Hi All,
How are you?
We had a great Christmas with the children. They had school that day so we held activities in the afternoon. We arranged some pants in the shape of a Christmas tree and wrapped candies in tinfoil to hang on the tree.
We had bought a few thing for them about a dollar each child for note books, toys, pencils, pens and playing cards.
We ate some really good curry, they said they where so full that their curries at home never had meat in it. They ate two and three bowls. We confirmed their thoughts about Christmas and let them open their gift bags.
Later we had a campfire and roasted marshmallows, then we let them try smores. The smores where really a sweet cracker the marshmallow and left over chocolate icing from Sam’s birthday cake.
Despite the lack of real ingredients to make the smores they where a big hit.
Melor who did not like the marshmallows plain loved them cooked.
We invited Reams family and their children for the fire. It was a lot of fun for the children to run around like crazy. I also got some great pictures of the building at night.

During this last month Ream and my challenges with the children has been introducing someone to a modern live style, learn English and also trying to get their schooling on track. Three of our children are failing, one is about a C + and one is an A.
We are counseling the older child. He takes 12 classes at one time two each day for six days. His home work is usually very little maybe 10 questions or read a page and he only test once every one or two months.
Ream and I are trying to meet with the school and encourage them to do more or maybe a little different.

We are thankful that the boys have been so gracious to us as we adjust schedules and rules.

We have rotated crops since the rain has stopped. It has been good for us because everyone else has been harvesting rice and not planing we have some vegetables the market does not have.
We have our first cantaloupe growing and a couple of watermelons that look promising.

The four duck we have, have been putting out eggs now we have twelve baby ducks with more on the way.
Our one pig is due in January, we are praying the price rises so we can make a profit.
Pig prices dropped last month as it does once and a while. The price went from twenty dollars to two dollars, which was quite dramatic for many people.

I would really like some of the villagers to learn how to butcher and eat their own pigs. It is unheard of for them to do that here. They don’t really know there is different meat in the pig, they buy it chopped up and eat it.

For those of us who like dark meat they have chickens and duck here that are all black meat and taste wonderful. The ducks are expensive but the chicken are not, reason being the chicken are not popular. People do not like the way they look so they do not buy as much.
It is like dark meat generic and name brand, I like being able to buy a good thing for a cheap price.

The weather has made its change from really hot to not so hot. I was wondering why it seemed so cold in the morning but the thermometer say 80 F. Then I realized we’ve dropped 30 degrees.
That is like 40 and 50 F degrees in America which is cold. So I now understand why people say they get cold here.
I have to say while I was unaware of how valuable the quilts would be.

We have had a few thing around mostly snakes. We have had two in the building and quite a few outside. They have all been different types but none have been poisonous.
We bought a fish tank to put some of these things in so the children could have a safer look.
The last two snakes we caught where water snakes, so we filled the tank and took some fish from the pond. Now we have crabs, frogs, snakes, fish and a few water bug for show.
One of the snakes is half green and half yellow the other is a black and checkered white snake. I am told the black and white one has a stinger on the tail, like a bee sting. I am not brave enough to find out even if I do not believe them.
Any how when I change the animals it is always a big hit, even the neighbors come to see.

We also put a case out that has different things in it. Last month we had a lot of shells from the beach. Now we put a lot of older dollar bills from theirs and near by countries.

Anyway life is good.