So yesterday was my last day at the Biblioteca. I’m sad. But also looking forward to getting home tomorrow morning.  We had a little party yesterday afternoon, Goodbye to Tia Juanita, and Happy Birthday to Lara. 

Then we had a raffle for some of the prizes I brought.

 

 

 

 

I thought I would show you some of the plants and animals I see here.

I have had a quiet morning, will be heading to the Biblioteca soon.

 

 

 

 

 

Seen along the Amazon River

 

 

 

Yesterday afternoon I asked Fernando to drop me off at the Explorama raft on the Amazon River so I could walk back.

 

Some years we have walked this every day, when the water level is low amd our boat will not go close to the lodge. But this year there has been plenty of water, so I have only walked it only once.

I especially like this walk in the afternoon when I can take my time, and take pictures. Yesterday I was pretty sure it would not rain, so I took advantage of the opportunity.

 

 

Thanks to a group of friends at home, we have lots of paper strips already cut for the paper bead project here at the Biblioteca.

We worked on this project for at least an hour every day last week.  We had new participants up to Thursday, so progress varied.

The kids were proud of their final projects. They will be posted next, I hope.

Sapo Playa is the community where our second library is located. The librarian recently had surgery, so he is out and nothing much is happening in that building. CONAPAC has been sponsoring a music teacher, who teaches here at our library, and at the school in Sapo Playa. They make the 20-25 minute boat trip each Thursday and Friday morning. Last week we went on Thursday because they were having some Academic Games. The principal told Fernando she would be happy if I came this week and worked with her English classes.  So, that was the plan for Thursday.  Luckily Fernando volunteered to stay in the room and help. Luckily because they had almost no English.  I tried to start with Hello my name is. That worked, but when it came time for where I live or where I was born, things went way downhill. I quickly gave up on that and jumped to Personal pronouns, and conjugating.  The main idea was that He she or it usually add an S to English verbs, I walk, you walk, He or She or It Walks!    This was not a fun hour and a half, I can assure you. I had brought along Eric Carle’s Slowly, slowly, slowly, said the sloth. I read this in English and Fernando translated.  That was fine, and we got applause. They applaud often and, it seems, easily. Respect, I guess. Oh, they also rise when an adult enters their classroom. 

At the end of this class we announced we would do a button craft the next day.  I tried to limit the class to older girls, but soon saw I needed to leave it open for all.  So back we went the next morning, with a bag full of buttons, ribbons, thread, glue and more.  This was a definite success. I showed them some ideas in pictures on my iPad, some samples I had made myself, and let them go.

 

 

We all agreed the second day was much more pleasant than the first had been.

It’s Saturday morning and the lodge is empty of tourists. The workers are doing things like repairing leaky thatched roofs and hammering things and making small repairs. The Internet access is coming and going, right now it’s gone but it will be back.
I did a bunch of laundry this morning and hung it up in a sunny place. Recently I heard thunder so I moved it from the sunny place to a place closer to my room, without any sun. This means it will probably not dry today. And so far it has not started to rain. But it really does rain most days.

I am going to post a few nature pictures with this blog. One is of the center of a tall paIm tree, there is another moth. The sunset picture was taken from inside my room at about 5:45 last night, so no, it isn’t completely dark until 6 ish. There is a shot of my room from the back, the solid piece is the bathroom, which was added in the last few years.

I want you to see the button project from yesterday so I’m gonna g to work in getting some of this pix loaded  .