Happy New Year!

Monday night, the Chinese contingent threw a huge party for the whole mission to celebrate the Chinese New Year of the Ox. It was quite an event with lots of live performances, including a Kung-fu group who broke bottles with their heads. Ouch. At the end of the night, they lit a huge fire and danced around it holding hands. The funniest part was when they grabbed the SRSG (the head of the mission here) and pulled her into the circle. The expressions on the faces of her security detail were priceless, I highly doubt that there is a manual with instructions on how to proceed when your boss whose security is top priority is dancing around a giant fire :)

I got to visit a friend's place where they have some monkeys living outside. I got to feed one of them some tangerines and this was one of the funniest experiences of my life. Basically, he grabbed one tangerine and placed it underneath his foot for later. Then, he took two slices from me and put them in one hand, then took 2 more slices and put them in another hand and began biting off pieces from both sides and chewing as quickly as he could all the while looking at the rest of the tangerine in my hand as if he was trying to think of a way to take that part as well to make sure I didn't eat it :)

In the next couple of weeks we will be going to the school for deaf children to do a needs assessment there and see if we can provide some assistance. One girl who helps us cook lunches at the school for the blind, Aquila, has a small restaurant where I got lunch the other day which was delicious.

I've also been able to try some local fruit here. The pineapple is incredible, as well as the mangos. Probably the best mangos I've ever tasted, hands down. Ok, more to come soon, enjoy the pics.