AZOTEA III Y CHEZ SHELLEY

Roof-pouring day.  Labor reinforcement needed.  The three new men below are studying the job.  You can see that Mexicans also wear do-rags:

The system:  man on ground steps up on blocks and hands bucket of cement to man on scaffolding.  Man on scaffolding hands bucket to man on roof.  Presumably men in back are mixing up the cement:

End result:

The grapefruit tree again:

Shelley's lunch menu in honor of classical guitarist and friend Hilario Yañez, who is concertizing here tonight and tomorrow night prior to touring in France :

Our neighbors, Rosa María and Franco, at Shelley's:

Tomorrow the roof surround; the next day the stairs to the roof.  And then....

LA AZOTEA II

I climbed up the ladder to see what was happening all day on the roof.  Here it is, ready for the cement:

While I was up there I looked around at the neighbors' houses and noticed this grapefruit tree.  I don't know if you can see those big yellow balls hanging on that smallish tree.  Grapefruit trees always amaze me.

Today, as I write, the roof is being poured.  Photos soon.

PISOS

We're having to think about flooring now.  Below is a selection of cantera tile/stone that Maestro Trini (the patrón) brought for us to look at:

They run from $13 to $18 per square meter.  Trini envisioned them for inside.  We thought they'd do fine for the patio, but not for the kitchen and dining room floor, since they are unglazed and would require a lot of sealing and post-care to keep them clean in an area of spillage.  Outside, though, they should weather OK.  This is the one we've tentatively chosen for the patio.

This is the look we want for the floors in the new building:

It's called losada (which seems to mean any glazed floor tile) and is often seen in colonial buildings.

LA AZOTEA

Early this morning we took delivery of a truckload of rented pallets and timbers that will be used to support and frame the roof as the concrete is poured.  It was stacked in the front room at first.  It is impregnated with used motor oil and does not smell good:

During the day, the workers constructed the framing for the pour using 4x4s and the pallets that used to be stored in the front room:

Anything that needed to be cut and nailed was done by hand.  There has been no use of any power tools during this whole process:

On Monday we'll get another load of rebar to fit on top of the roof framing and then on Tuesday concrete will be poured--mixed by hand and carried to the roof in buckets on the backs of the workers.

Also on Monday we will get to look at various samples of cantera tile for the floor and patio.

SALVIA

Although many fresh herbs and spices are available here, sage seems not to be one of them.  So when Franco and Rosa María stopped in and told me they knew where to get some, they were letting me in on a big secret.   I had to promise not to tell anyone else.  Done (assuming this post constitutes not telling anyone).  It grows in several spots where the city has planted big stands of Russian sage.  The two, Russian sage and culinary sage/salvia, are not related, and it's curious that the good stuff is hiding there under the shrubby stuff:

A closer view:

The question was:  do we snip some off as needed and use it in the kitchen or do we try to uproot a plant and put it in our garden?  We opted to number two, and furtively tried to pry a plant out of the ground.  It was too deep, too strongly rooted.  We couldn't get any roots, so I tore off a stalk and brought it home to try to root it.  I found out on the internet that you can use honey as a rooting agent.  We'll see.  Here it is looking a little sickly:

EL ARCO

Arches are a theme in the new building.  There's going to be a large one between the kitchen and the dining room.  The framing for it is pretty complex.  Here is one side:

The other side:

The other side with the framing off:

The doors will also have arched tops.  Imagine this with an arch, a glass transom where the cider blocks are now, and a double door beneath:

And the mini-garden has some new additions.  Mary Lou (whose image will never grace these posts due to her antipathy toward modern technology) gave us the strawberry plant in front.  We bought the fennel plant for 10 pesos at market:

ANDAMIOS Y LECHUGA

Andamios (scaffolding)--a new word in my vocabulary.  We've rented it for. . . a month(!):

The back door:

The orange tubing is to run electric wires through.  Sorry, I don't know the word for that:

The lettuce (lechuga) is up!  Can you see the tiny plants?  The white stuff is lime to keep the cats away:

⁄PAREDES

A delivery of blocks.  We got 500 in two truckloads:

The front room, a way station to the work area:

The walls go up:

The view from the back with a space for the door:

We've been doing some research about rising damp, and the only sensible thing to do in new construction is to install a vapor barrier at the bottom of the wall.  So we told the architect we wanted to do that, and he told the albañiles how to do it.  First, this adhesive was spread on the top of the footer:

Then this fabric was laid over the stuff above, followed by the first course of block:

This tubing is used as a level.  It's filled with water.  One man stands with one end against a rebar support and gets the water in the tubing to the desired level.  Another stands across at the opposite rebar support, and the water in the tube shows him where to make his mark.  That way, when the courses of block are laid, they are at the same level all around the building.  If you want a more detailed description of how it works, ask my brother-in-law, the follower named Petey Boy.  Pete says this method can be used to re-calibrate carpenter's spirit levels when the bubbles go bad.

The architect came to call and we talked electric outlets, kitchen plans, etc.  Soon we'll actually be getting specs for appliances so the workmen will know how to construct the counters and cabinets.

TACOS Y TABIQUE

El sr J picked up some blue corn tortillas down the street for lunch:

Trini came to the door of the bedroom (where we live) yesterday and asked me to come out and look at the problem wall that joins the neighbors'.  He said that the bottom of the wall was about to collapse.  What the heck am I supposed to say?  What can be done?  Trini says we should advise the owner, Gloria.  Of what? That her wall is about to collapse?  This is when I wish I were in some other country.  I called her but she was nowhere to be found, according to the person who answered the phone.  Then I had the brilliant idea that Trini should have had in the first place.  Call the architect.  Eduardo Ayala Torres came right over and he and Trini talked for about 15 minutes.  He told them to frame up the bottom of the wall and pour in concrete.  We're going to lose about 15 cm of kitchen space.  Who cares.

At the righthand end of the plastic you can see into the neighbors' yard.  It's a jungle back there.

Trini said this morning that we should charge them for the cement that's going to support their wall too.

The tabique (bricks) are supposed to be delivered today.

MISCELANEA

At some point, I need to take a break from the theme of construction.  But not quite yet.

Wednesday afternoon Trini, the patrón albañil, told me that we, meaning he and I, have to talk to the neighbors on the south side of our building.  I thought he said that when his men take down our wall, the neighbors' wall would fall down.  ¿Mande?  Repeat, please.  I heard the same thing again, this time with the word adobe.   Apparently their wall is made of adobe only and is held up by our wall, which is not too strong itself.

What to do?  First of all, I wasn't sure I heard Trini correctly.  He's hard for me to understand.  But I knew I wouldn't sleep until I did something.  So Wednesday evening, I went to the neighbors on the north side who I knew were the owners of the property in question.  Gloria and I have a relationship.  She came over and looked at the wall where a big section had been dug out.  She was concerned about the roof caving in.  Holy cow!  She said that Trini and I could come over the next day (Thursday) at noon to explain the problem.  Instead, on Thursday Gloria's husband, Juan, came over and Trini explained what was happening.  Apparently this was something that required a man-to-man discussion.  Meanwhile I had gotten the information from Trini that, no, the roof wouldn't cave in, and no, the whole wall wouldn't fall down, and yes, his crew would fix whatever minor damage was done to the neighbor's wall.  Apparently Trini explained the problem in a way that satisfied Juan that disaster would not ensue.  I'm not entirely convinced yet.  I'll post a photo of whatever happens.

Yesterday we went for a walk to look at different window styles so we could decide what we wanted for the front of the house.  We decided we liked this one:

We passed a convent and el sr J bought some rolls from the nun behind the window:

And now for something entirely different.  The hosts of the Candelaria party had their washer and drier, which were outside on the patio, draped in specially designed waterproof covers.  I had no idea washer covers existed; we had covered ours with a big, unwieldy sheet of black plastic.  But look.  We have one now, too!   Good thing, because it's been raining almost every day.

SEMANA 2, DIA 1

4 or 5 neighborhood cats are interested in the progress of the project and the prospect of nabbing a bird from the bougainvillea tree:

More rebar, this time embedded in concrete:

Remember that mountain of rubble removed by wheelbarrow?  Now they're bringing the larger pieces of it back to mix in with the concrete in the foundation:

Trini's deli.  The workmen build a fire and cook tortillas for lunch.  They gave us two today:

Here's what the castillas look like when they're attached to zapatas.  The entire structure is then placed in the excavated hole in the ground and fixed in concrete to make a stable wall for the new building:

DIA 5: PAYDAY

We're going to use this good-looking dirt excavated from the project in the garden.  We've just planted a row of lettuce on the right:

Rebar to be fashioned into castillas (vertical supports) and zapatas (horizontal supports in the footers):

zapatas:

Completed castillas.  The two older workmen spent most of the day constructing these things with hand tools from hand-cut lengths of rebar, rods, and wire:

The water heater needed support when the wall was knocked down:

Trying for square.  Do you think they'll accomplish it?  It would be the only part of this house that is square:

A hack saw with a homemade rebar handle, for use in cutting rebar (the homeopathic approach?).  This photo is for Pete:

We were hoping for a quiet weekend.  But Sunday was Constitution Day and the Constitution was signed here, meaning that the President would visit.  Early Sunday morning there was a great racket outside the front door.  I looked out and saw a huge bus parked in front of our house and Federal Police with machine guns on the sidewalk.  In front of them was a truck filled with Army guys, also heavily armed.  Helicopters circled overhead.  The police and army stayed the whole morning, yelling and laughing like a bunch of drunks.  El sr J went for a bike ride and reported that all streets leading to the center of town were barricaded and guarded.  The Prez and his myrmidons were gone by afternoon, and so we had some peace and quiet before the work was to resume on Monday.