It has been quite some time since I made a reasonable posting, to be honest there really hasnt been alot to write about so I have been trying to save up some stories to make a nice long blog. I am sure that I mentioned that I made it back to the US, but if not let me just say that it was a real breath of fresh air, it was definately needed. I brought back a bunch of stuff back for my village, the biggest hit was all the baseball equipment. I brought the team eight gloves, two bats, twenty-five balls and a new nike baseball bag; they were really excited to say the least. It is pretty safe to say that we are the best equiped baseball team in the league, everyone knows why; because we have a gringo and they are all filthy rich. I am happy to say that with our new equipment that we made it to the semifinals of the Penensula League, which has been a great boost of confidence for the guys. Out of the sixteen teams we are one of the smallest villages, so anyone of age to play....plays, it is like mandatory military service. Playing baseball has really made the time go by, we play doubleheaders every weekend and practice at least twice a week.

Another thing that I brought from home was fishing tackle, they just about cleaned out the ocean with lures that I brought back. We catch everything from Thirty pound Barraccuda to twenty five pound Red Snapper, needless to say that we are eating well. The only problem is that we lose a lot of them because the fish are two big or have teeth that would make a grizzly bear back down......the summer season has finally hit down here, now what does that mean.... water as calm as a swimming pool, visibilty that is even better than a swimming pool and sun sun sun sun sun. The weather is amazing right now, so needless to say we have been doing a lot of spearfishing and lobster diving. I know that I talk alot about lobster diving, but it is really fun and now that the currents have brought a fresh batch in from the open ocean it has become a regular meal in the Tuchi household.

We finally got going on our rainwater catchment system project, I say finally because the families finally got it together and built their tables. Let me back up a little, a high school group from Springdale High called Paso A Paso decided to sponsor my village with a fundraiser. They raised five hundred dollars which goes quite a ways down here, so I am using the money to address the most pressing need of the village: water. We are building seven rainwater catchment systems in the village, basically all the houses that have metal roofs get one. Now, with any project it cant be just a handout or the people will never respect the project. It is kind of like that rich kid in high school who always wreaked their new car and their parents bought them a new one.

You make the kid buy his own car and the chances of them running it into the ground are a little

less , the same principles apply here, if I just build them catchment systems and they have nothing invested then they will let the project go to waste, believe me they will. So I have required that they build the tables on which the tanks will sit, I am not asking for much but it makes a difference.

So we finally got all the materials together and had them brought out from the mainland, not as easy as it sounds but it got done none the less. Within a matter of three days the project was half way finished, now what does that mean, it means that the people who built their tables got their catchments systems immediately. Of the six houses that are to recieve them three built thier tables before the materials arrived, the other three are still waiting to see if the systems really work. Well let me assure they do, as a matter of fact it rained about an hour after we finished the last one of the three and all the tanks filled within an hour. There were adults acting like children playing under their new showers and water sources, it was pretty funny to see macho men acting like kids in the sprinkler during the summer. They assured me that if fish stayed fresh from here to the US they would personally send each of the high school students their own personal Barraccuda and Lobster, believe me they would do it. Instead I ate them for the students and now weigh ten pounds more, thanks Springdale High (I never thought I would ever say that being a Fayettevillian).

I got bored the other day and decide to do a little Bob Vila home improvements. As you can see from the pictures I decided to cover my deck and close it in. This whole operation took about six or seven hours, including cutting the wood out of the tree. It is so nice to sit out there and enjoy the sunset especially after a long day of lobster diving and rowing on the open ocean, oh what a difficult life.

I know I paint a nice picture, but it is not always like that. Sometimes I have to settle for Snapper, hell life is hard sometimes.

So in closing, I hope all is well in the good ol US of A, I am way out of touch with the news so if anything interesting is going on back home (besides the depressing national news) let me know, I will be in town til Monday and then I am headed back out to my village for another month or so. Take care and call those hogs for me in that first football game.

Tuchi Kobiarekobu