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When we left our intrepid WWOOFers they were making CEB's...let's see what they're up to now! (OK, I know I'm a geek and so do you so let's move on): Well, we've moved on to laying all of those blocks. Like my Mom says, "it never hurts to have another skill to fall back on" - you never know when there's gonna be a rush on Adobe styled homes so we've been busy making slurry (i.e. mortar), hefting blocks around to beat the band, cutting blocks, moving scaffolding, more clay sifting, wall scraping. You name it, we do it. We even built a composter for the family - patent pending on the design. It's a lot of heavy work and you need to concentrate a fair bit as well to keep everything running smoothly. The family seems very appreciative of the help. Bill told us that he had never laid so many blocks in a day as we did yesterday. We kept him huffing and puffing with me making the slurry and sifting the clay (my specialty) and Barbara measuring, cutting and setting up the next blocks for Bill to minimize downtime. Of course I need to supervise Barbara as well (Barbara adds "we all do what we are best at - for some it is hard working and others think their speciality is supervising"). She's forever trying to sneak off for a smoke break and is all too eager when Bill blows the coffee break whistle. She's really taken a liking to instant coffee. Nescafe Special Blend #43 is her drink of choice. I thought those Swiss knew a thing or two about coffee but it seems not (Barbara adds "Nescafe #43 beats tropical flavoured bright yellow pure sugar Cordial anytime Jason - consider yourself lucky for not having to work alongside a sugar-high husband"). As for me, my favourite part is wearing the rubber gloves that have been worn by uncountable willing workers before me, have a few holes in them and are eternally damp inside. Ahhhh, you just can't duplicate that kind of aroma. It's especially nice when you get some gritty slurry splashing around onto your face and down into your already disgusting gloves. We've got two more days of work ahead and it's very rewarding to see our accomplishments already and to see and hear some of the relief from the family as they make some headway on the house. They don't get their next loan instalment until they're at ceiling height. We'll be here until Monday May 5th. We were going to head to another WWOOFing place but they seemed kind of needy and high maintenance from our e-mail exchanges so we're making up a lie to tell them and we'll just enjoy some alone time again for a while. This has been just great for getting our bodies moving, but it is hard work and we've only taken one day off this week on which we biked 25kms on our s***e scavenged bikes to poke around a bit in the next village. As you'll notice from this recent quote from Barbara - "I don't sleep as much as I used to…I barely get 8 hours a night" - we need a bit of a break again so it'll be back to the beaches for us as we make our way up north. Hasta la proxima vez, Jason y Barbara
Oh, update from Saturday May 3rd. Barbara learned another recipe for her bookclub girls. Today for lunch Bill made a sandwich with soft white bread, about three heaped tablespoons of chunky peanut butter and a generous x-crossing of mayonnaise. I stopped watching what he put in after that in an effort to keep my own lunch down. That beat his last, and somewhat healthier, sandwich creation of bread, PB and avocado in the disgusting department…to each his own.
In addition to various culinary delights, Baebs has picked up another new skill. The TV here is perpetually fired up and is even older than our ancient RCA as it doesn't have a remote control. Yesterday, since Baebs was the closest to the TV set, she became Bill's remote control and was in charge of switching between the Aussie Rules Footie match and a gripping special on the Bermuda triangle. I chose to watch Baebs over the TV as that was clearly the most entertaining distraction in the room. Again, it's always good to have another skill to fall back on!
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