Special 6 say Adios to El Zacaton

This is our last message from El Zacaton as we leave our families for the bus ride back tomorrow. It is pretty fair to say that ‘Special 6’ will be a hard act to follow as our fellow cement and blocks engineer Carlos was delighted with our fortnight’s work. The foundations are built, the four walls are up with bling bling windows and doors, and spirits are still high. Yesterday was also a special day as we all got to give a few local children and Carlos an English lesson whilst also attempting to mumble a few words of Spanish ourselves. Tanne took time out of singing the local cuisine ‘s praises to organize us into groups to teach greetings, names, numbers and body parts. Hardeep and Sandeep were delighted to perform ‘Heads, Shoulders Knees and Toes’ in Spanish. The lesson was a lot of fun and really rewarding to hear the kids learning from us. The lesson however came to an abrupt end by a Hollywood rainstorm. Whilst this rinsed off the ants chilling on my sandaled feet it also washed away just about everything else not planted firmly in the ground and so everyone earned a round of man points for scarpering down the road towards shelter in action-packed seamlessly storyboarded chase frenzy.

Speaking of which today ‘Special 6’ plan to sand the rather rough edges off our skit with Guido enforcing a focused regime to produce something critics will later declare a masterpiece. Meanwhile we have also the art projects to collate as Sammy G and Vicky have completed their nifty flip books and Hamish has directed a particularly complex drama on his camera involving Ailsa and Emma as maverick women living on the edge. Shout out for Felix for his notably daring cameo.

I almost forgot a few things we have been up to the last few days. Special 6 divided into 3 subgroups to maximize efficiency. The groups revolved around a routine of planting nearly 4000 cabbages, clearing the local school garden and working on the project site. Each group also had an afternoon off chilling at the lagoon.

Overall the last 14 days at El Zacaton Miraflor have been one to remember and despite them not most necessarily being the easiest, they have most definitely paid off to a miraculous degree!
Happy Halloween boys and girls!

Yours faithfully
Sammy B.