Friday, September 12, 2008

Umm I think I have a scorpion in my pants…

So I have to start this blog off by saying we are officially entering scorpion and tarantula season. I will get into the good news on the pig project here in a minute but first I have a story for you. See I thought I was lucky after killing around six of each (scorpions and tarantulas) in my first 4 months here last year that maybe they were dying away. Maybe they had met their match and decided to leave this town. Well I was wrong…

Everyone always hears the story of their friend that went down to Latin America for a short little adventure vacation and gets one of the scary critters in their pants. But that’s the thing…it’s always the friends that it happened to. How reliable is a story when you hear it from a friend of a friend of a friend? Well you can all now eliminate those long stories…I had a SCORPION IN MY PANTS!!!

See I have been here over a year, yeah it has gone by fast, and I have seen the darn critters but they are always on the walls or crawling on the floor. I kill them and go on with my day, no big deal. Statistically speaking it is extremely rare to get one in any of your clothing. At most you might have two scorpions in your house at one time, however, they are usually in your roof or some place you will never see them.

Well this morning I woke up in an unmotivated mood and just wanted to sit in my hammock and listen to my ipod. Good music to forget the tough times usually does the trick. Well I felt a little twitch in my jeans and at first thought no big deal, we have been walking a lot lately working on the pig project, it’s probably just a muscle twitch. (Note- I am now literally creeping out feeling twitches all over)

So anyway, two seconds go by and I’m proud of myself, I’m working so hard that I’m getting muscle twitches. But then a thought starts creeping into my mind… ¨I really haven’t been working THAT hard that I should get muscle cramps¨.

Well now let me set the scene for you; it is eight o’clock in the morning. I am sitting in my hammock in my living room with my front door open. Kids are passing my house to go to school and I am freaking out tearing my pants off trying to find what the hell is in my pants. I get my pants off to find a freaking SCORPION in my pants. The kids then get to see the best part… I am chasing this scorpion around my house in my boxers with one sandal in my hand to kill the damn thing.

Big developments in the pig project…

So on to the boring stories, work is going really well. With the pig project I am working with a Nicaraguan governmental agency, which has been extremely disappointing. This organization is not run very well, always late or just doesn’t show up and always setting meetings without advising all included parties. Well finally they came through and decided to put someone in my community for the next three months so we can get this project done.

So for the next three months I have a lady out here working on the project with me. Last week we went around and interviewed all the members of the group, 42 in all, and checked out the locations they want to build their pig pens. This week we are putting in the four corner posts and distributing the materials. This means, cross your fingers, during this next month the pigs should be here! Needless to say I am quite excited to get this project going and the pig pens built.