Chainsaw

(referring to) Saturday: January 23rd  

Yesterday as a whole was absolutely amazing! Christian and I got to sleep in a bit and immediately got to work outside. The goal  was to get the excavator up the hill and down the path towards where the guest house is going to be built. This task involved Brian driving the excavator, Christian cutting down trees, vines and stumps in the way, while Tim and I moved the cut trees off the path. This goal was accomplished before breakfast because we all worked together! I actually felt on top of the world. I don't know if it was the sunshine mixed with freezing temperatures or the adrenaline of hard work but I felt great!

Christian was a machine with the chainsaw. He was cutting everything from vines to big trees. Tim and Brian were extremely impressed. Though I already know Tim kept reiterating how wonderful of a man Christian is and just how lucky I am to be with him. While Christian and Brian were figuring out which trees needed to be cut ,Tim and I shared some interesting conversation. He told me about his travels and was so excited to hear that we would be WOOFing in Europe. He told me about his time in China. He explained that as a tourist in china if you stay longer than thirty days you are assigned a watcher. A watcher is literally someone, working for the Chinese government, who follows a specific tourist around 24/7 and watches what they are doing in their country. Tim also attended church in China so he was assigned two watchers. I also just tried to look up Chinese watchers and not a whole lot came up about the topic...weird.

The rest of the day was pretty calm. I hula hooped in the sun room for a bit and helped Alley puttied the bathroom walls. We talked about our families, relationships and why we came to the hostel. The more I get to know Alley, the more I enjoy her company. She has a very laid back approach to life and deals with stressful or awkward situations light heartedly. We are going to paint a tree on the bathroom wall together and I am looking forward to learning more about painting from her.

My goal for tomorrow is to wake up early to spend some time with myself. I am going to take myself on a date to the woods. I enjoy waking up with myself while everyone else is still sleeping. It has been hard finding a balance with alone time and group time here. Right now I am alone but it almost feels lonely because everyone else is together. I want to see how spending my morning alone and tomorrow night with everybody makes me feel.

I continue to learn more everyday and look forward to applying all of this new information throughout my time here and in future projects in my life.

Miss you so much my Hendersons!