Very hard if you’ve never built anything before. Coincidentally, the day Kerri and I went into Tumbes to buy wood, we ran into Ian. Ian had built himself a desk last year so would probably have more experience than Kerri and I combined.
The first thing Kerri and I realized is that neither of us owned a saw. Nor a hammer, and we had no idea a power drill was necessary for this kind of work. I was a Zoology major so woodworking classes weren’t really on my priority list during college. Ian, seeing us rather completely lost took it upon himself to offer us his tools that he had at his house and a day’s worth of work to help up put together this table. We agreed that the next day (Tuesday) we would come back into Tumbes, buy wood and get to work.
Note: Ian is using my sunglasses as "protective goggles"
Buy late Tuesday morning we had bought 144 soles worth of lumber and strapped it onto the top of a combi headed to my site. Ian brought his power drill, saw, C-clamps and some other tools that he saw necessary to put together our table. By lunchtime, we had moved all of the materials into the library and I was ready to just hang out, drink beer and eat the popcorn my host mom had made for us as a snack. Luckily, I was not the only one working on this project.
As the hours ticked away, we managed to do a lot of sawing and get all of the wood ready to make the frame and table legs. Little did I know that without a power drill, I would not have been able to even get the first screw in (yes, one needs screws as opposed to nails). By 6 o’clock the frame and four table legs had been drilled into the sheet of plywood on top.
Kerri displaying her expert engineering skills
While all of this was happening, we decided that there was no way that children could be inside the library while we were working. The library was officially closed but that didn’t stop kids from watching our EVERY move for 6 ½ hours. Ian, Kerri and I all thought to ourselves that things at home must be pretty boring if they could sit at the windows and watch us drill holes into a table for an entire afternoon. At 6:30 it was getting dark and Ian still had 45 min worth of traveling ahead of him, so we left the rest of the table to be done the next day.
The next day I went in early to get a head start on things when the kids came again to watch me from the outside.
“Lindsey, let me come in.”
“No.”
“And why not”?
“Because you’ll cut your hand off if you do.”
This went on and on for an hour until I gave a few of them books to read outside on the sidewalk. Eventually, the majority of the children left for a few minutes and I was left conversing with 6 year old Mayte Juliana (one of my favorites). She had been proposing all of the different ways she could help me in the library, if only I would let her inside. She offered to sweep, to tape things up on the walls, even take pictures of me while I worked with my camera, if only I would let her inside. I guess eventually she noticed that I had left the door partially open and before I knew it was inside the library on her hands and knees, slowly crawling across the floor.
“What are you doing in here Mayte”?
“Lindsey, I promise I’ll be as quite and as slow-moving as a cockroach.”
“What did you say Mayte”?
“I said, I’ll be really quiet and careful like a cockroach and you won’t notice me in here.”
I couldn’t help but laugh and think that a. she was the cutest child to walk the face of the earth and b. why would she compare herself to a cockroach of all creatures?
She eventually won out and I let her sit in a corner and put puzzles together while I kept building.
Kerri came in shortly thereafter and within an hour we had an 8ft by 3ft table finished and sanded with eight children sitting peacefully around it. SUCCESS!!! While I would not like to call myself an expert carpenter, I’m pretty proud of what the three of us were able to accomplish and how it’s being used as a result.
Finished product.
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