Pikchures

This pic above is one of the bugs we accidentally killed...
It is a "Tarantula Hawk" or in Spanish, "El Diablo" (the devil!). It flies around like a huge bee looking for tarantulas. When it finds them it injects a paralyzing poison into the spider. Then it takes him back to the "Devil Den". From there it lays its eggs in the moist, paralyzed, alive body of the tarantula. After they hatch, the larvae eat the tarantula alive and then fly off looking for a "surrogate mother" for their own babies! Cool, eh?



Below, this is Caleb and a new amigo he met at one of the churches we went to to get information on kids for the new "Backpack" program. In the poorer areas of Tijuana, folks cannot afford to send their kids to school (new shoes, uniform, school supplies {books, pens etc.} tuition costs (even public school has tuition). So lots of kids don't go to school, or siblings go every other year until old enough to work (11-14...). So one of our missionaries, Cindy Reid, is starting a back pack program where we can sponsor a child for US$100.00 to send a kid to school for a year. It doesn't sound like much to us, but when someone works 12 hours a day, 6 days a week for $400/ month- that $100 is the difference between eating and sending a kid to school- especially if you have 2 or 3+ kids...




This little fella (about the size of the palm of my hand) is a genuine wild tarantula. We found him in our front yard last weekend. He lives under a piece of wood. We've decided to keep him wild, because all of the other bugs we capture to look at eventually expire...


This pic is of a Jerusalem Cricket beside an exotic Mexican Fruit called a "Platano". It actually looks, smells and tastes just like a Banana! :)