Pollo!

Bamboo rods, stuffed plastic bottles, and mud—lots of it.  If you have these three things, you’ve got yourself a chicken coop.  Or that’s what they tell me anyway :)

This weekend we began building a new chicken coop and my task for the most part was making mud and mixing it with hay.  Picture this: a few of us stomping in a hole with mud covering our legs and hands—truly it was a vision reminiscent of the Israelites and their mud brick making back in Egypt, only this time it was a bunch of girls dancing in the mud and having a good time.  “Modern Israelites” was our official title for the day.  So if you need mud for building walls, I’ve got contacts.  And experience.

It was a great time of fellowship, of many cultures coming together to build this chicken coop.  15 sets of hands helping cut bamboo or putting mud in the frames.  Classic rock music playing in the background.  Chickens and goats wandering around the constructions site, curious to see what’s going on in their yard.  And Jim even wore a kilt to work (it’s his macho outfit I guess)!  I’m sure we were a rare sight to behold and I’m not quite sure what the community would think if they could have seen us :)

At one point, we were corralling the chickens for the night and I was chasing this one stubborn chicken who refused to go in the coop.  Needless to say, I wasn’t watching very carefully where I was running and managed to scrape the bottom of my foot on something very sharp (I think it was a nail).  I was quite a mess that night, covered in mud and straw and limping.  But, despite this minor injury, I deem the experience a success.  We’re not quite finished building the coop yet so this coming weekend will be more of the same I expect :)

In addition to the coop construction, we welcomed another visitor for the weekend from Panama, we experienced a 5.0 earthquake’s tremors (crazy!!), and we welcomed a new member to our “community development work team”—my roommate Guiselle.  So, all in all, a very busy and crazy week we had here in Costa Rica.  I’m sure next week will be just as fun.  Stay tuned!