Wednesday .....My First Day of Stove-Building

When I was not feeling well the last few days in Comintacillo, I vowed to take at least one day off from stove-building. So as groggy as I was, there is such a team spirit that one cannot excuse oneself unless you're flat-out very sick. Here goes nothing.

So they're very good to me to put me in a group with Marg Lee, John Holland and Marvin the Mayan Mason. (How's that for alliteration.) Marg and John know exactly what to do as they've had two previous days of work in the trenches. I shuttle around as best as I can not trying to look like a pescado out of aqua. (Guess?)

Often the family contributes to stove making preperations as well. All one has to do is start a sequence of dipping concrete blocks in water and this family will help as much as they can. How hard do the women of the village work? They are often the ones that are seen to carry the 94pound bags up hills to their houses. In this case the area women's organization is CEDEC. The director/manager is Jose and his wife is Griselda. When CEDEC chooses families to receive a cooking stove it's necessary for all concrete blocks, firebricks, bags of sand, bags of concrete and bags of pumice to be at the ready for the mason or the volunteer masons.

Marg, John and Marvin have made this a very complete day for me. I even get to do a little cement parging towards the end to get myself more confidence withe the concrete mix.

At lunch all volunteers gather for a communal lunch. Four volunteers prepare a lunch on the evening previous. In this case they had to think about a birthday cake and candles for Renny. Like everyone out there he's getting too old as well.

After a hot shower the next treat is going out to a good restaurant. Xela has quite a few. The best Western-style-accomodation restaurant is probably the Indian Restaurant. Even though the prices are higher than Utz' Hua Restaurant. The food quality here is extremely high. I have the curried lamb and it is very comparable with North American eateries.