Here is the awaited journal... it's not the greatest, but maybe i'll be able to get you the, "RAmbo, sabbath afternoon activities" one soon. Concrete work, yep, worked for 10+ hours yesterday pooring footers and laying block.

It is the first time since Belize that I have layed block, needless to say my skills are much better, its been 8 yrs. Anyways, I am super tired, this morning Ryan and Jared woke up sick, I went and tried to lay block by myself.... start the mixer, carry over the 50kg cement bag, sift the sand, get the morter and start laying block.... the process by myself was exhausting! I spent three hours doing it and called it quits. It looks like we'll have to delay our pilgrimage for another week. I'm not happy about that, but we can't leave projects half done. Anyways, I'm doing alright.. Oh, my new favorite surf-wear company is "LOST" I have two hats, a rash gaurd, and a pair of boardshorts from them. I really like their stuff, sorry Squalo.

Love,
RAY

The Land and People I am Seeing and Interacting with

April 1, 2006

---Ronny

Ronny is the worker guy who is working at The House of the Belgium’s. He does Varnish work and painting right now. Well he painted first, varnished, and is going to paint again. He got the brilliant idea of using a backpack sprayer to apply the Varnish to the upstairs exterior walls. Good idea poor results. The varnish went everywhere; inside on the walls, below on the exterior walls, the windows, and the tile on the front porch. Everything was varnished! It was a bad idea. Not to smart, Poor fella!

I can’t understand the way workers work down here…

Ronny shows up around 7am on his motorcycle. He revs his engine over and over again for ten minutes… I can’t understand why, it’s the most annoying thing I’ve encountered so far. You are sleeping, he arrives, revs the bike a hundred or so times then turns it off, Yells in the house at Olivier to get up. What is the deal. When Jared was here, Ronni came by one morning and revved his bike, Jared leaned over the second story porch and yelled at him, he said: “No Mas me a Amigo!!!” ie.. No more my friend. Jared was aggravated with his revving; I was to. Other than the revving of the bike, he never had tools, or an understanding of how to work. There is a basecoat and a topcoat to varnish. He started with the basecoat on one side, and then sprayed the topcoat on the other side with out placing a basecoat. He wasted varnish and had to redo both sides. He also shows up without tools. Every time he needs a tool, he has to get Oliver to go and buy it over at the ferreteria, hardware store, across the street. Buying tools, jacking up the varnish, covering everything with varnish, what is going on?

---Ronny is a good guy. He may have his flaws, but don’t we all. I hope I was able to show him the true and loving God while being there at the House of The Belgium’s. It is true, Ronny is special, and as well he is one of God’s prized children. May God bless Ronny, and hold him close.

Construction…

The construction is shady. They cut so many corners down here, its insane!
They don’t miter the joints; they just run them end-to-end. The trim work, no miters, no coping, and most of the time they only do half the room in trim, there are pieces missing. Oh, and don’t get me started on the electricity… well there it went, you got me started. They throw wires here, there, everywhere. It’s a giant mess. Nothing is in the walls; it’s all out in the open just hanging there. They don’t have Romex; just single wires ran together in strands. Can you imagine this--it rained the other day for the first time, the beginning of the rainy season. The lights started flickering. We went to the box, and found a “shocking” situation. There was a river of water flowing down the main conduit into the box, right over all the breakers. Water, electricity, the main box; it doesn’t mix! We had to rig a rain catch out of tin foil, PVC pipe, and duct tape to evacuate the water out of the box. Crazy! Well enough of the construction jabs; I’ll continue on a more positive note.

Side note….
The telephone guys showed up to install the telephone line to the house.
They ran the wire from the pole to the house, but when they when to run it into the house they needed to drill an entry hole. They went to Oli and asked him if he had a drill bit, or would he go and buy one. What, “aren’t you guys the telephone guys, shouldn’t you have all the tools necessary to do the installation.” Guess not, Oli had to go and buy a drill bit so they could finish the installation. Thanks goodness the hardware store is just across the street, what if it had been across town. Wow, what were they thinking!

Our work….

We have built many things here at The House of the Belgium’s. Ryan, Jared, and I built an outdoor shower in their front yard just off the main path.
It is a shower for washing the salt of your body when coming in from surfing or the beach. We poured the concrete base, gave it slope, and put in a drain. After it hardened we put some mastic on and tiled the top; the shower look awesome when it was finished. I built a new set of sturdy steps for the front porch. They are level, but slope up from 24in to 8in on the other side. It starts with two 8in steps on the high side, and dwindles down to one step and then none. They are sweet steps, and are much better than the shifty ones that were there before. I also helped install trim upstairs. I mitered all the corners. It looked very good. I also built Gilles a BBQ. He had one, you know, the kind that uses charcoal. The one that is round and black with four wiggly legs and a basket underneath. I took the BBQ part off its base and built a higher stronger base, one you didn’t have to bend way over to use. It looks good as well, and is super sturdy!

Note: The BBQ failed!!! The first time they used it, it worked just fine until they had finished, then jut as they were cleaning off the grill the BBQ fell off the stand! It had burned its way through the upper part of the wooden stand. The stand released its hold from the BBQ and it fell. NO good!!

This next week I am going to build a counter top upstairs and install a sink and propane burner. That way when the Belgium’s leave here in a week they can rent out the house while they are away. It will help pay for the work they’ll do next year. I am also going to install four doors upstairs, two main doors, and two bedroom doors. We’ll also varnish the floor and trim pieces.

---Here is an update on what we were able to accomplish before we left with Oliver and Gilles April 9th heading for San Jose.

--- We cased and hung 5 doors upstairs; all the doors needed to finish off the rooms and securely lock down the building. We did all the doorstops and trimmed out the cases. All the doors opened and closed with ease and fit very well. Ryan is a PROFFESSIONAL at hanging doors now! We worked together as team, he would measure them, cut them, and I would hang them and install door handles. It was super smooth. The first one was a bit rough, but once we got the "hang" of it, we flew!

---The bicycle rack… I decided it was not good the have several bicycles just laying about the yard. It didn’t make the house look more attractive; it possibly made it look less attractive. So I decided to make the bicycle rack as a secret surprise gift for the Belgium’s. I started early one morning. Oliver woke up, he asked me what in the world was I doing. I told him it was a secret project for the house. He smiled, he knew whatever it was that I worked on, it would be good. Ryan awoke and came down; he knew right away what it was that I was building. He helped me get all the vertical members in line and nail the thing together. He also suggested some ideas for cross bracing and helped get those nailed up. It was finished, and the Belgium’s still had no clue to what it was. Oli thought it was some kind of surfboard rack; “No Oli, its not for surfboards.” I moved it to the side of the house, just up against the porch, placed three bicycles in it and showed Gilles and Oli. They loved it. They said it was a wonderful invention! The bike rack was a success!

---The kitchen upstairs… I wanted this to be my personal project, but without Ryan’s help I could never have made it what it is today. Teamwork always works out better than pride and ignorance.

I started the base for the kitchen counter, I built it free standing and designed it to be removable should they change their mind. What I should have done was build it in there, solid and permanent. Building it free standing with exact measurements caused problems. First off, it didn’t fit all the way. The space was wider at the back than the front. We had to lift it in through a window and push it back into the slot. Not the normal way for installing a kitchen. Once in place it was tight. I measured exactly, and cut everything to spec, still too tight. I disassembled it, took off a half inch and re-assembled it in place. Then made it permanent; I screwed it to the walls and floor, it wasn’t moving without a fight. Mind you, this was only the sink counter; I still had to create the side counter for the stove and prep area. The second counter was easier to fabricate. It was placed against the other counter and adjacent wall. There were no exact measurements to try and squeeze between, I could build it however small or big I wanted. I finished its constructions and installed it in its place. As well I screwed it to the other counter and wall. It was not moving. The two units together were solid… Well not right in the middle where they came together. If someone were to sit on the counter there it would collapse; Maybe, but I thought once the counter to was installed along with the trim, it might strengthen the area and keep me from having to put in an ugly brace.

The bases were finished, now it was time to drop the sink in and take some measurements. With the sink in I was able to figure out how I should build the counter. I got my measurements and started cutting the wood for the countertop. I wanted to use the same wood as the floor. It was a 4-½ in.
tongue and groove Teak wood. It had a beautiful color and was very thick and sturdy, 3/4in. thick. I got all the top pieces cut and began the assembly, everything fit together quite well, except for the fact that the wall wasn’t straight. All my 90-degree cuts began askew; the wall pushed them out and in, creating either a gap or a jagged edge. Not very pretty. Oh well, the skill saw can take care of that jagged edge pretty quick. I finished the top and bottom counter tops and installed the sink. Everything looked good. I called up Oli and Gilles to see their new kitchen. They loved it! We waited to complete the installation until everything was varnished. We wanted to apply the heavy varnish to the floor as well as the counter tops.

---The floor… Can you say HIGH!!!! We varnished the whole upstairs four times, in small rooms, with the thick heavy varnish. It was so potent! It would sometimes make your eyes water and cause you to have troubles breathing. It was POWERFULL STUFF!!! I was just thinking of that song off of the movie Cocktail. Funny Eah? Anyways, we finished the varnish less than an hour before we left for San Jose Sunday afternoon. The varnish was the finishing touch; it brought out the natural beauty in their solid wood floors, Awesome!

---The stones… Oli was digging a small ditch to help drain rainwater away from the side of the house. I, being a landscaper, looked at him and asked, “Where are you going to send the drainage ditch, where ever you send it, its going to erode the dirt.” He didn’t have a clue where he was going to send it; he just wanted it to run out across the front of the yard and into the gulley. I suggested we dig it deeper and put a white gravel walking path on top. This way the water would run though the stones and not erode the dirt.
We would keep boards on the sides of the path to hold in the stones until the grass grew. The center of the path would be 14in deep and allow the water to flow quit well. The path would go all the way to the gulley, and then the drainage ditch could enter a 6in. pipe and run off into the gulley while the path connected to the walking bridge. Genius! I started digging the path and Ryan started digging the drainage ditch. It took an hour or so, then the hard part. The wheelbarrow loads of gravel; not fun, I never actually carried any gravel, I just spread it. Ryan, Alex, and Joben carried the gravel from the Ferterria. After two hours of work it was finished, and boy did it look great. It really made the place come alive, there was a nice white walking path leading up from the bridge straight to the front porch and around to the stairs leading upstairs. It was smooth, sexy, and well refined… Yes I’m talking about the walkway, not the many cute girls walking down the beach as we work hard in the hot sun.

---The renters… The second property that the Belgium’s bought now had renters, but there wasn’t any electricity, and that was a must. So Ryan, being an electrician offered his services. He was kicking me and himself for not bringing his tools though. It was all good, he made do with the tools we did have, and ran service wire off of the Belgium’s already existing line.
The Cabinas had power, sweet! With the power we were able to hook up all the lights and receptacles, as well as install a pump to give pressure to the water lines. With the added pump we ran a secondary line up to the tank at the House, The House of The Belgium’s. Hmm secondary line, what was wrong with the primary one…. The construction down here, it just doesn’t make sense.

The House of The Belgium’s doesn’t have water…. Yep, the guys who ran the water line aren’t too bright, poor fellows! At the house there was consistently no water in the tank. It got to the point where you were no longer able to take showers at the house, flush the toilet, unless it was number 2, or wash the dishes. It was bad. We thought it might be the water line leading to the tank from the road. So on one afternoon, after not being able too handle the lack of water any longer, they started digging. I was upstairs chilling in a hammock when I noticed their efforts to uncover the buried water line. I came down to see how the progress was coming. They had dug a trench that was twelve inches wide and twenty inches deep, and probably about twenty feet long. The trench reminded me of the trench my dad dug in our front yard while trying to locate one of the side yard’s drainage lines. His trench however was more that three feet deep and eighteen inches wide. Anyways, I help for a moment with the digging, giving Ryan a break, then went and got some new pipe and cement. We were going to have to do some surgery! The plumbers, if that’s what you call them down here, had put eight 90’s and 5 on-off valves in the line prior to it reaching the tank. The line went in circles, as well as short sections of pipe running out from the line just to stop at a cap and valve. What was the point? It was ridiculous!!! We switched out the pipe for a straight shot to the tank. We gave it fall and buried it; and would you believe it, in the morning we had a full tank for the first time in three weeks! Finally, a fresh shower without having to walk down to the Cabinas and squat under a faucet.

Let’s touch on people again.

---The Canadian’s… Amanda and Joben.
They are from Vancouver area, and work three months of the year tree planting. They spend the rest of the year traveling. Joben was raised in Peru on a Wycliffe mission base. He lived there for 8yrs. I think, but I’m not sure, it could be more. Amanda is his wife; she is 23, and full of life.
They are and interesting couple and filled our days with unique encounters that we will remember for the rest of our lives; such as the game Farkell.

---Kendra and the girls of Her crew…
Kendra was Vincent’s girl. She is very sweet and fun to have around. She gave me a kiss for my birthday; see I told you she was fun to have around.
“Thanks Kendra!” Anyways she is a manager slash coordinator for a girls surf camp retreat there in Malpais. She lived about a thirty minute walk away, and once Vincent was gone we didn’t see much of her, too bad. Oh yeah, “Her Crew”… She had many female friends with her when ever she came around, just another good reason to have Kendra around to hang.

---The Argentinean’s…
Philippe and Allen. Those were to way cool guys! They were 18 or so and full of good times. They would come over to the house and hang out at night on the front porch with us. Eat some cakes, play some games, and watch movies.
They always had a smile on there face, and were always up for anything. Two awesome down to earth guys! “You guys ROCK!”

---Senior Cakey...
This man made our nights and mornings; he was the pleasure and the man that tempted our taste. Senior Cakey was an Argentinean man who made the most wonderful cakes. He would bring his basket of cake to the house every night just after we came in from surfing and sell us cakes; Pina’, Coco, Naranja, Banno de Leche, Chocolate de Leche… ie. Pineapple, coconut, banana cream, chocolate cream. His cakes were so good! Ummmmm!!! I loved his Pineapple cake the most, but everyone else seemed to fancy his coconut cakes. Oli would buy at least three or more every night. When Senior Cakey came to the house he usually would sell close too a dozen pieces of cake or more. When Jared was there he bought six cakes just for himself; the cakes lasted for two days, but still it was quite a purchase for one man. On the last day I gave Senior Cakey my water pump. The one that was donated to me by CHA water. It is a pump that fits onto the mouth of a five gallon jug of water, and is used to pump the water out without having to tip it up and pour the water out. Senior Cakey was very grateful for this gift. He is an older man, in his 60’s and has a gimp knee. This item would definitely be a blessing in his life. This guy honestly was very-very fun to see and spend time with; he was always so animated. Funny guy!

---The Dutch Girls…
There were three Dutch girls that we spent time with. Well, we spent time with them towards the end of our stay there in Malpias. They were going to rent out the bottom of the house and stay there for several months while building and developing their own property. There was Teddy, Nique, and Marlice. Teddy we never really hung out with, nor Marlice. Marlice came around only a few times. We mainly hung out with Nique. Nique was fun, she added to the scenery. She livened things up. All in all that’s the Dutch girls. Simple, and straight forward.

---The Belgium’s…
Vincent, Kendra’s boyfriend of sorts; I don’t know the exact term for their relationship. Anyways, Vincent, He is one cool guy. Very mild, easy to get along with, and most of all like all Belgium’s I’ve met, very generous and helpful. He is truly a great guy! As well as a super hard worker!

Olivier, the “Heffe” in all respect, otherwise, the Boss! Oli is the guy that we met up at the Nicaraguan border, the one that helped us with the border officials and also the one we gave a ride to. He is truly an incredible guy. He is very generous, kind, respectful, and a very hard worker. He also is fun to hang out with. We have picked up on so many of his unique phrases, laughed at his odd jokes, and just had some unforgettable times with him. Oli is the greatest, well Gilles…. The two together are the Greatest!!!

Gilles, Gilles is incredible!!!! He is super funny, the most, best, greatest hard worker of all time, and a hilarious person to hang out with. He as like all Belgium’s is very-very generous, no matter what he’ll help you out. He also loves kids! He was always playing with or handing out presents to the local kids. Gilles is a great guy! Oh, by the way, he is the Varnish King!

Well I think that is all for now, that should give you a basic idea of the people, work and scenery of Malpias. I could right lots more, but I just don’t have it in me right now to write a full length novel. So for now this is what I have. I hope you have enjoyed it, I know I certainly did!

I'm back on the main land now, we are doing some constuction--footers, laying block for the yogurt farm, we've got some projects for a youth camp also.