Jungle Life!

Howler monkeys

We have lots of wildlife around Chepo.  We have howler monkeys, which howl in the distance almost every morning.  They might even wake you up if the windows are open, which they usually are around here.   They also howl a lot in the evening around sundown. 

The monkeys are very territorial.  If you enter their space, they will let you know that they don't want you there.  I heard them one day on a trail in the mountains.   It starts with just one monkey grunting softly, then louder and louder.  Soon there are echoing noises, which increase in volume until there are several monkeys howling back and forth for you to get out of there.  It can be kind of scary as their volume grows.  I definitely did not want to stick around!  Here is a link to hear them howling at me.

We also have toucans which come around our house.  Sunday we heard three of them up in the trees and went to investigate.  We didn't get a picture of them, but I did record their unusual call, which you can hear here.  It sounds more like a cricket than a bird!

We took this picture in May

Leaf cutters!

I used to think that the leaf cutter ants were so impressive.  Each of the little reddish-brown insects can carry leaf fragments much larger than itself.  They even team up to carry big pieces, as you can see from the picture.  They form an "ant highway" which is just flowing with green bits being carried off by these industrious creatures.  

Of course, there are two sides to every story.  These leaves come from plants which are in the process of being stripped bare by the ants.  Some of our neighbors have lost a lot of plants to these attackers.  

The other day I brought home a basil cutting from the school and planted it in a small pot on the back porch.  Within hours the ants had discovered it and were in the process of dismantling it, even though the pot was on top of a three foot cement wall.  I guess they can smell that basil from a long way off!  I had to bring the basil indoors to protect it. These ants are no longer cute - they are a pest!  Fortunately they don't like any of the other plants that we are growing.

We saved it just in time

20 stories??

We recently found out via Google Earth that the elevation of our house is 200 ft higher than that of the school.  This means that we are climbing the equivalent of a 20 story building every time we go home.  No wonder we both have lost a few pounds since moving here!  The students all have to climb the same hill to get to the main road.  They all are very fit as a result.  We don't pass them going up the hill, not even the 6 year-olds!

Vegetables

Steve has been attending training sessions organized by the office of the First Lady to teach the local people how to raise crops in home gardens.  For the last three months we have been meeting on the school grounds and preparing seed beds, making organic fertilizer, and planting vegetables.  For the final session we went to the school lunchroom of a nearby town where many of our group live.   The lesson for the day was how to prepare all of these vegetables that we are raising.  There were 9 different recipes to be made, using locally grown vegetables.  The dishes ranged from cabbage leaves soaked in vinegar and salt and then wrapped around tuna (very tasty!) to pureed squash with sautéed veggies.  All were delicious.

Our trainer Meinaldo with the veggie dishes

Many of the group had never tried eating these vegetables.  We had some zucchini left over and the school cook had to admit that she didn't know what it was.  In Panama, vegetables are not often eaten.  The diet is long on rice, with some meat and very little vegetables.  Their signature dish, "arroz con pollo" (rice with chicken), is a delicious meal, but usually contains about 85% rice, 10% meat, and 5% veggies.  We make it at home sometimes but change the proportions!

When Heather is teaching about foods in English classes, she found that many of the kids couldn't identify common vegetables like broccoli, lettuce, and celery.

Chepo's first mud brick stove

On Sunday we made the first of our mud brick stoves.  This picture shows a couple of cement blocks temporarily supporting the structure until it dries more thoroughly.  

José with his new stove

Drying out is a problem now, as October and November are the rainiest months of the year.   It's really hard to find a place protected from rain, but open enough to allow the bricks to dry thoroughly.  The wind blows the rain under some overhanging roofs.  We also found out the hard way that you need to put the bricks up off the ground somewhere so that dogs and chickens don't walk on them!  Fortunately the bricks are soft enough at the beginning so that footprints can be erased.

We end with a picture that should have gone in last week - kids dressed up for mass at the Catholic church:

Yeimi, Yohannys, Myelis and Diego at church