And so we had moved. We woke up the next morning to SO much work. The wood burning stove, built entirely of bricks and mud, needed to be torn down and rebuilt. The walls, begun with wood logs with overlaid lattice and finished with a mud/sand mixture and whitewash, were crumbling and needed the old mud to be tapped off and new mud applied. Then everything needed whitewashed...3 or 4 times since whitewash over mud doesn't cover the first or second time. The broken windows needed their glass removed and replaced. All the windows needed a sealant on the inside and out, which was a silly putty mix...sort of. And that was just to get the house up to moving in. We then needed to clean it up and start to fix it up so we could live in it. The whole project took 2 months of straight work, usually 9-9 everyday, before we felt like it was a place that we could function in relatively well.
Our first day we woke up and jumped right into it. Even thinking about it now brings an unpleasant feeling. Long hours, little to no food (often just tea) and everything done in a language we didn't know. On top of it, we didn't have transportation. So, when we needed anything, we had to hitchhike into the next town and then figure out how to get it back! We needed stuff like wood planks, paint, whitewash or glass for the windows sold in a 3ft.x4ft pane. How do you hitchhike with 4 of those?
And then the drunks who would show up. First of all, this house had been empty for a year. Everyone knew that it was the place to come and drink. So, we kept having to turn people away, that they couldn't come and drink here anymore. They would be fascinated that there were foreigners and would stay and try to talk with us (in a language we didn't know). Then they would ask for money. Then they would just stare.
The owner's, A, dad was in and out, sometimes drunk, sometimes sober. When he was sober, we were able to get things done. When he was drunk, things were a mess. Like when we finally got back with our panes of glass and he was determined to cut them himself. I think he cracked 3 out of the 4 and we could no longer use them. That was a frustrating day.
