Week 9 - 24 October

First of all, as I didn't have a photo of the second set of steps we made, this is what they look like. I don't have a 'before' shot but they were not in a good state.

We had another relatively relaxed week this week. We started Monday with clearing some recently planted trees to make sure they have enough space from weeds to grow and that was about the most hard work we did. It wasn't any more demanding than any of that kind of work that we have done before.
We did some similar work in another area on Tuesday morning. It was quite reptitive and not very interesting but we did have a nice surprise towards the end of it. Ususally, when I know what job I will be doing, I think about whether it is worth taking my camera. For this, I didn't expect there would be anything special to see so I left it in my room. Then our leader called us over to see the monkeys. Finally, after 8 weeks, they made an appearance. They were small ones called Capuchins and I got a brief look at one or two, although we could see more movement in the trees. Here's a photo of one from the internet.

We had another volunteer arrive the day before so it only took 1 day for her to see monkeys. Not fair!
On Tuesday afternoon, Gaz and I were asked, as we had now got a reputation for being expert builders (maybe...), to rebuild a bench and its cover at a viewpoint a bit further along the trail where we had been that morning. We were told that one of the cover's posts had fallen so it wasn't much to do but when we got there, we found that practically all of it needed replacing as the wood was old and weak. It was raining, too, so we didn't had a very enjoyable time. After discovering the bad state it was in, we had to walk back to tell W that we needed new wood and then walk back again to get rid of the old stuff and wait for the wood to be cut. We left there having completed very little.
The part of the week that was the least physically demanding was when I was asked to help translate a document from Spanish to English. I had done part of it on Monday afternoon, which wasn't too much but there was a bigger one that needed doing, too. This was because the reserve was applying for an international grant and needed a big legal document in English. It wasn't so much that I was helping, but just doing the whole thing as Alex, being German, couldn't do it well enough into another language.
It was quite a dull process and very repetitive to start with but, even though I needed to use the dictionary from time to time, it was quite fulfilling to know that I could do it.
Wednesday morning was used to do more than half of this document and I finished it the following morning, finishing up as 6 pages in a Word document.
Gaz had contracted a cold this week and couldn't work that day so Neil came with me to try to do more work on the cover. Again, we couldn't do a great deal as two of the posts were too high for us to nail on the cross beam. We didn't bother going back to get a ladder as we didn't have time (a 2 hour session before football) so we put the cross beam on the two lower poles and I cut out pieces from the beams so the nails would pass through them when we went back tomorrow.

Gaz was better the next day so he came with me again and we found out, when he stood on the bench to lift the plastic cover up, that the end of it broke off. This was after discovering an ants' next the first time under the bamboo layer of the seat... So, not only did we need to do the cover, but the whole thing!
Anyway, we eventually got the plastic up and the cover finished but will probably come back to it next week, which I am quite looking forward to.

The Friday of this week was the hike but I had already decided not to do it as I wanted to do some more work! As you might have worked out by now, I have become quite passionate (obsessed? :-p) with making things so I asked the other volunteers if they wanted anything made for the bedrooms. I had a request to make a table for using a laptop on and so I got to work with the saw (the chainsaw had no oil :-(   ). I had also secretly made a boot-scraper-wooden-mat so we could clean our shoes and boots better instead of walking the dirt all over the house and put it in place while the others were on their hike. Once I get started on things and have enough material to use, there's pretty much no stopping me so I made three tables, one of which I kept for myself and one was to use in the common room. This is the one that I later put in my room.

That day, we also found some baby bats that had dropped out of their nest in our house walls. I found a new-born one that I tried to put back where its mother would find it but one that was flying around in Gaz's room didn't seem to see it so I don't think it would have much hope of surviving. It was about 3cm long and trying to crawl on the floor. I saw this bat on the wall above another doorway.

We just relaxed in the evening and played some Pictionary but I was tired after making the tables so went to bed at 10pm.

Just a few words about illnesses over here. I still haven't had anything in these first 9 weeks but people have had things like swelling from insect bites and parasites around the waist area. This happens from being in the forest and not having your shirt tucked in so flies can get in, go to this warm area and lay their eggs in your skin. They get quite itchy but can easily be killed off with warm, salty water and pulled out with tweezers.  They are tiny little things and don't cause any infections but obviously are not the kind of thing you want living inside you!
There are so many insects around here that you get used to them quickly. We must have seen many hundreds of types of moths, for example, and it seems to be rarer to see the same kind of moth twice! I definitely have a routine of putting my insect lotion on after washing, no matter how many times a day it is.

Next week is due to be a short week as Wednesday and Thursday are national holidays but we are waiting to hear what that will mean for us as the kitchen staff are due to be away. We have heard that we might only work until Wed but we'll have to see on Monday.