halfway

Right now, Irene and Alex are cooking dinner and I'm playing Christmas music. No real reason. We wanted to eat. We wanted to listen to music. Done and done. Rice, potatoes, plantains, chicken for them, and Trans-Siberian Orchestra.

We returned to El Gallito to do a damage transect with our friend Primitivo. Afterwards, we went to El Bajio to ask for permission to work their Saturday. They were in the middle of a very large and very heated meeting, but we got permission. They don't really know and don't seem to care what we'll be doing. Alex said we'd pay them, and they promised us two ejidotarios. The forest of El Bajio is very young, and since the minimum diameter at breast height that we consider is 5 cm, we're thinking there won't be a lot of trees for us to assess in these two transects. This leaves us plenty of time to take a tour of their bracken paradise. I'm sure they don't view bracken fern invasion as paradise though. It is really, really extensive.

The two days prior were spent at Juan Sarabia-- you know, the ejido that I am a partial owner of. On Tuesday we were stood up by our ejidotarios but when we stopped by the ejido office on our way home to double-check for Wednesday, we were promised this pair of men who happened to be hanging out behind the Casa Ejido at the time. I can think of two words that well summed up our first impression: old and crotchedy. One was much more vocal than the other. They were not pleased to be told what to do. However, despite our fears for Wednesday, things went very well. Once split up and put in the field to cut a path in the woods and assess the trees with us, they were kind and very helpful.

Three weeks from now, barring any great delays on Continental's part, I will be in New Jersey. In the three weeks since I've arrived, I've learned to identify bracken quickly at a distance (yes, even with my eyes-- it's a weird color and consistency in the landscape), picked up un poquito (a very little bit) Spanish, spent a ridiculous amount of time in the truck, grown quite fond of my rooftop office, and discovered that for 20 pesos more than I paid at the lame laundromat several blocks away, the woman across the street will gladly wash and fold my laundry for me within 24 hours. I think it's going pretty well.

ALSO! I am getting the hang of the trees here and can start sharing a tree of the day with you! I can only hope you're half as excited as I am. For today: the flamboyan (sometimes spelled with a "t" on the end). It's mostly a decorative, probably from India, thinks Alex. We have a few in the median of Avenue Bugambilias and elsewhere around Chetumal. It's very pretty!