Gringos de Marimán

Week 35 started with the holiday commonly known as Columbus day in the US. Just as in the US the Chilean holiday generates discord among indigenous peoples such as the Mapuche who have a strong historical presence in this area. When I read about the annual Mapuche protest parade I discovered that even the naming of the holiday has had political overtones. Here in Chile, the holiday originally carried the title "Dia de la Raza" until 2000 when the government passed a law changing the name to "Dia del Descubrimiento de Dos Mundos". Apparently South American governments chose the original title "Dia de la Raza" or "Dia de la Hispanidad" to recognize their Hispanoamerican identity and to show their opposition to the Monroe Doctrine, which limits the sovreignty of US neighbors. Chile's name change added a special twist. In 1998 a Spanish judge issued an international arrest warrant for Chile's former dictator Pinochet who was in England at the time. After the English placed Pinochet under house arrest many Chileans protested the Spanish intrusion into Chilean affairs. And so, in 2000 the Chilean government sought to diminish the Spanish roots of the holiday and chose the new name in an attempt to finally provide some recognition of the indigenous peoples.

I became so fascinated with the holiday history that I lost track of my camera for a couple of days. I thought I might have to announce the premature end of my own casa history project, but luckily I found it by Thursday morning. Inside the house I'd watched Fernando and Ricardo try to stay out of each other's way as they moved from room to room. Fernando filled all his orange tubes with loops of alambre while Ricardo covered all the pasty walls with pintura. Here you can see the master baño covered in white with loops all over.

With the painting started, we also had to make some color choices. We could have opted for all white, but we thought we'd like to somewhat offset the pizarra and the different wood textures. Ricardo helped to confirm our decisions by preparing samples in the cocina and the dormitorio. Below you can see the sage sample above the kitchen doorway. You'll note some prominent loops in the foreground of the closeup view.

The sage satisfied our aesthetic senses, but the rojo sample on the dormitorio closet wall drew an immediate negative reaction. The rojo had just too much blue mixed in. This photo doesn't give a strong enough sense of just how scary the color appeared. Kenny noted the resemblance to some particularly garish lipstick that he'd seen. Back to the drawing board with that choice.

By the way, the cajas in the corner above the small closet remained in place. You might recall Andrés wanted to take the time to move them out of eyesight. One step closer to finishing.

Besides his painting duties, Ricardo spent time preparing the coihue walls for barniz. I don't think he got great joy from sanding the tongue and groove sections by hand.

Speaking of coihue, the maestros half-finished the final coihue wall, but we were still waiting for the delivery of the last few boards.

Later in the afternoon the flete showed up with more boards and an added bonus, packaged coihue planks for the piso. As the maestros carried the boards inside, I envisioned soon-to-be completed floors and walls. Reality tempered my excitement just a little when we discovered that the flete had the wrong-sized wall boards.

Just before the flete arrival I'd spotted Fernando wiring the stairway lights. Lights, yet another decision that we'll need to make very soon.

I followed Fernando to the roof to check on the viga progress. I missed a lot of the action earlier in the week when I misplaced the camera. We still have a bit of painting to do, but the maestros have made great progress.

I haven't talked about the piedra at all this week. We had been waiting for some special heating cables for the bathroom, before the remaining piedra could be installed. The cables arrived on Friday morning and Fernando laid out the grids on both floors. You'll recall that we're using radiant water tubes to heat the main rooms. In the bathrooms we will have electric floor heating instead. The electric heating will function on a timer allowing us to preheat the floor in the morning and evening and automatically turn it off at other times.

Here in the guest bathroom the thick wire that you see carries the temperature probe for the thermostat.

With the heating cables in place, Luis carried on laying the last sections of the piedra.

The maestros also cut a hole in the cielo for the stove's cañon.

The hole could also be useful during Halloween, I'm sure trick or treaters would enjoy seeing the headless maestro.

Friday afternoon a good soaking rain blew in. The budding frutales definitely appreciated the dousing.

On the other hand, Jorge regretted drawing the short straw for this rainy siding work. Thanks to his efforts, next week we should be all set for the solar panel intallations. Hopefully, we'll also get to see some of the ceramica that we found in Santiago a couple of weeks ago. Hasta la proxima!!!