Hello All,

Things seem to be going slow right now, especially in my mind.

November 14: There was no-one home during the day, except me & Hugo. I got bored as Hugo was occupying the internet with Hoyos (the ever smiling and kind police man). So I wondered a bit and decided to try and make the gifted microscope we had received, work.

The thing didnt work that well, and was much less in quality then the quality I am used to, compared to what I am used at the analyst school I attended.

I concluded that we need a stronger lightsource then the mirror. We cant depend on the sun around here either. So I asked Hugo find a strong table light and tinfoil to try and focus the light from the lamp. We also need some sample glasses to put samples on and I've got to find and prepare a way to find some good samples to look at.

Before I explored the microscope I used some clay and paper to make a miniature earth (took me several hours of fidling around before I was satisfied). It took a lot of fidling around. The previous day Eider had made a paper thing with clay, which inspired me to do something similar. I think we will make it into a project to do with the kids. We will need to set some clear goal, too.

November 15: During the day Daniel & Yilbert wanted to extensively teach Eider about the first 3 habits of the 7 habits of highly effective people. I decided to join too. They would have taught me too a long time ago if I would have spoken Español by then. It took like an hour or two. I didn´t know it could take that long.
Ill give you some of my notes:

Habit 1: Be Proactive
Reactive people think "I have things to do", proactive people do things right away.
Reactive people think "don´t even try", proactive people think "I have a solution" and they act on it
Proactive people take responsibility for their lives.

Then we came to paradigms. Explained in various ways. In this image we see... this...
What do you see? An Eskimo or an Indian?

Well I disappointed them because I knew this illusion and said an indian and an eskimo.
But their point was, depending on your paradigms you see one thing or the other (or both, I add)
We can have paradigms about life like for example: Life is Unjust , the world is a tough place,
A negative person has negative paradigms. Your paradigms influence what you observe, which influence your actions which influence your results which you observe and the cycle goes round and round until it is broken.

For example a lot of people here receive money from the governmente every month and they blow it on alcohol and junk food for a week or few days and then starve the rest of the month. They are afraid they loose their money quick so by a twist of logic they spent it all before the end of the first week, it maintains the cycle of thinking you will be poor, acting like you will be poor, the result is you are poor, you see you are poor, you think you are poor, you act like you will always be poor...

Should you center your life on friends? Friends come and go. On your partner? They are not absolutely reliable either. On things? They come and go also and never satisfy for long. What then? Focus life on principles. Never failing, never dying, never going away, never disapparing, becoming powerless or meaningless.

Habit 2, begin with an end in mind (empezar con un fin en mente.

Before you get something, must imagine it in the mind. Write down your goals in life and express and pronounce them to others to stat making it manifest.
The president of General Electric said: Create your own destiny, don´t let someone else create it for you.
Think about someone that was a positive influence in your life and focus on one of his or her positive qualities you want to develop.
If 5 years from now there is an article about you from an interview with your mom dad and a good friend of yours, what do you want it to say?

Pronouncing your mission:
Step1: Choose 3 verbs that describe your mission. (I chose duty, family and Terra)
Examples: Teaching, Leading, Inspiring, Communicating, Creating, Giving, Motivation, Educating, Writing, Organizing, Directing, Maintaining, Translating, Defending, Evaluation, Protecting.

Step2: Chose your purpose (I chose Justice)
Creativity, Service, Justice, Liberty, Family, Equality, Power, Abundance, Harmny, Love, Order, Unity,. Coherence.

Step3: Chose in what sphere of life (I chose court of law)
People: Poor people, drug addicts, prostitutes, homeless people, stray animals, protected animals, wildlife preservation, adoscelent, etc.
Causes: Child protection, animal rights, spirituality, politics, womans rights, mens rights, invalids.
Causes: Economic, Finance, Law, Business, Political, Diplmacy, Agriculture, Technology, etc.

Eider also made something like this: But I dont remember what she put.

Habit 3: First Things First (Primero lo Primero)
Ingredient of lazyness:
"you can do tomorrow what you could do today"
Ingredient of leadership:
"Do today what you could do tomorrow."

I was to get up from my chair and be part of an example. They had two huge buckets Daniel could barely carry, one almost completely filled with tiny rocks. The tiny rocks represent things like goofing around, watching tv, playing computer games, dancing and all the other useless things. The rocks represent things like friends, studying, family, learning, school and the like). They wanted me to put the big rocks on top of the little rocks, but they wouldnt find... However if I put in the big rocks in the (now) empty bucket I could then poor the little rocks over them and fit everything in a single bucket. They were a little disappointed I already knew the tricks for this example as I also knew the Indian optical illusion.

Part of the presentation was also the Emotional Bank Account. I´m not sure what this had to do with habit 3, but alas...
The emotional bank account. If you put value in a persons emotional bank account they will feel grateful to you and want to help you and accept you as a leader. If you are indebted to them they will not be your friend or want to be led by you.

The way to deposit into a Emotional Bank Account is by being humble, generous, by fullfilling your promises, by generous acts, by being loyal, by listening, apologizing and setting clear goals.
You take out of the Emotional Bank Account is being being arrogant, selfish, forgeting your promises, bad actions, gossiping, not apologizing and being vague about your goals.

At this point it seemed the presentation was done and were 1-2 hours later at lunch time. We applauded smiling very much :)

A South American Thesophian let Hugo and Walter know that there is a family of 6 kids and a father I think at Cali who are in danger of losing their house to a river that is flooding because of the many rains.So yesterday Hugo I Eider and random townsfolk walked around everywhere to find out if we could find a place for them at Roldanillo. We walked from home to home and said hi to atleast 50 people. The foundation seems to be quite well known around here, by now. And also well liked by most of the people.
The home we did find had free rent (and personally I thought I would pay money for someone to live there). It is basicly a small collection of rooms and a tiny courtyard and a kitchen. No hardware, no furniture. But it is a roof and a place with a door and a lock. They needed something with a rent of 20$ usd (40.000 Colombian Peso) or less.
Toward the end of our search it was becoming night, and the mosquitos were abounding, especially around my feet and lower legs, which have little hair.



Yesterday seemed like a rather uneventfull day, and it was usually somewhat moist outside. I think the evening on the previous day I Eider and Hugo talked. Or rather, Hugo related a lot and we related a few thing too. Hugo has been in prison, locked up with murderers and thieves. And he was relating how that helped him to understand the problems the country faces. Because for example, the criminals get worse in prison and when they get out again they have no future, they didnt learn any skills and the fact they just got out of jail basically bars them from a real job. On top, they usually have no money. So when you get out if you have no friends or family you are homeless and a long history of learning bad things from your cellmates. Then they have nothing to do except that which got them into jail, to survive.
By teaching the kids valuable skills they aspire now not to be drug lords (or the wives of Drug Lords), but like Mahatma Ghandi, Martin Luther King, Albert Einstein or Hellen Keller, Saint Therese and other good role models. Many kids who came used to want to be the top dogs in crime, but now not any more!

Another thing that came up was food and how a few times Hugo noticed a lot of darkness entering him through some foods, sometimes without knowing what caused it before he asked about the ingredients. One time he was on a market and he bought some type of fish and ate it and the instant he swallowed he noticed the darkness entering him almost tangibly. He wondered why that was, surely fish is good right? He asked Walter and Walter told him, haven´t you red the bible? The bible says don´t eat any fish that doesnt have scales. It turns out Hugo probably ate some squid or crab.
We both had the same experience with Pork at one or another point.

This sensitivity to darkness in food did not grow over night, it took years before Hugo started noticing things like it.

We (Hugo & Me) being men cooked together with Eider several times now especially in the evening and the weekend. We discovered the godly combination of mango/papaya this way. Oh, what good (and bad) things can happen when you leave men in the kitchen!

Yesterday... hmm... what did we do yesterday...
Not much that I remember. The most noteable thing was the Sangha of the Buddha in the evening. I had been pushing Hugo a little bit to talk to Walter about inviting Vanesah into the weekly discussion about the goings on at the foundation, since she is a big part of it. Anyway, I have the impression Hugo thought it would be much harder for Walter to invite her in that it actually was. It was an hour before the meeting and Hugo had still not talked to Walter about it.

But when the meeting started, Vanesah walked in and sat down and as it turned out Hugo had talked to Walter and Walter said yes we can do that. It was quite nice to have Vanesah with us (Me, Hugo, Walter, Josey) at the Sangha. Josey had come back from doing things in Cali. Carlos is still out of Roldanillo (has been for half a week now) and we expect him back today. I´m not sure if I mentioned it but Esperanza is out in cali taking care of things with her son and I´m not sure if or when she will come back because of a situation I´ve been asked not to post too much about it.

I wasnt privy to everything but we talked among other things about men / woman roles and what they are in the new age to come. Men can do womans work and woman can do mens work. But still, some men should better not cook... atleast not Josey according to everyone here. He cooked once and it was so terrible he will probably never cook again.

Many stories were related about attracting unbalanced mothers. They were praying here for mothers to bring the place into balance and they attracted some very strange ones. One was extremely mothering, feeding food very often, way too often. It was too much absolutely.

Once a lady was giving a speech to other woman (and some men) and she was at first talking about how woman shouldnt allow some types of sex but then continued to go on about her sex life with her husband and some embarassing things I dont think her husband would want her to talk about it. That was not the funniest part, the funniest part was when she wanted to teach Vanesah what she did and Vanesah simply wanted to run away... I can´t blame her...

Josey mentioned that many colombian woman go to spain to be cared for spanish men and in exchange the men can demand any type of sex they want from the woman, which spanish woman would want.

Some of the mothers are very sensitive to the comments we can make about the food so we have to be careful not to hurt them in that way. The Mothers cook for the kids mostly.

In one instance some kids were making drinks to sell, and Carlos said dont add any sugar. But without sugar it tasted way too bad. We concluded that we shouldn´t try and force other people to eat like we do.
Some of us like me Hugo and Eider try to eat without sugar.

None except Walter should tell moms what is needed, otherwise it can become very confusing and discouraging for moms. I hope I will see cooking dads around here, some time, too.

It was a refreshingly lighthearted Sangha of the Buddha

Before the meeting I and Vanesah played 4 matches of chess. I always play my usual agressive style,. sprinting king or queen pawn 3 squares ahead if I can and trying to sprint another pawn 3 squares away also 3 squares ahead and going on from there.
I won all 4 matches against Vanesah.  Then Josey returned and we had a quite nice match. I lost it in the end. At one point I lost my queen to an absent minded mistake... but I maintained my inner sense of peace and eventually managed to even the score by taking his queen. But now I grew overconfident and made mistake that eventually led to my loss. I was trying pretty hard to remain in my heart and equelibrium. Humming a mantra and singing a little bit sometimes. Josey also hummed quite a bit, and Vanesah was watching and distracting me a bit too.

I was playing black. Hosey (opposite of me) white. There is a wall of pawns to the right.

that will be all for now. Vanesah invited me to play some chess and Eider wants to check her email.

Have a blessed and fruitful day!