Today I learned the importance of wearing beekeeping equipment the proper way. We were inspecting the hives (both langstroth and batay style) and I kept finding bees in my suit. My friends helped me smash them before they stung me. Our hives are in good shape and we even were able to spot the queen in one hive. The egg laying patterns were good indicating a healthy queen (it’s a circular pattern) and plenty of new queen’s had just chewed their way out of a split hive ( a portion of a strong hive was moved to a second box). I even got to cut old wax from a Langstroth hive.
While walking back from the apiary we stopped to pick some giant blackberries (see picture)
We were supposed to do a wild swarm capture, but unfortunately someone discovered the tree with the bees and stole all the honey thus destroying the hive. You can imagine our sadness because not only were we not able to expand our number of hives, but all those bees would die.

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Some of the blackberries I picked after a few hours of beekeeping!!
Playing “Butt Ball”—one of the many icebreaking tools I can take out to my new site.

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Hibiscus flower near my training facility.

Mi Casa—my room is the window on the right. Our dinner table is on the porch. Our dog is on the right. His name is Cookie. My sister, brother, and sister-in-law are all in the background.

So delicious. I helped Mirian (sister-in-law) chop up the potatoes, onion, garlic, and tomatoes to lay on top of the chicken.

We’re going to cook some chicken over the charcoal.
This is my room complete with mosquito netting on top. Those are my pictures from Julie hanging near my bed. And of course I brought a few frisbee’s with me too.

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Peace Corps HQ
Eating lunch at the mall in Asuncion. Yes, those are McDonald’s French fries. You’d think we wouldn’t want fried food much less McDonald’s given the organic slant on our agriculture approach. False wanting something familiar wins out. I ate food from a make your own pasta place—so delicious!
Hanging trains are popular in Paraguay too! Just for you Grandpa. This is at the mall in Asuncion
Queso Paraguaya…not my favorite cheese, but it’s good if it’s mixed with food.
Kendall and I eat homemade ice cream at the farm