Yesterday after the car crash, Marta’s neighbour George came to the rescue and escorted Mum and Dad to the Quinta. We later found out he was actually Marta’s husbands cousin and was also working across the street from us today. This morning we had only been at work about half an hour and he came over and asked if we wanted to see his house. Today is our last day on the project so we though why the hell not! His house was beautiful, set overlooking the hills in the peaceful countryside and it made wonder if actually they had the better idea out here.
After our visit he asked if we’d like to see his mums house round the corner, she has just started growing organic produce and he wanted to show us. We jumped in his pickup truck, Me, Mum, Dad and George inside and Em, Paul and Chalkie in the boot. It was quite a bumpy ride and they had to hold on tight! When we got to his mums he showed us her organic vegetable tent where she was growing lettuces, chillies, celery and peppers and she gave us a lettuce as a souvenir! We then went into her house and met George’s Grandad and some of his Aunts and cousins; they all live in the same area it’s so nice.
His grandad is 82 but looks so young and still works at the coffee plantation, he seemed like a very sweet man and got out a photo album of his 8 children and grandchildren. George’s mum cooked some pasta for us and made fresh pineapple juice and me and Paul practiced our Spanish with them. We said goodbye and then went to visit a few more places such as his Uncle’s farm, it was a lovely morning. We phoned Kim to say happy birthday from the middle of nowhere and then got back in the pickup and went back to work.
We didn’t work overly hard today as they were laying the bricks and all we could really do was mix cement and fill in the brick holes. Also one of the builders Carlos brought his dogs Brenda and Molly to the site and they kept distracting with their cuteness! We are now up to the 5th level of bricks and the house really looks like its coming together. The boys went to the shop and bought beers for everyone at work and the last hour was spent drinking rather than working!
After work we got the bus for the final time and went into town to buy some gifts for our families. We bought Rosa some flowers and chocolates, Jonathon some Pilsen beers and the kids some new funky notebooks and pens for school. We also bought the younger kids some skateboards and helmets and decided to leave our camera with Jeimy so she can email us photos of them all. They also had some gifts for us; a mini wooden spade with a blue butterfly on (to remind us that we had to work hard to achieve our dreams), some butterfly earrings for me, a turtle keying for Paul and a beautiful feather with a painted parrot on in a frame. They also wrote us a lovely card to say goodbye, we are really going to miss our family.
This evening we all went to McDonalds with the 3 families, there must have been about 30 of us in total! It was nice to get everyone together and I think they all enjoyed the food. We went home afterwards about 8.30pm and me and Paul went to bed about 9.30pm as we are leaving reasonably early tomorrow morning.
Happy birthday to Kimberley xxx
