The building site
Monday
After a long morning mixing concrete and digging trenches for waste water pipes, I had to use a chisel attached to a long metal pole to knock holes through the back two walls for the sewage pipes, which ripped a number of muscles in my shoulder.
Tuesday
7 new volunteers arrive in San Ramon, out of which 3 girls come to stay with the same family as me, making a total of 5 guests in the same house, and 10 people in all. I went and picked up all the new people and took them to our new building site which is far, far nicer than the previous drugs den. It’s quite a long way away, so another bus ride to an entirely empty plot of flat brown earth. We’re building a house for the builder’s family to live in, and just down the hill another is being built for his mother.
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Wednesday
Spent the entire day sliding around in the mud moving 150kg concrete panels down the hill. Meanwhile the girls made a start on the foundations.
Have realised the new plot is in La Esperanza, where I’ve got a Kiva loan.
Thursday
Made it to work but after a night of rain all the ditches and foundations we’d dug the previous day were full of water. The builder advised us that a storm was moving in from Nicaragua and even heavier rain was expected later in the day.
Back in town by 10am we got changed again and after a rejuvenating milkshake headed to Sarchi, a small town called the artisan capital of Costa Rica. It was predictably touristy but we had a look round and bought a few trinkets.
The father of one of the host families works in Wal-Mart and offered to take us for a look round. I was expecting an interesting peek behind the scenes, but instead we just went to the supermarket. Worst of all it wasn’t even a big supermarket, but a subsidiary of Wal-Mart called Maxi-Bodega, so the trip was a bit underwhelming, but worth going for a laugh.
