The last week (or so) in review.

This may have been the most thorough clean we’ve done in years!

At harvest. They are so heavy, that I need Don Fidel’help to hoist.

While the last couple of weeks have been full of activity, I don’t have much to show for it. My phone fell into the toilet AND I’ve been locked out of my personal gmail account. I have no way to access any of the photos taken immediately after my last blog post.

I have a new phone now (an old hand me down), which I’ve used to document some fun events of the last week or so.

Our nephew, Fernando, and his dance group were invited to perform at local annual ‘fiestas’ with three other local youth dance groups. It was nice to get out on a Friday night and enjoy music, dance, and fireworks. We also got to see them win, which was the icing on the cake of a fab night!

The water drama of the dry season continues. We’re still pumping water from the area of our creek where we are pooling trickles of water for house consumption and fish pond needs. We’re able to oxygenate the fish pond water regularly with the pump but for lack of water circulation the pond has turned opaque over the last few months. So, we spent two Saturdays ago cleaning it out and trying to push out as much moss from the rocks and sediment from the bottom of the pond before refilling it with fresh water. Only as a family activity and with a lot of extra hands were we able to get the water level down low enough to clean without losing any fish. Did it help? It’s a mixed review - fresh water is always good, but the pond is still very green and opaque.

We are not wanting for bananas at the moment. We’ve harvested multiple bushels in the last two weeks. Some we kept for ourselves, others we left for the birds and squirrels, and we were even able to send some home with family. They are so big and have so many individual bananas that it’s impossible for us to eat them all - I wish they didn’t ripen all at once. We hang them so they can ripen without smashing as well as to keep them away from the chickens.

One of the most exciting events of the last 10 days or so was making chocolate from cacao seeds harvested at Nido de Vida for the first time. Our nephew, Paul, did the work to grind the cacao seeds into a paste. It took 7 rounds of grinding to get there. The paste was then made into little raw chocolate discs. We melted down one disc for fresh hot chocolate which was perfect for five of us.

Nothing like shrimp ceviche and chifles (fried plantain chips) for World Cup watching!

I’ll end this post with some World Cup news. If you haven’t been watching, Ecuador has done far better than expected (I don't want to jinx it) with the most recent performance ending in a tie with the Netherlands. Don't’ be deceived by the tie though - Ecuador played infinitely better.

In any case, we love our soccer and we go all out!

That’s the most recent news from Nido de Vida. Thanks for reading and stay tuned for the next update.

Bibi Al-EbrahimNovember 28, 2022