To the building site

Yesterday I really did not think I would make it to work but I did feel a bit better this morning and decided I would go and just not eat anything so I didn’t feel bad! We got up at 5.45am, yes 5.45am and met the others at the corner just after 6.30am. Our home stays are all really close so we can call for each other and walk to and from the bus stop together. The walk to the bus stop was about 20 minutes, we then spent another 20 minutes on the bus and then walked for another 10 minutes to arrive at the house, so we were there by 7.30am. It is just us and 2 French ladies on our building site, they are called Nadia and Asma, they have both lived in London for over 10 years so speak fluent French, English and pretty good Spanish. The only other person working on site today was Marvin, the dad of the girl we are building the house for.

So our first job was to demolish what was already there which happened to be an old house! It was mainly made from wooden slats but had windows to remove and worst of all small floor tiles that we had to chisel away with a pole that had a flat edge. There are no power tools on site, we have one hammer between 9 of us, a sledge hammer, a few spades and wheelbarrows etc. We were told it would be basic and to just to go with the flow!

As it was the first day we went all guns blazing and ripped out the whole house by about 1pm. We thought Marvin might let us go early as we had worked like dogs but he obviously wanted to make the most from us! We were on the site until 2.30pm so for the remaining hour or so we had to fill in the existing septic tank with the rocks and dirt from the old house. Everything is very disorganised and they don’t really have a plan or think ahead but hey we’re in Costa Rica and that’s just the way things are done here! We were thoroughly knackered by 2.30pm and were happy to sit down on the bus for a while.

After work we went straight to the bar where Paul, Dad and Chalkie got through 5 rounds of beer in about an hour and a half. I was still not eating so drank as much full fat coke as possible to get some sugar! We walked home with Dad and Paul very merry, as we arrived at our house Rosa and Jonaton were dancing in the kitchen. It was so cool, they were doing the salsa, meringue and 2 local dances, Christian and Kennya’s friend Kimberley also joined in and as Paul was drunk we showed them what we knew of the jive! Then they got out the karaoke and I could hear Paul drunkenly singing a Spanish song while I was in the shower!

We had some dinner about 8pm and I actually managed to eat it and was feeling much better. We had rice and beans with green beans in scrambled egg and freshly squeezed pineapple juice. Again we had an early night as we have to get up and do the same tomorrow.