Back to Work!

I promised that in this post I'd get back to the renovation. Hernan and Henry finished taking down the old roof as well as some of the walls that were cement-board (we did well on regular drywall, but cement-board was H.A.R.D!). 

While they were doing that work, Kevin came up with a materials list for the new techo (roof). We ended up purchasing it from Colono - the biggest ferreteria (hardware store) in Tilaran - you can see some of it in the photo above. 

The techo nuevo was to be built by Omar and his crew so we needed to meet with them to finalize the design. Omar speaks no English and he speaks Spanish very fast so there's no way we can communicate with him without help. Hernan speaks some English and, for us, speaks Spanish very clearly and slowly - plus  he uses a lot of hand signals! Kevin knows enough Spanish, especially construction words, to communicate with Hernan. So we would ask Kevin a question - he would in turn communicate it to Hernan, and Hernan would ask Omar. The answer would come back via the same route. 

Here is Omar on the roof marking locations and heights per Hernan's instructions. 

And here's Omar on the roof waiting for information while Heather types something into Google translate. Kevin is the tall guy, Hernan is in the green shirt, and the other two hombres are Omar's crew. 

Here's the first day of work on the techo nuevo. Look at all the basura (trash) that needed to be hauled away! 

We could even see the work progressing from Heather's casa! 

Every day the crew would arrive about 7am. We'd walk up later in the morning and again in the afternoon to check it out and take photos.

The next post will show the roof panels going on - this is getting very exciting!