Over the past few weeks, I have been pondering—in great depth—people who know how to build. This is largely due to the fact that Phil (Felipe) Branch—a friend and colleague from Busan who, with his wife Marta, travelled to the farm for 3 weeks—and I worked to update some dilapidated sections of la casita, or the little abandoned house on la finca. As only fate would have it, both Phil/Marta and Brian/I spent the whole of our summers remodeling our residences in the United States. Ours, a 24 foot, 1993 Gulf Stream Conquest RV dubbed The Sassy Biscuit, needed to be gutted down to the aluminum frame and entirely rebuilt as a result of water damage. To give more context, Brian and I were former home owners for nearly ten years. However, due to the age of our home built in 1900, we found ourselves investing between $5-10K annually for either maintenance or remodeling. The effects of home ownership on our lives were as follows:
Thus, we chose to sell our home and most of our belongings in exchange for a healthier, simpler, debt-free lifestyle that would allow us to travel: international teaching. However, after living abroad and essentially homeless when visiting the US, we decided to by an RV. Upon realizing the enormity of the project we had taken on this summer, we were faced with a choice: either 1) fix the most important problems in the RV and resell it to hopefully recuperate our money or 2) chase the rabbit all the way down the hole and rebuild the RV as was needed. We chose the latter and the rabbit hole led us all the way to the frame, to an overhaul of the engine, and to the reconstruction of our Sassy Biscuit in our loving image of a tiny home (see photo collage). This post, however, was not meant to be about our RV remodel, but rather about construction in general; because, upon finishing our latest rebuild, we lived in it for a mere two weeks before coming to Costa Rica and finding ourselves facing another serious project: la casita abandonada. One aspect of the primal identity that humans have maintained, yet have continued to perfect, is our ability to construct with our hands. In many ways, as a race, we have uprooted from and rejected our connection to the Earth. Yet, through construction, we maintain one aspect of who we once were. The Leaf Cutter Ant constructs an underground community that can reach the size of a basketball court with a depth up to five meters. Birds weave homes and nexts of lichen, natural fibers, wood, and every other material imaginable in diverse and intricate designs in order to raise their young. Spiders sew webs and construct traps from the strongest threads on the planet. I find that while I am a perfectionist in many aspects of my identity, building is the one time when I can be free to create given the time, tools, and materials at hand. I am a self-proclaimed Make-Shift Carpenter, building strong with peaceful imperfection. With this mentality, I am doing my part to bring la casita back to life through metal work, wood work, plumbing, finish carpentry, landscaping, and a deep cleaning. Marta has created two albums on Facebook, complete with her own comments, to document our journey. What photos I remembered to take, I have shared below. I would like to give a shout out, in no particular order, to some of the magnificent people that I know who build with their hands (most of whom possess skills far greater than my own): Felipe Branch, Paupi, Bobo’s Tim, Alicia Spear, Philip Powell, G Funk, Anthony Olinger, Chad White, Bradshaw, Michael Cullen, and my late Papa Erickson.
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AuthorHi, I'm Sarah, or Sarita as called by many. In an effort to cultivate multicultural empathy and deep respect in our daughter (Rosa), my husband (Brian) and I sold everything in order to embarked on a journey through life. Archives
November 2018
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