Azuero Fair

This week was not quite so eventful as last week, but we still had a few things going on. It was a short week at school as we had a  Peace Corps get together in our regional capital on Thursday.  We had a city tour of places we need to be familiar with (ie. pharmacy, post office etc.), plus meetings with the Ministry of Education and the Environmental Authority.  We met the agency officials we will be working with for the next two years.  We went as a group with the other 11 volunteers from our group who are in our region.  We also met several volunteers who have been here longer than we have. We had good time at dinner with all of them, about 30 in total, Thursday night.   It was also the opening of the regional fair, so that all of the hotels in town were booked, but we were able to spend two nights with the family of Heather's co-teacher, Ormelis.


The Azuero Fair represented the two provinces of Herrera and Los Santos.  It was quite similar to a state fair in the US.  You could buy anything there from cell phones to cars, tractors, food, drink, crafts or real estate.  They had the same rides and sold cotton candy.  The one thing they don't have in the US is Nicaraguans selling hand-made furniture, which was of good quality and very cheap.  It's too bad we couldn't take it back on the bus with us! Another unusual thing was that there were a ton of nightclubs all in the same area of the fair.  Each one was trying to have louder music than its neighbors, with predictable results!

Want to ride a bull?  This guy looks pretty tame.

Flowers for sale!  This guy is giving the soft sell.

When we got back to town on Saturday Odilia had finished a wedding cake and she and Aristides were off to a wedding.  The wedding party forgot to pick up the cake, so she had to deliver it herself.

Odilia delivering her masterpiece

We also found out that Odilia is quite a talented woman.  She played her accordion for us.  It looks like it could be a collectors item, but it still works fine.

Odilia is pretty good with her accordion!

Back in town, we went to the swimming hole to cool off and witnessed two brothers trying to knock each other off the log.  Click here for the video.  They have really good balance! They stayed on a lot longer than we thought they would.

Since our town is in a forest preserve, no one is allowed to sell wood to outsiders, but you can cut it to use for your own house or barn.  They don't have enough business to support a sawmill, so the locals cut planks with chain saws.  Some of them are really good at it!

Cutting planks with a chain saw!

Food in season

Avocado season is here!  They are selling at 3 for a dollar, but a lot of people are giving them away, especially students who want a good grade!  We also can't wait for mango season to start.  The trees are full of green ones.  When they come in, one big tree can produce over 500 mangoes, and we are told that you can't buy them because everyone gives them away.  They all ripen in a few weeks, and it's hard to keep up!

Another popular fruit comes from the cashew tree.  You can eat the fruit or make a smoothie with it.  The strange thing is that the nut is attached to the top of the fruit.  It's a lot of work to get the nuts out, though.  There is an inner and outer shell with a liquid in between that is very irritating to skin, so you have to be careful and wear gloves when you get the nuts out of the shell.  After watching Odilia work quite a long time for just a few nuts I have decided to just buy the finished product at the store.

Ants!

On one of our hikes we came across an ant highway.  You can't really see the ants in this picture, but you can see the fragments of leaves that they have chewed off and are carrying away.  The leaf fragments are about four times the size of the ants.  Sometimes they make anthills a couple of feet high and several feet wide.  Their pathways are often four inches wide.

Here is one of our neighbors, Diosa, with her worm farm which she uses as an example to show people how to raise worms.  She is very active in environmental work.  At the far end are the veggie scraps she feeds them.  They create great compost!

That's it for now.  We will fade into the sunset until next week...