July 18: Dancing, piercing, cooking

• Yesterday the girls from House of Hope invited us to watch them dance at a VBS-like day camp. They danced two different times during the morning and they did a great job in front of a very big audience (400-500 children and parents!). The Bible camp is run almost every Saturday morning by One to One Ministries of Nicaragua who are reaching out to Nicaragua's youth. They bus in children and parents from the poorest areas of the city and do a phenomenal job - praise team leading songs, games, Bible memory, music videos, Bible story and skit etc.
• Angelina has been asking for months to get her ears pierced, and since it's the cultural norm here (in Mexico the baby girls leave the hospital with their ears pierced, although they wait a bit longer here we've been told) we decided to let her do it - a lasting 'souvenir'.
• Mystery solved: a few days ago I was puzzled as to why Angelina's shirt and capris came out of the wash with dark brown stains on them. I was pretty sure they weren't on when they went in so I figured they came from the machine. I soaked them in stain remover and scrubbed them with no change whatsoever. Within a 24 hour period two different people told us that the juice of mamones (a tropical fruit which they've been eating a lot of) stains really badly. I finally made the connection....but a little too late. They have about 8 t-shirts and shorts with permanent dark stains on them (fascinating b/c the stain doesn't show up until after being washed)
• We invited our neighbors, the Pachechos, over for crepes tonight. We normally have them every Sunday morning for breakfast so since it's a 'family specialty' we decided to share them with the Pachecos who had never had them before. It was a great evening of fellowship and the kids enjoyed hanging out with their kids: Katy will be a senior, Miguelito is going into 7th grade and Vanessa is in preschool.