It’s a BOY!...or a GIRL!...actually, not sure because we already ate it!

If you’re confused by the title of my this blog, that’s probably because you are bad at riddles.  What I am referring to is THE BEST EGG SANDWICH I HAVE EVER EATEN.  We now have five lovely chickens.  After a few slow months of build up we were finally able to acquire the chickens we need for our own little egg factory.  We’ve had these five fine ladies for only two days.  The first day we got one egg, and today we had two eggs.  For dinner, Kate scrambled them up and made two delicious egg sandwiches.  If my information is correct these five chickens are young and have just started laying, which hopefully means there will be many eggs to come.  It’s probably been mentioned in a previous blog somewhere but eggs are not available in our village.  Even if they were available they cost five dalase.  I know what you’re saying…five D, that’s like, I have no idea how many dollars.  We’ll don’t worry about it, it’s way too much for an egg.  Yes, there was an initial investment to build the coop and buy the chickens but if we get decent production I am sure we will make back our investment in what we could have/would have spent on eggs very soon.

In addition to now having eggs I am hoping to spark a little egg eating fire in the village.  Most people don’t eat eggs here.  From what we see, they don’t really eat the chickens either.  I’ve already had a few people interested in building their own coop at their compounds.  Whether they want to eat eggs, have lil’ baby chickens or both - it doesn’t matter to me.  I just hope I can show a few people that the results are much better if you take care of your chickens than if you just leave them to run free and die. 

I’ve also actually taught some villagers a lesson with my new chickens.  I’m sure a few of you out there don’t realize this either but a female chicken (hen) doesn’t need a rooster to make an egg.  People here keep asking me how I am going to have egg production without a male.  Without going into the intricacies of the reproductive system I just guarantee that a female chicken can in fact lay an egg without a male.  Who knows what else will come from this little egg project.  I hope to dabble a little bit in the duck business sometime soon.  For now, I’m happy to be digesting the greatest egg sandwich ever, while my egg vendors sleep soundly 10 feet out our window. 

In other new, the rains are now starting, we have only had a few showers so far but they are definitely coming.  From what we understand it’s a whole different ballgame in the rainy season, everything turns green, every bug in the world makes an appearance, and at the same time everyone abandons the village for the coos and rice fields.  We now get asked, almost daily, if we have a field and what we plan on growing.  I can generally get around it by saying I don’t have a field and just plan on working in the fields some to help my host father.  I’m sure I will do that some but I have no intention of becoming a full-fledged coos or rice farmer.  They already seem to know how to do that and don’t need any assistance.

The other day we did get our first lesson in tie and dye.  In case you aren’t sure what that is it’s most commonly known in the USA as Tie-Dye.  Here, tie AND dye.  A few women in the village learned to do it a few years back but only get to work on it when they get an order.  From what I’ve learned so far I don’t think they advertise much or seek jobs so they only do it maybe twice a year.  They really do seem to know what they are doing now and I think there is a lot of potential for them to advertise themselves, even just small small, and get a few extra jobs each year for some additional, much needed, cash.  For now, I am planning a little meeting with them in the next few days to discuss how much money they will actually make from this last contract and see what we think can be done going forward, if they want to do more.

I’m sure there are more things I could talk about but I think that’s all the blogging I can handle for now.  Kate is a much better blogger than I am as I am sure you can tell by the Kate-Ben blog ratio.  I’ll leave you with those few stories for now and try to have some other stuff happen to me that I can write about.  Oh yeah, I read Seabiscuit, An American Legend, it was awesome. Blog Out.