Progressing nicely with Iris' house

This week, Fernando (a young local man), and Capo (a "guest"-worker from Chiriqui) were working on the stucco of the third outside wall. Unfortunately, we did not have enough "tinta" - a color powder, which is mixed with cement and applied in a thin layer on top of the the freshly installed stucco.

I also learned, that it is important for the stucco to dry sufficiently first, before applying the tinted layer. In our case, it was already very late in the afternoon, and we didn't wait long enough for the stucco to dry. As a result, the grey of the stucco was bleaching into and through the layer of color, leaving the wall blotchy. Fernando - the specialist around this technique - thinks it might be possible, to apply a second layer of tinted cement and get the wall to be looking nice. Let's hope this is true...

Secondly, Capo started working on stairs leading up from the road to our yard. It is fascinating to see what local folks are able to do manually; And how they are able to build something quite beautiful and significant with the simplest means! 

Manually cut out of the earth

While Capo was digging the ground for the stairs, Fernando was working in the house, applying more drywall compound onto the walls, to create an ultra smooth finish, ready for painting later.

Fernando working the walls

Once Capo had the ground ready, the two of them mixed up the concrete - right on the dirt road in front of where the stairs are being built - and started to set the blocks to form the sidewall and steps. 

Public water pipes in the way

While Capo prepared the ground, we realized that two water pipes, which are supplying the neighbors down the road with city water, are running across the stairs. Well, obviously that won't work like that. Our plan is to cut the pipes off, put in detours to run them lower down underneath the stairs. 

Capo with the beginnings of our stairs

Water is currently provided only from about 7 am to about 11:30 am. Outside of these hours, you either have to make do without water, or install a tank.

For our problem it is off course excellent that  the water is tuned off from noon until the next morning every day! With that daily interruption it is easy to perform that work. There's no permit needed - one simply does what needs to be done, and if there's no disruption for the neighbors, nobody is complaining... Fascinating, this place! Everything is improvised, done manually, and so much without permits or involving utilities or governmental offices...