1 month down

I have started makeing my self little notes on whats happend over the past week, so I hope this post goes michimi (Guarani for a little bit) smoother.

Last sunday was another trainee´s birthday, so a bunch of us went over to his house in the afternoon for a little fiesta. I drank a little beer and a little wine, ate a little fruit salad (a must for parties here), kicked the soccer ball around with some little kids, and talked in spanish, guarani, and english. After that party there wound down we decided we should move it to the disco club. About 17 of us piled into the bed of an old truck (with some sort of break problems) and made the trek into Ypane. It was fun, although we were all hurting monday morning. And that was the first time I met my neice who (and I think we´re all a little jelous here) speaks spanish, english and portugese fluently. Addtionally she also speaks chinese, korean and french a little bit. Jeez. oh and understand Guarani, but doesn´t speak it ´so well´.

Things did not go so soomthly on the bee front this week. On tuesday when we went into the apiary to do a hive division, I got slamed by the bees. I had forgotten my suit, so I had to borrow another trainee´s (who brought a suit from home). Unfortuanly she wears a med, where as I wear a lg. So the veil touched my nose, and a bee found it. That was the most painful sting i´ve ever had, it made my eyes waterup. After that I kept getting slammed and 3 bees found their wayinto my veil. I was able to kill 2 of them before they got me, but the 3rd nailed me right on the forehead. Also it took me about 20 min to shake the rest of the bees following me trying thier best to sting me.
And then we tried another wild hive capture (trasiago). This one was located in a living palm tree (which by the way have spines and make little tiny tiny coconuts which they use to make coconut oil). So we hacked a hole in the tree, breaking one ax in the process. Then we pulled out the comb and atached it to the frames and began the search for the queen. She was as the say ´runny´. We were never able to capture her and eventually all the bees swarmed and landed in some 15 feet up in an extra spiney palm. Bee´s- 2 Us- 0

Also I got sick for the first time this week. A little 24 hour number which had me throwing up and with fever. Luckly the next day was a ´dia de practica´ so we didn´t have actual class. After sleeping most of that day, and all of the night , I was back to my old self. Unfortually while I was down, my fellow beekeeper Caleb had his birthday. All us beekeepers went over to his house for a party, of which I mearly observed. However I did get into a good fight with his 3 year old nephew, who dissapointed after being out manuvered, sucker punched me in the back.

And on a possitive note, we finally got to visit pigfart farm. In one of our frist sessions here we went over some of the things we´d be doing durring training, one of which was visiting a farm where they boil their milk with pig farts. We´ve been waiting for this eversince. It was a super cool farm, located right next to assunsion and only on one third of an acer. They had cows, pigs, chickens, rabbits, quails, dogs (with puppies). Also a couple of awesome composting systems, one of which produced biogas which they used to boil their milk. They made cheeses and youghert and ice cream. I´m running out of time so this will have to do for now..


One last one. NO more pics untill I can get to use the peace corps computers. these internet cafe ones are way to virusy. I had to format my camera last time i plugged it and and lost everything I had already taken..