When Bruce asked people in Zacango what kinds of classes they were interested in after the water workshops ended there was an overwhelming interest in math classes. So for the past two months Bruce has been teaching adult and kid math classes in Zacango. Being one of his least favourite subjects, Bruce was surprised by the passion that people showed for math. During the first couple of weeks Bruce he could barely leave the house without someone stopping him on the street asking math questions or coming to the door asking for more math worksheets. Here's some pictures of the kids math class learning fractions with Lego.

Hizee and Ziko hiking around Ahuexutla

Bruce has been doing water workshops in a nearby village named Ahuexutla over the past few weeks. When the people in Ahuexutla mentioned that they were having a under-ten kids basketball tournament as a part of their anual fiesta Bruce told them he'd bring a team from Zacango. The kids in Zacango were pretty pumped about the idea of going to another town to play basketball and got together for a few nights before the tournament to practice. When we got to Ahuexutla for the tournament we soon realized that "under ten" wasn't really "under ten" and that the two other teams were made up of older boys who played together on a regular basis (they had uniforms and everything!) Well, if the kids from Zacango were intimidated they sure didn't let it show! They were little troopers, only scoring one or two baskets a game but refusing to give up or back down. (It was like one of those Disney movies where you just want to keep cheering for the underdogs!) Zam played his heart out even if it only meant running up and down the court. In the end, their determination paid off (literally), they got third place (out of three teams) -- way to go guys! Before the tournament began, the people in Bruce's class made sure we were well fed! The generosity of people here is astounding!

The boys in action!

Playing amoungst the banana trees

Warming up before the first game

Receiving third prize...100 pesos!

We put Pig Pig on a diet recently because she is just getting too big! When her diet first started she kept breaking out of her pen in frantic search of more food. In the midst of her frantic searching she would still take the time to flop herself down for a good scratch behind the ears. Here Ziko took the opportunity to use her as a chair.

A hike through the barranca which is slowly filling with water as the rains have begun to arrive.

The Hikers: Enrique, Ziko, Hizee, Zam, and Carmelo

These pictures are for you mom...here are the sunflowers that we planted when you guys were here.
Coming from the "Sunflower Capital of Canada" I planted these babies to remind me of my childhood home. I planted them just to enjoy looking at but it turns out they never wanted to look up at us. The flowers became so top heavy (I'm not sure if it's because they couldn't get deeply rooted in the rocky soil) that they never turned to face the sun and always hung down like this. We enjoyed them for some time and then uprooted them to make room for other vegetables for our garden.

My Mother's Day began pretty early this year...at about 1a.m. to be exact! Zam's friend Miguel had mentioned something to us earlier in the week about people going door to door and singing to the mom's early in the morning on Mother's Day, but our Spanish isn't good enough to have figured out exactly what he was talking about. So when there was a knock at our door at 1a.m. on Sunday morning, and we opened the door to find a group of young men playing me a mother's day song, it was a bit of a shocker. I don't know if we fully woke up to hear the song and when we woke in the morning we wondered if it had really happened.
A little later that morning, around 8 a.m. the neighbor girls came and pinned decorations to my door and took turns sprinkling my head with confetti (which is SUPER popular here).
And the first picuture is me (no I've not grown, I'm just a little taller than average height here) with the fellow mom's on my street: Ramona, Bardorminana, Patricia, and Violeta. What a day!!! It's great to see all the mother's here being honoured for all the hard work they do!

The president of the municipality we live in drove to all the surrounding communities to give the mothers their Mother's Day gift. Hizee was happy that I got a pink basin.

Here's the pig our neighbor's slaughtered in it's edible form. We are always well fed in Zacongo. This is a popular dish called mole and here are Agustin and and Oscar enjoying the feast after the slaughter.

Our neighbors slaughtered a pig this weekend and Bruce was there for the whole event and documented it with photos. The big joke is that my pig is next!

Cistern Play! Although it always feels like summer with the weather here, the past few weeks have had an extra "summer feel" to them as the days are longer and the abundance of daylight means the kids don't want to go to bed. They've been super into this evening game they play with their friends where they load our mattresses into the neighbor's empty cistern and jump off the walls into the padded cistern. It goes on for hours and we are always met with groans when we tell them that it's time to clean up and head for bed!