venders line the streets here outside hospitals selling avocados and bananas to the visitors - it's nice hospital fare- (may be one of the few nice things about the hospitals). generally here we eat avocados and bananas on an almost daily basis- the towering avocado trees are everywhere, as are of course many different varieties of banana trees. We eat them chunked up and mixed in with the food- no plate of rice beans and fish would be complete without it.

heading into my final stretch i'm seeing the obvious finally before my eyes -all the work yet to do- i.e. on our demonstration plot no one could find our records/garden plan when a volunteer ventured to ask. When same volunteer wondered outloud who was actually in charge on the plot we were also hard-pressed to answer. just around the same time i realized we have no assessment system in place for new farmer groups. so we've been creating records, assigning responsibilites, putting together assessment systems- just assessed a new group for the first time the other day- makes me wonder what we've been doing all this time! we've been working just without a lot of structure- been super busy as we had a great farmer/teacher visiting from an organic group in kenya- common ground- kindred to us, but perhaps a decade ahead?- he trained us farm staff and volunteers for the week- but i was also managing the training. As we hadn't really had an official curriculum, we'd been scrambling to assemble one-
I think i'm bringing the missing german element into our work - structure and rules- We here have chuckled imagining how the germans coped trying to colonize this country with its disregard for european ideas of time and rules- how they must have thrown their hands up shrieking and fleeing the country crying 'take it! take it back!' There little trace to show they ever were here.

immediately tailing on his visit friend celia arrived with all sorts of adventurous energy- somewhere along the way my bed became infested with fleas meaning i took up my flooring bombed the room with a toxic spray and cleared everything out to be washed, washing much of it myself.