The Team
Monday
Guillermo, the owner and builder of the house we’re building, needed to go into town so left his labourer Frank in charge. Frank turned out to be a complete slave driver so by the time Guillermo returned we’d done a huge amount of work, but all wandered off to the local San Ramon Pulperia to get ice-creams. By now the foundations were dug and we’d made a start on a layer of concrete.
That evening, tired but pleased with ourselves, we met a British tour group on their way round Costa Rica and were quite rude to most of them for being so inconsiderate to the locals (and wearing leather cowboy hats).
Tuesday
Finished pouring concrete into the foundations and made a start on propping up the 150kg wall panels. Annoyingly these had been dropped off at the top of the hill and in the wrong order so we spent most of the day sorting though these huge blocks of concrete, and then walking them down the hill. At least the house was down the hill rather than up, but by the end of the day the muscles in my back had gone again and I started on the painkillers again to get through the day.
Wednesday
Spent the whole day lugging panels down the hill, then in the evening sat in the mall playing cards for hours.
Thursday
Spent the whole day lugging panels down the hill, but in the evening got invited over to Debbie’s family (where Kelly had previously lived) for a wonderful dinner. Quite jealous of not living in that household.
Friday
Spent the whole day lugging panels down the hill, but stopped frequently for rum breaks, which the builders had brought as a thank you for helping with the house. Tired and dehydrated the rum had quite an effect, but despite it being Friday the 13th no-one got injured.
As a final day treat we had dinner in town, then went to the bar for a number of hours before retiring to the disco upstairs, where a band played awful U2 covers whilst the tour group which had reappeared ran around on the dance floor annoying the locals, although they seem to have taken the less than subtle hints about the leather cowboy hats.
