It was another sweaty week of nonstop work at the casa con tanque here in sunny Santani.First order of business was getting the plumbing into good enough shape to handle our weak, American bowels. Thankfully our barrio is home to best damned one-armed plumber in Paraguay, Juan Carlos.
Juan Carlos fixed our leaky toilet (complete with a sparkling new seat), repaired the concrete floor in our shower, remounted our bathroom sink and built us a brand new outdoor sink---all with 3/4 of the usual appendages. The guy was a machine.
Next, we needed to remove various forms of debris that collected over the years in our ceiling. This included a tiny bird's nest. Despite the fact the it was 15 feet in the air and impossible to look into, Carly assured me the nest was empty. She encouraged me to just yank it down and I obliged. Imagine my surprise when, after a few pokes with a stick, I got a face-full of baby birds. The poor bastards were dead as soon as they hit the ground. But they didn't die in vain. The neighborhood kids had a blast playing with their corpses.
We spent the final three days of last week sanding every inch of insert your favorite poison here-based paint from the interior walls. I'm no longer afraid of hell because I've been there--and it's hand-sanding walls in the humidity of Paraguay. We both wore protective masks and glasses but they were no match for the toxic dust we created. Our boogers are still gray two days later.
Stay tuned for more exciting news next week. If all goes according to plan (which it won't) we should have a fixed roof, a new front door, bars on all the windows and whole heap of furniture moved in. We'll keep you posted...probably.
YIKES
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