Saturday

Yesterday I got up early and went out to the Panama Rainforest Discovery Center. You can read about at at www.pipelineroad.org. I climbed the tower with a rest at each level. On the way up I had a beautiful view of a broadbilled motmot. At the top we saw a blue cotinga, a fruit crow, some migrating broadwinged hawks, two titryars flying by. We were way above the tops of the trees looking down on them. Of in the distance we saw a boat passing through the canal. It was a very quiet and restfull experience. Back at the visitors center I sat and watch many many hummingbirds feeding at nectar feeders. Themost common feeder had beautiful white tail feathers that flared out to the side. It was a wonderful relaxing day.

School starts tomorrow!

Tomorrow is the first day of school and I hope to take some pictures! Please keep the 1000s of girlsand boys going back to public and private schools here in Panama. The school year ends in December.

Basic entry level school skills.

Today I checked out Aralis one of our new girls for basic school school skills. She can trace and copy her name. She's learning the vowels and can cut and color. She didn't go to kindergraten but told me that some of the tings we were doing she did at home last year. No school for her last year because she was undocumented. No birth certificate! Born at home. She has another sister with us since last year and an older sister (9) but the older one doesn't have her documents yet.

Grifina - school will be new for her as well can cut and can use a lot of practice. She can color and copy very simple shapes and color.

Iam preparing a vocabulary game tolearn to say the name of pictures that start with each of the vowels. In Spanish there is only one sound for each vowel.

And 2 more today!

We welcomed two more new girls today. mailyn is 5 and the other is 6. This means that Mailyn will start school when she 'should' and the other girl will go to 1st grade. We will give her a quick kindergarten course starting tomorrow! Our young Kuna girl does understand some spanish!

Two new girls!

Today is the last day of Carnival. We admitted two new girls today, sisters, Kuna. The older one speaks Spanish but the younger, 7 only Kuna!

What a nice surprise!!

Graciela appeared at my bedroom door shortly after I got home (she lives with me) and said she had her injection ready for me to give her! She has been able to prepare the injection for a long time but today is a real breakthrough in responsibility. I am sooooo pleased.

Mini vacation

This weekend I took a mini vacation to a nice resport nearby. I addition to just enjoying the beauty of the place and the food I took a free ride to look for night mammals well animals. We saw a small herd of capyberras and one had babies. Also viewed sme wil pigs running fast. This was complemented by a large turtle. The next day I visited the orchard, snake, reptile and fish and the butterfly house. And todatyI took a 3 hour birding walk on pipeline road. Was pleased that I could make such a long walk. Also rested alot and some of the time in a hammock.