Charley's Angels !!

Hi,

Today we had a special treat after work, fresh coconut juice straight from the tree. Here's we are with our esteemed leader Charley, enjoying the start to the weekend !!

Back at Number 13, we had a very hectic day. Here's the site as we joined it this morning, with just the first row of bricks in place for the platform on top of the foundations.


Today's work would be to complete this and the next layer of bricks and fill in the mud in the centre, ready for the floor, so it could dry over the weekend and be ready for Monday. It was a really busy day. We started moving the huge rocks in from outside on the road, interspersed with various 'Cement Lines' and 'Sand lines' to transport whatever was needed into the masons.

And here's the house as it was progressing during the day. It's definitely begining to look like a house and not a hole in the ground anymore !

At lunch today we had a visit from one of the Women's Self Help groups. They brought some of their wares to show us. We saw clay jewellry, which we could buy ; some candles being made and another lady showed us how she makes designs for patterns on saris. We also had someone making pottery. We heard a bit about how the self help group operates. It's a wonderful system whereby the women start with the discipline of saving and then move onto supporting each other through group bank accounts. There is also training available for various crafts .. like some of those we saw today, to enable income generation. It's a facinating subject, one which I hope to learn some more about before I leave.

In the afternoon it was back to the grind ! Here's me and Diane, from the US, my shovelling partner tackling the huge mound of stones needed for the mix used in the floor.

The base for the floor was looking a bit better when we finished up, but there was still some to do so the family and the masons worked on and we'll pick up with them on Monday.

After work and our celebration coconuts ! we headed back to the hotel for a quite night before our long day tomorrow, when we start off at 6am to go to Mysore.

Tonight the clothes that had been ordered and measured for during the week were delivered. Here's Emily looking stunning in her new Indian outfit ..