Hola Mis Amigos!

Here we are again. I´m still in Bolivia, and I´m still alive! Not much else to report. One more slab done, and one left. I worked on surface prep on the section we´re doing tomorrow, which is the last one. Work on the water tower was also started this afternoon. I described before how we don´t really have much machinery at our disposal for all this; the way the tower is being done is we have a plywood mold with re-bar inside, then set up a bucket brigade to pour concrete into it from the top. The surface prep I was doing with two other guys is getting the ground uniform and level where we need to pour. This means digging with a hoe or a pick axe where it´s high, and adding gravel or dirt where it´s low. If things were ideal, we´d be doing this with a CAT, but we don´t have one of those, so wheelbarrows, rakes, and shovels it is. Actually, sometimes it´s a little hard to hang onto the tools that we do have. If you set it down for a couple seconds and turn your back, it might get snatched for another job somewhere else! The rakes that we got here are a tad short handled. I guess either people are just shorter here, or the rake-maker didn´t want to waste wood on an excessively long handle :-P . I put a P.S. at the end of my last post about some people getting sick when I had about 30 seconds of internet time left, so I didn´t elaborate much then. Nobody has gotten sick to the point of death, but some have been vomiting and feeling generally cruddy. The ones that got sick first are mostly recovered now, I don´t think anyone is in bed right now, just a couple walking around feeling a little under the weather. I think one of the sicknesses was caused by the guy drinking from the water hose, which isn´t a good idea around here. Talitha said she had a bit of a sore throat yesterday, so I don´t know if she might be getting a little sick. She seems to be ok this morning, so hopefully it was nothing. Last night we played some vollyball back at Monte Blanco where we´re staying. It was fun, but I think I made myself more sore doing that :-P oh well... anyhoo, that´s all for now! P.S. I think some bugs are getting in bed with me at night, cause I keep finding bites on my arms. Might be spiders. My roomie shook one out of his jacket this morning, and one of the girls killed a scorpion a couple days ago. Maybe pray the bugs will leave us alone. At least the deadly ones :-) P.P.S. Oh yeah, and there was that poisonous snake that was found on the lawn too... It´s dead now too.