Chota Calling - Volunteers

Chota Valley - Back view

Chota Valley - Putting in mosquito netting

Which brings me back to the house. Since our little trip to Lita, we’ve made good progress. The supplies we grossly overpaid for (we got a little too eager when talking to a greenhouse-installation contractor on the adjoining property) were delivered and we’ve been setting up the wooden frame for the mosquito net which will guard our rear veranda from the tiny biting flies so prevalent in Chota. We’re halfway finished with the new ceiling in Oscar’s room: three large wooden beams, the two on the side of the room attached to the wall with bolts and the middle beam placed through holes in the walls on either side; smaller wooden boards running between the beams in four places with three sheets of 122cmwide gypsum board (a.k.a. drywall) suspended on those boards. It’s a lot of work to get everything up where it needs to be and a pain because most of it is above shoulder level, but with half a day’s effort more the ceiling should be complete.

The water company finally came, a month after we had paid for service, to set up the water meter. They knocked a hole in the brick and cement pillar served formerly to hold up a gate and installed the meter there with cement. The pressure is a bit weak but we’re happy to have this essential utility installed at last!

Chota Valley - Side view

And so, we have Oscar’s ceiling to finish, the mosquito netting to put up, and a dry toilet to design and install and then we’ll be ready to move into this temporary house while we construct our cob house. “Fixing it up” has taken a month longer and about $500 more than we had originally planned for, but at least we’ll have a building to protect us from the bugs and the elements, and most importantly, somewhere we feel comfortable with Ainoa.

This update has been a long time coming, and yet I wanted to write so much more. Buying supplies, driving to-and-from the land in Chota, working on the house, helping cook dinner and taking care of Ainoa require almost all of my time and until recently I didn’t know how to fit updates into that schedule. Now I’ve made a habit of writing a little every day and even if the writing isn’t always good or the subject interesting, at least you should have some idea of what life for us is like here and how we are progressing in our project. Updates will be done in a more regular fashion in the future -- and with construction on our house starting soon and a room opening up when Oscar leaves in June, invitations to come and visit/volunteer with us!