FIRE!!!!! - and theater camp for the summer.

The big excitement of the day was a forest fire on a ridge a couple of miles from us. 15 hectares burnt and 300 people were evacuated. They don't know the causes...the specific info is from the man who can listen to the local radio broadcasts.

We found it while walking Chuck, and touring some of the local buildings...there are some lovely ones that I have found on my ambles..and the man got a book out of the library with old pictures of the town, some of which featured these houses. While wandering along HUGE yellow brown clouds were floating by, which we quickly identified as smoke...we of course wandered over towards a vantage point and it was quite a sight. I for one had never before seen an actual forest fire...it was quite amazingly huge...assisted by the very high winds today...I could not guess on the Beaufort scale, but they were winds that set your hair streaming out directly behind you and knock you back a step every minute or two.

You could actually see the flames shooting up as the trees flared up...they were probably rising 40 feet! Fortunately for us anyway, they were not aimed towards our town, but the hill behind the house we rented in the fall was well aflame, and some of the fires were quite near some of the upper houses.... the smoke was going directly over the house from the fall.

It was all very dramatic. We could actually see the fire from our porch as well, and it burned for several hours. I was keeping an eye on it while talking on the phones with three amazing friends from Canada.

It is looking like we are going to be setting up our own camp for the kids. The chief impetus behind this camp are two incredibly talented theatre people, they both have their own theatre companies, they are also lucky enough to together have an absolutely fantastic little boy. Needless to say they have a million contacts. It is looking like the kids will have theater and movement training, improvisational theater training, puppeteering and set-design, art work, afro-cuban dance, and I feel like I am missing someone, which is awful. We are searching for a music person, hopefully voice. Their lunch will possibly be made by a wonderful woman who is an amazing cook, specializing in Guatemalan cuisine, who will also spend a day with them each week, and they love her so much! All of this done in a group of wonderful loving people. Now how good is that! Lets hope we pull it off! The basic idea...at the moment anyway, is that the adults will provide a basic framework, and structure, a good deal of skill development, and focus for all aspects of the creation, acting/dancing, as well as the post-production work (is that the right term?) of finding the venue, ticketing, advertising, and then finally...the show! Woohoo. This looks incredibly exciting, and I am sure you will hear more as time passes.

The kids are also signed up for two weeks of sailing camp in August...they are eager to show off their skills...I mostly want them to have some fun.

I guess I had better get going on the plane tickets hadn't I.