Some cool new things.

We have been adjusting better and better each day to our new home. The humidity is getting less and less and that makes for much more comfortable days. We have been drinking A LOT of water, despite what some of you may have thought, we have only had a little soda since arriving here. However, while we are talking about soda, Scotty found this Mountain Dew that he thought was interesting, he said it almost tasted the same.
In other news, Herma got another pet, this time a pelican. The way it happened was that one of the monkeys needed money, so he offered to sell Herma his pelican. We asked if it was common for people to keep pet pelicans, Herma said this is the first she has heard of, so this is just as odd here as it may be back at home.

The pelican's name is Tony, but the monkeys call him Kupp. He got the name because some of the guys noticed that Americans were always saying "kupp" (come) to animals, so they figured that was a good American name. We think he is a young pelican, he's super social and gets real scared when you pet him, starts to shake, poor little guy. He eats a fish a day and he has a real sweet face.

Scotty is developing more and more relationships with the boys. The last couple of days he has been working with Aziz, who is the drum maker. Scotty has been learning how to stretch the skin over the drum head, pretty cool (and sweaty) work. The boys give Scotty a hard time because he sweats A LOT more than they do...come to think of it, they really don't sweat.

Here Scotty is tightening the skin over the head. Djibi is helping him.

Here Scotty is putting the finishing touches on tightening the drum head by pounding down the top ring, after this he scraped the skin to get all the hair follicles off. Aziz is supervising, while buffing an almost done drum.
Jenna, this is for you. We eat most of our meals communal style. Which means one dish, several spoons, think of a mini buffet where you share the serving dish with 8 other people. It's actually a really cool method because if you push something into another persons area that is a compliment for them, so if someone pushes something in your area and you don't really want to eat it, you just pass it on to someone else and you are being really nice. The food is real tasty, I am learning how to cook from Nia, one of the ladies that Herma hires to cook for the crew.

Miss you guys, thanks for the comments and the updates on the blogs. We love catching up on home.