing in front of big groups and having everyone stare at me, but it is seems to be a normal occurrence here. (Please someone give the Gringa a dance lesson!)
Mi Duvi is a government organization that is working in my community and is helping families improve the construction of their houses. Currently, the houses are made of cana bark, and Mi Duvi is tearing them down to replace them with cement houses. I am happy for the families who are getting a house upgrade but I am going to miss the character that the cana houses gave the community. 
Big trucks filled with housing materials come by the communities and drop off the supplies to make the new houses. The families are responsible for transferring the heavy materials to their land, which for some families happens to be down a steep flight of steps and across a narrow bridge. (The families don’t have the equipment to move the materials, so they make several trips back and forth carrying everything by hand.)
The entire family helps out. These girls made numerous trips with buckets full of rocks to the top of a hill where they live.
Harvesting oranges!
One worker stands at the bottom of the tree catching all the oranges that are being tossed down from the person situated high up in the tree.
While I was helping harvest oranges, the workers showed me a “culebra” they had recently killed near where we were working. I have to admit I just about died when I saw it how big it was. My community kept telling me that these types of snakes only live way up in the mountains….and now they are living less than 5 houses away from me!
I can handle the spiders, but I just hope I never have to see another one of these beasts slithering around in my community.
On a less daunting note, I have a new little gecko friend living in my house
So, I am excited because my host family and I have been fixing up the first floor of the house for me as my new apartment. We just finished painting the bedroom, the “office,” the kitchen and the bathroom. (I will give you a virtual tour when it´s all complete!) We went to run some errands after we were done to let the paint dry, and when we returned, my host brother had decided to use some of the remaining paint to remodel the front of the house. He painted the bottom part of the house and the patio benches a burnt brown caramel color. When my host mom saw the new revisions, she literally screamed, and then from the phrases that followed the shriek, I learned some new bad words in Spanish. Who knew we had an artist in the family?!
Other random news:
- I have been making homemade yogurt! So far I have made blackberry, peach and strawberry flavored yogurt. I want to try pineapple and mango too, so I will let you know how those turn out.
- With the youth groups, I am conducting diagnostic exams/census in each community to evaluate the needs of the families and what sustainable projects I will be able to facilitate in the communities.
- I got a bike! My host brother fixed up an old bicycle he had lying around, which has become my new form of transportation. It is stuck in the highest gear, and the chain randomly falls off but normally it gets me to where I am going so I am happy!
- Got another care package (Thanks mom!) and some great letters! They mean the world to me! Thank you! Thank you!
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