All quiet - and sometimes dark

Another quiet, peaceful day. Nice. Saw a notice for a peace march to be held here, starting at the airport at 8 a.m. Monday, wear white. This may be interesting. A peace march to protest the protesters.

Yesterday was just a normal day. No poachers, no protesters, no problems....that is, until the power went out again. We were on the deck, enjoying the sunset and some guacamole when the power went. I decided I'd better jump up and fix dinner quickly while I could still see. When the sun goes down here, it gets dark very quickly (we are much closer to the equator here than in St. Louis). I managed to complete the meal, get it on the table in record time. We had a lovely candlelight - no, make that oil lantern light, dinner on the deck. The power came back on, briefly just before we finished eating, then went back off and stayed off. Forget doing dishes. Not romantic by oil lantern light or any other light. Instead, we cleared off the table and played a game of Scrabble (I won) and then read for awhile. I had been all psyched up about watching our newest pirated movie Knowing. That will have to wait. It's good to be flexible here as you never know what may happen. The power didn't come back on until after we had been sleeping for awhile. Thankfully, it was quite windy last night, so we were very comfortable despite the fans being off.

This afternoon, I heard some joking, laughing voices coming from the far line of banana trees on Dennis and Merlin's property and then saw a man walking around on their hillside looking for something. Seemed a bit fishy, so I called Dennis. He came down to our deck, looking for these guys who were suddenly being very quiet and well-hidden. Finally he saw one of them and hollared out, asking them what they were doing. One of them finally answered and said they were working for Tracey, a man who bought some land from Dennis on the back side of that hill. It has been very quiet since Dennis left and I haven't seen anyone leaving with bunches of bananas (which are not on Tracey's land).

Tia and her young sons came down to cut flowers to give to all the women at church tomorrow for Mother's Day. Tia is our pastor's wife and new neighbor. I have tons and tons of heliconia that looks a lot like bird of paradise and that is what we cut. The little boys, ages 3 and 7, had a good time and the older boy had to pause and climb a tree. We have a lot of trees just the right size for climbing, too.