Las Damas del Lago, an industrious and creative as well as sociable bunch, have come up with plenty of ideas for their Tilaran lending library project. Leslie Woods has invited Nicaragua's trail-blazing library-maker, Jane Mirandette, to speak at the next Damas del Lago lunch on Oct. 4 (noon) at Ginny Lamont's house. A proposed site for the library is an old school in Tilaran. Jane, Leslie, and Roberta Ward will go to a Tilaran Municipal Council meeting to solicit cooperative involvement. Meanwhile, Las Damas - and this is open to non-Damas, of course - are busy gathering books and raising money for the library. Sarah Benson has garnered pledges of well over $1,000 from folks in Key West and is also planning to raffle off a week's stay at her Lake Arenal house. Christina Glass will host a fund-raising Halloween party on Oct. 28 at her house not far from the Hotel Tilawa. Costumes won't be out of place nor will entrance donations of an as-yet-undetermined amount.

We finally have some news from the spectacular tourist-intensive end of the lake or a few miles past it. Christine Larson-Krishnan, who with her husband Suresh runs Desafio Adventure Company (www.arenalvolcanotours.com), wrote us about their Day of the Child party Sept. 10 for the kids in the Z-13 barrio, the burgeoning community closest to the base of the Arenal Volcano. Expecting perhaps 100 kids, they found

that the local school has at least 386 kids, according to the principal. This first official event of the Desafio Foundation was great, according to Christine. "We did a huge party and I've never seen so many smiles in all my life! There were 20 cakes and 22 piñatas and other generous donations from over 70 businesses in the area, plus there was dancing, tree-planting, three-legged races, and the girls beat the boys in a tug-o-war!" We can't do justice here to all the collateral activities and benefits. Suffice to say it was not only a great party but very educational. As the philanthropic Desafio Foundation, they plan to continue the event in a different Arenal school each year.

Ferdase, an Italian restaurant owned by Claudia and Stefano Zampieri, opened Sept. 16 in Tronadora with complimentary sandwiches and wine. On Wednesday, Sept. 20, they started serving their full menu. Stefano, from Northern Italy, and Claudia, from Buenos Aires, Argentina, have three sons, and therein lies the source of the restaurant's name. It's a combination of the first syllable of each of the names of sons Fernando, Damian, and Sebastian. Ferdase is located one block to the left of the Tronadora welcome park For who knows how long, there have been no restaurants in Tronadora, and nothing closer than San Luis, more than two miles away