This is huerto season! Jo Pa better bet on it!

And a very merry Christmas to you!

Well it feels like that anyway with all the church celebrations that are going on at all times. But no, its just the same old celebration everyday. Gracias a Dios!

This last week was nice and tranquilo. School has been canceled this week and next week for various reasons, or at least on the days that I have class. Therefore I wanted to make sure last Friday the students received their full dose of business acumen. Counterpart 1 didn´t show up. And she had the class plan, so I was blessed, gracias a dios, to improv an hour and a half class. I'm a pretty relaxed teacher, but when they wont stop talking I tend to raise my voice pretty high. That will teach them!

I have some free time, so i thought it would be a great idea to start a huerto in my house and at 2 of my schools. A huerto is like a Little vegetable garden. I figure this would be mutually beneficial since I would choose what will be planted, and thus get to reap the rewards of our efforts, that is the students and mine. To get this plan off the ground, I solicited the help of one of my AGGIE friends, Jessa, who lives 4 hours north in a town called Kukra Hill. She came on a 5 am ruta, remember folks, these are the covered wagons that I take to Wapï. The trip lasted for 4 hours, absolute nonsense. I set up meetings with the principals of the schools so Jessa could explain how she is doing her huerto at the school in Kukra. Things went smoothly, I mean the principals like me and so I can pretty much do what I desire.

My goals with the huerto are to:

1) eat some tasty foods.

2) Learn how to grow a veggie garden and start a compost

3) Teach the kids how to do the same

4) Implement the garden into my entrepreneurship class in various ways

a. Have them do studies on feasibility of larger production within the community

b. Pricing calculations of production

c. Local demand for our products

d. Effective marketing strategies to sell these products

e. Also i want to sell the harvest to raise money because the students will be starting their own companies next year in the class, therefore they will need some initial capital.

So we hung out Saturday and went to the Internet café to watch the Alabama Penn State collision of football Goliaths. Jessa is a Penn state fan so I thought that this would be a great chance for me to really get in to football mode to demoralize a fan right in the flesh. I was nice to her considering the thrashing that Alabama unleashed on the out manned opponent. There was a glitch however. In true Nica fashion, the power went out in the 3rd quarter so we were forced to leave the game. Fortunately there was Little wondering to be done as a significant lead had already been built. We went to eat and have a Toña before calling it a night.

Sunday rolled around, but before Jessa had to take a 9:30am ruta back to Kukra Hill, which to my understanding is more like Kukra Plateau, we decided to hike up El Rama´s very own majestic hill – Mountain. We did this in the early morning, because frankly, its been hotter than hell recently; i feel like I'm slowly melting away. Gracias a dios for water bottles and ice cold beers in my favorite air conditioned bar, la costa verde!

Yesterday, Sunday the 12th of September was my host moms birthday. I didn´t know what to get her so i said i´d work my ass off in the huerto in her back yard and produce some delicious vegetables and other goodies for her. She said what all mothers say, ¨ohh son, as long as you are nice and kind and thought full, that's all any mother wants, I don´t need anything.¨ This kind of conversation happens frequently, although she just completed 31 years of life. That detail changes everything as I really feel more like her brother than her son. Although she does cook for me, and take care of me like a mother, so I guess ill go with that.

Adios!