Bees and Bugs

We haven't posted in two weeks, so this is our attempt. Ranae was foiled in posting something on this week, by not having the computer at home. She'll add her addendum later.

Jack: I won the spelling bee for all 6th graders in the bilingual schools in the Tegucigalpa area. The spelling bee was in English. My first word was represent. The second to last word was broccoli. I got a T-shirt from it and don’t have to wear my school uniform on Monday, because I can wear the t-shirt from the Spelling Bee. I went to a DNA lab and extracted DNA from a strawberry. It looked like white snot. We also made chocolate chip cookies using Ghirardelli chips we bought at the store here in Teguc. Last week we house sat for a guy at Zamorano who was in El Salvador. The house sitting also included walking their Siberian Husky, Old Jack. I got my picture taken with the Bimbo Bear. [Bimbo is one of the largest food companies in the world—they are in many different countries and it is usually pretty yummy (processed) food. Their mascot is a white bear with a chef’s hat. The name usually makes me chuckle just a little bit.] I signed up to ride the 400m race at the Uyuca Stake Jovenes Olympics that they will have in a few weeks. I will be doing training runs with the other jovenes [the short way to write Young men and Young Women]. We built a small brick wall at the church with me, Dad and the Missionaries.
We saw cheese and strawberry flavored ice-cream at the store. I got to go out for a Granita with my the Principal and Johny, kid in third grade with a cool watch, a kid in my class named Christian. I got a granita de mora. I won the drawing from respect tickets we can earn at school. I read the 7th Harry Potter book in 2 days this past week.

Aspen: I got a bunny rabbit to keep at my house for the week. It is named Pinky, but it is black. It eats vegetables and fruits, but not lettuce or beans. On Thursday, I made a windsock that has colored papers coming down from the bottom. When the wind blows the papers wave in the wind. I am going to be baptized and confirmed next Monday on my 8th birthday, probably. We walked Old Jack a few times. It was fun. He is really fast and strong. I got to wear some perfume from a girl named Yvonne. She also rides horses. While they were in El Salvador, I got to put on her riding helmet, gloves and riding boots. It was really fun and the boots were really big.

Henry: I got sick while dad was gone for 5 days on a bug collecting trip. I stayed home from school on Wednesday. While he was gone he saw and touched an adult wild crocodile. I got some medicine. I am pretty much better except for a cough and headache. We babysat a guy’s house while he was in El Salvador. We had to walk the dog. He was a husky and very strong and fast. He made me get pulled behind him. I am still learning Spanish and getting better. We went to Tegucigalpa yesterday and Jack won the Tegucigalpan spelling bee in English. We couldn’t watch the spelling bee because they think it will be too much pressure on the students. So while we waited for Jack to do his spelling, we went to a coffee shop. I got a drink of mora (blackberry or mulberry flavor) and an apple/pina pastry. We saw cheese and strawberry flavored ice-cream at the store. We’ll buy some eventually to test it. I got to go out for a Granita with my teacher and another kid in my class named Antonio. A granita is like a slushy. I got pina colada. I got to do this because I had the most “caught-ya’s” in my class. A “caught-ya” is when you get caught doing good things, like standing in line quietly, being ready on time.

Abraham: I watched the movie G-Force about the hamsters at Oliver’s house. I liked it. I played with a Zu-zu pet at their house. It was pink. I helped walk Old Jack. He was nice. I like chocolate chips here. I like minimos a lot. I like platanos.

The last two weeks have been pretty eventful. Abe got poked in the eye and a little chunk of his cornea was missing…which you could see. He seems to be better now, which is good. We were asked to house-sit for a colleague while he was giving a talk in El Salvador. They have a dog named Old Jack and he is very strong and fast. I would walk him some nights and mornings and Ranae walked him other days. I got a little sore running with him, but it was really great to do it. He is a good dog and convinced me that a Siberian Husky would be a good dog to have, if we had some space for him to roam—maybe someday.
I was out of town for the last week collecting insects at the main reservoir-hydroelectric dam for the ENEE. That is the Empresa Nacional de Energìa Elèctrica. This dam is the largest single provider of electricity for the country ~30% of the energy comes from here. They (the enee) control the watershed and wanted to do some monitoring of the biodiversity there. The reservoir is also home to the largest aquaculture production of tilapia in the world (according to the folks there). Supposedly, if you have eaten imported Tilapia, they came from here at AquaFinca (“water farm”).
The area around the reservoir is about 290m higher. We collected about 300-315 m. The forest is a mixed pine-oak and other broadleaf plants in the forest. Since it is the dry season, there wasn’t a lot, but we did find some interesting insects and I met some good folks and made some good connections. We’re going collecting again in March to a protected area—a national park—but will be at much higher elevation, 1500m or higher, maybe even into the bosque nublado (cloud forest)! There should be more insects there and it will be a different set and for me will be completely new batch of animals. I have never collected anything in a cloud forest, but hope to develop some projects to do so while I am here.
I got a number of ticks, chiggers and ate food that I wouldn’t normally eat. Some of it was great and other of it just confirmed my previous feelings about it. I am still suffering a bit of intestinal distress from the trip. Otherwise it was great. I spoke Spanish the whole time and it was good practice to learn a few new technical words. We had this really very dense banana bread that sat with you for a while, in a good way. It was very good, prepared by the ENEE cafeteria folks. We also had Pan de pan, which is bread pieces mixed in with egg, cinnamon, milk, butter, and is sort of custardy. It is also quite good.
While I was gone Ranae and Henry came down with strep throat or something similar. They went to the clinica and were treated and were much better when I got home. I was pretty worried about them and prayed a lot for them. Now that I am back, I have to get back to real work in the office and take care, again of my online classes I am teaching. My parents have been very sick which was very concerning and I spent a lot of time emailing and calling and trying to find things out for and about them. They have moved to Arizona with my sister and that is so relieving—they will be well-cared for there. We’ll probably go visit them in the next month or so.