Week 1 of building, done! I've successfully completed one house and started on the second today. I knew this project would be hard work and intensive but I never quite imagined how intensive. Everything is done by hand here. Breeze blocks are chipped into the required shape (I assume because it's more expensive to buy the ones already in the shape you need), every piece of iron rod (regardless of thickness!) is hand bent with a variety of tools depending on the desired form and cement is mixed, by hand, in the soil. The only power tools I have seen was a circular saw used to cut the breeze blocks in half and a drill used to secured the tin sheet roof. That's all. It's hard work! No wonder the construction workers are so strong! Well every one is here. This morning the 4 year old son was playing with the wheel barrow! A full-size wheel barrow! He was able to lift it, push it forward and manoeuvre it better than I could! Ask a kid back home to do that and they wouldn't even get it off the ground! That brings me to another observation... Back home a building site would be no place for a kid, they probably wouldn't even let me in! But here the kids run around the site, playing with the tools! Yesterday the 4 year old and his slightly older friend (relative?) were playing with axes. The ones I used to chip breeze blocks. They were playing. They cut the left over breeze blocks into smaller pieces and went off to a corner to build their own mini house! Back home if I kid got hold of a pair of scissors, the parents would have a heart attack, here they didn't even bat an eyelid. I guess that's because the kids here have no toys, nothing else to play with, so as long as they are happy... Right?

This week also marked the REAL start of the rainy season. It rains each afternoon and most nights there is a thunderstorm. At the moment, there is a torrential downpour with the occasional rumble of thunder... I'm waiting for my ride back to Antigua, about an hour and 15 minutes from here. The guy has a pick up, which was fine this morning when it was just me, but around here you are never quite sure how many people they will try and cram in! And with rain like this, I don't wanna be in the back...