Banana visit, trimming, and more.

 Cory enjoyed visiting some local gardens yesterday. During the walk he saw many of the imported banana plants, overall doing better than the local varieties. The nights continue to cool down and bring rains a few times a week.

The tall banana plant in the back with a bunch of green bananas was imported while the small plants in front are local.

Yesterday the guys worked to 'trim' some trees on campus. Cory calls it trimming while the rest of us would use 'major pruning' or 'tree mutilation' to describe the major limb removal. This work served two major purposes-to remove weak, dangerous limbs and open up areas for planting breadfruit trees on campus. Cory would add that the trees now look better after their shaping.

My Moringa tree garden by the house continues to grow well, with the trees now reaching waist high.

Kid's Club leaders met yesterday with ideas on how to expand and improve their impact on the community. They plan to hold a Christmas party next month for the children.

While looking for good movies for our family for Christmas we made sure to check if the disk included a French translation or subtitles. That way the video can be shared with the community as well as watched in French in our home to help Eli, Anna and I improve our language skills.

While we occasionally grumble about using the computers most of the time we remain very thankful for these machines that impact our lives greatly: communication with family/supporters/team, on-line shopping, school, information/research, entertainment [i.e. Kindle books], word processing, staying connected with the world and pictures.

 Having the right tools for the job can make a large difference. As I learn about preparing students for college many experts advise to take time to train them for life: taking responsibility for ones actions, attitudes and work, being organized, managing time, living healthy.....

I'm thankful for the 'tools' and skills that my parents and teachers taught me growing up and continue to work on adding the good while pruning the bad.