...it's not the water...

Hi All!

Sorry for a few days of absence. I wouldn't be me if I couldn't come up with excuses. Here they are: There is plenty of stuff going on. Chopping in the wood yard, american students arriving, more crew members trickling in. Welcomes for them and from our new Polish friends. Day trips, "language learning trips"... Let me tell you that I feel thoroughly welcomed to Poland. While I enjoyed every shot of vodka so far and every beer, I hope that I have sufficiently arrived to make healthy use of my time here. That has been a challenge also due to a stomach bug or virus or something. In any case, whatever it is it has started to roll through our ranks leading to much creeping unpleasantness, falsely making one wonder how much power this sun really has. The first place to look of course has been the sun, which has been beating down on our worksite without much concern. We're doing hard work and with the water supply being a bit shaky we of course suspect that next. We don't even dare to think about the e-coli thing in Germany...

It turns out it is a thing that is affecting the locals just as much as us. A good sobering reminder that we should take it a little easier. Both at work and after.

The pictures. We visited a catholic church on thursday. A half day trip. It has been extensively restored, given us plenty of first hand information on the type of building we're recreating, and left us with no excuses as to the size of our task. Greater buildings have been built long before we have attempted anything even close. The climb to the little tower was one of the more frightening experiences I've had in a church, but rewarding. The base of the bell tower is very much reminiscent of the one quite a few of us participated in building last year in Norwell, MA in preparation for this project. Things come together.

On Saturday the American students arrived. Or better, the first batch. There will be four groups of them cycling through, with about 15 students each. Most are recruited from Massachusetts College of Art, which means they are not afraid to get to work.

And to work we put them.

This gave us a bit of a break as well, since all of us are not used to this very physical form of labor. Saturday turned out to be on the cooler side. At least compares to Monday and Tuesday. They have been scorchers. Sunburns and exhaustions are rampant. Today we had a slight cloud cover in the morning and looming thunderstorms in the afternoon. Even a few drops! Production is coming along and we are quite comfortable with our level of anxiety in the leadership team.

More pictures later! All the best!