Dear Friends,

This is a combination of celebration and confession.

The visit of the cousins was a lovely success. They are very good sports and just dealt with whatever challenges came up. They didn't manage to see a toucan or a coral snake, but they did get to see two tarantulas--one full grown and one half-grown.

One of the cousins has a lot of dietary limitations. At least it would seem that way in the states. But we bought all the stuff she could eat and we all feasted on our "restricted diet." It was pretty nice.

We even had a special meal in Limon. A friend of ours was delighted to make a special meal for us and really got into the details of the diet. We had grille/smoked fish, cassave (like a cracker, made with yucca), rice, tajadas (fried platanos), a cabbage salad, and a lovely tomato sauce (that the rest of us could and did eat). We stuffed ourselves. We kept it for a surprise, since we couldn't be sure that she would be able to do the exact menu we had discussed. Oh, the drink was guanabana refresco. I suspect that your local restaurant wouldn't be able to duplicate it. Actually, none of our local restaurants could either. It was the home-cooking touch. Fabulous. We took all of the leftovers home and ate them for dinner. We didn't need to make anything to add to them.

They got to see our monastery, our road, the town of Limon, and met some of our friends. Even the six-year-old walked all the way (over a mile and a half) to Rosa's place on Monday morning. "We are walking in the light of God", marching, singing, etc., etc. It takes a lot of verses to walk a mile and a half when you are six years old. But, she had Prairie to keep her interested. One of the adults went in with me so that I could do the regular work. Prairie took the day off clinic work to be tour guide.

We transplanted the baby platano plant. We made tortillas from corn--including boiling and grinding the corn. We did a lot of life-skills in the country activities.

Now comes the confession part. We really don't know how to have guests yet. We bought a lot more vegetables than we could eat in the time they were here. We bought a green papaya with no clue how long it would take to ripen. It ripened about a week after they had left!! So we feasted on papaya--just the two of us!! It was a big papaya. One has to be a little careful with feasting on papaya; it is a mild laxative. Well, none of the vegetables or fruit went to waste, but we were eating them for a week after the cousins left.

We are on the road again. We are in El Pino today and will go to Tegucigalpa tomorrow. We have all of our papers in order, we think. We´ll deliver them to our attorney, who will get us legal residency, we hope.

be well,

beth