Snagging and Finishing Touches

This week we didn't have a lot of work to do but it was more a bit of tidying up loose ends. Below you can see things like the shelves and clock hanging on the wall....

 There was a little bit of wood left over so we hung a few shelves in the bedrooms of the kids, one for each of the girls and two for luis in his room.......

Dona Eulalias bedroom no longer a prayer room. Bed in........

Gavins chicken house..... Finally finished. Some size of a yoke but well thought out, or ended up well one or the other. The right side where everybody is looking into is for the younger chickens. There is a branch climbing into the larger area. The thought being that when they are big enough to walk along the branch they are big enough to go into the larger area. The long door on the left can be lifted up to take out the eggs when they eventually start laying in about 6 months or so. Gav bought 20 chickens. This is a great way for the family to make an extra few pounds. 20 eggs means 20 Q which is a decent bit. There is plenty of space to rare more chickens too. If they wanted they could put 40 chickens there easily. At the minute the water supply is tapped off the neighbours water supply. There wasnt enough money to pay for the water connection but it is something that the family need to save for and pay for themselves in the future. The chickens make this easier, but will also give them a bit of a sense of paying towards the house which is important. The reason that we went for the local water supply and not rain water harvesting is simple that the local water supply is drinkable.

 There was right excitement when the chickens finally came as you can imagine..........

Last week I also took a return trip to Guatemala to pick up the solar panel. Its facing due south and at an angle of 15 degrees which is the optimal for Guatemala.  We went for solar panels because for one its more eco friendly but besides that and more importantly Dona Eulalia works cleaning clothes and peoples houses, it is not permanent and she never knows when she will or wont have money,. this means that if we connected her to the mains elec there is a very big chance that she wouldnt be able to pay a bill at some stage, her elec would be cut off. The solar panel gives her a certain amount of elec every day for free, after the initial purchase of course.

There are six lights one in every room. They are low voltager LED lights which will not drain the battery too quickly when used correctly.

Above can be seen the invertor with the battery inside it. Pride of place goes to the radio given to Dona Eualia for her birthday by the spanish volunteers of course....

I would like to now thank everybody for there help with this project. I cant name everybody for fear of leaving somebody out for a start. I would just like to say how sorry I am that they can not all see in person what this home means to the family, how it has changed their lives and how greatful they are..... muchas gracias a todos.....

In case you are wondering about what my plans are for the future I will tell you. For now I will be moving to Antigua to live. Reason for this is that im broke simple enough. Going to work in Reillys Irish bar and possibly look for a more permanent job with a charity. I will be going back to visit Dona Eualalia and family regularly. Not least to see how Sylvias computer classes are coming on. When she is ready she will be writing to all concerned parties on a monthly basis. I will have this sorted sooner rather than later. I would like to work with Semillas de Ayuda in the future if its possible and we have a few projects unfinished and ideas bantered around. The thoughts of never going back to Huehue is somehting I simply cant contemplate. While im living in Antigua I also have a few ideas to work with local charities and possibly even another house after xmas but I will let you know when I do. I am still planning on leaving for Canada to make a few pound around April next year I will be keeping the blog up dated when I have something worth talking about. For now thanks again to everybody and talk soon. Adios........ 

P.S.     any questions e mail me roryoconnor25@gmail.com

Video of finished house...........

http://youtu.be/AVFlVe3B8eU       http://youtu.be/AVFlVe3B8eU 

Week 12 - The finish line...

First thing Monday morning Gavin, Deane and myslef arrived in Huehue. Had a bite of breakafast and we headed off to get materials in the hardware shop. We picked up the tiles, gutters and a few other bits and pieces and got to work along with the kids............ 

Pedro was the tiler....... no shock there.......

toilet in progress.............

kitchen finished.......................

Pedro got a bit creative on the front porch, made a star at the door way. A lot more vivid in real life. Picture doesn't  do it justice im afraid......

Gavin noticed we had a back fall into the house. School boy error on my behalf have to admit. Side with the prevailing wind too. Gave us a good excuse to get creative with a drain all the same. Think it looks pretty cool to be fair.........

This is Deane starting the truth windows. Truth windows are basically shapes cut into the wall revealing what is below the plaster. In this case adobe or earth and chicken wire. Big thanks to Sylvana from fotosintesisarquitectos.blogspot.com for the great design and to Deane for not F***king it up and doing a great job  . Green paint was me and Mari.....

Above is the kitchen. Deane and Gavin built this on Tuesday. Very nicely done. Very country kitchen. I was thinking of, starting, completing and submitting a thesis proposal that day. Another story....

The lights in the wall are bottle lights. Had promised myself I wouldn't build any more of these as I spent about 3 months of the year looking at them. Obviously made an exception for this project. If anyone hasnt seen them before they are plastic bottles filled with water and bleach. The mixture has a chemical reaction with uv rays and acts like a light. Thes lights are fitted to catch the evening sun, therefore there is no need to either have the doors open in the evening or use the electricity from the solar panel (ordered and on its way).

Some pipes on ye..... Gutter pipe, flu pipes and drain pipes all completed. If you happen to be a former gutter snipe from ashford please dont zoom in on the guttering.......

The garden getting a bit of work..........  

Toilet and shower room. Thanks to Deane Kerlin Plastering services for the shower area....

Kithcen starting to look like a kitchen. Myself Gav and the kids started to move things in while Melisa and Dona Euallaia were at  the communion service.........

Group photo..... There has been many weeks that there has been a mountain of work with, would be a discredit to Diego or the Spanish Volunteers to say that this week was the most active but I can defintely day the deadline kept us going........

House and Communion Party

 Welcome to the blessing of my little house and my first holy communion. Reads the sign below. (Didn't even have to use google translate so there)

Right so we didnt really have much work today. We did a bit of tidying around the garden and moved a few tables around so I will pretty much let the photos speak for themselves from here on in.........

 

Bit of a canopy to keep the sun away and a bit of paving along the path with spare and broken floor tiles...

Pedro got a bit creative here and made a heart with the tiles and painted the word welcome in English and Spanish.....

 Dona Eulalias sister using the plancha to help cook up lunch. No problems there, no smoke leaks, plenty of heat coming off the pipe upstairs too....

 Done Eulalais room was converted into a prayer room for the day............

 This is the house blessing first. They did a lap of the house before going into the prayer room (Dona Eualalia's bedroom) for about half an hour blessing the house I suppose.

Above the girl if the hour Mellisa (Kimberley), looking very angelic. Her actual communion was last night (Friday).

 Brenda, the boss of the charity, also Melisa's godmother, giving her a present.

 The cake..........

 Fair play to Melisa she got straight in there and stuck her own face into the cake.........

Mother and daughter......

............ both recieving gifts, Dona Eulalaia things fot the house and Melisa mostly bits and pieces of jewelry etc.....

Right tomorrow or monday I will have a video of a walkthrough of the complete house..... now myself Gav and Pedro are going to have a rum or 35..... 

Week 11.... Lime plaster and child labour

Myself and Gavin headed back to Antigua last week for a number of reasons. It was the lovely Ellie's birthday (housemate on my right) number one. (pic above)

We also went to a second hand bike shop in Chimaltenango. We wanted to buy a bike for the kids for one. The kids have all been working really hard with us since we got back as they are one their summer holidays now. Particularly Luis, who seems to know where every tool and material is at any given time. He really enjoys helping and learning too. Sylvia is similar in this regard, but she has been doing English classes in the afternoons of late. When I first got back she was back working in Huehue for pittens which kind of defeated the purpose of everything in my book so she is doing English classes and is starting computer classes next week too. She will start writing monthly e mails before the year is out I promise. So anyway rather than paying the kids money we thought buying them a second hand bike would be cool, as well it is coming up to xmas as well in case you haven't heard.  

The shop also make bike operated blenders, corn crushers etc as you can see being lovely demonstrated by Deane and Gavin. The reason we want to buy one of these; possibly Dona Eulalias xmas present; is that she uses a blender nearly every day and if she does that with the new solar panel kit it will possibly drain the battery very quickly. That was the final reason we were back to go pay a deposit and talk to the solar panel guys in Guate city. So that is ordered now should be with us in a week hopefully.

Right so back to the actual house. This week we concentrated on plastering. We started by patching any deep holes or crevesis in the walls with a clay, fine sand and lime mix.

This prepared the walls for the first coat of lime plaster. As you can see below there is a lot of heat and dust coming off the lime when it is re hydrated. It is pretty nasty stuff to work with to be honest. Our hands are in rag order from burns at this stage.

We also managed to finish off some jobs that were on the to do list for a long time. These included making and installing the door up stairs in luis's bedroom. This door is first and foremost a fire escape but it also acts as a good air vent during the day when the windows would have the upstairs very hot if not opened.

Some finishing touches were applied to the windows downstairs too. A window sill was fitted and door stop was fitted around the frame to stop drafts as well as tidy them up a bit.

We also fitted the base or table top for the plancha, being lovely modeled by Mari here above. The plancha is a wood fire with steel top for cooking. 

As I mentioned the kids have been helping us work all week which has been a great help in all honesty. Luis was working so hard one morning he built an entire village before breakfast (Below)

Above you can see the kids working together to sieve the bigger stones out of the sand so that is was easier to plaster with. Below is Luis and Sylvia helping me put fix the timber for the internal wall between the kitchen and Dona Eulalias bedroom.

Above is a picture if the internal wall nearly finshed from inside the bedroom.

 Below is all the kids and Pedro plastering the outside of the house.

I always wondered why they were so protective of the weeds growing about the place. Apparently thats where water melons grow. Who would have thought. I persumed they came on trees to be honest.

Below are a few pics of the house from the outside. Looking well I do think......

As of today Saturday the house will be fully plastered inside and out with two coats of lime wash on the internal walls. Next week tiling is the biggest job but there is a lot of tidying up work and loose ends also. Gavins chicken house, truth windows, kitchen cabinetry, plancha, 2nd fix plumbing.... the list goes on. Deane is coming up to help too but it will be tight either ways for Saturday. See ye next week....