Whoa, it is already February, the time flies bye in this country, or at least it does now, I remember when I first got to site and it went so very slow. Recently they entered into coffee season in my site, which means I have had the pleasure of picking coffee, and getting bitten by this annoying little bug that makes my skin itch. I have also been working with some farmers that are into small vegetable production (like onion, broccoli, cauliflower, green peppers, carrots, and some others). I am hoping to convince these farmers to try and create some of their own organic fertilizer, instead of buying which is what they all do. I would say my integration into my community is all but complete and I feel very comfortable in my site.
Recently I got a whole bunch of seeds to do a reforestation project with my community. The majority of the seeds are trees that have wood that is good in building (cedar, laurel, and mahogany); however I also got us some fruit trees. Right now because of the coffee season this is on hold, but hopefully in March/April we will start on this by making a nursery and then from their we will be able to transplant the seeds. Due to the large amount of reforestation in my sector to clear way to plant other things, I am hoping this project will be a hit and we can plant some of these clear cut areas, and the water source for our village.
I have also been in contact with an ex-Peace Corps Volunteer in the states that works with LED lights as a hobby, and I am hoping to do a project with an LED light to replace candles. The lights are much safer than candles, are very cheap to run and could save families here quite a bit of money. I am still not sure how big of a hit this project will be with the people in my community or if I will be able to solicit some funds to help it, but I am still researching and hopefully by the end of February will have a good idea as to whether this project is feasible and with the effort.
Other than these work related issues I have been having a good time, I like my little house, and am currently working on making a little garden in my back yard. I am having to bring in soil from somewhere else however because the soil in my backyard is crap. I am also doing some composting in my back yard with the hope of using the product on my garden which I am hoping to have ready to plant sometime in May. I currently bought an antenna for my house so I could use my cell phone without doing the 15 minute walk. Also the tigo site is now working to send text messages, so I am going to put a new set of instructions here in the blog if you ever feel like getting on the internet to send me a text, I might even text you back, because I recently found out that texting the states doesn’t cost much more than texting in country.
Vaya pues, I hope that all is well back in the states, we are about to enter into summer, and I have been trying to play soccer as much as possible, but sometimes its hard to find the time as I am now busy with other things. I don’t really have any new pictures, so I will have to wait to put some new ones online, but I will put up a note when I get some new ones online.
Text messaging instructions for free from the internet:
click on the following link:
look for the part on the screen that says “Envia tus mensajes desde la web” (send your messages from the web). Click on this button.
A screen will pop up, it sometimes takes some time, let it load and in the box that says “tu nombre” (your name) type in your name and click aceptar (accept).
A list comes up on the screen that says “lista de destinarios” (list of destination). Click on the first box and type 97653847 (which is my phone number). Click aceptar.
The next screen that comes up has a part down below that says “escribe aqui el texto que quieres enviar” (write here the text you want to send). Click on this box and write me the message, there is a limit on space, but you can send various messages and it costs nothing.
When you have the message typed how you want it click “aceptar”, a new screen will come up that says “codigo verificador” (verifying code) it sometimes takes a little while for the actual code to come up, however when it does copy it into the box below it and click “aceptar”.
This should send me the text message. If you have any questions, doubts, problems, just let me know.
Tristan
