Peace, Solitude and CRABS!!!

Well, Kory and I are settling in to a very slow paced and stress free life. Sometimes it is like time is standing completley still. Cheesy to say I know but its the only way I can describe it. So slow that you can conciously make every single choice of how to live or act and every word you say. Like slow motion. It should be quite solitary and annoying, but its strangley comfortable. Where to start for the week or two.. sorry about not writing last week. We tried to upload a video tour of our house. It took forever and then failed. Twice. So we didnt have any time left. Lets start with finding a crab in our house. It was a black sea crab for heavens sake! ¿Qué Diablo? It was purched on top of our back door. Ever stranger, the next day we found one dead in front of the house like it had slid off the roof.

This photo is on our anniversary with Mike another volunteer, while at a meeting in Matagalpa. We were on top of the building. Things here are looking INCREDIBLY green! You cant even imagine how lovely it is.

We have now recieved three long lost packages from my family. All containing seeds galore. I counted 69 total. Needless to say that I cant possible use them all so I am sharing them with the Casa Materna and some neighbors.. maybe. We have planted some randomley in our newly fenced yard. We had some chain link fencing kicking around in our house and we bought some pliers and kory spent a few days .. painful ones, cutting away until we were able to put it up. Now our yard is, hopefully free from pigs and lots of the chickens.. (whose presence I didnt mind that much as you could imagine. )

So we unlocked the secret of the CAMPO OVEN. That whole wood burning oven thing REALLY was a fracaso!.. (Failure) We are retarded at keeping it burning evenly and it didnt survive the first experiment. BUT, the campo oven, which is a big pot with a brick in the bottom.. I think I have already mentioned it, is a smashing hit. Here is korys first focaccia bread experiment which turned out to possibly be the best he´s ever made. It was so crispy and delicious you cant imagine what it is like to eat bread so divine after eating such a dull diet as rice and beans and beans and rice.

We also made soyloaf last night and ate it sliced like hamburgers. YUM! Also we tried making some granola.. mostly delicious, still waiting for moms recipe to come through. We plan on making a nice gooey chocolate cake next and some pizzas.
This is our little neighbor Adriana who is writing a letter to my neices and nephew so she can be penpals. We somehow.. or not, came to the understanding with her parents that she should be dumped off at our house every saturday.. I dont remember this but of course, who knows what I said that first month. Anyway, its not all that bad. She is really good and really smart and cute. She decided to have a penpal in the states. So to Anna, Enoch, and Julia.. here she is!

Hi. This is Kory. So I have been trying to get someone to send me a whistle so I could play it here. As many of you know, I am not a patient man. I found the measurements and instructions for building a whistle out of PVC pipe on the internet. I built one and it sounded like a recorder. Feo. So I doubled the lenght from the lip to the foot, which determines the key of the whistle, thus dropping it one octave, giving me a deeper, more full sound. I calculated the percentages of the length between the holes and bored them out with a pocket knife (thanks Clay Geilman). For the wooden plug, the part which fits in the front to direct the air across the lip, I used a branch from the yard which was quite straight and tapered just slightly enough to find just the right size. It actually playw quite well. I tuned it to a recording of me playing one of my low whistles in the background of one of Matt´s songs. It is a relatively pleasant low D whistle which cost me about 40 córdobas. ($2). (no Karol, this doesn´t mean you are off the hook).


Here are some more pictures of La Dalia (downtown). We are hanging some posters for the Billiards Tournament against HIV/AIDS. We have arranged to hold a billiards tournament with one of the local billiards halls. They are pretty seedy places in general. We are working to educate the at risk men in La Dalia about HIV. They don´t usually participate in anything where there is educational information so we have to go to them. Inbetween each game we will talk a little about HIV. During the final round, the two players have to anwer a question about what we have talked about. If they can´t answer correctly, the ball is removed and placed back on the table. In other words, if you don´t learn about AIDS, you can´t win. Our boss is coming up from Managua to watch it. It should be fun. This will take place this week on Friday.


Well, we hope all is well with everybody. Maybe we will be able to write next week. Monday (next week) we will be travelling and we will be out of La Dalia for a week during our language training in Carazo, so who knows when we will write again.

Also, I am very disappointed to hear about the new Indiana Jones movie. What´s with the new Hulk movie? Is that new Hulk, or Hulk again, or sequel or what is going on here? I can buy it on DVD for about 75 cents, but it will be a recording from the theater.