Here's a suggestion computer. I assume you read binary so why don't you 0 1 1 1 1 1 1 0 1 1 0 1 1.

Today, a small victory. We were walking between the Village and the school and a neighbor going the other direction stopped us to make sure that the children were home so he could bring them mangoes. Woohoo! He knows we work there! This may seem silly, especially since we see and chat with this man at least once a week and we are usually orbited by plaid-clad electrons clamoring loudly for our attention, but it still makes us happy to have hard evidence that our place within the community is known and accepted.

Another sign we’ve been here awhile is my acceptance of things I once thought odd. When someone told be that taxi divers drove around honking and pointing in the direction they were traveling, I giggled. The scene in my head was probably more fantastic than reality, but still, isn’t that an amusing picture to those of you who have yet to experience it? A bunch of people honking and hanging out the window, pointing their route? In fact, it is wonderfully efficient. I don’t think it’s strange at all. I even point back to confirm the direction I am going. Honk, point.

But then I get ringworm on my eyelid—AGAIN—and I feel like we are stuck in a never-ending loop of hot weather and skin fungi. Gross. Also, while things are falling in place for us, it is still exceedingly, irrationally, difficult to get things accomplished. I just continue to underestimate the factors that contribute to the completion of a task. It’s like a treadmill with hurdles. I wake up thinking okay, today I have to get this done, so I sit down to it and realize halfway through that I have to do 5 other things first to make this task do-able and it always involves favors and information from other people and I get all excited and then my boss can’t understand me. Ultimately these things get done, but never without some amount of panic on my part.

So that’s where we are. And, the kids have learned my name. I know people think this is dumb, especially when the kids can call me ‘miss’ most of the time, but I was tired of being called ‘Patrick and uh, uh, uh…’ So now everyone knows my name, or at least a varied pronunciation of my name, and they shout it gleefully when they see me approaching the Village. Just to reiterate, there are over 100 children and Erin is not a common name here. So I feel good about this, and if you think it is paltry, then you are a poo-head.

Oh my God, Darryl. You look like Barack Obama. Everybody I'm dating Barack Obama.

Lately Patrick and I have been embarking on mini-adventures of the nature that cause me to proclaim, “this will be the end of our marriage.” So for your enjoyment, we have listed the top ten things that are likely to end in the dissolution of our alliance.

1. PowerPoint presentations
2. Home haircuts
3. Death Match Uno
4. KU/MU
5. Snowboarding
6. Wayne Brady
7. Rationing of baked goods
8. Chorus of the Jamaican national anthem
9. Naming children after steroid-filled Polish men (Mariusz Pudzianowski Mazi?)
10. Top ten lists

Don’t worry, we have our mutual love of ceramic animals with festive costumes to see us through the tough times. Oh Shebadda.

Occasionally I'll hit somebody with my car. So sue me-- no, don't sue me. That is opposite the point I'm trying to make.

Busy is a relative term. For the most part Erin and I have had our heads down plugging away at our various work projects. We spend most nights at home doing nothing, save pining for our very own game of Carcassonne, but our days have been pretty full. For those of you still reading our blog, I thought I would give a schedule of upcoming happenings for the summer…

At our orphanage:
- A couple weeks of summer school
- A couple weeks of arts &crafts, fine arts, and music
- A few beach days, an airport tour, a Rose Hall Great House Tour, and an off-site trip to St. Ann? (the trip is definite but location still up in the air)
- A week-long JAMM camp
- A week-long football (soccer for you American folks) camp
- The week-long HIV/AIDS peer educator training that Erin got a grant to fund- this project will actually continue on until World AIDS Day in December, but the main part is happening this summer
- A summer-long reading contest, complete with prizes for readership
- Computer classes will be held for the mothers, aunties, and the children though I might wait until school resumes to incorporate the kids

At the marine park:
- Revamping the outreach and education program
----- Educating and getting the local fishermen onboard to facilitate a protected area for fish to breed and grow
----- Educating the public, both domestic and foreign, about the issues the local marine habitats are facing and how they can help
- Hopefully finding funding to initiate a mooring buoy system to act as boundaries for the protected zones as well as providing environmentally low-impact anchor site

As for us:
- Last week we met the new PC Trainees. They all seemed very excited and full of energy. I believe they are all capable of making a difference in the lives of those they will soon be living among.
- Erin’s folks are coming for a 5-day Jamaica extravaganza! Woohoo!

And in the end, the love you take, is equal to the love you make.-- Sir Paul McCartney

Patrick