Saturday, 19 December 2015

Adios Cloudbridge…until next year!

Well this must count as one of the quickest 5 weeks ever-we feel like we’ve only just arrived at Cloudbridge, and here we are saying goodbye! I think it’s a sign we’ve enjoyed ourselves, and we have certainly felt very much at home.

We feel pretty exhausted at the end of our stay, but definitely in a satisfied, feeling-of-accomplishment kind of way…I think you might say we’ve thrown ourselves into it-we’ve not really had a spare minute!...I’ve learnt how to use saws without losing my fingers, how to construct a wall, how to mix cement, and how to plaster a wall….I’ve spent hours chopping wood, nailing wood, screwing wood, cursing wood, and admiring wood…I’ve stapled chicken wire until I have so many holes in my fingers they feel like a colander…I’ve gone on night hikes in the rain in the hunt of frogs, and I’ve weeded saplings, I’ve looked up 260 species names for birds and planned another crowd-funder…I’ve planned a week-long vegetarian menu for feeding 20 kids…I’ve learnt how to make my own bread, but learnt absolutely no Spanish (lo lamento Chicos), and I’ve loved every minute of it! I am gona have a kickass CV by the time I get home!

We’ve had the absolute pleasure to work (and live!) with some simply wonderful human beings during our stay here…some of the most hard-working, passionate and dedicated people I’ve ever met, and I feel proud to know and work with. Between us we have built a dorm (almost) in under 6 weeks, and somehow managed not to kill each other.

In fact, we’ve loved our stay here so much that we’ve decided to come back in January! Tom (clearly having not identified which of our weekly Pot Luck dishes were Brodie and Emma creations), perhaps naively asked if we’d come back for a bonus week to help Anna and Alan cater for a group of 20 vegetarian school kids...and we (perhaps naively) said yes!!! So rather than say goodbye, we simply gave everyone a big Xmas hug, wished them Feliz Navidad, and bade them adios until January when we shall be returning with bells on! Those kids don’t know what they’re in for!!!! (...and I guess maybe we don’t either!!)

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