Jhems, zanmi-mwe.

Jhems: not Jim, which is what i thought my 13 year old friend's name was..but no. It's Jhems, pronounced 'james'.
We've been getting to know these three boys, Patrick, Jhonny, and Jhems after we work during the day...usually we'll play basketball or soccer with them, or just walk around and talk--all brothers living behind the house we're staying..they have about 10380985 other siblings as well. Jhems is a sweet boy, I gave him my soccer ball to play with so he brought us about 9 ears of Mai (corn)--last night he also brought us over 2 big canes of sugar, 'con'. He's been asking me to give him English lessons, so we're starting tonight. These kids learn English and a little Spanish in school, but I see in Jhems that he really wants to learn English. He will repeat things I say, like "okay, so 5 o'clock, i'll teach you english"--and then he'll just say that right back to me and smile. He does understand a lot though..but i see a lot of basic words get used in the wrong place. I also want to learn Creole better so we can better understand eachother, so i'm hoping to get a fair deal out of this teaching lesson. I'm basically 100% better at Creole (Kreyole) than I was last tuesday, so that's awesome.

Today at Oles's we continued to work with his bees. Today I think was the most interesting day so far. We covered ourselves up head to toe and stood close while Oles and his two employee boys removed the honey comb from the hives. Bees swarming everywhere..but honestly with Oles there I felt no fear. We then took the honey comb and extracted the honey from it with this spinner machine he has. Part of the time I was just observing, and part of the time I was doing, which I was really happy about. I'm SUPER excited that I'm getting hands on experience here, working with projects i've never even come near before. Good for my resume, good for my spirit, good for my mind.

Laundry day was today also, just got that done and hung up my one line full of clothes. I could say I underpacked...but I could also say that I have a lot more than I have and maybe I packed just right.

Brittany is over on the couch laughing to herself as she reads things on her computer. She's so cute. I'm really glad to be here with her and Keegz--we's a good balance.