Adventuring Susan: Huecos

Tomorrow (February 20) is an important day for us here in my little village. The building-supply store will be bringing in materials for our latrine project on their trucks. We will be making 64 concrete latrines for families, plus one for the community meeting-house and one at a church. Due to the generous support of many, the project is becoming a reality. I am focusing entirely on this project for the months of March and April, and we hope to be completely done by the end of May.

All this month people have been working on digging pits. The clay soil doesn't have a lot of nutrition for growing crops but it's great for making pits- most people have made latrine pits between 2 and 3 meters deep (10 feet). That's really deep. Just about everyone has their pit done, due to great work by the organizing committee while I've been absent for much of the month of January. There's some potty humor in talking about latrine pits, or "huecos" in Spanish : "I'm here to see your hole." That causes giggles for sure.

In January both my boyfriend Ken and my parents made visits to Panama! The visits were a very special time and there's a lot more to say, but these pictures will suffice for now. You can see more recent pictures by following the link to my Picasa account on the right hand side of the page.

I am also looking forward to my 30th birthday on February 24th, a milestone for sure! Mom and Dad brought me some packages of balloons, though I'm not sure what I'll be doing on the day itself. At least, as a Sunday, I have the day off from making latrines. Mechi, meanwhile, is looking forward to her first birthday next month, however I don't know that the cat has a lot of potential for future growth and development. May I, you, and the people of my Panamanian community grow in many ways this year!