Why do mosquitoes buzz in peoples ears?

Does anyone remember reading this book as a kid? Why Mosquitoes Buzz in People's Ears: a West African Folktale. I remember having it read to me in preschool in the 70's and I am not sure if it was a popular book at the time or just part of my particular Montessori school's reading list. It was a book I remembered reading but not one I sought out to reintroduce to my kids. In fact I don't think I thought about why the book was written, until recently. My experience with mosquitoes while growing up in Washington was limited to a camping trip or two every summer and slapping them on warm summer evenings at a family BBQ. They were a nuisance, but limited to dusk in short summer.

Since moving to Matagalpa, I now understand why the West Africans had a folktale about mosquitoes buzzing in people's ears. I write this blog at 3:45 AM on a Saturday. I do not wish to be awake right now. I am awake because I got a mosquito bite on my finger that was itching so badly I couldn't sleep. I kept trying to go to sleep, only to be dive bombed by a mosquito right by my ear. If you have never had this happen (and I hadn't till we moved here) it is one of the most irritating things, particularly when trying to get to sleep. Your body is all relaxed and then you hear the almost comical buzzing of a mosquito right by your ear. Joe has been known to sleep with earplugs in or to burrow under the sheets to get to sleep. Those tactics have failed me tonight.

So, according to West African folklore, those darn mosquitoes are buzzing in my ear because they are asking if I am still angry at them for lying. Unfortunately answering doesn't make them stop. That question is going to God when I get to heaven. Why mosquitoes? But for now I will attempt to get a little sleep before the sun is up...

A new project....

I haven't been blogging enough lately and I am going to use this as my excuse. Right around the first of the year a friend told me about a photography project called 365 Project (www.365project.org) where you take one photo everyday for a year. You can start anytime and document a full year. I thought that if any year in our life would be an interesting one to document 2011 would be it. We started the year in Matagalpa viewing scarecrows stuffed with firecrackers on New Year's Eve/Day and in May we will travel back to the US find a house to rent, a car to buy, and hopefully by the end of the year be settled back into a "normal" life in Renton with our family and friends. I also really want to have some cool pictures of our time in Nicaragua and this project gives me the excuse to get out there and do it everyday. Knowing that I have to post one picture on the website and eventually it will be in a photo book for posterity is a good motivator for me.

I don't have a great camera. I have a Casio Exilim 10.1 megapixels point and shoot camera that I found (literally) before we left. It replaced our Cannon Powershot because it's smaller and lighter and doesn't need real batteries. So because my camera isn't great, I have begun playing with photo editing software. I have been using Picnik.com mostly because I find their site easy to use and I like the effects that they offer for free. I have also been reading their blog posts highlighting Picnik users and seeing what others (much more talented than I) are doing with Picnik. It's been fun to see how people think outside of the box when it comes to photography.

So this is why I haven't been blogging much lately. Feel free to keep up with me on the 365 website. http://365project.org/runnergirl131/365/2011-01 I will be posting everyday (or at least catching up every 2 or 3 days). I am trying to take pictures of the things around us here in Matagalpa and the kids too, when they let me.

Things are going well here for us. Joe is doing some website development for some triathlon companies. The kids and I are doing school and looking into volunteering, in some capacity, with a program called Familias Especiales. FE serves the families of children with disabilities here in Matagalpa. They train mothers to reach out to other mothers with children with disabilities and encourage them to come to the center where they offer physical therapy, school, recreational activities and education for the parents. The center has the only park built for children with disabilities in Central America. My kids love the park. They also run a yogurt making business, a repair shop where they keep the park maintained, fix and build wheelchairs and fix anything that they can. They run a recycling program (unusual in Nicaragua, unfortunately) where they process the recyclables and use them to make piñatas, gift bags, cards and other crafts to sell. These business employ people with disabilities. This is a great program in a country where people with disabilities are likely to stay in their houses. We are hoping to be able to work at the center but we aren't sure how. Right now it's summer vacation in Nicaragua so school doesn't start again till early to mid February for most schools so we won't be able to work until school is back in session.

That's what we have been up to. Check out my photos on the 365 site and hopefully I will blog sooner than later. http://365project.org/runnergirl131/365/2011-01

Oh, and in reference to my last post, I am on day 29 of my Bible in a year reading plan and 7.3% complete. I am a little ahead of schedule and it feels good. God is good!