5 days

I was just taking sun in the hammock, last rays of sunday sun. Slightly coldish and hang-overish sunday. Yesterday we danced, quite a lot, and drunk no less. Feels like I found the city I like.

Anyway, in the hammock being lazy, thinking on the same sounds that come from both sides of the quebrada. In front, poor and dirty, they hammer and build, drink beer, have loud music. On this side, slightly less poor and dirty, we (or rather Keiran as I'm catching sun) hammer and build, have loud music. Chisels cutting wood on both sides, men building shit on both sides. Just need to bring a sharpening stone to the next hill and show em a bit of what sharp tools do.

And bring my best friend after a day of classes:

Kross golden, the closest I've found to a real ale in this forsaken country.

Anyway, this was the course yesterday, the plane day. Keiran is reading about the splice joint he's finishing now.

About the class: 4 people are not twice two, they are four. Newcomers got sharpening almost the whole morning and oldies got planes. They talked a lot, made jokes, got to know each other. They compete too. It's a complete different dynamics than just 2 guys. I like it, and think that's a really good number, so good that I actually said no to the fifth person who wanted to take the september course. Do you realise there are no saws on this picture? First rule of the saw club applies here, when not in use, they are hanging indoors. Chisels and planes are tougher, but saws need care, love and a wall.


This's the reason of the title, after 5 days of "classes" ( 3 official, one to finish a dovetailed box that's still not finished, and one day of massive planing and squaring the beams) Keiran is cutting a splice rabbeted dadoed tenoned joint, or as we like to call it here, TTsplice for obvious reasons

A few shots from the class. Pablo helping with a beam, Victor squaring a dai blank. He has serious issues with position though

 Shavings!

Oh yeah, die Roubo, we don't really need ya.

That's the joint started.

 sawing

 Marking

The guy in front was also working, moving some soil around

 Azebiki rules.

 And the dogs play

 a lot

We used the saw because there was an ugly knot on top

and moar teas

Took him like 4 hours to cut half of the splice, and T's need still some paring. I didn't really do anything but just saying don't fuck it up, be careful, use a wider chisel, and played a bit with my slick, man, it's a sweet tool. Does that sound sexual? not intended.

You know, it really starts to make sense, to seem possible, to make things better on the other hill. And then the next one, and then yet another. And then you go to a bar, as we did yesterday, and the hand made bar would not be a relic from another time and another world, but something that a friend of you made last month and that you made the profile plane for it. Beer tastes better on such bars. Girls dance sexier too, and look more beautiful and poetry is written on those tables, and men have conversations, which is a dance with words where souls build each other and take each other out of the mud of poor existence. Then death comes and you are not there but the tables remain as do the books and the dancing. And a poem remains maybe, or a way of doing things. Eggplants with tomato sauce and cheese on top, as my mother used to cook.

A feeling has gotten me, and it's the feeling of no regrets. I don't miss in the slightest the money, the travels, the architecture of europe, the 8hours a day in front of a computer screen. I've got something else here, something that there was simply not possible. Like you are doing the right thing, you know? You see skills pass (or maybe been born) into another person and the confidence grow on them, and we are keeping those japanese carpenters who owned the tools before me alive, they resurrect in us and we live through them and with them, if that makes any fucking sense. And that happens here, with the beer, the music, the dirt and the dogs.