New Year's festivities

On December 30th, the teenage boys and I started a sand layer on the adobe house. The teens practically begged me for permission to do it, their main reason that they wanted to house to look "pretty" before the American guys got back. Personally, I think a greater motivation is that they were bored.


In one day, we did all the sanding that we could do using just ladders, the loft crossbeams, and, of course, standing on the ground. So on New Year's Eve, we enlisted the help of LauraLynn, aka Lala, and the tractor. Not only did we use the tractor as a giant mixing trough for the sand and water, we also used it as a crane to transport ourselves to greater heights.





Lala's Christmas present to herself was a 3-wheeler, a hybrid between a motorcycle and a truck. In Creole, motorcycle is just moto and car is machine so we christened her new toy The Motine. We spent New Year's Eve driving around town in the Motine, enjoying the music, the dancing and the street food. We were joined by about 15 of the Jubilee teenagers, which was a real blessing. The Motine wouldn't start with the ignition or the kick starter, so every time we started up, the teenage boys had to push start us! They would run us down the road til the engine jerked into action and then, with all variety of whooping, hollering, and squealing, leap into the moving vehicle. It was a great night!