Earthbags building

Nanette:

Well, I guess plans are only meant to be changed!  Today (Monday) was to be our day to leave Ometepe.  Our bags were packed and we were all set to say our goodbyes to everyone.  Alas, as we were sitting out front this morning the church group that John brought in to build a house for Wilbur's mom stopped by on their way out to the house.  Well, being a curious lot, we (Nate, Eileen, Chris and I, as well as Nancy and Gary, who arrived yesterday)  set out after a while to see how things were going. 

Wilbur (on right) and his mom and brother

Very interesting!  They are building an earthbag house.  So far they have a circular trench dug and all tamped down.  They will be filling bags with sand and clay to build the walls.  Barbed wire gets added to the top of each row to hold it together and tamping happens on each new row.

Foundation trench

Well, anyway, we decided that we would like to see how things progress so we will be staying on Ometepe for another few days.

Went back to the earthbag house on Tuesday and they had added 3 more rows. their progress slowed considerably on Monday afternoon because they were waiting on a load of gravel.  They are planning to have it all completed by Friday.  I'm not too sure about that but we'll see.