the other day i was standing at kennedy school talking with assorted parents and the principal.

"where else in the world," i inquired "do kids get to see banana trees from their classroom windows?"

especially as we prepare to head off to the philippines on the building trip, i am painfully aware that there are many children in tropical climates who see banana trees from roadsides, homes, cars, but not schools. one of the many reasons i love my husband is that he gives so generously to charities and for the last year we have provided education and hot meals for 60 children.

among the many trees surrounding kennedy school are several banana trees. and they are fruitful.

today sebastian went on a field trip. i accompanied him. we went to mui wo and cleaned up a beach. then we walked for about 20 minutes and learned about composting and ways of preserving energy around the home.

sebastian and i left the field trip early. the reason for this is that sebastian has karate every friday afternoon and i was loathe to miss a session. not just because we have prepaid (thanks dad!) but because his teacher is great and sebastian is really responding to the discipline. it was great just talking with sebastian on the walk back to the ferry, and although time was tight, when i saw a picture of a massive spider, i asked seb to take my picture with it (i originally offered seb to be in the photo and he declined). instead, my little boy took the shot and wondered why i wanted to be in a photo with a massive spider. i said just to show everyone how close i was to it.

we kept walking and then sebastian and i came along some banana trees. knifemarks indicated that just a day or so ago there had been ripe bananas on the tree, but they had been recently removed. we kept walking, and saw "baby bananas" and seb touched the peel, and we felt how firm it is, and were just in the middle of a discussion of how it is hard, yet is going to get so much bigger, when i stopped. there was a bunch of bananas right above my head. sebastian was delighted. he sees banana trees all the time, and on holidays he has touched bananas, but this was the first time he had see native bananas up close! he climbed up the poles, and i took a gorgeous picture of him on my phone. just lovely.

right now we have the girls at a sleepover and tara's son tallinn here sleeping over. let's hope all is well and they snooze the night away. for late night snack they had bananas, seaweed, granola bars and popcorn, so chances are good there will be some rather vivid dreams tonight!

buenos noches, chiquita!