A Dog Named Creepy

May 24
Amarante, Portugal
Reading: Catcher In The Rye by J.D. Salinger
Songs on repeat: Bonjour from Beauty and the Beast

Forget what I said about Amarane being a village. It´s a metropolis compared to our build site. Ok, maybe it´s a town. The area we are building in, which I can neither pronouce or spell, is really just a mountain road with very old, derelict houses and shacks. There is really nothing up there but the view. (Which is breathtaking.) I´m tempted to carry a notepad and paper and have our local guides write things down any time they answer my questions about the area.

Portuguese is a hard language. It´s a blend of Spanish, French and Romanian. I haven´t worked up the courage to really say anything but "Obrigado." (Thank you.) Anything I have tried just ends up as a Spanish/Portuguese/English hybrid and the locals either laugh or stare. They really don´t know what to do with us yet.

The build went a lot better than I expected. Some of the experienced GV members told me horror stories (or maybe pride stories) of Habitat builds with no water, balancing over scaffolding off cliffs and mixing cement by hand. Our is in a pverty stricken area but we have electricity and a cement mixer. Posh.

Very little time to go over anything before we dove in. We´re rebuilding on the old house´s location so at least it´s not from scratch. A fair chunk of the outer walls made it up today. I spent most of the day working with rebar. (No idea if I spelled that right.) Basically we were bending and securing iron beams that supports the corners and ceiling. Thank God for leather gloves. I would have been shredded to pieces by 9:30am without them. Got a good layer of rust dust from head to toe.

One of the best parts about the Habitat crew is the kindness of the team. Our lunch was made by Alfredo´s family. I´m not exactly sure what Alfredo does, but so far he has been our driver, built on site and he brought us lunch. And his brother owns a bar across from the hotel. Lunch was a fantastic filling pasta salad with eggs, olives, tomatos, peppers, cheese, cashews, sardines, zucchini and a few things I didn´t recognize. Like I said, no questions.

After lunch we walked up the mountain to a tiny cafe for cha and cafe. It´s run by an ancient couple with huge smiles. It looked like we had been their first customers in about 15 years. As we laughed and relaxed in the courtyard, a tiny dog snuck over to investigate us. He let some of the girls get close but was skittish around the guys. I named him Creepy for the way he crept around the yard, going from spot to spot without letting anyone touch him. Any loud conversatin would send him under the stairs. He liked me and chilled at my side for a while. The old woman who ran the cafe came running out and started gesturing and speaking loud Portuguese. Through pantomime I guessed he was her dog and he lived at the cafe. Afterwards, her husband led us through their garden vineyard and chicken coops as a short cut back to the site.

Evertyhing I´ve seen so far of Portugal is a strange mix of modern and provincial. The house next to the site had a woman scrubbing and banging her wash in a stone basin. But then she answered a cell. I am trying to picture what day to day life is like, but it´s hard to do. I´m used to comfort and gratification, especially when it comes to wear I live. It´s an education to see what other cultures regard as normal.

The build went well and I didn´t even get sunburned. Just some rosy cheeks.

As we left the build and were coming down the mountain, I realized how relaxed I was. Even after 2 days of annoying travel and a hard build today. I feel great. That got me thinking on why I am so tense all the time, and if it´s my lifestyle that makes me so tense. Why do I choose to live in LA, around all the choas and panicked energy and traffic, when it makes me crazy? But when I picture living anywhere but LA, I feel hollow. I know if I left LA, I´d feel like there was something missing. I know I won´t always feel that way. Someday I´ll probably want to live somwhere else and have a different lifestyle. But it feels good to know that my life and the way I live it are by choice and are a part of me. It´s a realization I can only have when not mid-crazy LA.

Relaxing evening. I love the way the Portuguese do dinners. It´s a production. Tapas on the table: prosciutto, bread, breaded meat pastries, olives, octopus salad. Meat in general is a big thing here. Almost no vegetarian choices anywhere. (Not a bad thing for me but some of our team are having a hard time figuring out what to eat.) After tapas and wine, then the entree, which is huge. Tonite I had salmon with green beans soaked in something and more roasted potatoes. Then desserts for the table to share and more cafe. Everything has been really tasty but I´m not used to the huge dinners.

A few of the girls took a long walk after dinner and snuck into the palace-turned-hotel. Gorgeous old place called Casa da Calcada. Very regal and formal inside. I´ve been playing with my new camera, trying out all the new settings. I´m getting some good shots of the town, but none of my pics have people in them. Really need to start getting some of the team.

Almost midnight, time to crash. I think I finally figured out a good routine with the internet cafe so I hope I can keep updating.
Boa noite.