Bricks Ahoy

What a day! Dropped off Mariana at the bus station in Pedernales with Pedro early this morning and went to Cojimíes to make some bricks. The machine didn't work yet, but was still being freed of rust and "calibrated" (aka hit repeatedly with a hammer and/or crowbars to re-align things). I wasn't bored for long, though, as Mother Diane soon came by to introduce me to a gentleman by the name of Marcelo whose family runs what is probably the nicest hotel in Cojimíes and who drives around town selling those huge bottles of purified water during the day. Anyway, he's in the tourism business and wants to learn English, so we've agreed to help each other out with our respective languages. And since he needs help putting together tours and travel information for English-speaking tourists, he's going to take me all over and teach me about Cojimíes and the surrounding areas of interest, which should be a lot of fun. Anyway, I basically spent all afternoon hanging out with him driving around selling water and sitting at the hotel (while practicing spanish). Before I returned to the ranch, though, we decided to see how things were going with the brick machine… to be honest, I didn't expect that anything had been accomplished since I left. But when we showed up there were over 120 bricks laying out to dry! Tomorrow morning, I can finally start making bricks.

When I got back to the ranch, Joel (Josefa's son) popped out and we threw the boomerang around a bit before I went in to do my laundry (in the kitchen sink). When I eventually went over to Josefa's to pick up the dinner she'd prepared for me, I ended up eating with them and had another opportunity to practice my Spanish without help. I had a great time. Before I left, Joel offered me any one item from his collection of ancient (?) treasures that he'd found in the dirt as a sign of friendship (I'd given him a giant flying screaming monkey toy earlier)… I didn't feel comfortable taking the really cool figurines he'd found, so I took a pendant-looking thing made of stone. His collection was impressive though, and at least a few pieces would be welcome in a museum. Pretty cool.