Week 10 - 31 October

Well, I suppose the easier weeks couldn't last forever... This week hasn't been especially bad but I've been suffering from a bad back again.
Before the working wekk started, as we didn't go away last weekend, we had Sunday free so I decided to make some more things! I made a bench to use by our camp fire, which I quite like.

After I finished this, I started work on another one but as I still didn't have the chainsaw, I started cutting the wood off another log with the machete. I was making good progress but once I'd cut down one end, I had to turn it upside down but it wouldn't stand up. so I used a piece of wood to support it and continued with the machete. Unfortunately, it slipped off the wood and as my left hand was also holding the wood, it moved to the right as the machete came down... I was wearing strong gloves but I knew it was bad. I tore off the glove and I had sliced down the outside of my thumb nail and it was bleeding. I ran to the sink for cold water and it didn't bleed a lot but it looked like it had cut deep into it. I put on some antiseptic lotion and obviously had to stop work for the day.
Luckily, as it healed over the week, it wasn't as bad as it looked and now it's very close to being fully healed so there's no problem with that.

(This is the meal we had last Saturday)

The work for this week has involved some macheteing weeds down again, which we did twice. Even though it is a boring job, it is necessary to help the rarer trees to grow better. I was also given the task of measuring the 'canelo' trees for their height and circumference as someone from the ministry of the environment was due to visit the field where these trees were growing.
Other things that gave me back ache were digging for new soil. We collect soil from the forest with lots of dead leaves as they contain nutrients which are used like compost. I did this a couple of times this week.
And still there was more digging! We went back to the biodigestor to dig the trench for where the resulting gas is to be collected. This had to be 1x1x1 metre and three of us just about got it finished in a morning.
There was still some delay with knowing if we were going to be working after Wednesday and in the end, we decided to stay as there would be too many people travelling on the Thursday to go for a long weekend break. We were pretty much left on our own but given some easy jobs to do. I had asked to use the chainsaw to make the table for the nursery to hold the soil which was to be used for planting new trees (to save the back ache of taking it from the ground). I also had to fix one of the steps up the house where the pieces of wood which hold it in place had broken. That didn't take long but I was waiting to find where the chainsaw was. In the meantime, Gaz had had another injury from playing football the day before and had twisted his knee. He was in a lot of pain and I made him a walking stick on Thursday morning. The others talked about the problem as he is due to fly on Sunday night and we didn't know exactly what the problem was. So we said he should go to hospital in Santo Domingo, which he agreed to. I went with him to translate, and Carmen drove us in her dad's car. We went to the public hospital and waited half an hour before he was seen. He needed an x-ray in case it was fractured but it showed nothing and the doctor said it was a general injury around the knee and needed to be immobilised. So went drove around the town to find a support and got one before driving back and arriving just before 7pm.
I meant that even though I had located the chainsaw at 11.30am, I had only cut two pieces of wood then had to abandon it to go with Gaz. Maybe I can continue next week. Incidentally, I had to use the big chainsaw which must weigh about 15kg and is hard work to use...

(This moth was in our bathroom - my thumb is right next to it...)

So, 5 of us left to go to Baños, a place I'd been to before briefly and liked a lot. Gaz's leg was still hurting but as he was leaving, had to go anyway. There was a lot of traffic on the way there so were expecting to have difficulty finding a room. However, there are tons of hostels here and after asking in about 5, we found one for $7 a night. We went up and waited for the man to prepare the beds. We closed the door of our room (me and Gaz) to then find out that the man didn't know where the key was. We had all our stuff locked in the room and couldn't get back in... He had to go and find all the keys he could, tried them all and none opened the door. We waited up there for two hours until he finally had to pick the lock. We said we'd leave all our stuf in Jeanette's room and leave our door unlocked. It was a pain having to waste our time for this but then went out, ate some good food, had a couple of drinks but we were all tired and got back to the hostel by 11pm.
Today (Saturday) is Gaz's last day with us and it will be a shame when he goes as I have had some good laughs with him but hopefully we'll stay in touch.