Day 32: It's Been A While

Sorry it's been so long i have a bunch to catch up on i guess.

Saturday was my first day back on the site since i was sick and i had a lot of catching up to do with the design and pattern making of the sails, it was the last day our experts were in town before they went back to Canada so they made all their last minute suggestions .

Sunday we went white water rafting and that was loads of fun and our next couple of experts came to town the day. Bryan and Michel from New York are here to produce a book about this project and what we are doing and they have been so much fun to have around, they're really my kind of guys.

Monday we moved into the school where there is no Internet, there's barley electricity really. But being at the school is great it's nice not to deal with the time limits of when we get there in the morning and when we have to leave to go back into town. So that of course means longer days of work, that's important though because this is production week and we have to get it all done. As far as the sails are concerned Monday was pretty much a waste because the fabric which we had custom dyed over the weekend didn't show up until 5pm and by that time all but me and one other member of my team had left to go into town so not much work got done. That night i deiced to sleep outside in the open air because the stars were so amazing.

Tuesday we spent all of the day cutting the fabric to fit the sails and getting it all laid out and ready for the 3 seamstress to come the next day and of course all along the way we're hitting snags in the design and having to work it out as we go. The worst of it was that the fabric's color was bleeding like no other and would be a real disaster if it wasn't fixed so Andy, Shamus and I spent half of the day in a science experiment with vinegar, salt and ironing the fabric to try and set the color and nothing worked. we end up just washing it all about 3 times each and then having to iron it all. It was a disaster in it's own because it took all of the day and we still weren't done because our 2 irons were so crappy they could get through it all. We finally had to stop at 11:30 when the power went out. So we decided to had a bon fire instead which was great and 4 other people slept outside with me that night around the fire.

Wednesday morning i woke at 5 am to walk to the closest monastery to watch the Solar Eclipse, it was supposed to be the best one in 300 years. It was kind of a bummer because it was a cloudy morning and the sun was behind the clouds but oh well at least the walk was nice. Our seamstresses didn't show up until after lunch and were quite a pain in the butt. At first they wouldn't use the thread we brought from the US, it's extremely expensive and made just to resist the UV rays but they were not familiar with it and didn't speak any English so it's hard to tell them why we had to use it. Finally we got them to agree and got a good 2 hours of work out of them until the they got up and left and we had no idea why. Finally we got them back to work but at that point we were seeing how much they could get done at a time and how hard it was for their machines (which are ancinet) and we relized that we are never going to get it done by Friday. So Sergio went to town to look for a better machine and someone who could get it done. At dinner he came back with great news that he found someone and that we would take the sails to him tomorrow in town. That night another bon fire and more sleeping outside.

Today, Thursday i had to wake up at 6:30 to be there for the seamstress who got there at 7am to get some other last minute stuff done before we took the sails to town. They got all the corners done but were still working on some seams when we had to go so we split in half and only 3 went with the sails while me and some others stayed back waiting for them to finish. and hour or so later they finish so Emily, Shamus and i caught the bus to town and i already wasn't feeling so hot but by the end of the ride i was in bad shape. So we walked to the Yak Tail which is our old hotel and were the man was going to do the sewing, but i went up to the one room which we kept at the hotel for the sick people. So for the whole day i've been in bed, sleeping and sick again. Every once and a while my team members would come up to check on me and update me on the progress and it doesn't look good at all. It's going way too slow and he only got through the first step of sewing on only 3 of the 6 sails. So it's on to plan B (or maybe it's C or D). Unfortunately I didn't go back to the school with everyone to work it out i'm staying in town. But i think i will be better tomorrow so i'll hopefully get to head back in the morning to help out.



Back to Bed of me now,

Caty