A few weeks back I started putting in posts and hanging up wire fencing, I bought pounds of chicken feed and shelled corn and now I have a home for three chickens and two ducks behind my humble abode. The chickens and ducks are still very small (not large enough to lay eggs or eat yet!) but they will be in a few months, if my kitty doesn’t eat them first. 
I don’t know if I was sick of buying eggs at the store or I just needed some time getting my hands dirty. Sometimes distractions turn into projects just to stay sane, and maybe thats what all this animal nonsense is all about.
In other regards, I’m starting a lot of informal education projects within my community. This past week I went into the night university that is held from 6-9pm every day at the elementary school and spoke with the English university students and professors. We decided that one way to help them would be to meet a couple days a week (friday and sunday) to converse in English. There are many adults in my community that have a basic knowledge of English, and many of these adults are university students that simply do not have anyone to talk to. Although I cannot be at every university class (nor do i desire to work with elementary schoolers all day and at the university at night…) I can create a comfort level with many of the university students. When I first arrived and struggled with language I attached to a few members of the community who I was comfortable practicing my language with, and since then they have become some of my best friends in the community. After a year in my community it is time to not only become a teacher, but someone that people can come to trust and be comfortable with (whether in english or spanish). Tomorrow is my first conversation practice class, and I would like to hope some of the students will come and converse with me. I’m confident they will.
Time has been flying by and it seems that when March began April was already full of activities, and now that April has arrived, May is filling up as rapidly as the month before. May will bring Adult English classes taught by me as well as English practice a half hour up the mountain in a small community called Mira Flores. I have been reading with kids in my home with books my parents purchased and donated to me and my community. It has been a very wonderful experience to see students interested in reading in my community, and I am continuously trying to find more ways to get books in spanish that my students can read.
Next week I’m off to the United States Embassy to check out library resources they can donate to my school and community and to work/edit the Peace Corps magazine I am editor of. A nice break from my community, but after a week or so away from the city, the only real desire I have is to come back to my little mountain town, my kitten, my chickens and ducks and more importantly to the people that make all my time worth it.
As always, love to home. Good night from Rio Sereno
panamá, wisconsin 