As usual it has been a while. We enjoyed a semi vacation for my birthday at La Iguana agro tourism hotel. It was a really quiet and beautiful coffee farm right outside of Penonomé. A movie, some river shrimp for lunch and a dip in the Rio Zarati. Right know I find myself dodging all the computer work I need to do. I will just call updating the public some of the work I need to do too.

We have become professional letter writing machines, continuously writing letters to our local agency reps. to ask for help with seminars and projects. I tried to write a business letter in English the other day and it just came out sounding silly with lots of directly translated flowery Spanish like phrases.

this past Monday another volunteer and I did a sex ed. class up in another volunteers sights. It was eye opening to read all the questions and responses especially from the girls. It was a class of 6th-8th graders. There understanding of where babies come from was next to nothing. There were questions ranging from does love hurt to what is sex. Afterward I met Isaac in town. He had the local town gossip that 2, 13 year old girls are pregnant and a 17 year old. the fathers are 14, 16, and 40ish. One of the responses was "well we tell the kids that having children is good". I am not sure that any one thinks it is a problem. Well, a sex ed. class is on its way.......

As for a weather up date....it has been hot! Really hot. Isaac is continuously struggling with heat exhaustion. This year is nothing like the last when we had evening rains to cool things down. We are just getting enough rain to keep the rice growing, but I think that we are close to drought. It is mostly just unbearable to work in the sun and that goes for the Panamanians too.

talk soon hey we just have 10 months left! Time is flying!